Guitar Hero Live suffered “lower than expected performance”, says Activision

Activision have said in their quarterly financial report that Guitar Hero Live suffered “lower than expected performance” following its release last October.

Guitar Hero Live was released alongside Mad Catz’s Rock Band 4 in a bid to reinvigorate the guitar peripheral genre, but it now appears that both titles have failed financially, with Mad Catz recently reporting that Rock Band 4 didn’t sell as well as they’d expected. Activision confirmed that there will not be another full Guitar Hero release this generation, but hope to help the game reach a wider audience with free DLC instalments and updates to the game.

“Guitar Hero Live is a fun, high-quality game that introduced innovative new game play to fans, including the GHTV platform, which keeps our community engaged and will allow us to cost-effectively deliver new content and build our installed base,” said Activision president and CEO Eric Hirshberg stated. “We plan to release new content, but not another full Guitar Hero console game this cycle.”

In comparison, Activision’s big seller Call of Duty continued to be a cash cow, with Black Ops III becoming the most popular PS4 and Xbox One title yet: “In Q4, Call of Duty: Black Ops exceeded our plan in prior year in practically every key commercial and engagement metric delivering upside for the year,” Activision CFO Dennis Durkin said. “And more importantly, the Call of Duty franchise had its largest player community ever at yearend.”

Activision also confirmed a new Call of Duty release is currently in development by Infinity Ward, and is set for release in Q4 2016.