Bringing plastic toys to life in video games is pretty good business, and Disney is already catching up with the company that invented the genre.
The House of Mickey Mouse held an event in Los Angeles today to discuss the next generation of its Disney Infinity interactive toy games, and it also revealed that the original release is already a financial success. Disney Infinity debuted in August, and sales of the $75 starter pack have already surpassed 3 million. That doesn’t include sales of any of the figure or “power disc” packs, which are physical items that players can zap into the game by placing them on a USB-connected device.
In terms of total sales revenue, Infinity “outperformed” publisher Activision’s Skylanders franchise since August of last year, according to Disney Interactive president Jimmy Pitaro.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean that Skylanders is crashing and burning. Pitaro pointed out that sales for interactive-gaming toys grew 79 percent from 2012 to 2013. He explained that his team believes the market has plenty of room for both products.
Disney Infinity was the 10th best-selling new physical game at retail in the U.S. last year, according to industry-tracking firm The NPD Group. Skylanders: Swap Force came in at No. 13 on that list. Both games also occupy huge amounts of shelf space at toy stores.
Activision debuted Skylanders in 2011, and the game instantly caught on with a younger audience. The franchise has since gone on to generate more than $2 billion in revenue. Later this year, the publisher will debut Skylanders: Trap Team, which is the fourth entry in the series. This will also see the release of several new action figures that are not compatible with previous Skylanders games, which is a business model that Disney is adopting.
Disney will release Infinity 2.0 later this year with an entirely new game disc and starter kit that includes Marvel characters. They will join a cast that already includes stars of Disney properties like Pirates of the Caribbean, Cars, and Toy Story.
