When the Apple TV launched, Disney sold (and continues to sell) a $100 Disney Infinity 3.0 Star Wars-themed bundle that included a Disney Infinity Base and controller designed to work with the Disney Infinity 3.0 game on the Apple TV, encouraging people to adopt Disney Infinity 3.0 on the set-top box.
At the time, Disney promised to bring the full Disney Infinity 3.0 Edition console experience to the device, but it appears Disney is reneging on that promise, abandoning development of Disney Infinity 3.0 on the Apple TV.
According to a recent customer service response shared by our sister site TouchArcade, Disney currently has no plans to update the Apple TV version of the Disney Infinity 3.0 app. The response was given to a customer who asked if new Disney Infinity figures would work with the Apple TV.
The team is currently focusing on the traditional gaming platforms. We are always evaluating and making changes, but there are currently no plans for futher updates to the Apple TV version of the game. Please keep an eye out for further news about this, and feel free to contact Support if you have any questions.
Disney Infinity enthusiasts who use the Apple TV app are understandably upset about Disney's decision not to update the game after just four months, as it means development has effectively come to a halt and no new characters will be supported, including new Marvel Battleground figures which some people purchased before learning of the incompatibility issue. It also means Disney has no plans to fix bugs that are currently affecting the tvOS app.
As TouchArcade points out, Disney may have made this decision due to poor app sales and revenue generation on the Apple TV. Games and apps have not proven to be as popular on the new platform as they are on iOS, with some popular Apple TV games even bringing in less than $100 per day.
Disney has updated its Disney Infinity website with a new disclaimer noting not all content is available for PC, Steam, iPhone, iPad, Windows, Amazon, Google Play, and Apple TV. The latest Marvel Battlegrounds figures are compatible only with PlayStation 3 and 4, Wii U, Xbox One, and Xbox 360.
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For the record, Apple already said that the holiday quarter Apple TV sales were the best ever and doubled the number of sales for the year thus far.
As for the Apple Watch, most analysts agree that Apple sold between 12 million and 14 million units in 2015, and this estimate is supported by the rise in income from the division that includes the Apple Watch. Not bad for six months of actual availability, I'd say.
The truth of the matter is that Apple's worst-selling product beats nearly all other companies' best selling product unless you go by the name of Google or Samsung. Apple TV and Apple Watch don't sell on the scale of the iPhone, certainly, but they were never designed to. They were designed to be successful and the market leader, and in both cases they are.
I remember people saying that the iPhone was certainly flopping because they NEVER saw people using iPhones on the bus in San Francisco. They reported seeing more Windows Mobile devices than iPhones, more Blackberry phones than iPhones, and took this as evidence that the iPhone was failing to gain traction. This was about 1 year into the life of the iPhone, roughly where we are today with the Apple Watch.....
The reason your analysis doesn't work is because the sample size is ludicrously small (geographically and demographically). It would be like predicting a general election based on people in your neighbourhood. There's a pretty good chance you would be way, way off target. That's how come people wind up convinced that the election has been 'fixed'. Well, the world is a big place.....
The starter pack is more expensive for ATV and contains the same characters and level you get on other platforms. Plus the Logitech controller and the Bluetooth base.
The biggest problem is the starter pack. It's possible there's a large ATV audience that will already own Disney Inifinty 3.0 for another platform. The ATV will just enable another way to access the game. People don't want to buy a starter pack with characters and a level that they already own.
If Disney would release the base as a standalone, it's possible more people would be playing the game on ATV. Apple is in good standing with Disney, so it would be good for both to agree on exclusive characters and/or power ups for the ATV.
$99 is likely pushing people away. The ATV is not a premium platform. Change the game to be Pay-Once of $15-20 and sell the base and/or exclusive bundle. That might do it.
If they really want to stop support then that sucks. Disney Inifinity runs well on our system and we would play it a lot if we could just get the base. It's a showcase game for how close ATV can come to the console gaming experience.
Too bad Apple enforces remote control support. Maybe removing that restriction and properly notifyin customers about controller-only games would also change Disney's minds...
[edit] the play set from the starter pack goes for $35 at retail. If it was $ to $, then a controller + Bluetooth base combo would cost around $65.
Also; it's possible the cheaper PS Vita base will work, but it only has a spot for one character.