In its Q4 2010 earnings call to investors, Activision announced that the company will disband the Guitar Hero franchise due to the recent decline in the music genre.

The franchise will remain an Activision property but the Guitar Hero business unit has been disbanded and there are no plans for any future titles for 2011. Furthermore, there will be no more new releases of DLC packs aside from those that have already been announced for the remainder of February.

Perhaps in the future way may see another Guitar Hero title after things cool down a bit and the music genre takes a break. Perhaps not. Activision’s current plans for the future include focusing on Call of Duty and its Blizzard division so we know that those properties aren’t going anywhere.

Over the past few years, the Guitar Hero franchise has been declining in popularity so this news doesn’t come as that big of a surprise. Still, it’s sad to hear of any development studios shutting down as people will undoubtedly be out of a job.

Guitar Hero wasn’t the only one to suffer the ax as development on True Crime: Hong Kong has been discontinued because “it just wasn’t going to be good enough,” according to Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirschberg.

We wish the best to the development teams and their families who have been affected by this and hope that they may all find new jobs soon.