Activision: Guitar Hero is Dead

By Jorge Ba-oh 10.02.2011 9

Activision: Guitar Hero is Dead on Nintendo gaming news, videos and discussion

Activision may have seemed the winner in the battle of the music games, but today announced the demise of the Guitar Hero franchise.

The popular music series has seen over fifteen releases on various platforms, including handheld, spin-offs and band-centric bundles. Following on from the footsteps of Konami's GuitarFreaks arcade experience, Harmonix/Vicarious Visions brought the guitar and band experience to the masses.

With the decline of music rhythm games since 2009, the publisher has decided to give the axe to its Hero games, which we understand includes the recently released DJ Hero.

Despite a remarkable 92 rating on DJ Hero 2, a widely well-regarded Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, as well as a 90-plus rated release from our most direct competitor [Rock Band 3], 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 catalog of titles and downloadable content, especially to new consumers as the installed base for hardware continues to grow.

It's uncertain when downloadable content will stop becoming available to existing Guitar Hero players, but the physical release of any new titles is over - for now.

True Crime also got the chop today.

Via Joystiq.

Are you a fan of Guitar Hero and music rhythm games? Are you disappointed about the cancellation of the Hero series?

Box art for Guitar Hero 5
Developer

Neversoft

Publisher

Activision

Genre

Rhythm

Players

4

C3 Score

Rated $score out of 10  9/10

Reader Score

Rated $score out of 10  9/10 (1 Votes)

European release date Out now   North America release date Out now   Japan release date None   Australian release date Out now   

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Comments

ChaosOnline is offline. ChaosOnline 10.02.2011#1

How very sad. I was never really into rhythm games but still, sad.

Kind of like the end of an era.

 
PMD is offline. PMD 10.02.2011#2

At least Activision made bucket-loads of money while the fad lasted. To those who say Activision killed the music genre by milking it, I doubt it. It would have been like this whether they released games or not- people just lose interest in these types of things after a few years, which is why I believe Acti released as many games as possible at the height. There will always be a hardcore following (like me), but it will never be mega-successful again.

( Edited 10.02.2011 01:05 by PMD )

 
Wolvesgod is offline. Wolvesgod 10.02.2011#3

PMD said:
At least Activision made bucket-loads of money while the fad lasted. To those who say Activision killed the music genre by milking it, I doubt it. It would have been like this whether they released games or not- people just lose interest in these types of things after a few years, which is why I believe Acti released as many games as possible at the height. There will always be a hardcore following (like me), but it will never be mega-successful again.

I agree, and it's stupid that people say a company Milks a product, if they don't like the product, don't buy it. People don't need to say something is milked just because they don't like it.

The series was good, and was a great party game. Maybe in the future they can bring it back. or if they used songs from other artists.

When all is bad don't look for a easy way out. Because you wont know what to do once your out
 
Vorash Kadan 10.02.2011#4

I blame Activition for over inflation of musical games....THEY are the one's at fault for this tragity & Rock Band was the better of the two. T_T

It is not wise to speak on subjects you do not know all facts about, nor is it smart to judge a game based on looks alone. PSN: Nintendo_Gamer 3DS: 4296-3029-7422
 
Nil (guest) 11.02.2011#5

Woo hoo rock band wins Xd

EdEN is offline. EdEN 11.02.2011#6

Drumming in GH is better than Rock Band's magically changing pads and that's why I was GH owner. Own ALL GH games so at least I have a lot of songs to play until Activision brings back the franchise in 2-3 years for the next round of consoles.

 
crackedthesky is offline. crackedthesky 11.02.2011#7

Yeah, Activision making games is the reason Activision isn't going to make them anymore Smilie

NNID: crackedthesky
My blog, mostly about writing: http://www.davidjlovato.com
 
Vorash Kadan 12.02.2011#8

EdEN said:
Drumming in GH is better than Rock Band's magically changing pads and that's why I was GH owner. Own ALL GH games so at least I have a lot of songs to play until Activision brings back the franchise in 2-3 years for the next round of consoles.

I was talking about song selection. Rockband actually had songs I WANTED to play to....instead of the majority of Butt Rock like in Guitar Hero. GH was better when Harmonix had it...Activition destroys all it touches. :-c

It is not wise to speak on subjects you do not know all facts about, nor is it smart to judge a game based on looks alone. PSN: Nintendo_Gamer 3DS: 4296-3029-7422
 
Laurelin is offline. Laurelin 15.02.2011#9

I am heavy into Guitar Hero and the gaming experience up until GH 6 was much better then in Rock Band. I don't mean the music catalog, but the note-highway and playing as such.

But Rock Band has by far much better music available then GH, but I nevertheless like GH better.
Rock Band 3, on the other hand, has great gaming experience and is funny and cool.

I don't need any more games on disk, because I rather like all music under one game and playing with my friends, what's suiting us at the moment, instead of swapping disks. I appreciated the Metallica-Special-Offer to pull everything into GH 5 and 6.
We rather regularly join a band with 5 people, 2 singers, 1 drummer, 2 guitars. We like to continue doing that.

It would be a shame to close all DLC and the shop in GH or RB, thou. I would like to dontinue search for great music, I hope they continue to support their shops. Both GH and RB.

I find your lack of faith disturbing!
 

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