Guitar Hero Cancelled For Good

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It’s been just six years since the first Guitar Hero game made the music genre one of the most popular in the video game industry. Now, Guitar Hero is finished. Activision announced today in an earnings report that due to the continued decline of the music genre, they were suspending development of all future Guitar Hero titles.

It’s no doubt that Guitar Hero was popular – Activision has said previously that the Guitar Hero brand was the third most popular franchise in video game history after Mario and Madden. Guitar Hero 3 was the first video game to breach $1 billion in sales. But, what went wrong? The music genre has been in a steep decline in the past few years. Top-notch competition from EA’s Rock Band surely only further deluded the genre.

The True Crime: Hong Kong game was also canceled by Activision. Some are disappointed by this, but I’ve always considered the True Crime series to be sort of a mediocre Grand Theft Auto clone, and not particularly compelling or fun. Considering that True Crime was far along in the development, Activision is eating a huge cost by canceling it and the mind ponders how bad the game must of looked for them to cancel it at this point.

The DJ Hero franchise is in question, I guess. DJ Hero 2 was a solid improvement over the first game. We hadn’t heard anything about the possibility of a third, and some consider DJ Hero to be apart of the Guitar Hero franchise, so I wouldn’t hold your breath for a DJ Hero 3.

Are any of our readers upset about the end of Guitar Hero? Or True Crime? Do you think Activision will revisit these brands in the future?