Pokemon could easily kill Skylanders if they started making sh*t like this to sell to the kids.
Disney taking on Skylanders with Disney Infinity - Report
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
House of Mouse's "Toy Box" gets new name; Disney fansite suggests it will allow gamers to "beam" characters and worlds to game through physical tokens.
Disney's game division is hurting right now, but that could change if the company's next ambitious project proves successful. A new report suggests Disney is aiming to go head-to-head with Activision's Skylanders series with its new "Disney Infinity" game.
The project was first revealed in a New York Times article as "Toy Box." Disney fansite Stitch Kingdom posted a detailed entry on the game today, though it appears the story has been removed, as its URL now forwards to the site's homepage.
Videogamer got its eyes on the story before it was pulled, and reports that Disney Infinity will boast similar functionality to Skylanders. It will allow users to "beam" Disney characters and worlds to the game through physical "game tokens," the site says.
The report goes on to say that the game will utilize a "Disney Infinity reader" to achieve this. The technology is described as a "flat device upon which the game tokens are physically placed, connected to the device via USB or infrared in the case of the 3DS." In Activision's Skylanders games, this device is a "Portal of Power."
A Starter Pack for Disney Infinity will reportedly include three character tokens pulled from the company's movies. These include Sulley (Monsters Inc.), Captain Jack Sparrow (Pirates of the Caribbean), and Mr. Incredible (The Incredibles). Additional character tokens will be available after launch.
Disney Infinity is reportedly in development for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, Wii, and 3DS.
Disney Interactive has distanced itself from console gaming in favor of the social place recently. Since 2010, the company canceled its Pirates of the Caribbean RPG, and closed Propaganda Games and Black Rock Studios. During that time, the company acquired social game maker Playdom for $563 million.
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
26 comments
wonder how long it'll be before acti-blizzard sues disney over this game lol.and if Disney needs money for the console games, then they need to hurry up and get KH3 out; now that they own SW, they have a ton more characters to add to part 3
Not sure why everyone assumes tokens are like a coin.
Definition of token from dictionary:
to·ken/?t?k?n/Noun: A thing serving as a visible or tangible representation of something abstract.
Now wouldn't that fit the bill for some sort of figure/item representing a Disney character?
I took the time to read all the comments, but I really liked the article. It proved to be very helpful to me, and I believe all the critics here! Always good when you can not just be told, but!
I can see why they would be drafted to work on that particular game and also and not least how they could be struggling in their game department...I still can't grasp the fascination with Kingdom Hearts and I am usually not wrong about these sorts of things.
1 Like I don't like enough Disney characters to get behind such a project. Then again, I'm in my late 20s, so clearly I'm not the target demographic.
Skylanders surprised me, to be honest. The bright, colorful worlds and characters reminded of those days when I used to get "kids games" (Spyro, Crash, etc.) on Christmas morning and spend all of my Christmas vacation from school enthralled in their worlds.
It's hard for me to find that kind of wonder anymore...
@ddh8228 Indeed, and my point remains valid because I've never been into comics, and I've only had a passing interest in Star Wars.
Possibly cool. Probably not for my age group, but that doesn't mean it's a bad idea. Skylanders seems to have caught on well enough, but their characters are all pretty fugly, IMO.
1 Like If they came out with another Disney Skate I'd give them some money haha. That was my childhood!
Tokens? I don't think kids will be interested in tokens.
I thought Skylanders was popular cuz they were actual toys and a video game.
@Nexozable I agree, and I'd even be tempted to buy if there were action figures for this instead.
@Nexozable If you don't think kids will trade tokens then you are very sorely mistaken. Remember Tazo's? With tokens you can actually sell random boosters and encourage trading, rather than just buying the toy they think is coolest. This has the potential to make a LOT more money.
@megakick Ever since Skylanders released I thought about that.
"Why can't Nintendo do this with Pokemon?"
You could get a starter pack with a Starter Pokemon that comes with it, and you would put it in the Pokeball to put it in the game.
It would be the best, and most expensive thing in the gaming universe.
Count me in.
I think you need to start with a clean slate when you make one of these games. Otherwise, you're forcing characters developed for different scenarios to mesh into similar gameplay mechanics and design concepts that are pretty similar. I could be wrong but mesh it in, not mash it in.
@TWiSTEDmerc Worked out pretty well for Kingdom Hearts. Besides, most of the Disney franchises aren't so far apart from each other that it would become unbelievable.
3 Like It sounds interesting, but right now I think they are missing one of the biggest points, the toys. Part of the fun of skylanders is the actual figures themselves. You have toys that you can play with as toys, then put them on the portal and play with them in the game. If this Disney version is just tokens, then I think they have lost the appeal of the physical element to the game.
@dchameleon I also agree. Part of the fun in Skylanders is collecting the toys, which are VERY well made. If you cheapen it up by using simple tokens, the fun is deminished considerably. My nephew actually plays with the toys outside of the game. Can't play with tokens. And without knowing how big they are, I would still hazard a guess that they will be easily lost by younger gamers. This equals fail in my opinion.
@saleama @dchameleon This equals buying more tokens to replace the lost ones, and allows them to sell carry cases/albums.
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