Activision has made a statement concerning the Guitar Hero franchise, seeming to backtrack on the idea that the series had been killed off for good. I guess the publisher realized there's money to be made from a big comeback later on.
"Actually, just to clarify, we're just putting Guitar Hero on hiatus, we're not ending it," claimed Acti's Dan Winters. "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."
Winters also addressed True Crime: Hong Kong, saying that even though the game was looking good, it was too "mid-tier" for a company that wanted to focus on bigger prizes: "That would have been, and still might end up being, a very successful mid-tier opportunity for someone. 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."
It comes to something when being good and having a chance at being decently successful isn't enough to save a game. That's Activision for you.
Activision: "Guitar Hero on hiatus, we're not ending it" [GI.biz]
Contest:
8:20 AM on 04.12.2011 | 
It's certainly no longer the top tier music game around, not by a long shot.
Says they will retire Guitar Hero, doesn't retire Guitar Hero. Jesus Christ, let it go already, Harmonix won.
so basically, rest of the games they will be making/releasing will launch without any marketing and no info about those games what-so-ever? it happened with Singularity, BloodStone, Wolfenstein, last Tony Hawk game and many more. there were no trailers, release info and you didn't even bother sending copies of those games for reviews(most of those games got their first reviews weeks after launch or not at all). then you bitch about those games not selling bazillion copies you were expecting and are closing studios that made those games. Singularity was amazing title(definitely one of the best shooters of 2010).
also True Crime Hong Kong too "mid-tier" for a company? i'm sorry, but you're making Prototype 2, for god's sake(i loved the first one but it was a b-rated title simillar to Singularity or BloodStone). it was the most interesting title in your entire line-up and you cancelled it?!
And yeah, Spyro is going to be big? That's rich right there considering how the internet universally mocked the new look they gave poor Spyro...
...yeah, ok. Kind of says it all in a nutshell, doesn't it?
Let Harmonix have they're niche, and funnel the money into something useful.