So I'm currently going through old bombcasts and the one i'm listening to at the moment is GDC '09 Day One. At one point (about 46m20s in) Paul Barnett is describing U.B. Funkeys (it uses USB toys in conjunction with a video game) and how no-one at GDC had heard of it or thought much of it. He marvels at this idea, it "sold millions" and he says it was made by Hasbro but according to the wiki, it was made by Ubisoft & Mattel. Paul says "It's not the answer, but it's a bloody close miss". Given that it apparently sold very well, I wonder what he meant by a "close miss"? All I could think of the whole way through is how strikingly similar to Skylanders it all sounded. I just thought it interesting to highlight this in light of Skylanders recent success. I wonder what Paul thinks of Skylanders and are his kids into it?

Yeah, I remember that now you mention it. Skylanders basically takes that idea and blows it up to a full sized game. If I recall, Paul was talking about how something similar to the UB Funkeys could be the next big thing with kids, which was what he was referring to with the "close miss" comment. They had the right idea and it sold reasonably, but didn't exactly reach the insanely popular hights that something like this had the potential to. And he was spot on. Just look at Skylanders. 20 million Skylanders figures sold speaks for itself. It is the next big thing. Skylanders hit the nail on the head.

@MattyFTM said:

Yeah, I remember that now you mention it. Skylanders basically takes that idea and blows it up to a full sized game. If I recall, Paul was talking about how something similar to the U.B. Funkeys could be the next big thing with kids, which was what he was referring to with the "close miss" comment. They had the right idea and it sold reasonably, but didn't exactly reach the insanely popular hights that something like this had the potential to. And he was spot on. Just look at Skylanders. 20 million Skylanders figures sold speaks for itself. This was the next big thing.

Thanks for the clarification. I know next to nothing about U.B. funkeys. So it isn't as full-blown a game as Skylanders I take it?

@djames216 said:

@MattyFTM said:

Yeah, I remember that now you mention it. Skylanders basically takes that idea and blows it up to a full sized game. If I recall, Paul was talking about how something similar to the U.B. Funkeys could be the next big thing with kids, which was what he was referring to with the "close miss" comment. They had the right idea and it sold reasonably, but didn't exactly reach the insanely popular hights that something like this had the potential to. And he was spot on. Just look at Skylanders. 20 million Skylanders figures sold speaks for itself. This was the next big thing.

Thanks for the clarification. I know next to nothing about U.B. funkeys. So it isn't as full-blown a game as Skylanders I take it?

It seems something more akin to a facebook social game than something on the scale of Skylanders, but I'm not an expert on it myself.

Apple didn't invent the smartphone, but they made it successful. Same thing here.

@Alexandruxx said:

Apple didn't invent the smartphone, but they made it successful. Same thing here.

Apple made mp3's successful, iphones are successful due to ignorance,,

@djames216: I thought of that exact Bombcast as soon as I started putting together the Skylanders display at work.

@Alexandruxx said:

Apple didn't invent the smartphone, but they made it successful. Same thing here.

The thing is though, apple kinda did invent the smartphone. Or at least they reinvented the smartphone. Prior to the iPhone we basically had Blackberry and Windows Mobile 6. Both of which were bigger clunky things with keyboards, all marketed towards businesses. Android prototypes were out there, and even they were basically cloning these already existing products. Nothing even close to a modern smartphone existed. Apple came along and completely changed the market. The iPhone changed what a smartphone was. It completely changed everything. What we now know as a smartphone is completely different to older smartphones, and Apple did invent these newer smartphones.

But either way, we're getting off topic. Yeah, Activision went and took an already existing idea, expanded upon it and made it incredibly successful. You can certainly draw paralels to Apple with both the iPhone and iPod.