Activision pulls the plug on Guitar Hero

[Andrew]

At least for this generation of consoles.

Activision Drops Next Guitar Hero Game

Activision/Blizzard announced it is dropping the in-development Guitar Hero game planned for 2011. The company is also disbanding its Guitar Hero division, best described by the company itself in the following statement:
“Due to continued declines in the music genre, the company will disband Activision Publishing’s Guitar Hero business unit and discontinue development on its Guitar Hero game for 2011."

Activision was clear that there would be no music games from the company this fiscal year. That means no Guitar Hero, and no DJ Hero. During the investment call, the company also said it plans to lay off approximately 500 employees. But does this mean the franchise is truly dead, or will we see a newly re-vamped game in 2012 or 2013? According to Wedbush Securities' analyst Michael Pachter, a return of the Guitar Hero franchise is unlikely in the near future.

"I don't think it's going to be revamped," Pachter said. "It would only happen if there's a whole new console refresh, but if it's an Xbox 360 with a two-terabyte hard-drive and an 802.11 N, who cares? You don't need a new Guitar Hero for that. I think Guitar Hero is one of those things you don't need to buy more than once."

Probably for the best, the genre has probably had its time in the sun at least for the moment. Given its value as a party game, perhaps they could consider continuing to release DLC packs with new songs for the existing games (or at least the most recent ones) but a new game every year is overkill.

[JaoSming]

Ben and I were talking about this earlier.

Guitar Hero was long dead, they released 5 games for the 360 within a year....they milked it to death.

The Rock Band people posted a nice message to the GH guys on their forums and thankfully reminded us that they aren't going anywhere and are still committed to DLC and supporting RB. Really the best thing Harmonix did was let MadCatz make/control the peripherals to keep it off their books.

I am really surprised DJ Hero got cancelled though, they made it sound like it was a huge success.....guess not.

[kibaxx7]

They also cancelled the True Crime series. A game was going to be released this year, but it was taken down

[Oznogrd]

I'm with you guys. As much as i love these games, it only worked when spaced out enough and the songlists were phenomenal. When they're not, they suck and serve no purpose. Its a shame to see them fail but the end had been near for awhile. When you have to include a Soundgarden CD to sell copies of your game, you're doing it wrong.

Wondering if i should pick up RB discs since it should work with my peripherals...But i really don't need a game that i want to download more shit for. I'm poor enough as is

[JaoSming]

Rent RB1, pay $5 export songs
Buy RB2, use code to export songs for $10, sell RB2
Buy RB3, enjoy 200+ songs of RB

Then buy Lego/ACDC/Green Day new and export too if you want to be like me.

[shadowgrin]

The master has given his advice. Heed it well people.

[Andrew]

I'm with you guys. As much as i love these games, it only worked when spaced out enough and the songlists were phenomenal. When they're not, they suck and serve no purpose. Its a shame to see them fail but the end had been near for awhile. When you have to include a Soundgarden CD to sell copies of your game, you're doing it wrong.

It reminds me a little of the debate over releasing new sports games every year, but I still think that's justified as there's potential to fix key issues and increase the realism, add new game modes or depth to existing ones and other worthwhile special features on top of being a roster/art update for the new season. With a game like Guitar Hero, once they included more instruments about the only place they could go was to keep featuring new songlists and that's basically stuff that can be done through DLC.

[Houndy]

I didn't like the spinoffs they made of GH, I guess after it was successful, they decided to force it down our throats.

[shadowgrin]

force it down our throats.

That's what she said!