[News] Goodbye Guitar Hero, Hello More CoD

Sadly yesterday, Activision Blizzard announced that they were letting go around 500 employees from the business. Along with this news, the axe fell on recently unpopular franchises Guitar Hero, DJ Hero and Tony Hawk.

Guitar Hero sales have been in decline since Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock. Very poor sales of Guitar Hero 5 were blamed on it's diverse track listing, which led to the last Guitar Hero game purely having rock inspired tracks. It's more rock-orientated music did little to improve sales however.

DJ Hero, a great idea, but one that never truly hit the sales heights that ActiBlizz wanted. Again the second one failed to generate the big numbers.

The problem with these two franchises is that they share the same genre, and for a while now Music-based peripheral games just haven't sold well. Harmonix recently parted ways with MTV Games as sales of Rock Band weren't good enough. In fact since then MTV Games has closed its doors to focus on new, non-gaming projects.

Since EA released Skate, the Tony Hawk games have struggled to regain its skateboard gaming crown. Tony Hawk's Ride with its plastic skateboard failed to sell. ActiBlizz gave the plastic board one more shot with Tony Hawk's Shred only to find that did worse.

Although it all sounds very doom and gloom, it may not be the end for these once loved titles. None of them will get new games in 2010, but may appear again in the future depending on the market.

Amongst all this bad news, ActiBlizz announced a new studio:

"We're pleased to announce our new wholly-owned development studio, Beachhead, which will lead the creation of our all-new digital platform for the Call of Duty franchise,"

Which means...

"Beachhead will create a best-in-class online community, exclusive content and a suite of services for our Call of Duty fans to supercharge the online gaming experience like never before. The platform will support in-game integration and bring online experiences and console play together for the first time."

Interesting stuff. Something like Halo's Waypoint on Xbox Live perhaps?

Can't help but feel they are starting to drain the Call of Duty franchise dry. They are determined to get Modern Warfare 3 out this year, and have at least one spin-off title in the works too.

Be careful Activision, remember quality over quantity!

Thanks to MCV for the information. For the full story head over to this page right here!