Activision axing Guitar Hero and True Crime; Freestyle Games hit with layoffs
Despite a recent cover story in EGM, United Front's True Crime: Hong Kong won't make it to retail. Activision's latest earnings report confirms the game's cancellation, as well as announcing that Activision's Guitar Hero franchise is no more.
"Due to continued declines in the music genre, the company will disband Activision Publishing's Guitar Hero business unit and discontinue development on its Guitar Hero game for 2011," Activision said in its financial statement. The statement continues, confirming the cancellation of True Crime: Honk Kong. and explaining what happened ... sorta. "The company also will stop development on True Crime: Hong Kong. These decisions are based on the desire to focus on the greatest opportunities that the company currently has to create the world's best interactive entertainment experiences."
If that weren't enough bad news, Eurogamer reports that DJ Hero developer Freestyle Games has suffered "severe layoffs," though it's unclear whether the series has been affected by the alleged redundancies. We've contacted all the pertinent parties and will update this post as we hear more. A scheduled Activision quarterly financial call set to start shortly will hopefully tell us more.
"Due to continued declines in the music genre, the company will disband Activision Publishing's Guitar Hero business unit and discontinue development on its Guitar Hero game for 2011," Activision said in its financial statement. The statement continues, confirming the cancellation of True Crime: Honk Kong. and explaining what happened ... sorta. "The company also will stop development on True Crime: Hong Kong. These decisions are based on the desire to focus on the greatest opportunities that the company currently has to create the world's best interactive entertainment experiences."
If that weren't enough bad news, Eurogamer reports that DJ Hero developer Freestyle Games has suffered "severe layoffs," though it's unclear whether the series has been affected by the alleged redundancies. We've contacted all the pertinent parties and will update this post as we hear more. A scheduled Activision quarterly financial call set to start shortly will hopefully tell us more.
