Rhythm game
The 1996 title PaRappa the Rapper was the first influential rhythm game. The basic design of the game became a pattern that later rhythm games followed. In 1997, Konami's Beatmania started popularity for rhythm games in Japan. The company's music division, Bemani, released many music games over the next several years. The most successful of these was dance mat game Dance Dance Revolution, which was also the only one to achieve large-scale success outside of Japan. The game's style was imitated by many other games, until the release of Harmonix's Guitar Hero. The game was inspired by similar, earlier Japanese games, but Harmonix added rock music aimed at a Western audience. The success of the game revived the genre and two hugely successful franchises were born in Guitar Hero and the later Rock Band. The success of both expanded the console video game market and its demographics. By 2008, rhythm games were considered to be one of the most popular video game genres, behind other action games. However, because there were so many spin-offs from the core titles in 2009, there was a nearly 50% drop in sales for music games, causing them to scale-back plans for further expansion in 2010.