Guitar Hero
In 2015, Activision announced the first new title to the series in 5 years, "Guitar Hero Live", released in October 2015. The title is considered a reboot of the series, with development being performed by FreeStyleGames, who had developed the "DJ Hero" games previously. As of December 1, 2018, Activision disabled the GHTV servers for Guitar Hero Live, reducing playable content from approximately 500 songs to 42 on disc tracks.
Guitar Hero
The original "Guitar Hero" was released on the PlayStation 2 in November 2005. "Guitar Hero" is notable because it comes packaged with a controller peripheral modeled after a black Gibson SG guitar. Rather than a typical gamepad, this guitar controller is the primary input for the game. Playing the game with the guitar controller simulates playing an actual guitar, except it uses five colored "fret buttons" and a "strum bar" instead of frets and strings. The development of "Guitar Hero" was inspired by Konami's "Guitar Freaks" video game, which at the time, had not seen much exposure in the North American market; RedOctane, already selling guitar-shaped controllers for imported copies of GuitarFreaks, approached Harmonix about creating a game to use an entirely new Guitar controller. The concept was to have the gameplay of "Amplitude" with the visuals of "Karaoke Revolution", both of which had been developed by Harmonix. The game was met with critical acclaim and received numerous awards for its innovative guitar peripheral and its soundtrack, which comprised 47 playable rock songs (most of which were cover versions of popular songs from artists and bands from the 1960s through modern rock). "Guitar Hero" has sold nearly 1.5 million copies to date.