Activision to Extend "Guitar Hero" to Other Instruments

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on April 23, 2008 - 7:42am.

New York - Video game publisher Activision (NASD: ATVI) has affirmed plans to extend its wildly popular "Guitar Hero" franchise beyond the guitar and bass to other instruments, a la rival music-based game "Rock Band," Activision CEO Bobby Kotick said in an interview with Portfolio.com. "We'll include a lot of other instruments [and] vocals," said Kotick, while refraining from giving any clues as to when these new elements might appear in the game franchise.

The new iterations of the game will be developed by NeverSoft, instead of series developer Harmonix, which was acquired by MTV Networks and went on to create "Rock Band."

Kotick also expects Activision's pending $19 billion merger with Vivendi, which owns Universal Music Group, to be a boon for both the game and Universal artists.

"Guitar Hero takes an artist to a whole different place in the popular culture right now," Kotick told Portfolio.com.

"Downloads on iTunes take off. The artist's relevance and importance to 17-year-olds change in a way that you could never get in any other medium."