In what is at both times a shock and also not that surprising, Activision have confirmed that the Guitar Hero franchise has played its last chord. Eurogamer (via Kotaku) are reporting that Activision have taken out their ax again, and this time Guitar Hero is one of the victims, along with True Crime and potentially DJ Hero. Activision have confirmed the fate of the first two. Reports are also coming in on layoffs at Freestyle Games (who worked on DJ Hero) and Vicarious Visions (Guitar Hero). True Crime developer United Front (who also developed ModNation Racers) are not Activision-owned. However, without their current project being in development anymore, it doesn’t bode well for them unless somebody else picks up the title or have something else planned.

Coupled with Harmonix’s recent issues (sell off by Viacom, layoffs), it does raise the question of whether this is the beginning of the end of the rhythm game genre, which has seen declining sales in the last couple years. Dancing games remain popular, but playing pretend plastic instruments (or even real ones like with Rock Band 3‘s Pro Mode) seems to have lost most of its lustre.

Update: Looks like DJ Hero, for now, is simply taking the year off, as is the Tony Hawk series.