14 DAY TRIAL // Bobby Kotick, the Chief Executive Officer of Activision, has finally conceded that DJ Hero, a game set to replicate the experience of being a disk jockey, is in development and would be released in 2009.
CNBC reporters have ambushed Kotick at the World Economic Forum, which took place in Davos, Switzerland, and asked him about the upcoming releases of Activision. He said that “We have this product called DJ Hero coming out later this year, which is a turntable that you can actually play competitively, spin discs and mix on.”
So, all the rumors that have been swirling in the videogame world ever since the summer of 2008 are real. Activision is officially saying that the “Hero” brand, which until now has been associated with guitars and rock, will be applied to other games, and the first of them is set to be a DJ simulation that will feature a fake plastic turntable as the gimmick with which to hook the player. As Kotick says, “This physical interface is starting to have a real impact on the consumer.”
It's interesting to consider the potential this has in relation to Guitar Hero: World Tour. That game allows players to create their own tracks which can then be uploaded so that others can play them. Maybe DJ Hero will allow players to get those tracks, remix them, play them and even re-upload them so that others can enjoy them.
Activision is interested in expanding its line up as the Guitar Hero brand seems to be slowing in sales. The company is sitting on a big pile of money, as Kotick says, but 3 billion dollars can quickly become pocket change in the current economic climate. So, DJ Hero might just be the next big game appealing to a wide array of gamers and make some of us get another plastic “instrument” with which to decorate our apartments, next to our fake drum kits and guitars.