Disney sells 2 million copies of High School Musical: Sing It! Boss says video games are serious business

Disney chief Bob Iger talks future Hannah Montana and Pirates of the Caribbean gamesA while back Disney announced that over the next five years they’d be investing $350 million in video games (consoles and handhelds).

Now Walt Disney chief Bob Iger has said that they intend to video game business and plans to do it by stealing a page from its music strategy. By this he means the way they use the Disney Channel to launch hit soundtracks like those from High School Musical and Hannah Montana. So not only creating original titles out of its dedicated gaming division, but also creating games that spin off from popular movies and TV series.

To quote: “We intend to use [a multi-platform approach] to do exactly what we did in the music business to our video games business, but on a much larger scale. It’s another promising creative engine for Disney.”

High School Musical: Sing It! Bundle with Microphone for PS2At the start of this month Disney said it shipped 2 million units of High School Musical: Sing It!, a karaoke game inspired by the popular Disney Channel original movies. On the way next year are video games from cash cows like Hannah Montana, as well as from movie franchises including The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and the sequel to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which figure to be heavily cross-promoted across Disney properties. The last year they also created a number of online games based on hit movies like Pirates of the Caribbean.

Mr. Iger added: “We are a publishing company on the outside of the video games business. But where they [other companies] may not have a cable channel, or a movie company, or even a record business, or a radio business, or online – we have all of those. We intend to use them fully.” — Via NYpost