Activision wants to revive Guitar Hero and Skylanders

While the deal with Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard is just a few days old and isn't expected to be finalised until mid-2023, Activision is already planning ahead for the new opportunities this gives them. In an interview with VentureBeat, the CEO Bobby Kotick explains three things he hasn't been able to do, but that he thinks might be viable now.

"You look at all the opportunities that we get with a company like Microsoft. I'll give you one great example. [Xbox boss] Phil and I started riffing on things for the future. I'll give you three that are really compelling. 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. 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 realized we don't have the resources to do that."

It also turns out that Kotick is missing the toys-to-life title Skylanders. He blames the fact that the series died six years ago on the fact that other game developers started releasing subpar alternatives:

"And Skylanders too. One of the great disappointments of my career is that other people came in and they came out with crappy alternatives. And they dumped all of these crappy alternatives in the market, and basically destroyed the market for what was a really cool future opportunity.

If you look at Skylanders, with its hardware and manufacturing and supply chain, there are the same kinds of things that we can't do but Microsoft can."

The third game is expanding Candy Crush, which Kotick thinks should be way more social than it is right now, something he thinks Microsoft have the tools for:

"And in these conversations I was sharing my frustration about not having enough social capability in Candy Crush. I really want to be able to have a Candy Crush experience where players can play games against each other. And they can socialize. And they can have voice over IP.

That's a more social game, but it's rooted in being able to play the game against another person or other people. There is nothing but opportunity for the kinds of things that we can't do on our own, and the resources that they have for us to just make a difference."

What would you think of a Guitar Hero revival, and do you think Skylanders could become a big thing again?