analysts for the video game market considered 2009 to be critical to further success of the genre. both the "guitar hero" and "rock band" franchises expanded in this year with new games on other gaming platforms including handheld gaming devices and mobile phones and with titles targeted towards specific genres or demographics, such as "band hero" for pop music and "lego rock band" for younger players. sales of music games were down in the first half of the year, though part was attributed to fewer purchases of the instrument controllers which players had already purchased and could reuse for other games. however, though analysis had expected that united states sales of "guitar hero 5" and "" to be high, close to or exceeding one million units each in the first month of their release, the resulting sales numbers were lower by nearly half of the projections. though signs of the impact of the late-2000s recession on the video game markets were considered a factor in lower sales, it was also taken as a sign of the waning popularity of the titles, now considered to be saturating the market. as a result, analysts have lowered expectations for future music games; projections for sales of "dj hero", a spinoff of "guitar hero" published by activision, have been reduced from 1.6 million units in the first quarter of sales in the united sates to only 600,000. further contributing to the decline is the lack of innovation in the genre, as such games have not changed their basic play model over their last several games, leading to consumers becoming less likely to buy additional titles. total sales of rhythm games, having reached $1.4 billion in 2008, reached only $700 million in 2009, with analysts predicting the market will settle at the same "healthy" $500–600 million level seen by the "call of duty" series.