Christmas: will Disney Infinity wipe out skylanders?

Here goes nothing...
I am going to say Disney Infinity. Here is why:

I am a Disney Collector. I am not Biased, I bought Skylanders Giants and about 30 figures (including all giants... Even the elusive Ninjini and all of the TRU exclusives) But as a future parent I will buy anything Disney related for my kids before something else for the simple fact that I can relate to it as well. and when my kid comes to my wife and says "Mom, I made a huge tower and made Mickey jump off of it with Buzz's jetpack and I almost crashed!" she would know exactly what he means. If he came to my wife and said "Mom, Crusher just went into the city of Arkus and defeated Kaos as he was trying to get the Iron Fist of Arkus!" My wife would politely respond... "Oh, that's nice... So does that mean you beat the game?"

My point is this. Parents relate to Disney because THEY grew up with Disney, they know Disney, they love DIsney. Disney is a failsafe in quality. The brand loyalty alone will make it outsell Skylanders. I won't say Skylanders will be bankrupt. They will still make Millions and do awesome things, but Disney in my opinion has the edge.

^ I totally agree with you. you make a awesome point,

@CueLannoo That makes sense, but there is still the newer characters (Ralph, Anna, etc.) that parents may not know.
Other than that, it was a great, spot-on speculation.

@Kyle I would think that is more likely if they have pre-teen or teen aged kids. If their kids are still young enough, then the parent would be around watching the Disney channel or Disney Jr. with them. They would also be the means for transport for the kid at that age. They would see the trailers or be looking for G and PG rated movies for those rainy summer afternoons.

Anecdote time: I know this is true with my parents. They took me to the first Harry Potter movie, but after that I was old enough to just get dropped off with friends or drive myself to the rest of the releases. They have no knowledge of the HP universe outside the first movie (or so). They bought the first movie on VHS and then got the DVDs after that, but they have never sat down to watch them themselves. They catch bits and pieces on cable, but without an interested child, they do not invest time into the franchise. When my youngest brother was little my mom knew every single name of every vehicle for Bob the Builder and the theme song, but after he got older he finds individual interests like Minecraft. She doesn't need to sit there with him and she is no longer his primary companion. It happens.

When I first saw the Skylanders pop-up, they were all branded with Spyro and I was interested, because I grew up with the Spyro games. Then I noticed that it bore little resemblance to the Spyro I knew and lost interest. I really liked the concept just not the story line or characters. There wasn't enough there for me to become involved especially when cost prohibitive. I did see the appeal to their main demographic: kids. Disney definitely appeals to multiple generations and is recognizable even just by the name, Disney, on the box. There is plenty of room in this market.

I feel like this could become the toy section of the future in stores. Imagine having entire departments in Toys 'R' Us or aisles at Target devoted to these type of hybrid figures. Right now the most expensive part for the consumer (and perhaps the producer) is the base. It will not go far if you need 18 bases to play all of these games. Although, if my understanding is correct, they wouldn't even need their own bases if they use the Wii U RFID enabled game pad. Nintendo has already established their ability to bring about innovation when the Wii introduced/popularized the movement games. Xbox and PS3 quickly followed suit. If this becomes profitable, you will see the other players join in. This could allow all sorts of players into this genre of toys. They will let two huge franchises break the ice and get people used to the idea and then they will crank out more of these. Being able to download the games when the toy is bought will also help. We may see this storage cability in the next generation of consoles or so. Now just to get gigabit internet speeds to be the norm instead of the exception...

This is really just the beginning of this genre (yes, I know this genre is older than Skylanders itself). It will be really neat to see what happens in the next 5 years.

@alecatq2 I agree.

@alecatq2 ... You make great points here. The "action figures" today are not a lot cheaper than these games. I personally enjoy Skylanders itch my kids, but Disney really has a chance to do something special. You are right about the bases as well. Wii U could be the go to for this type of game. The NFC also does not have to be limited to toys cards could work as well.

Yes, between figures, power discs, awesome gameplay, some reasons you guys stated (such as adults relating to disney), and/or kids who will wait 'till Christmas to get the full game, this blow skylanders out the water.

^I don't know, there are some pretty biased people out there.
Take this for an example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd_SEsCX7tc
The kids don't really seem to care about Infinity AT ALL, which I'm guessing is due to the fact it has nothing to do with Skylanders.
The boy harldy looks at the flyer, and the girl likes it, but denies it because it (Again) isn't Skylanders.

Kids aren't interested yet because kids haven't even SEEN IT yet. Trust me, once the real commericals roll out on TV and one kids gets it and starts a chain reacction this will get huge. I still don't think it will kill skylanders, but this will get huge.