The 50 Cent game was clearly gonna get them some extra cash, why ditch that??? Even if you don't plan on using the IP in the next 10 years it would have brought you some good cash for your other games. Oh well.

@Dodece

There were three years inbetween each Halo sequel. Nintendo has similar spacing between its core franchises such as Mario, Kart, Smash Bros, Zelda, and Metroid.

Activision is talking about yearly iterations, on every platform known to man. As can be seen with games like Madden, yearly iterations means very few changes and very few improvements. The development cycle is so short in those cases, that it doesn't allow for much innovation. This can lead to stale franchises.

It can be a (very) successful business model, but the question is if it is really so great for gamers. Too much of a good thing, like too many music games, could potentially dilute the market so much that it kills the genre.

I like there take - We DO need new IPs that we can then do an annual versions of (to replace the old IPs we've run into the f--- ground)

And no Dodece - Nintendo at least only does most of their IPs once a generation not once a year.

I'm not against building a brand - it's good business but this means we'll never see innovative one-off titles from Activision no matter how good or even profitable they could be.

If Sega worked like this in the late 90s...wed never see Jet Set Radio, Shenmue, Seaman, Samba De Amigo, Super Monkey Ball, Space channel 5...etc

Nope, sorry, only sonic, VF, sega rally and phantasy star sequels allowed.

Well played activision.

Nintendo do their releases 1 per generation, and even then each one innovates far more than Guitar Hero -> 2 -> 3. They also have more IP to use, which increases variety, and better production values so that flagship titles will, without fail ,be AAA titles. If Nintendo and Activisioncarries on, it will be 6+ main Guitar Hero games and 6+ main Call of Duty games to one main Mario game and one main Zelda game.

Wow if Activion aren't taking 50 cent, there is nothing negative. In fact, they just earned my respect not to produce a piece of shit like that.

I bought Boom Blox and de Blob, so two innovative games for me.  There are quite a few new IPs on my "Most Wanted" list as well.

I also bought Kart, Smash Bros, and RE4 this calendar year.  That means I was 2/5 on innovative games.  That's a pretty good number I think.

While you probably shouldn't trust my answer on Ghostbusters since I kind of have a conflict of interest here (it's awesome by the way ) but every preview of Ghostbusters has been overwhelmingly positive and even everything I've seen of the 50 Cent game says the game is surprisingly really good.  I'm likely getting the game when it comes out.

I freely confess I missed a single line when I read the article. Specifically the words every single year. No that is probably very bad especially if you also plan to run it through multiple platforms. Even if you stifle development through multiple teams. That leaves no capacity what so ever to improve upon the series in a meaningful way.

Honestly the only way that has even flown for Electronic Arts is that sports gamers as a rule. Notice I said rule and not every single one. Are the most unsophisticated gamers on the planet. They are more impressed with shine stuff rather then actual substance. For them it really is important that they have the most up to date statistics. I freely confess I will buy one football game, but I have never understood why someone feels the need to own seven or eight.