Disney claims Infinity 2.0 beat out Skylanders in toy-game hybrid sales

Disney Interactive said that its Disney Infinity 2.0 edition beat out other rivals in the hybrid toy-game market to be the bestselling title in the category in 2014.

The toy-game hybrid market is a big growth category in entertainment, and it plays nicely into Disney’s broader “transmedia” strategy, or taking characters from films into toys and video games.

Based on data from the NPD Group’s December report, Disney Interactive said that it had the best sales in revenue and start pack sales in the U.S. That means it beat out rivals such as Activision’s Skylanders and Nintendo’s newly introduced Amiibo lineup.

Disney said it saw both increased sales and market share gains in the 2014 holiday season, compared to a year ago. Disney did not provide precise comparison numbers.

Activision may have been looking at a different set of numbers.

“Skylanders continues its leadership position as the No. 1 kids video game franchise globally as well as in the U.S. by wide margins. As a global franchise in 2014, Skylanders is 30 percent bigger than its nearest competitor. And Skylanders Trap Team outsold its nearest competitor globally by 17 percent,” said Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing, in a statement. “As the creators of the ‘Toys to Life’ category, we are thrilled to continue to lead it, in the face of increased competition, for the third consecutive year.”

Activision said it pulled its numbers from a wider set of global data from NPD, GfK, and internal estimates, rather than focusing on two months of U.S. retail data from NPD.

But Disney said that the Infinity franchise sales increased 16 percent in 2014, compared to the same period a year ago. It also said that Disney Infinity captured 47 percent of the total hybrid toy-game market in the holiday season, up from 43 percent in 2013.

Disney also said that the Infinity 2.0 Edition outperformed its lead competitor in both total starter pack sales and total sales revenue in 2014, even though it was available on three fewer game platforms. And it said that the Infinity 2.0 Edition Starter Packs outsold the lead competitor across every platform on which the game is available by 72 percent in 2014.

That’s not bad for its second year on the market.