‘Guitar Hero’, ‘Tony Hawk’ Not Dead, But “On Hiatus”

13 Apr, 2011

The 500-person layoffs Activision engaged in earlier in the year supposedly took the Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk franchises with it. Tony Hawk was quick to suggest otherwise during an interview with Pixelated Geek, saying that another title in the skateboarding series is intended for sometime later this year. Guitar Hero doesn’t seem to be completely on the rocks either, as Activision’s Dan Winters insisting the title is just “on hiatus” to GI.biz.

“Actually, just to clarify, we’re just putting Guitar Hero on hiatus, we’re not ending it,” Winters said. “We’re releasing products out of the vault – we’ll continue to sustain the channel, the brand won’t go away. We’re just not making a new one for next year, that’s all.”

As for True Crime, according to Winters, the game just didn’t fit into Activision’s new business model. “That would have been, and still might end up being, a very successful mid-tier opportunity for someone,” he said of True Crime. “But, as I said, we changed our business model to where we were going to change our business model to focus disproportionately on three big, huge monsters. Those three monsters are the Bungie, Call of Duty and Spyro titles.”

Are these franchises still alive, E-Gs? Or is Winters’ statement just an attempt to calm any wary investors? Comment below!

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