Disney Interactive Studios is today going to announce the release of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian games, which are coming out in the spring of 2008.
Disney’s renewed focus on video games will be on display today, when the company plans to announce an online community called D-Gamer.
The service, which is slated to launch next spring alongside the company’s release of the “Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” movie and games next year, will let kids build their own characters and socialize around Disney’s games.
And it appears that the games will be released on the Nintendo DS and Wii. Although that should be obvious (as the Wii is the fastest selling and best console of the latest generation), it is good to know.
It already has 700 developers in four studios in Glendale; Salt Lake City; Brighton, England; and Vancouver, Canada.
Disney needs that talent to ramp up its game and shrug off the reputation that kids’ titles are too lightweight.
“Kids today are sophisticated gamers,” Hopper said. “It’s our job to provide safe content, but with the sophistication they expect.”
Disney isn’t likely to overtake industry leaders EA, which had $3.1 billion in sales last year, or Activision Inc., which had revenue of $1.5 billion in the last fiscal year. EA is based in Redwood City, Calif. Activision is based in Santa Monica.
But the company is leading with its strengths by focusing on family-oriented games for the wildly popular Nintendo DS hand-held and Wii consoles, IDC analyst Pidgeon said.
“They have the content and they’re focusing on the right platforms,” he said.