Snap Shot of Skylanders: Trap Team
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72 million kids in the world want smart toys, right now, please!

Kids are buying into digital toys like Skylanders, a hybrid video game and toy product from Activision, in a big way. The number of children who want such smart toys — which provide both physical and digital entertainment — has topped 72 million worldwide, according to the GameByte study by market research firm Interpret.

Toys that integrate both physical toys and video games have a high chance for success across most major kids markets, according to Michael Cai, an analyst at Interpret. The demand is spread across on number of different geographic markets, based on surveys on demand among kids for smart toys.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.