When most people think of Skylanders, they think of it as a video game with an accompanying toy component. It’s quite the opposite in my household. The toys get played with outside the game world more often than the game gets turned on. This real-world playability plays a big role in the Skylanders phenomenon.
Today Activision announced that Skylanders figures have outsold all other action-figure based properties year-to-date in the United States and Canada. This includes popular toy lines such as Pokemon, Marvel, Star Wars, Transformers and more.
Overall, the Skylanders franchise has moved over $1.5 billion worth of games and figures, and Skylanders Giants is the bestselling console and hand-held game in terms of dollars – keeping in mind the higher Starter Pack price – in North America and Europe in 2013.
As Activision and Vicarious Visions put the finishing touches on Skylanders Swap Force for its October 13 release, Disney Interactive will offer the first real competition for Skylanders with this Sunday’s launch of Disney Infinity. Both platforms use a similar “Toys to Life” architecture, but the actual games are quite different from one another. We will be dissecting these differences along with pros and cons for each in a future piece.
