There will be no more Guitar Hero games.

Activision Blizzard announced today that starting immediately, it is shutting down production and all publishing for the Guitar Hero franchise.

"Due to continued declines in the music genre, the company will disband Activision Publishing’s ‘Guitar Hero’ business unit and discontinue development on its ‘Guitar Hero’ game for 2011," the company said in a statement. It continued, saying that the decision was "based on the desire to focus on the greatest opportunities that the company currently has to create the world’s best interactive entertainment experiences."

The latest Guitar Hero game, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, earned enough nominations to be considered for a GiN Game of the Year award. Voting for that award is ongoing now.

GiN Publisher Nate Wooley said, "It would be ironic for Guitar Hero to win a Game of the Year award while Activision is shutting them down. But stranger things have happened."

GiN Editor John Breeden II commented, "We have always seen this war between Rock Band and Guitar Hero and it was kind of neat to try and see which one would be the ultimate winner. It looks Rock Band will win by default. You’ve got to scratch your head on this one though. All the sales figures we have seen show Guitar Hero still making a ton of money, but I guess not enough to satisfy Activision."