Toys for Bob Recalls Nintendo's Reluctance to Skylanders Exclusivity

By Jorge Ba-oh 16.04.2014 10

Toys for Bob Recalls Nintendo

Developer Toys for Bob recalled how Nintendo weren't willing to make a full commitment to Skylanders.

In a feature exploring the origins of Activision's popular action/adventure franchise, studio co-founders Fred Ford and Paul Reiche described the initial pitch at Nintendo of America's offices.

Reiche said that "they were just like 'we have never seen anything like this before.' I've always wondered about the full meaning of that comment [laughs]." Despite the initial interest, Nintendo didn't want to make a full commitment to the concept, expect a general co-marketing deal. "Why it is that they didn't rush in here will probably haunt them for the rest of their days."

Consequently, Skylanders ended up venturing onto multiple platforms - including Nintendo's own.

Reiche believes that "if I was running Nintendo I would have jumped on this."

Do you think Nintendo should have signed an exclusivity deal for Skylanders?

Box art for Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure
Developer

Vicarious Visions

Publisher

Activision

Genre

3D Platformer

Players

1

C3 Score

Rated $score out of 10  n/a

Reader Score

Rated $score out of 10  0 (0 Votes)

European release date Out now   North America release date Out now   Japan release date None   Australian release date Out now   

Comment on this article

You can comment as a guest or join the Cubed3 community below: Sign Up for Free Account Login

Preview PostPreview Post Your Name:
Validate your comment
  Enter the letters in the image to validate your comment.
Submit Post

Comments

They didn't want Spyro's blood to be entirely on their hands.

It requires great courage to look at oneself honestly, and forge one's own path.


I'd rather not have Nintendo behind the murder of one of my favourite childhood characters. R.I.P Spyro.

For Nintendo's sake it would have been a fantastic asset though.

I certainly would've thought twice about going with the company that ran Guitar Hero into the ground. Could've made a fair bit of dosh though.

it is neat but i dont really see skylands as a system seller, im sure those who want the game, have it. Not only that but it won't be a long lasting thing, it may be sorta popular now but will fizzle out within this year or next. Nintendo aims for long term investments, not short term fads.

I don't know facts or numbers to back this up, but after reading this I feel like Activision regrets not being able to go exclusive with Nintendo and now they're trying to make Nintendo feel the same way they do, especially with quotes like:
"Why it is that they didn't rush in here will probably haunt them for the rest of their days."
"if I was running Nintendo I would have jumped on this."

Would Nintendo have gotten a cut of each Skylander toy sold? I kinda doubt it so I'm not exactly clear what the big loss is here for Nintendo (certainly nothing to be haunted about forever and ever).

( Edited 17.04.2014 23:29 by Sonic_13 )

it is neat but i dont really see skylands as a system seller,

I'm not exactly clear what the big loss is here for Nintendo

I think you guys genuinely underestimate how popular Skylanders is. Skylanders Giants sold 500,000 copies in the first 2 weeks on sale. Revenue from the franchise is over $2 billion (including toys), putting it in the top 20 video game franchises ever by revenue after just a couple of years. 
Yes, a lot of the cash comes from the toys, but it would be a system seller, and, let's not beat around the bush, the Wii U is still desperate for anything to drive the console forward. It doesn't really matter if the franchise won't be as popular in 5 years time, the medium-term impact would have been significant for Nintendo. It would also demonstate to 3rd parties that they can be massive successes on Nintendo systems, clearing a hurdle 3rd parties have had with Nintendo since...forever.

The thing is, if Nintendo did purchase the rights to it back when it was first shown to them and got that exclusivity deal, would it have even been as big as it was now? Part of the reason it's so successful is because it's on all machines. If it was Nintendo exclusive, I couldn't have seen it being such a success.

It's hard to really say if they made a mistake or not.

( Edited 18.04.2014 15:37 by Marzy )

Our member of the week

Marzy said:
The thing is, if Nintendo did purchase the rights to it back when it was first shown to them and got that exclusivity deal, would it have even been as big as it was now? Part of the reason it's so successful is because it's on all machines. If it was Nintendo exclusive, I couldn't have seen it being such a success.

It's hard to really say if they made a mistake or not.


THAT!

Cubed3 Limited Staff :: Review and Feature Writer

Marzy said:
The thing is, if Nintendo did purchase the rights to it back when it was first shown to them and got that exclusivity deal, would it have even been as big as it was now? Part of the reason it's so successful is because it's on all machines. If it was Nintendo exclusive, I couldn't have seen it being such a success.

It's hard to really say if they made a mistake or not.

I don't think that's a major issue. Sure, total sales would be less due to the smaller userbase, but the amount of hugely successful exclusive games demonstrate that it's not a major barrier to overcome. 

Subscribe to this topic Subscribe to this topic

If you are a registered member and logged in, you can also subscribe to topics by email.
Sign up today for blogs, games collections, reader reviews and much more
Site Feed
Who's Online?
jesusraz

There are 1 members online at the moment.