Remember a time when playing video games was an activity that involved standing — nay, rocking out — and plastic instruments?

That time could come again as soon as this year. Activision is rumored to be working on a new installment of Guitar Hero for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, Kotaku UK reported.

Guitar Hero was introduced in 2005 by RedOctane and Harmonix. It involved plastic guitar-shaped controllers with five colored fret buttons and a bar for strumming up and down; players had to hold their fingers on corresponding colors as notes moved down a track toward them on the screen and strum just at the note passed a certain point. The series first started off by using licensed covers of popular songs, but then was able to work licenses for the original music.

Guitar Hero had five iterations. The first three were produced by a RedOctane-Harmonix partnership, but Activision purchased RedOctane in 2007 and teamed them with Neversoft to produce new games. Meanwhile, Harmonix was purchased by MTV Networks in 2006, and went on to create the rival Rock Band franchise, which was the first to introduce drums and a microphone to create a four-piece video game band.

Regardless of the truth of this report, Guitar Hero's return wouldn't be a surprise. Activision put the series "on ice" in 2011, primarily as the market for peripheral-based games really bottomed out. (The price of two plastic guitars and a drum kit could add up, costing between $150 to $200.) But the series was one of the most lucrative in Activision's history, with CEO Bobby Kotick revealing the game had reached over $2 billion in sales.

"We don't comment on rumor or speculation, but have previously said, that as one of the most beloved entertainment franchises," an Activision spokesperson told Mashable. "We would only bring Guitar Hero back if we developed the right innovations to usher the franchise into the new generation of gaming."

Harmonix may also be exploring a revival of Rock Band. After years of not releasing new downloadable content for the franchise's thousand-song library, the independent developer released two songs last week: Tenacious D’s “Rize Of The Fenix” and Weezer's "Back in the Shack." Harmonix has denied it is working on a new Rock Band, so those could simply be coincidences.