Disney's foray into the world of console gaming was, admittedly, not without a few speed-bumps.
The Infinity, which blended real-world action figures with a console game, was just about to turn a corner as the Star Wars universe was being put into the Infinity system. However, that's all done with as Disney officially announced yesterday that Infinity is, well, finite.
In an official statement, Disney confirmed that it is halting production on Infinity and is exiting the games console market entirely. "Our goal for Disney Infinity was to bring the best of Disney storytelling to life in homes around the world, and with your support we accomplished that. We hope you had as much fun playing the game as we had making it," said John Blackburn, GM of Disney Infinity.
Although opening to reasonably strong sales, Infinity didn't perform half as well as Disney had expected and were starting to feel the losses. This also means that Disney will now only licence out its characters and IPs to developers, rather than being actively involved in the process themselves.
This has been more or less the case for quite a while, with the likes of Star Wars: Battlefront being developed by DICE and games such as Epic Mickey being developed by Warren Spector and the now-defunct Junction Point Studios. However, it had expanded into self-publishing games with Infinity being the most well-known of their efforts.
It's a shame, really, as toy-to-life gaming has a lot of potential and it's hugely popular with younger players than anything else. That being said, trying to keep it all seem fresh and exciting is a tough ask. Just look at Rock Band and you'll see that having the same sort of set-up doesn't exactly last all that long.
