Josh Taub and John Coyne
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How Activision plans to beat Disney with the marketing of Skylanders: Swap Force (interview)

Josh Taub and John Coyne

Skylanders: Swap Force will debut this fall as the third in the series of game-toy hybrid products that have sold more than $1 billion worth since 2011.  The new game has interchangeable body halves of Skylanders: Swap Force toys, allowing kids to mix and match their collections to create new kinds of game characters. Activision hopes that will lead to more repeat business at a time when it will face significant competition from Disney’s upcoming Infinity toy-game hybrid products launching in August.

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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.