Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure Could Have Been a Nintendo Exclusive

I honestly feel like it was a silly oversight on Nintendo's part. They should have went for it. Shoulda, woulda, coulda. Oh well.

The amount of money they could have made is insane bet Nintendo are kicking themselves over that decision.

Their statement is a little arrogant, but having any Wii U exclusives would be a big help right now

@TopLaytonsHat Skylanders is worth around $2 billion I think so what they said is not completely untrue.

This would be one of those cases where Nintendo's obstinate business conservatism (not to be confused with political conservatism!) bit them hard in the behind though, to be fair, who knows how far up the food chain this ever got without Reiche naming names as to who received and vetted the initial pitch.

@Jazzer94 I'm gonna guess most of the revenue comes from the dolls, since the last two games haven't sold all that well.

"rest of their days" might be a a bit over, but the amount of money and interest that series picked is incredible and Big N probably is hating themselves a bit for that. Think about how many Wii Us they could have sold if the series stayed exclusive!

In Nintendo's defense, no one knew this was gonna be as big as it is.

I would be seriously broke if Nintendo had some sort of NFC toys to go along with Smash Bros. I can't see them doing it other than to unlock special new characters, but I would spend all my money on the figures.

And it's totally not like Nintendo to rip off another game like Skylanders, but imagine a Smash Bros spin off 3D adventure game with collectible figures like Skylanders. That would be brilliant. Plus an awesome way for Nintendo to start making some money again. I'm hoping E3 will not be a disappointment this year.

facepalm

@Jazzer94 But would it still be worth that much if it had been restricted to just Nintendo Consoles?

@TheAdza

They'd have the 3D models to do the figurines through the smash bros trophies. Problem is it would kill my bank account and what little shelf space I have left

Well, I'm just happy that I can get my Skylanders on a Nintendo console. But now I can't help but think of what could've been...

But let's not forget, Nintendo DOES have plans on revealing new, Wii U exclusive, NFC games at this E3!

Who remember when Spyro was a PlayStation exclusive!?

Well the man's right - the Wii U isn't exactly in the best of states right now. This could have helped stop the console from falling into the rut it's it right now. Be that as it may, Nintendo made a choice and unfortunately it backfired on them.

With that said, if Mario Kart 8 & Super Smash Bros don't help the Wii U in sales, I don't know what will.

Haunt themselves for the rest of their days? I agree with what others said, that sounds incredibly arrogant, not very professional either. Don't get me wrong, I realize this was a huge missed opportunity, but it was just as possible Nintendo could've blown a ton of money there, and I'm thinking it was likely they felt they had enough risky balls in the air as it was. And there is no telling if it would've been nearly as successful if it wasn't multiplatform. I'm sure Nintendo realized the risk of missing out on a lot of money (as well as the risk of it simply draining a lot of money) and was prepared to deal with it when they made their decision. I'm also sure they realize there's no guarantee it would've been a success if they took the offer, there's so many variables.

Just add it to the ever-growing list of Nintendo's mistakes.

Oh well, Wii U has Sonic Boom now. It'll be just as big, right? Right?

I don't think this was a mistake on Nintendo's part. Isn't Skylander's basically a direct competitor to Pokemon?

@NickieBoy Back when people remembered Crash was Sony only as well.

@Dreamz Not sure if those two are even in the same league.
@WiiULoveGBA Here's hoping. All depends on the success the TV Series can hype and bring out.

If it had been an exclusive for Wii it probably wouldn't have gotten as big as the series has. It probably would have been seen as a short lived fad (since everything Wii was viewed that way when something new came to the console) and never would have seen the success it has with being released on multiple platforms.

Well I'm sure for every Skylanders proposal Nintendo is shown there are many others that come to Nintendo that also don't end up being fit and not any big hit.

um, no. A 3rd party game on Wii would not have sold $2 bil worth. Not even on DS or 3DS, certainly not on Wii U. Whoever made that comment should show us the per console #s. I bet 3DS is very low and Wii U is almost nil. Disclamier I bought Swap-Force on Wii U and Spyro on 3DS. Also, the Spyro port on Gamecube (forget which one, Enter the Dragonfly maybe) is to this day the worse put together piece of slideshow garbage I have ever played on any system. Barely playable.

And besides, if anybody at Nitneod has any sense there will be a Pokemon toy game. And maybe toys are the reason for the SSB hold-up on Wii U.

I'm sure it might be a minor regret for Nitnedo, but their probably over it by now.

It would have been interesting to see what the sales figure would have been if it was a Nintendo exclusive. Like others have commented I doubt sales would have been as impressive.

While it would probably have still been a big enough hit as a Nintendo exclusive that those who made the decision are probably cursing under their breath right now, I don't think it will haunt them always. There is no guarantee that Skylanders popularity will last that far into the future, and it becomes a riskier investment with each new iteration, where it tries to make itself more and more complex to keep ahold of children's attention. All it needs is for one iteration to be expensive to produce and for that iteration to flop badly, for it to be the end of the franchise.
That haunting statement would better describe the publisher who turned down the Harry Potter books…
Trying to work out what will be a success and what is doomed to fail is near impossible. And even after something is a success after it was turned down elsewhere first, you can't be sure it would have been the same success. Anything from a different marketing approach, a different time of release or a different presentation of the packaging (or book cover) can have an effect.

@rjejr Spyros Adventure actually did pretty good on 3DS.

I think the best benefit would have been converting the idea into a Pokemon game....is skylanders still that popular

@rjejr That is a good point. This comment doesn't factor in the success on non-Nintendo systems

i miss spyro

I hope Nintendo makes their own equivalent. I'd love to see that. Real life smash bro trophies, anyone?

Hm, I don't think Skylanders would've been nearly as successful as a Nintendo-exclusive. And the first Skylanders didn't sell quite as well as Giants and Swap Force, which probably wouldn't have been Nintendo-only either way.

But by now, I can see Nintendo preparing Smah Trophies as collectibles which could provide alternative appearances for a character, an in-game verson of the bought trophy, and/or new content in other ways. Though I doubt they'd ever go so far as to make characters unlockable only by scanning the fitting trophy toy.

Eruptor looks so weird in that image!

I'm glad Ninteno stayed true to themselves and didn't let their own incompetence stand in the way of other people's well deserved success. But Nintendo wouldn't recognize a business opportunity if it trashed their board room table. They're too busy reskinning the 90s in 720p for us.

If it would have been a Nintendo exclusive the Skylanders probably would all have been replaced by Pokemon! Either way, I guess I would have passed!

This is just my opinion, but I don't think an alternate universe Nintendo exclusive Skylanders would've been anywhere near as successful as it is now since one of the major selling points for parents in the beginning was allowing kids to be able to bring their characters with their own custom stats and decorations to their friend's place to play no matter what system they had as long as their friends also had a copy of Spyro's Adventure.

Being a Nintendo exclusive from the start would've severely limited the audience for the game. Also, let's not forget all the hate Skylanders received for being a game with expensive on disc locked content unless there were extra purchases made. If Nintendo partnered with Activision for an exclusive, they would've received much of that criticism as well. How many parents would've wanted to spend that much on Skylanders when it's possible their choice of the Wii console would likely be because it's the lowest price compared to PS3 and 360?

Skylanders being an exclusive (for any console) would just be a bad business decision, both back when it started and right now. Activision and TFB should be really grateful Nintendo didn't partner with them on Skylanders. If they had, I think it's very likely Activision just wouldn't have the Skylanders money machine they have today. Nintendo totally made the right decision and it was to the benefit to all parties involved.

I still would like a Skylanders and Pokemon crossover game though...that also used existing figures from the Skylanders series and the few released for Rumble U. Maybe for the 3DS versions, c'mon!!

Skylanders would not have caught on that late in the Wii's life. It has been a mass success but it required it to be multiplatform.

Secondly at the time it seemed consumers were moving away from add ons of Wii Fit, Guitar Hero, Rock Band, DJ Hero, Tony Hawk,

I'm a huge Skylanders fan but Nintendo made the right decision here and it ultimately worked out for both Nintendo and Activision. It's easy to say it was a bad decision now (hindsight is 20/20) but think about the timing of the original game (Wii was on its way out and Wii U was a year away), the massive investment required and the huge customer backlash towards the very concept of DLC (let alone expensive physical DLC).

Nintendo has had the opportunity to buy many developers/IPs (Factor 5, Rare and now Skylanders) and while they have always been inviting/supportive to the developers, every time they made a move like this it just didn't work out for them (Eternal Darkness and Geist spring to mind). As much as people want to paint a pretty picture of Retro Studios, nobody wants to remember the absolute nightmare that was for Nintendo in the beginning (an expensive nightmare to boot). They eventually had to come in personally, strip down the studio and its projects and oversee Metroid Prime personally and that is not a cheap process.

Nintendo hasn't gotten to where they are now (no debt, billions in cash and the most profitable game franchises in history) by taking on the risks of other developers. At this point, they dip their tows into something they believe in (Wonderful 101, Bayonetta 2) and when the Gamers whine and complain and sales are crap, they go back to making fresh game ideas based on one of their existing franchises (which people will buy). I completely understand Nintendo's approach and can't fault them despite being disappointed by some of the developments surrounding the Wii U (it is still one of my favorite Nintendo consoles). They have been around for over 100 years with over 30 of those years being in video games and they have survived every console generation since entering the market so despite the mainstream gaming media wanting them to crash and burn, I think Nintendo has a long life ahead of it without the need for gimmick based franchises (and yes, I still love Skylanders while being able to recognize it as a gimmick).

@rjejr Well Pokemon Scramble for the Wii U has toys though I haven't really seen them around much.

You win some and you lose some, so I'm not going to chastise Nintendo for this. Its so easy to criticize business moves in hindsight and we don't even know all the specifics of the deal. Ninty is probably regretting this a lot though. Skylanders sells the best on their platform but I believe the franchise has grossed something like 2 Billion dollars or so. That's has to hurt a little.

Seeing as we don't have all the information on the deal, I bet there were some factors that caused Nintendo not to do this. But just from this info Nintendo probably saw that they could do something else with the tech and that is why the GamePad has NFC in it... just a guess

New tech from a foreign company.. It was probably considered to much of a risk.

But that's how it goes. I doubt it'll haunt them though, its just business. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. Things are unpredictable.

Well all three games sold DOUBLE on Wii as they did on 360/PS3 combined, so I think the Wii was okay.

The Wii U, however, could definitely have benefited from the exclusivity.

Utter idiots. Just another example of nintendo's directionless steering for the last few years. It's just a video game version of the titanic at the moment and that iceberg is coming nearer.

they need a new captain NOW

Seems like Nintendo missed out some extra money. But they usually make decisions for long term. For how many more years do you think Skylanders will be popular? I don't feel like there will be an attachment to that IP, but more so the concept.

I've said this before: I will go nuts and buy every figurine if they release their own skylanders/disney infinity with Nintendo stuff. That would be epic.

Since no one knows anything about the terms or financial side of the deal its impossible to say if this was a good or bad decision. There are 100 things to consider when making a business deal.

Also if Nintendo were really kicking themselves they would just buy them, they are only worth 2 Billion and their actual yearly revenue is obviously nowhere near that, once you restrict that revenue to just Nintendo consoles and toys its a lot less.

The obvious answer is that Nintendo could be planning something similar (i'm thinking Pokémon).

It probably wouldn't have gotten as big as it is right now if it were a Nintendo console exclusive really.

To be honest, I don't think it'd really matter one way or the other.

Whenever I see Skylanders stuff ANYWHERE (on TV, at Walmart, at GameStop), the only versions I see are 3DS, Wii, and Wii U.

I don't know if that's got to do with the other versions selling like hotcakes or just better marketing for the Nintendo consoles. I swear I even saw a Wii U GamePad in one commercial.

@JuanitoShet Zelda main series. Lots of people who only care about that.

Funny how the latest installment, Swap Force (2013) has been selling the best on Wii.

Funny how the latest installment, Swap Force (2013) has been selling the best on Wii.

I don't have any interest in buying ANY toys (nothing wrong with it, it's just not for me) but why do the Pokemon Rumble dolls look so ugly?

@XFsWorld - Wow, really? My kid hated that game. My wife tired to play it but she didn't like it either. guess I thought it's rep as not being as good as the original mean it didn't sell well. mea culpa

@Ernest_The_Crab - As far as I could tell, those toys were exclusive to Gamestop, which kept them in a box behind the cash register, and they were hidden in eggs so you couldt even buy the one you want, and the game was eshop only so it dindt really have any retail presence. And to top i tall off the game was piddling at best. 4 hours, my kids beat it in 2 days, and almost never went back to it. They played the Wiiware version for about 100 hours. And probably 20 or 30 or so on 3DS.

It was a failure waiting to happen on every conceivable level.

I remember when Skylanders was first announced I was like "eww, what an ugly Spyro" and then "Heh plastic crap, didn't crpativision learn from Guitar hero". I imagine many of you felt the same so you can't be all like "Nintendo should have picked it up"

@FineLerv That is the design they used in my Pokemon ranch. You know the developer Ambrella thought Polygons would be good idea for displaying up to 1000 Pokemon on screen with. Leaves you with very few polygons per Pokemon hence the art style.

I'm was not super impressed with Skylanders but it does sell like crazy with little kids i guess. Could it have driven Wii U sales a little better? Certainly, however, to me the concept of Skylanders feels like a mediocre game with a ton of unexciting downloadable content, that u can't even download, but instead have to purchase in a retail store. I don't think that kind of shiest is Nintendo's bag and that may have been why they passed.

This would've definitely helped the WiiU. Ah well.. Ninten will learn, I just hope it won't be too late when they do.

Is Skylanders really a thing? I see the toys everywhere but never anyone buying them, and I certainly don't know anyone who has it.

@Starwolf_UK "That is the design they used in my Pokemon ranch. You know the developer Ambrella thought Polygons would be good idea for displaying up to 1000 Pokemon on screen with. Leaves you with very few polygons per Pokemon hence the art style."

Yeah, it was an ugly design then as well. Either way, toys aren't limited by processing power so there isn't any reason to keep the Blockachu design.

@arkady77: Rather, you should double check the native resolutions of 'brand new' games like Donkey Kong: Tropial Freeze. (psst, it's 720p upscaled.)

But as a true fan of course you don't care as long as it's published by Nintendo, which is why they love to screw us over. (But you would curse any third party dev as "lazy" and "inept" for the same thing and refuse to buy it.)

bs free Nintendo said that about the resolution, in a lucid moment, I presume. But I don't really care, I just found the quip about 720p somewhat ironic given the circumstances.

"nintendo are a bs free zone in the industry" is certainly a good one though. Iwata kind of redefined the term this last year.

This is just another example of N executives making horrible management decisions. Remember when Nintendo created the Playstation in partnership with Sony, then decided to back out at the last second, which angered Sony so much they chose to go solo with the PS. This Skylander farkup is only slightly less dumb.