With the closing studios, cuts, and layoffs galore that major video game companies have been dealing with in these unfriendly economic times, today’s announcement that Activision has purchased Budcat Creations is nothing short of extraordinary.

Budcat is best known for their hit titles Blast Works and Medal of Honor: Vanguard. In addition, the company has worked with Activision on some PS2 versions of Guitar Hero, which makes it easy to see why Activision announced that Budcat would be working on a new Guitar Hero franchise after the merge.

“Budcat Creations is an outstanding developer with an experienced management team and a very talented group of programmers, designers and artists,” said Mike Griffith, President and CEO of Activision Publishing, Inc. “In addition to strengthening our development capabilities on the Nintendo platforms, this acquisition increases our Guitar Hero development resources as we continue to grow the franchise and expand our global leadership position in the music-based genre."

With Budcat’s strong ties to Nintendo, might we see some new and improved Guitar Hero’s on either of Nintendo’s consoles? What do you think about the merge, and what possibilities for Guitar Hero do you see? Sound off about it on our message boards.