Tony Hawk officially Shred-ding

Monday night, reports circulated via Twitter that Tony Hawk had preemptively titled his next game Tony Hawk: Shred. "Tony Hawk: Shred. There, I said it. Actually, I named it. Somewhere a PR team is reeling," he said before abruptly pulling the tweet. Today, that very Activision PR team Hawk claimed to have spooked made it official: The next Tony Hawk game in the series will indeed be called Tony Hawk: Shred.

Unfortunately, the title was all Activision would divulge at the moment, saying only that "more details will be revealed in the coming months." Presumably, however, Shred is the game that Tony Hawk has been conferring with developer Robomodo about ever since Tony Hawk: Ride hit stores last November.

While Ride fared poorly with critics for its dependence on a new balance board peripheral, both Hawk and Robomodo have faith in the add-on's technology. The Chicago-based studio is standing by its board, having increased its payroll 20 percent since Ride's release, and plans to bulk up another 17 percent by year's end.

As of press time, Activision reps had not responded to requests for clarification on whether Shred will be a skateboarding game or a snowboarding game. The latter theory was raised by the term "shred," which is a staple of snowboarding parlance. However, "shred" is also commonly used by skateboarders--so much so that it is the name of a Tony Hawk-branded shoe. Also, Shredordie.com is a popular skate-video-sharing site on which Hawk himself has several recurring shows.

Still, a Hawk-branded crossover title would not be out of the question, as champion snowboarder Shaun White is getting his own skateboarding game. Before he grabbed Olympic gold as a snowboarder, White was the enfant terrible of the pro skate world, getting his first sponsorship at 7 years old. Hawk, however, has never snowboarded professionally, although several of his games have featured the sport. Also, he himself has hinted that the balance board would be ideally suited for a game based on the downhill pastime.