After posting a $229 million operating loss for its fiscal year that ended in March, Nintendo unveiled its new "Nintendo Figurine Platform" (NFP) last week to capitalize on its IP library in the exploding category of figure-based video game hybrids such as Activision’s Skylanders and Disney’s Infinity.Nintendo characterized the move as "a new business that will someday become one of our core activities." They will begin by releasing character figures with built-in NFC functionality that will be compatible across multiple software titles and devices across the Nintendo platforms. Nintendo plans to begin releasing the figures, which it characterizes as worthy collectibles in their own right as much as gaming hardware, for the year-end sales season.
The Skylanders property has done extremely well, with sales of more than $2 billion (175 million figures sold) as of February 2014, according to the company. They’ve previously revealed that sales in 2012 were about $500 million, so sales roughly tripled over the last year, to $1.5 billion in 2013.
Disney has done well with its Infinity game (see "Disney Sold 3 Million Starters") and recently announced it was adding Marvel and Star Wars characters to the mix (see "'Disney Infinity: Marvel Super Heroes'").
The Nintendo library of properties is rather deep, even looking past flagship property Mario, with Zelda, Pokemon, Donkey Kong, Kirby, Metroid, and Golden Sun (among others) to mine.
Sales of figure-based video games may already be having an impact on the action figure category (see "Action Figures in Decline"), as IP totem collectors rotate into the new figures, which also offer a robust video game experience. Still to be seen, especially as more figures tied to popular IPs hit the market, is whether the expanding category will start to take sales from figure-based tabletop games.