DJ Qbert scratching up DJ Hero 2?
Source: UK industry news site GamesIndustry.biz. What we heard: Having already rocked over $2 billion out of Guitar Hero, Activision is expanding its rhythm game empire into other musical genres. On October 27, it will go after hip-hop, techno, and club-music fans' dollars with DJ Hero, a...
Source: UK industry news site GamesIndustry.biz.
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What we heard: Having already rocked over $2 billion out of Guitar Hero, Activision is expanding its rhythm game empire into other musical genres. On October 27, it will go after hip-hop, techno, and club-music fans' dollars with DJ Hero, a turntable-peripheral based title from its UK-based studio, FreeStyle Games. In development for the Wii, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation 2, the game will feature such prominent acts as Daft Punk, DJ Jazzy Jeff, DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist, J.Period, Z-Trip, Grandmaster Flash, and the late DJ AM. (The game will also feature emcees Eminem and Jay-Z.)
Though it remains to be seen how many consumers will plunk down $120 for the standard edition of DJ Hero--let alone $200 for the renegade edition--a sequel is apparently already in the works. GI.biz sources claim that "at least one independent UK games developer is already liaising with Activision's FreeStyleGames on DJ Hero 2."
GI.biz also reports that groundbreaking turntablist DJ Qbert has "been approached" to be in the sequel. In the 1990s, DJ Qbert (real name Richard Quitevis) was a founding member of the San Francisco Bay Area group the Invisibl Skratch Piklz and was a three-time victor at the DMC World DJ Championship. If confirmed, it would be the third game appearance for Qbert, whose music was used in the original Tony Hawk's Underground, in which the DJ was also a playable character, and FreQuency, the 2001 PlayStation 2 rhythm title from original Guitar Hero developer Harmonix.
The official story: "Activision does not comment on rumors or speculation."--An Activision representative.
Bogus or not bogus?: Not bogus that a DJ Hero sequel is assured. According to the NPD Group, rhythm game genre revenues are down 46 percent through August 2009, meaning Activision will be looking at every opportunity to exploit--and re-exploit--any untapped markets. Whether DJ Qbert will be part of a future project, however, remains to be seen.
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