Never forget.

Four years after purchasing peripheral specialists Red Octane, Activision has pulled the plug on its Hero branded rhythm games. The publisher has attributed the decision to discontinue Guitar Hero, Band Hero and DJ Hero to “rapid declines in the music genre” and “considerable licensing and manufacturing costs”. Call us crazy, but we think flooding the market with more 20 boxed products in a few short years may also have had something to do with it.

Though previously issued downloadable tracks will continue to be available, no new content will be published for the games beyond February 2011.

As reported by Joystiq, Activision will be shedding approximately 500 jobs. The company’s Chief Operating Officer told investors that “Our net head count at the end of the year is probably not going to be materially different given that we’re ramping up development teams around Blizzard’s new MMO and around the Call of Duty initiatives.”

As we reported yesterday, Activision has also cancelled its True Crime revival. On the surface at least, it seems that the world’s largest publisher is placing more of its eggs in fewer baskets.