Let me start by saying I have no first hand knowledge of Activision's business practices, plans, or marketing. This is not Games Abyss' official opinion or elses. Just my own take on gaming news. Unclench, lawyers.

Activision announced an incredible offer. Buy Guitar Hero 5 when it firsts comes out and get a free copy of the upcoming Guitar Hero Van Halen in the mail. Wow! Two new music games for the price of one. That's over 130 songs!

Why would they do this? They're going to eat the $60 of a brand new game. I think they didn't have a choice. I have no facts to back this up, but there's a feeling that the pre-orders for GH5 were coming in lower than expected. This one of Activision's cash cows so it's not good news. What could be some reasons for it. Well, the economy is an obvious answer. There's lots of big titles coming soon is another. The upcoming Beatles: Rock Band has been more attention from the mainstream press. But here's the main one: The music game genre was flooded this year. MTV Games/Harmonix has to share the blame for this too. None of the titles were bad. In fact, the quality was quite good. But they're essentially the same, four people playing plastic instruments to notes flowing down the screen. Let's run down the music games that came out and are due in 2009:

• Band Hero
• Beatles Rock Band
• Guitar Hero 5
• Guitar Hero Metallica
• Guitar Hero Smash Hits
• Guitar Hero Van Halen
• LEGO Rock Band
• Rock Band Track Pack Classic Rock
• Rock Band Track Pack Country
• Rock Band Track Pack Metal
• And let's not forget all the DLC that comes out every week!

DJ Hero gets a pass because they're adding in a turntable instrument so it's something different. But barely since you can still play it with a guitar controller. But look at that list. That's just nuts! People like Harry Potter movies. But imagine if one came out every month for a year. Even if they're great films, the public would get sick of it.

So Activision sees a problem. Their history showed that Guitar Hero Aerosmith and Guitar Hero Metallica did OK but not great. Retailers had to deeply discount excess Aerosmith bundles to make room on store floors. Guitar Hero Van Halen looks to do about the same but it's release date just days before Christmas is worrisome. Simialrly, we saw lots of discounts recently for last year's Guitar Hero World Tour and Rock Band 2 bundles. Alarmingly, Guitar Hero 5, while looking like the best Guitar Hero game ever, isn't getting as much buzz as it once did. Probably it's being overshadowed by The Beatles Rock Band.

If Guitar Hero 5, the tentpole title in the franchise, does badly it could hurt the brand. So in a very savvy marketing move, Activision makes the GH5/GHVH offer. This boosts the numbers for Guitar Hero 5 and creates some buzz for Van Halen which probably wasn't going to do well anyway in a season surrounded by Modern Warfare 2 and Halo 3: ODST. Now if Band Hero and DJ Hero underperform, it's unfortunate, but they were new I.P.s. The important thing is that the Guitar Hero brand lives on till next year. And Activison C.E.O. Bobby Kotick has been very public that they're a publisher that's focused on sequels. Let's hope Activision and MTV Games/Harmonix play it smarter next year and learned that sometimes less is more.