Activision might be planning a Guitar Hero revival somewhere down the line. According to a new report, CEO Bobby Kotick held an internal meeting with Activision Blizzard employees on Tuesday where they discussed the state of the company and detailed some future prospects ahead of the imminent Microsoft acquisition.
Kotick claims that Microsoft’s stance in the industry and the company’s strength in technology research could lead to improvements across Activision and its game development.
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As a result, Kotick says that the company will look into new ways to tackle game development and tap into the potential on offer. He also mentioned AI and machine learning opportunities.
“A big part of what I’ve seen in Microsoft is research. And they do development in areas that are extraordinary. And so being able to tap into their AI and machine learning capability, the data analytics, new ways of thinking about graphics – I just see unlimited potential for what we do.”
Kotick followed up by saying that Activision is in a unique position because it has the “very best franchises in all of video games”. He named a few including Pitfall, River Raid, and Kaboom – much older games from the early Activision days.
He then touched on Guitar Hero. Kotick says that with the new resources on offer thanks to the acquisition, it opens up new doors to revisit older franchises. One of which is the Guitar Hero series.
“The re-emergence of Guitar Hero and other things would not be possible without the different types of resources. And so, you know, just the endless possibilties for the future are just incredibly exciting. I’ve always had this vision for what a new Guitar Hero product could be, but without having AI […] and then the processors embedded either in phones, in computers, or in game consoles, that allow you to actually have the speed of processing to enable that AI, we’ve never been in a place where AI is going to have practical reality and applicability for games until now.”
Of course, while this statement doesn’t confirm the revival of the Guitar Hero series, it definitely hints that Kotick does want to revisit the game. If Activision does bring it back, it will take a while before we see it. However, it is still great news for fans.
Guitar Hero is likely one of the most popular music rhythm video games ever in existence. But the video game industry is also a very different place now. It begs the question: “Is there an audience for Guitar Hero?”.
Activision killed the Guitar Hero series back in 2011. The company axed the series and retrenched 500 workers involved in the music game at the same time. The cancellation of the series was “due to continued declines in the music genre” according to Kotick. He followed up by saying “Activision could no longer make Guitar Hero profitable based on current economics”.
Kotick seemingly believes that in 2023, this would be a different story.
Source: Windows Central
