- Joined
- Nov 1, 2009
- Messages
- 17,750
- Awards
- 36
In an investors meeting held today, Jimmy Pitaro, Disney's Chairman of Consumer Products and Interactive Media, confirmed that the company will be discontinuing Disney Infinity This decision came from the struggling toys-to-life market and high development costs, leading them to make the difficult decision to cancel Infinity and shut down internal developer Avalanche Studios, thereby laying off close to 300 staff. They will take a $147 million charge with consideration for severance for employees, company assets, etc.
In doing so, they will be changing their approach to console gaming and focusing on licensing their properties to third parties, much like what they've been doing with Electronic Arts and Star Wars. This does, however, pose potential dilemmas for Kingdom Hearts. If other developers license Disney properties, Square Enix would have to pay those developers to use them, which could limit which worlds and characters can appear in future installments.
Infinity's cancellation means that a Sora figurine will never see the light of day, but playsets for Alice: Through the Looking Glass and Finding Dory will still be released as scheduled in June.
Our best wishes to the affected staff.
Source: VentureBeat, Ben Fritz