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Does the Skylanders and Amiibo crossover signal a shift for Nintendo? | #E32015
Nintendo Co Ltd is not always known for playing well with third party developers. In fact, a lack of third party titles has been a complaint against Nintendo consoles since the Gamecube.
So it came as a bit of a shock when the Japanese game maker announced that its beloved Amiibo figures would be crossing over with Activision’s own popular “toys to life” franchise, Skylanders. The move was so unexpected, Time referred to it as “historically unprecedented.”
Nintendo’s somewhat lackluster E3 presentation, which was little more than a series of pre-recorded videos, contained plenty of evidence that the company is still pushing hard for Amiibo sales, with new games and figures set to come out over the coming year.
So far, Amiibo have all been used for first party Nintendo titles, but the studio announced that Skylanders: SuperChargers will support special Donkey Kong and Bowser figures that would be hybrid toys that are both Amiibo and Skylander.
Skymiibos?
According to Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg, the partnership with Nintendo had been in the works for some time.
“All the way back when we were developing the first Skylanders game, about four years ago, Nintendo was one of the first groups outside of Activision that we shared Skylanders with,” Hirshberg told Time. “As early as all the way back then, this was in that space, and so it didn’t take too long for people’s imaginations to go there. It’s been discussed from both perspectives for a while, but it wasn’t until last year at E3 that it got more concrete, as Nintendo revealed its Amiibo plans, and that’s when we got more specific with it.”
The new Donkey Kong and Bowser figures will work not only with Skylanders: SuperChargers, but also with standard Amiibo titles like Smash Bros.
While this partnership represents an interesting direction for Nintendo, the company has not gone completely off the rails. The Amiibo/Skylander hybrids will only work for the Wii U and 3DS versions of Skylanders: SuperChargers. They will not function one the Xbox One or the PlayStation 4 version of the game.
Image credit: Nintendo / Activision
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