Disney Officially Cancels Console Game Publishing, Switching to Licensing Model

In addition to canceling further production and development on Disney Infinity, Disney confirmed to Comicbook.com that they're moving out of console gaming publishing altogether. In a statement from Jimmy Pitaro, chairman, Disney Consumer Products and Interactive Media, they announced they're moving to a licensing model exclusively for console gaming.

"After a thorough evaluation, we have modified our approach to console gaming and will transition exclusively to a licensing model," Pitaro said. "This shift in strategy means we will cease production of Disney Infinity, where the lack of growth in the toys-to-life market, coupled with high development costs, has created a challenging business model. This means that we will be shutting down Avalanche, our internal studio that developed the game. This was a difficult decision that we did not take lightly given the quality of Disney Infinity and its many passionate fans."

This means that future console games from the Disney originals, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars brands will all be handled outside of Disney Interactive. Currently, the Star Wars console license is held in an exclusive agreement with Electronic Arts, with games in development by EA studios DICE, BioWare, Visceral and Motive, and the newly announced game coming from Respawn Entertainment.

The question, then is in the future of Marvel games. LEGO has continued to develop console games for Marvel, but no other console games are in known development at the moment.

Disney Interactive did not announce any changes to their mobile gaming model, which is currently a mix of in-house and external developers on all of their brands.