Skylanders now a "year-round franchise", toy releases to be staggered

Skylanders: Swap Force toys will be launched in smaller batches throughout the year moving forward, Activision has said.

Activision's Glenn Oliver told Polygon that about 20% of the total Swap Force roster remains to be released.

Rather than pump them out in large groups, the collectibles will be staggered in small waves - like the most recent group of five - every few months.

"This year we've expanded to a year-round franchise, meaning we've reserved more characters for 2014 than we normally would," he said.

"We wanted to take advantage of the fact that we know there are still a lot of opportunities, like birthdays and Easter, for gift-giving, and we want you to be able to go a store and buy new Skylanders."

Skylanders: Swap Force launched in October and November last year, for both current generations of consoles. It was developed by Vicarious Visions rather than Toys for Bob, which created the franchise - presumably to give Toys for Bob extra time to work on the first true next-gen Skylanders, which was revealed in Activision Blizzard's recent financial briefing.