Nintendo & Activision tie-up on toys

Nintendo has announced a deal with Activision to let its Amiibo toys be used in the Skylander series of games.

At E3 it gave a first look at toys that have a switch on their base that flips them from one game system to another.

The toys will work with the forthcoming Skylanders Superchargers game that is due out in September.

Nintendo also announced plans for a new Super Mario game that will let people create their own levels for the plucky plumber to bounce around.

The first two toys in the dual-purpose Amiibo figures will be Turbocharged Donkey Kong and Hammer Slam Bowser. Both will have cars they can drive around and special abilities in the expansion which brings vehicles to the Skylanders universe.

Both figures will also work in Nintendo games such as Super Smash Bros.

The Amiibo toys have been very successful for Nintendo and have helped to drive sales for its Wii U console and 3DS handheld. Skylanders has also been a big seller for Activision and the tie-up between the two firms could put pressure on Disney and its Infinity line of game toys.

Separately, Nintendo showed off the Super Mario Maker game that is based around the in-house tools its designers use to make levels for the Super Mario games.

“The more we worked with it the more we realised we could turn it into something everyone could enjoy,” said Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto.

Mr Miyamoto also revealed that in the early days of Nintendo, level designers used to draw out plans on paper before giving them to programmers to turn into working parts of a game.

In the Wii U game, people will be able to decide where to position blocks, bricks, traps, enemies and characters from the Super Mario world to make their own environments they can then try out. The levels that people create can also be shared with other players. Super Mario Maker is due out on 11 September.

Nintendo’s digital presentation at E3 began with puppet versions of its three senior executives, Satoru Iwata, Reggie Fils-Aime and Shigeru Miyamoto, slowly transforming into the main characters of Star Fox to introduce a new game called Star Fox Zero.

You can follow all of the BBC’s coverage from E3 2015 via the hashtag, #e3bbc