Activision passes on putting out a new Skylanders console game this year

Activision Blizzard recently posted an earning report showing strong sales (more from Overwatch than Call of Duty), but in a follow-up call with investors the company confirmed it will not be putting out a new Skylanders game on consoles this year.

Given that there's been at least one new Skylanders game on consoles every year for the past six years, it's surprising to see the company take a pass on putting one out this year.

It's a bit reminiscent of last March, when Disney announced it would not release a 2016 entry in its own (now defunct) toys-to-life game series Disney Infinity. Two months later Disney canned the entire franchise, shuttered its developer and exited console game publishing entirely.

That left some of us wondering what the future holds for toys-to-life games; Activision Blizzard seems to think it lies on mobile devices, as the company confirmed to investors that it plans to release a mobile Skylanders game later this year, as well as a Nintendo Switch port of its 2016 game Skylanders: Imaginators.

We should also point out that Activision executed a round of layoffs this week, letting go of employees across internal studios, Infinity Ward, the company's corporate office, and the Activision-owned Beenox, which has worked on several Skylanders games in the past.