No new Skylanders game for consoles this year
Imaginators will be ported to Switch, and the franchise will get a new mobile game.
During its Q4 2016 earnings call earlier today, Activision executives announced that the company will not release a new Skylanders game for consoles in 2017.
Instead, it's working on a mobile offering, as well as a Switch port of Skylanders Imaginators.
Activision gave no reason behind the decision to take a year off from publishing a new Skylanders title for console. The company also provided no details for the mobile game.
Skylanders Imaginators joins Zelda: Breath of the Wild and a host of other titles as a launch title for the Nintendo Switch, slated for release on March 3. Imaginators was released last year for Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4, and Wii U. Shacknews editor-in-chief Steve Watts played it, and reached the verdict that the franchise is showing its age.
"The level of customization in Imaginators is probably enough to tide over the hardcore Skylanders fans for a while, so perhaps it's time for Activision's rotating Skylanders studios to take a break and slow down," he wrote.
In news related to Activision, the company disclosed to investors that this year's Call of Duty title will "take Call of Duty back to its roots"—meaning a departure from Infinite Warfare's space setting. Call of Duty 2017 is in development at Sledgehammer Games, makers of 2014's Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.
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replyDavid Craddock posted a new article, No new Skylanders game for consoles this year
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I wondered if Skylanders might slow up and re-examine the market after Infinity shutdown. While Disney had their reasons for it, there were some industry level concerns mixed in as well.
But, I assume they're circling the wagons to try to figure out how to either go a new direction to keep the figure concept going, or how to do a serious refresh to keep it new. And by that I'm thinking along the lines of how Pokemon has spaced out releases to help keep the game fresh.
Short version: I'm wondering if they're sitting on too much inventory and need a better strategy on how to handle the series going forward so this doesn't happen again.-
Support the most current game with an expansion pack, or packs to help clear inventory. Sitting on inventory is throwing money away.
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The problem with that is dev cost and it's not a guarantee that it would clear inventory. DLC would appeal to those that are already invested into the game. You'd have to make the DLC tailored to the figures that aren't selling, but that means you're waiting a while after everything shipped to find out which figures those are (assuming there's some disproportion of figures selling vs not and not just a general glut of inventory).
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The choice was made for them. Major toy retailers are not interested in carrying toys for games. It was one of the main reasons Disney axed infinity.
Lego just pushes Dimensions sets as regular toys not toys for games. That's why at Target and Walmart, they are mostly in the toy isle and not the videogame isle.-
I don't know what your stores are like, but every Target, Toys R Us, Walmart, etc near me keeps Dimensions in the video game aisle. Amazon has them listed under "video games". Also, if their thought is to "sell them as regular toys" first they're doing an extremely shitty job as none of the sets come with build instructions. The instructions pop up in game when you put the character on the base.
I do think they're are Inherently more fun as standalone toys rather than the other toys-to-life games on the market because they're still regular LEGO sets at the end of the day.
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