Earlier this week we posted about Skylanders: Trap Team and the cool reveal that they were going to offer a kit that features a bluetooth summoning portal and iOS game controller. Towards the end of the story, I speculated that perhaps this Skylanders bundle would be the spark that starts the fire of massive amounts of iOS 7 controller adoption rates. This, of course, was all under the assumption that the included controller was just a normal iOS 7 game controller with some Skylanders branding on top.
…But, it’s not. We recently confirmed with Actvision that the Skylanders controller will only work with Skylanders games. Talk about a bummer. Now, instead of dropping $75 to get Trap Team, all the stuff to play it, and a controller to use with other stuff if you wanted… You’re basically just buying two more pieces of plastic from the pieces of plastic packed Skylanders universe.
Historically, app-specific iOS gaming hardware hasn’t done too well. I’d love to be wrong, but I suspect this Skylanders pack might be a lot like the Gameloft-backed DuoMobile controller which didn’t take too long before it was clearanced down to $6 on Amazon from its original $80 asking price.
C’est la vie, I suppose.
