Activision Blizzard Hopes Microsoft Revives Guitar Hero and Skylanders

Microsoft is acquiring Activision Blizzard for nearly $70 billion, and CEO Bobby Kotick is hoping that leads to some revivals for long-dormant franchises, including Guitar Hero and Skylanders

In an interview with VentureBeat (thanks VGC), Kotick reflected on both franchises' waning popularity following their erstwhile success. He believes Microsoft may have the capacity to provide a separate manufacturing team that was not present at Activision and led to the games getting shelved.

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Activision Blizzard Hopes Microsoft Revives Guitar Hero and Skylanders

"I wanted to make a new Guitar Hero for a while, but I don’t want to add teams to do manufacturing and supply chain and QA for manufacturing," Kotick said. "And the chip shortages are enormous. We didn’t really have the ability to do that. I had a really cool vision for what the next Guitar Hero would be, and realised we don’t have the resources to do that."

He also blamed Skylanders' demise on the "crappy alternatives" that flooded the toys-to-life market, though admitted he was unwilling to add new teams to actually continue the franchise.

The interview comes shortly after speculation that Kotick would step down as CEO once the Microsoft deal is complete, something Activision Blizzard workers have called for since the start of the company's legal troubles in 2021 and again when it emerged Kotick covered up sexual abuse allegations in the workplace.