The news is that as with Tony Hawk Ride, the latest Tony Hawk title called Shred (which was targeted at a much younger audience), isn’t lighting up the cash registers at retailers. Amidst reports that rival skateboarding title Skate from Electronic Arts will be taking some time off before the possibility of another installment, sources tell us that Activision has not given up on Tony Hawk and plans to continue the franchise.

According to the whispers that we hear, despite all of the setbacks, Activision is looking at ways to reinvent the franchise in an effort to get it to reconnect with fans. It is too soon to even think about the Tony Hawk franchise coming to an end.

The sources are also suggesting that right now the current plan is to continue moving the game into a younger demographic, and that will be the strategy that the company is expected to take moving forward. Activision is actually a bit surprised that Shred has not sold better because it is actually quite a good title for the audience at which it is targeted.

If our deep throat is correct, we expect the next round of the Tony Hawk franchise to return to controller-based controls in an effort to jettison what can only be called a “stigma” surrounding the skateboard peripheral that both Ride and Shred have used for control.