Activision Trying To 'Reinvent' Guitar Hero 144
In an interview with Forbes, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick spoke about the rise and fall of the Guitar Hero franchise, saying "it became unsuccessful because it didn't have any nourishment and care." He then revealed that after effectively canceling the franchise last year, the company is looking for ways to resurrect it. "We said you know what, we need to regain our audience interest, and we really need to deliver inspired innovation. So we're going to take the products out of the market, and we're not going to tell anybody what we're doing for awhile, but we're going to stop selling Guitar Hero altogether. And then we're going to go back to the studios and we're going to use new studios and reinvent Guitar Hero. And so that's what we're doing with it now." Kotick also addressed Activision's lack of foresight regarding DJ Hero: "...in hindsight, if you step back – and it really would have been a simple thing to do – we should have said, 'Well, how many people really want to unleash their inner DJ?'"
Translation: we couldn't milk it every year (Score:5, Informative)
Guitar Hero 2 - 2006
Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock - 2007
Guitar Hero World Tour - 2008
Guitar Hero 5 - 2009
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock - 2010
Not to mention the expansions:
Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s - 2007
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith - 2008
Guitar Hero: Metallica - 2009
Guitar Hero Smash Hits - 2009
Guitar Hero: Van Halen - 2009
Band Hero - 2009
Apparently unlike with CoD you can't sustainably sell people a new guitar game annually. Van Halen and Warriors of Rock both sold less than 100k units in their opening weeks.