Nintendo rejected Skylanders exclusivity
In the early days of Skylanders development, Toys for Bob approached Nintendo about making it an exclusive, but Nintendo rejected the deal.
Before the Skylanders series became a sales juggernaut for Activision, the publisher was looking into a partner. Given the kid-friendly nature of the game, they initially went to Nintendo, which could have made the toy-game hybrid a Nintendo-exclusive. Of course, that didn't work out.
Toys for Bob co-founders Fred Ford and Paul Reiche told Polygon that in the early days of development, the pair made a presentation to Nintendo thinking it would play well with the company's image. Nintendo wasn't so sure.
"They spent a long time looking and looking," Reiche said. "They were just like 'we have never seen anything like this before.' I've always wondered about the full meaning of that comment [laughs]. We have no idea why [they passed]. Clearly, they have got properties well suited to this world. Why it is that they didn't rush in here will probably haunt them for the rest of their days."
The concept has gone on to inspire competition from Disney with Disney Infinity. Nintendo even dipped its own tentative toe into NFC toy-games with Pokemon Rumble U. But Skylanders has been the banner-holder for the idea, and Nintendo could have capitalized with its own stable of characters.
"Nintendo could have kicked Disney's ass," Reiche said. "If I was running Nintendo I would have jumped on this."
-
Shacknews
replySteve Watts posted a new article, Nintendo rejected Skylanders exclusivity.
In the early days of Skylanders development, Toys for Bob approached Nintendo about making it an exclusive, but Nintendo rejected the deal.-
Oops
-
Hahaha, oh Nintendo, kings of some alternate universe no one else sees. The need to can Reggie 3 names-whats-his face and find new leadership.
-
sorry not sure I see the synergy between a Nintendo console and a game that includes collectible toys guys... lol
-
Pokemon to name just one, Skylanders would of been as perfect platform and system for their franchises. Super Smash Bros. Brawl also could of been turned into a Skylander game and sell like crazy.
You could of made millions off it and I am willing to bet it sell like crazy(both of them) and be a hit.-
indeed :P
-
-
-
They just had to console themselves with having the game sell best on their platform instead.
-
-
Why, do you not believe me? :P
-
-
No sarcasm (other than from you?), this article has been floating around for a couple of days. http://www.forbes.com/sites/andyrobertson/2013/10/10/sales-data-suggests-wii-is-crucial-to-skylanders-swap-force-and-disney-infinity-success/
-
looks like the Wii has ~60% of the unit share. There's still 1.5-2 million units sold on the other platforms they're missing out on. More importantly they're missing out on an exclusive to drive hardware sales. Disney Infinity is selling better on 360 than Wii which suggests there's nothing intrinsic here to the Wii that will guarantee future success as long as you market it correctly. Nintendo should be looking for stuff like this to be Wii U exclusive to try to save their hardware platform.
-
All that aside, the Forbes article gives you a sense of how not-catastrophic the decision was. The Activision guys have their own agenda here, as Disney starts overtaking them in this space. They want to present this IP as the golden egg that people were too short sighted to sign on for.
-
I don't think anyone said it was catastrophic. In any case, Nintendo's main goal right now isn't to drive more Wii software sales and be the lead platform for some last gen games, it's finding a way to save the Wii U. On that front having big exclusives is pretty important and they haven't seemed to figure that out.
-
'Will haunt them for the rest of their days' sounds pretty catastrophic to me.
-
-
-
-
[deleted]
-
It's a year old, but at least it's Forbes. Anyway, gives you a general idea of where that stuff has been selling recently.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
My favorite is Blockbuster laughing Netflix out of the boardroom when they proposed a partnership.
-
-
I have heard some stories of Nintendo asking for exclusivity on a title and they offered an absurdly low amount of money for this, like 1996 money
-
Makes sense because of Pokemon. They want it to be their own thing.
-
there's no reason both couldn't exist and Nintendo still doesn't seem close to turning Pokemon into this type of product that has been succeeding for years (long enough for Disney to clone it)
-
-
Well that's gotta smart.
