Activision has just unveiled its Skylanders Creator app. This sucks characters from the console version of Imaginators and enables players to tweak and order 3D printed versions of their creations - as well as T-Shirts and Cards, too.
The app is quite low-tech in its connectivity. Select transfer from the Wii U and it plays an encoded tune that is detected by the app and includes all the information about the particular Imagination creation.
While you can edit and create new Skylanders on the Creator app, you can't transfer them back to the console directly. Instead you order cards or 3D prints of your characters in physical form. These are then placed on the Wii U Portal to bring them into the game.
There's no pricing for this yet, and it will be crucial that it's not too expensive. Get the price right though and families will be keen to see their children's character creations in real physical Skylander form.
Comments (34)
Who's ready to spend more money?
You can sure bet I'm not!
My son might love this. Let's see where the pricing falls.
THIS IS GETTING WAY OUT OF HAND PEOPLE
Sold all of my Skylanders stuff last weekend.
IT'S AN NFC CARD!! They beat Pokemon to the punch! Genius. Toys will be expensive, they probably don't want to be overwhelmed w/ orders, but those NFC cards will be rolling like the Sunday paper. Where the heck are my Mii NFC cards, dagnabbit!?!
@AlexSora89 Oh come on, who didn't see this coming? 3D printers have been heading this way for years, the entire idea of Imaginators was probably based on it being a never ending supply of income.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1046240/Mini-me-Asdas-3D-printing-turns-people-realistic-figurines.html
If this tech was available when "Spore" released the world would already be overrun w/ plastic phallic creatures as if they were Tribbles.
Too bad this wasn't last years game. Racers turned a lot of people off of Skylanders, this might not be enough to get them back. though add the camera into the "App", let people take pictures of their own faces to put on the toys and cards, now your talking.
Still not sure when will be picking this up, maybe next August when it's half price, but we will make a card or 2 just b/c of the NFC tech.
Nintendo should have done this for the mii fighter amiibos! This is actually what I thought they were going to do
According to this article on Gmaeinofromer - which says you CAN transfer your character from the app to your game, so 1 of them is wrong - the cards are $14.99, toys are $49.99, but sounds like they will be very limited, so dont' plan on getting one.
http://www.gameinformer.com/games/skylanders_imaginators/b/playstation4/archive/2016/10/03/you-can-create-your-new-skylander-with-app-get-it-printed-in-3d.aspx
I do like the beeping mechanism, never seen anything like that before.
This sounds amazing, actually. If this had came out 14 years ago, I would have loved this.
Okay, that's really cool!!
Neat, but it'll probably be quite expensive. As if skylanders wasn't expensive enough.
these toys to life figures should be brought into art academy. plop a skylander onto the nfc reader and you get a posable movable model to serve as subject for artistic rendition. that way, they'll have use, even if you jsut buy the figures without the base. nab the rights to the discontinued disney infinity figures too.
Actually there is a price, they listed it as $50 for a figure, $25 for a shirt, and $15 for a card. I really thought the figure would be more expensive, so this means I can actually afford to make a few of my best characters into toys
@GamePerson19 That would be awesome! I've always fantasised the idea of having your own physical figure of your mii!
That is really neat!
@Shard1
Seems a bit funny that I read this when I read your comment on the zelda amiibos
My son will definitely be interested in this. I reckon I'll let him get one figure of his favourite creation and maybe a couple of cards.
That's actually a really cool idea in terms of creativity and business. Nice thinking Toys for Bob!
As previously mentioned I would love a Mii like that.
@Xaessya
I selectively splurge, I suppose. Really because the Skylanders games were really good at the beginning and then they kind of dropped in quality. Meanwhile the Zelda games always deliver. (At least the ones I've played) I would gladly spend 100+ dollars on Zelda stuff when compared to Skylanders. Some of the Skylanders have just been unimaginative, so to speak. They're running out of ideas, I think.
@rjejr But... Pokemon technically did NFC cards first with the GBA card reader. It just wasn't NFC per-se, not in the current sense but it performed basically the same role. You swiped/scanned a special Pokemon card that contained a special metallic strip to use that card in the third Trading Card Game.
@Jamotello Or you could just... I don't know... Use the figure itself?
@kamifox1 posable.
@kamifox1 Well then what are they waiting for w/ the new NFC tech? They put a chip reader in both the Wii U and New 3DS, why not make Pokemon cards, why line the stores shelves w/ AC toys nobody wants?
OK, that kind of read as yelling, but it's not at you, just wondering out loud. I mean, could they have made a worse Pokemon game than Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival?
But ok, Pokemon was first, I'll give it to you. Or them. Whoever wants it can have it.
Pretty cool stuff, though I won't be picking it up. My only plastic figure fetish at this time is amiibo. I'd committed myself to Disney Infinity and amiibo alone, but with the former a bust (for now) I've decided to collect only amiibo. I'll pickup the base Skylander Creator game with Crash either Black Friday or for next to nothing this coming spring. I still have around a hundred Skylanders that my kids enjoy playing with from time to time, but the Infinity toybox and random Amiibo usage models are more appealing to them.
An interesting side note on Disney Infinity is that I was at a GameStop a week ago and one of their associates claimed that a former Avalanche manager had come in and told him this might not be the end of Disney Infinity and for him to "keep watching for more developments that would make use of the platform". If true (and if taken with a huge bag of salt) it sounds like the franchise could be picked up by another developer and be licensed out by Disney. Even if they didn't make any additional figures, it would be interesting to see what (if anything) develops for using the Disney Infinity platform.
@rjejr Lol, I'm wondering the same thing, honestly. Why don't they make a new TCG using NFC cards and AR? (for the record, they did also use the NFC figurine idea in Pokemon Rumble U but that kinda fell flat)
am I the only one who loathe's sky landers?
I'm usually not interested in Skylanders, but this idea seems pretty nice. After all, this creates even more ideas for these Skylanders instead of destroying the Spyro series even more.
@kamifox1 I bought my WiiU in part for PRU. We even got a free figure at Gamestop. I played for about an hour, my kids for 2 days. What a waste. Every other Rumble game is so much better, even the free one. And the toys were junk. So sad.
@rjejr
And now I'll have nightmares of dongs with the EA logo engraved on them. Thank you, fine fellow!
This could actually be interesting if it applied to Amiibos and Nintendo characters.
Amiibo Maker...
@Shard1 ??????????
Why make your own when you can just play as Crash Bandicoot or Dr. Neo Cortex?
WOW. This is... Insanely cool. Not a fan of the NFC game myself, but this idea has me intrigued.
HA! AUSTRALIA GETS IT FIRST!
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