Activision has decided to take Guitar Hero to the next level: Action Figures. This is a great move for the company, striking the iron while it’s hot! The Guitar Hero and Rock Band franchises are growing in intensity while big blockbuster titles like GTA IV are waning in sales and profit.
Pretty soon you and your children can purchase action figures in the liking of Guitar Hero, would you consider this or is it just a gimmick?
McFARLANE TOYS ANNOUNCES PARTNERSHIP WITH ACTIVISION
TO PRODUCE GUITAR HERO(tm) ACTION FIGURES
TEMPE, Ariz. ~ McFarlane Toys announces a partnership with Activision, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) to produce action figures from the hit video game franchise, Guitar Hero®. The first line is expected to hit store shelves this fall.
The hugely popular Guitar Hero franchise delivers the ultimate guitar-bending experience and enabling aspiring axe-shredders everywhere the chance to Unleash Their Inner Rock Star. Featuring a wide variety of music spanning five decades, the franchise is highlighted by countless original recordings from many of the most beloved artists of all time.
Represented in the first line of action figures are four of the Guitar Hero game’s most popular characters:
JOHNNY NAPALM
AXEL STEEL
LARS ÜMLAUT
GOD OF ROCK
“We have very recently begun creating toys based on video games,” says McFarlane Toys CEO Todd McFarlane. “With Activision, we get to work on arguably one of the biggest video game franchises out there, and capitalize on the wide-ranging demographic that encompasses this game.”
Each figure has 15-18 moving parts. Additionally, a unique guitar is included with each character that is removable and interchangeable with the other figures. Each figure also comes with a sculpted Guitar Hero logo base.
McFarlane Toys’ 6-inch action figures retail for $10-$15.
Visit www.SPAWN.com for updates and the all the latest and to-the-minute news.
About McFarlane Toys
Grammy-and Emmy-winning producer/director Todd McFarlane, creator of Spawn and the founder of SPAWN.com, is the force behind McFarlane Toys, one of America’s top action figure manufacturers. With an eclectic array of movie, TV and music licensing tie-ins – as well as the officially licensed teams of the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL, McFarlane Toys has become a leader and redefined the standards within the action figure industry. For complete information on this pop-culture powerhouse, visit SPAWN.com.
About Activision, Inc.
Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, Activision, Inc. is a leading worldwide developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment and leisure products. Founded in 1979, Activision posted net revenues of $2.9 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2008.
Activision maintains operations in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Spain, the Netherlands, Australia, Japan and South Korea. More information about Activision and its products can be found on the company’s website, www.activision.com.
Hey guys,
Should I keep it as brief as I did two weeks ago? 😉 I was the only commenter then so I should almost be credited as a co-host with the 15-minute segment my post provided 😉
I hope by now Jordan is feeling better and not feeding his veins with chemicals.
On to the news!
@Xbox women – You allegedly hear it all the time when you play online games like CoD or Halo: those teenage boys did all the nasty things to each other’s mothers so maybe those mothers really have Live accounts…
I don’t know what the point of such news is. Does it influence their strategy or the games that are being developed? Do they want to show how diverse they are and it’s not only men who use consoles? It’s slightly interesting but I don’t think it’s newsworthy. Also, I agree with Jordan. I set up a PSN account for my wife but she has never used it. I believe this is common behavior with those gamers who managed to get a girl and keep her 😉
@Steam Box – I was too lazy to look up if Valve announced something. I’ll let you do the hard work and let me know on next week’s podcast. I’m not at all interested in that. I don’t have time for PC gaming and I don’t mind waiting a year or two for indie titles to appear on PSN. I have a huge backlog of great games and with the new generation just around the corner I am not the target for this device.
You still need a keyboard or a mouse to play most of the games so simply switching a 30+ inch monitor to a 40+ inch TV doesn’t sound appealing.
@GTA5 – I didn’t get the game and I am willing to wait a year or more for the next gen iteration. It’s not suprising that it sold like this. The hype surrounding the game was enormous and the reviews (97 on metacritic) say it all. I fell like I’m missing out but I’m not willing to sacrifice 100+ hours at this moment to play it. Red Dead Redemption taught me a lesson 😉 Great job, Rockstar, now give me Jack Marston’s story.
@Sony GTA5 crashes – I really hope they are fixing all the update and digital access to media stuff with the PS4. With PS+ you can have PS3 update automatically at night so it’s not that inconvenient but still it is a pain in the butt sometimes. I’ve also had some minor problems with game downloads but nothing to serious. Was the issue with GTA5 worldwide or only in selected regions / specific ISPs?
@Jonah buying a Vita – Is hell freezing over already? :)You made fun, somewhat correctly, of the six colors of the new iteration of the Vita. You have to remember that it makes a lot of difference in Japan. They will buy more Vitas if they can get them in different colors. That’s a good move on Sony’s part. The price drop isn’t that significant but I believe it will go down from the $190 we’re hearing now. Also, the original model will probably be discounted to around $150 around the Cyber sales this year. I got mine for 150 EUR (down from 200 EUR) last December.
@QOTW – I read recently that the last PS2 game to be released is FIFA 14 although Wikipedia mentions Warrior Blade: Rastan vs Barbarian with the release date still TBA. You’re right that 2-3 games a year virtually mean that the console is dead. However, with the wave of indie titles that we’ve had for the last several years, I think there will be a lot of releases for the current gen hardware for the next 2-3 years or more. The install base will still be huge and it should make sense for indie devs to release games on as many platforms as possible. With the digital distribution model it is much easier, or even at all possible, compared to the previous generational transition.
Warning this may be a long post.
First I’m glad Jordan’s back yay!
The following rant came to me before I listened to the recent episode, I just wanted to get this off my chest first:
Today I got an email from Sony promoting it’s PLaystation 4 digital upgrade program. In it you would be allowed to use a game purchased for PS3 on the PS4 via a code in the game and downloaded the PS4 version later at a discounted price. Note you have to buy the game AGAIN, this isn’t some old game from 20 years ago made to work on new hardward and software. These are games just released! So far they only allow Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Watch Dogs, Call of Duty Ghosts and Battlefield 4. No mention of Grand Theft Auto 5, which I will be playing for awhile to come myself. This whole thing just feels like complete Bullshit.
They are going to make you pay for a game twice to play it on the new system, it’s crap that they can’t at the very least make it compatible for PS3 games on the PS4. I can emulate PS1 and PS2 games on my Windows computer, they’ve added a select number of PS2 titles for PSN to play on PS3 so clearly it’s very possible to be fully compatible. It’s not that they can’t, it’s that they don’t want to. As open world as GTA V is and the promise of MP online I’ll be playing this a long time. I do have to mention I have a young child and work so I only have a limited time to play that game, I don’t want her to see some of the messed up stuff happening in that game. Not to mention I still have PSone games and PS2 games that I still want to play. Sure I can play them on the PC and probably will but that just feels like it defeats the purpose of the PS being an all in one entertainment center. I don’t buy that different architecture either since there are launch
PS3’s still runining fine and played PS2 games just fine. It just makes no sense to me for a company to disown it’s past games like this. I can still play old Dos games today, why shouldn’t they allow their full library to be playable on each console? This has been a major issue for me since the PS3 dropped PS2 compatibility, even though you can get Ps2 titles now on PSN. How much sense does this make?
@ 40% of Xbox Live audience being women:
This seems to be about the ratio in other areas of the gaming world. The Civ Fanatics had a poll to find out their male/Female ratio and they had something like 200 votes on it from forum users. It was a small sample though I know but I think the point is that the number of women using said consoles is more then just a mere handful. So jokes like “there are no women on the internet/gamers” can die now. What’s more maybe game companies can focus on making their female customers happy and not just the male ones. Like for instance Nintendo allowing Zelda to be the hero for once or at least a co-op of her and Link taking Gananon down.
@ Steam box beta: I saw the posts about this coming out now and yeah I’m pretty happy with my computer set up. I can already us a controller on whatever PC game I want so it seems pointless to invest in hardware.
@GTA: I too like playing “Good”, “Noble”, or “Moral” characters but a game like GTA can really test that. From what I have been told though it’s the character Trevor that gets into the real bad stuff like the torture, brining people to a Cannibal cult and other pyschotic acts. Thankfully Franklin and Michael seem decent, at least by comparison. There is a ton of other things to do though and I can’t wait to do this online with my friends once that becomes availble. My wife got me this game so she could watch me play it and has a bit of a dark sense of humor when it comes to this game. She doesn’t want me to hit the random deer runing around but is all for me runing over some poor shmuck on the side of the road.
@ a little clarification on my EA stance: Your right I think I mispoke and that “game killer” is more accurate. I hate what they did to Ultima 9 Ascension, I didn’t mention that before. I also wasn’t clear that I was buying Sims 4 for my wife who doesn’t care what else EA does. I really didn’t like that they started including items that you have to buy from them directly in the game. It just feels obnoxious when you can get so much free custom content from the fans on the interwebs. So it’s more of a love/hate thing, I love some of the games they have made but hate what they have done to other games. I realize that JAde Empire is their’s and yet I bought it from Gog and enjoy it still. My hatred of Activision/Venvindi is justified though I blame them for the downfall of Sierra games.
I liked the comments about Citerion, so you guys knew Extras before they were cool huh?
@As for the Question of what turns you off from a game I would say bland flat characters that I can’t relate to or have any interest in. For example I like Franklin in GTA I want to help this guy succed so I feel invested in him. I too have gotten frustrated with overly difficult platforming like in Soul Reaver when I had to traverse this ridiculous “Water Temple” level to get a “Water vampire” I got through what seemed an hellish unending portion only to find an equally daunting one ahead and I pulled a Jordan “I came this far and lost interest”.
@The Blue Ray controversy: That’s exactly the kind of crap I can’t stand that they are doing with not just movies but games as well. It’s like all they can think about is making that quick buck and squeezing every last penny out of you as possible and not caring at all about the product.
As for the QoTW I would say when the hardware stops brining in a profit apparently. Which I would like to seque into a question about Nintendo’s fate. Jordan pretty much answered the question the way I thought it would be answered. My daughter is pre-teen so I have to make sure she plays age appropriate games. She does love Minecraft but my wife can’t play it since her motion sickness. The question I have is what of the fate for Nintendo, it’s kind of a crystall ball question I fear. I however I think at best they will be like Sega and sell software to PC or at best struggle on perhaps with their moblile hardware consoles. I think they have made it through worst times like with the Virtual Boy. I’d hate to see them lose their ability to produce consoles.
Just FYI I am not a hater of any console, just dissapointed that some companies don’t seem to want me as a customer, just feeling left out of the “cool kids club”.
Finally I’ll end by saying Jordan I think our wives are cut from the same cloth.
Oh and Jonah I’m up for co op team Civ V game 🙂
Thanks for reading this long post, I just had a lot to say this time around.
@Alphashard’s rant
Although I understand your frustration I don’t believe it’s as clear cut as you’re making it out to be.
First of all, it’s not only Sony that does this. Microsoft is doing exactly the same thing with the current gen / next gen titles.
Second of all, the architecture of both systems (PS3/PS4, X360/XBone) is completely different so I would assume it does take significant effort to port games from one to another, especially games as rich and huge as those we’re talking about. I’ve read and heard of differences between current gen / next gen AC4 and they are significant. People do work for which they want to be paid. You can argue that console games are generally overpriced (compared to PC versions), and rightly so, but that’s a different issue.
When it comes to emulation it’s also not as easy as it sounds. Of course, once you get the engine running it’s downhill from there but also not always. It took years to emulate PS2 on PC so why would it be natural to emulate PS3 on PS4? That’s why they’re investing in streaming technology rather than direct, hardware backward compatibility – it’s easier this way. (And, of course, they have more control over it 😉 ).
And the final point I would like to make. It’s a matter of weeks / months when it comes to current / next gen iteration of the titles you’re writing about. If a person is going to buy a PS4 why would they even thing of buying a PS3 version of the same game a month earlier? This I don’t get. If you’re not professionally involved in the gaming industry you can wait a month to get the ‘better’ version. Respectively, if you’re not planning to buy a next gen console, you buy the current gen game and have fun with it. If you ultimately buy a PS4 a year or two from now, you will have newer games to play so you won’t care anymore about AC4 and Watch_Dogs.
Even though I generally agree that Sony and MS are out there to earn money, I don’t believe that your accusations in this case are that accurate.
Jordan, Jonah – you need to organize another 15 minutes for listener feedback again 😉
@ Rant
Yes I am well aware that MS is doing the same thing as Sony I was just trying to keep my post brief. They had the ps2 emulation available at launch of the PS3. Then they took it away, it just doesn’t make sense how only some of the games could be available and others not.
Yet the Wii being the worst hardware and software of the three still managed to be fully backwards compatible.
If I understand it correctly, the PS2 emulation has been dropped because of the price of the hardware chip needed to do it. You can see now that not all PS2 games are available digitally because not all of them are being ported.
I’m not sure if Wii U is providing backward compatibility via hardware or software but that console really needs the games support it can get from its predecessor 😉