Report: Disney Infinity to introduce Marvel, Star Wars characters

Following big success with Disney Infinity while other departments struggle, Disney Interactive is reportedly planning to introduce its recent Marvel and Star Wars character acquisitions into "new versions" of the game.

13

Disney Interactive is reportedly preparing to introduce two of its big recent acquisitions into Disney Infinity: Marvel and Star Wars. The toy-game hybrid led to one of the publisher's few profitable quarters in recent history, and a report states that "new versions" of the game will include characters from the popular franchises.

The Wall Street Journal (via Joystiq) reports that since Disney Infinity led to the interactive division's second profitable quarter in five years, Disney will naturally be leaning on it as it reorganizes. New president Jimmy Pitaro reportedly plans to shuffle groups and senior executives.

Part of that reorganization involves layoffs, which, according to anonymous sources, are said to be coming after the company releases its financial results tomorrow. The struggling Playdom department will be among those that will be impacted according to the report, as outgoing president John Pleasants admitted that it was "still challenged" and could use "more aggressive" streamlining. The report doesn't expand on which other departments could be affected.

Editor-In-Chief
From The Chatty
  • reply
    February 4, 2014 9:50 AM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, Report: Disney Infinity to introduce Marvel, Star Wars characters.

    Following big success with Disney Infinity while other departments struggle, Disney Interactive is reportedly planning to introduce its recent Marvel and Star Wars character acquisitions into "new versions" of the game.

    • reply
      February 4, 2014 10:06 AM

      My 6 year old loves this game. Although I find all the playsets and toyboxes and adventures very disorganized internally.

      • reply
        February 4, 2014 10:14 AM

        I don't have the game, but I wondered about this. It feels more like a shotgun approach, but in reality I suspect it's meant to maximize sales of the individual components.

    • reply
      February 4, 2014 10:16 AM

      Anyone care to put a kind of minimum age on this game? Wondering when this might make a good gift for a young nephew of mine.

    • reply
      February 4, 2014 10:27 AM

      god damnit, my wallet..

    • reply
      February 4, 2014 10:28 AM

      how is the skylanders series doing now that infinity's been out a while?

      • reply
        February 4, 2014 10:34 AM

        It's still a juggernaut as far as I know.

      • reply
        February 4, 2014 10:53 AM

        doesnt seem to be affected at all

        • reply
          February 8, 2014 10:43 PM

          Can't speak for the numbers since I don't see them but for a while, at least, it did seem to negatively impact Skylanders. I'd notice where once the Skylander areas were half-empty, they were full, with the Disney Infinity sections of the store shelves fairly empty. Saw that at multiple Gamestops, Wal-marts, and Targets in two different states (Florida and Minnesota).

          That being said, I think the novelty impact of Infinity has probably worn off by now, letting Skylanders catch its breath, so to speak.

          I could easily see Infinity knocking it permanently down a peg though - for my money I'd rather game with awesome characters and IPs that I'm already familiar with than some lame generic-looking Japanese style Pokemon dudes/creatures (Creatures who I have no pre-existing understanding of nor do I know what they can do).

    • reply
      February 4, 2014 10:29 AM

      big success? I havent seen the numbers but there always seems to be plenty of the toys around compared to skylanders that years later is still hard to track down some characters despite steady releases

    • reply
      February 4, 2014 10:55 AM

      i have avoided getting this for our kids. But if they drop Star Wars into the mix.... /ilose

    • reply
      February 4, 2014 11:28 AM

      i've been waiting for this announcement ever since disney bought the star wars license. they better go fucking nuts with this so i can buy all of the things.

      • reply
        February 4, 2014 11:39 AM

        I've always been slightly interested by the concept of Skylanders... this might push me over the edge.

        • reply
          February 4, 2014 11:50 AM

          I was the same. I've never played Skylanders, but I know it's something I would have lost my shit over when I was a kid. I'm a sucker for Disney so ultimately Infinity won me over. It's pretty damn fun too. Some "playsets" are better than others with Pirates being my favorite so far. The Star Wars license would fit perfectly with it for so many reasons.

          I love the style of the figures too. Skylanders just looks like some shit you'd get in a dollar store, but Infinity figures look great on my nerd-stuff shelf. My kid goes nuts for the Cars toys too and is surprisingly gentle with them even though they're pretty sturdy things.

    • reply
      February 4, 2014 2:24 PM

      Thanks Disney, now I'll be the creepy guy buying toys with no kids. Jerks.

    • reply
      February 5, 2014 4:58 AM

      This will so much bullshit if Disney does a classic corporate move and makes the Marvel and Star Wars separate versions that you have to buy instead just adding the characters in the game.

      That will only create confusion with the customers and also be just an evil move in order to sell all kinds of unnecessary extra for the game.

      • reply
        February 5, 2014 10:23 AM

        Thought about that. Hope that isn't the case. But, as you said, classic corporate maneuver.

Hello, Meet Lola