Guitar Hero
Following a five-year hiatus, as described below, Activision announced "Guitar Hero Live" for release in late 2015 on most seventh-generation and eighth-generation consoles. "Live" was developed to rebuild the game from the ground up, and while the gameplay remains similar to the earlier titles, focusing primarily on the lead guitar, it uses a 3-button guitar controller with each button having "up" and "down" positions, making for more complex tabulators. The game using live footage of a rock concert, taken from the perspective of the lead guitarist, as to provide a more immersive experience.
Guitar Hero
The double release of "Guitar Hero 5" and "Band Hero" in 2009 were the last of the series' games to be released on PlayStation 2. It was expected that the 2010 entry for "Guitar Hero", "Warriors of Rock", would be the final entry developed by Neversoft, based on claims that Neversoft would be letting go of its "Guitar Hero" division, with Vicarious Visions likely poised to take over future development. Further industry rumors pointed at the closure of RedOctane Studios and Underground Development (the development studio for "Guitar Hero: Van Halen") as further results from the scaling-back; Activision moved the controller hardware development within their own division to continue to support the series, with RedOctane founders Kai and Charles Huang remaining with Activision. A week prior to these announcements, the "Guitar Hero" division CEO at Activision, Dan Rosensweig, left the company, leading to some speculation on whether Rosensweig's departure influenced these changes. Activision and RedOctane had trademarked the titles ""Guitar Villain"", ""Drum Villain"", ""Keyboard Hero"" and ""Sing Hero"". RedOctane originally trademarked the titles ""Drum Hero"" and ""Band Hero"", but the work performed towards the "Drum Hero" title was eventually folded into the gameplay for "Guitar Hero World Tour", and "Band Hero" became its own game. Later, as of October 2009, Activision reapplied for a "Drum Hero" trademark. Pi Studios, which had previously helped to port "Rock Band" to the Wii, had started work on the karaoke title "Sing Hero" before Activision cancelled its development. "Dance Hero" would be in development before being cancelled. Several ideas for the game later made it into "Shake It Up".