Publisher Activision has reported that its net revenue for the last quarter stands at US$4.8 billion and confirmed this morning’s report that the Guitar Hero series and True Crime: Hong Kong have been cancelled.

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick explained, “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 also will stop development on True Crime: Hong Kong.

“These decisions are based on the desire to focus on the greatest opportunities that the company currently has to create the world’s best interactive entertainment experiences.”

Activision’s revenue was well above expectations; the publisher has posted 20 per cent growth year-on-year. Much of that is due to the releases of Call of Duty: Black Ops and Blizzard’s World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.

Kotick continued, “Our revenues from digital channels, which now account for over 30 percent of our overall revenues, were driven by increased sales of Activision Publishing’s Call of Duty map packs and value-added services for Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft. Blizzard significantly evolved its direct digital distribution capabilities with the launch of its new Battle.net service and saw players embrace its service offerings in record numbers.

“Notably, since Call of Duty: Black Ops was launched in November players have spent an average of 52 minutes per day playing online, roughly equivalent to the 55 minutes that the average user spends each day on Facebook. As of February 2, 2011, more than 27 million gamers have played Call of Duty games online, logging more than 2 billion hours, or the equivalent of more than 229,000 years of gameplay.”