You read that right- Gamasutra is reporting that Activision has officially disbanded it's Guitar Hero division, closing the business unit associated with the game. There is no GH on deck for 2011 and now the future of the entire franchise is up in the air.
For it's part, Activision sites the slow die-off of the music genre in general over the last few years and that they have much more interest in keeping their smash hits, like Call of Duty, going in the online space.
This of course begs the question- is the music game all together dead? Harmonix is trying to figure out what's going on with Rock Band- right now it looks like there'll be plenty of DLC but retail offerings aren't looking too likely- Guitar Hero is all but dead, and newcomer Rise of the Six String was DOA with poor sales and critical drubbings aplenty.
Even DJ Hero, which has decent sales, is no AAA blockbuster by any means. The end of an era for a genre that, only a few short years ago was a hit on nearly every level? Looks that way.
As a side note to all this, the company has also canned the delayed, open world shooter, True Crime: Hong Kong.