Yesterday we learned therather stunning newsthat Activision was ending the Guitar Hero franchise, along withTrue Crime: Hong Kong. Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg explained the reasoning behind the cull, whichCVGhas transcribed.
“After two years of steeply declining sales, we’ve made the decision to close our Guitar Hero business unit and discontinue development on our previously playingGuitar Herotitle for 2011,” said Hirshberg. “Despite a remarkable 92 rating onDJ Hero 2, a widely well-regardedGuitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, as well as the 90-plus rated release from our most direct competitor, demand for peripheral-based music games declined at a dramatic pace.
“Given the considerable licensing and manufacturing costs associated with this genre, we simply cannot make these games profitably based on current economics and demand. Instead, what we’ll do is focus our time and energies on marketing and supporting our strong catalogue of titles and downloadable content, especially to new consumers, as the install base for hardware continues to grow.”
The executive also said that True Crime was murdered because it conflicted with Hirshberg’s desire to “provide gamers with the highest possible creative quality.” All told, shocking news indeed. I reckon Activision could’ve gotten another 256 titles out of each of those games, and we still never gotGuitar Hero: ELO.
