No New Tony Hawk Game on Consoles This Year; Activision Breaks Nine Year Tradition

For the first time since 1999, publisher Activision will not release Tony Hawk-branded skateboarding game on consoles in the fall.

Instead, the company is plotting a release for the next fiscal year that will, in the words of Activision Publishing CEO Mike Griffith, re-invent the series "from the ground up." The company's next fiscal year runs from April 2009 to March 2010.

"It won't be your father's Tony Hawk," Gamasutra reports Griffith as saying during a conference call yesterday. "For competitive reasons we're not going to talk about it today, but we're very bullish on the kind of innovation it will bring."

Activision representatives had previously commented that series' formulaic gameplay would be reworked due to the strong performance of EA Black Box's Skate (PS3, X360), which outsold the ninth main Tony Hawk game 2 to 1. No additional details were provided, though it is assumed that series creator Neversoft is helming the project.

While there will not be a new Tony Hawk on consoles until next year, the company did note that a new Nintendo DS entry, developed by Vicarious Visions, is due out later this year.