About two months after revealing it would slow down the franchise's releases, Disney has announced that it will end the Infinity "toys-to-life" series altogether. It's part of a larger decision to call an end to its self-publishing of console games.
As a result of its decision to stop publishing its own console games, Disney was hit with a $147 million charge during the second quarter of its fiscal year, the company reported. An inventory write-down accounted for a large part of the charge, though it also included other impairments such as severance.
Back in March, Disney Interactive Studios reaffirmed its commitment to the Disney Infinity franchise despite announcing that it would slow down from an annual release schedule of the games.
With the tap now shut, the company is working on clearing out the pipeline before ripping the plumbing out of the wall, according to a blog post by John Blackburn, senior vice president and general manager for Disney Infinity.
This month, Disney Interactive Studios will release a trio of new characters from its Alice Through the Looking Glass IP and release the Finding Dory set next month, Blackburn stated.
"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," he said.
The Disney Infinity franchise was based on the toys-to-life formula, which employs real-world figurines, fitted with NFC radios, to interact with objects in game worlds. Taking note of the success developer and publisher Activision was having with the Skylanders franchise, Disney launched the Infinity line in 2013 to rival the other "toys-to-life" series.
Disney Infinity had amassed a large following, but the franchise was struggling to prove its financial worth to the company. During Disney's Q1 report, the company noted that the Infinity series was hurting its games business.
"At Games, growth was due to higher licensing revenue from the success of Star Wars: Battlefront, partially offset by lower Disney Infinity results," Disney stated (PDF). "The decrease from Disney Infinity was due to higher inventory reserves and lower unit sales volume."
