darkSpyro

... for how long RFID tags (which Skylander figurines use) will last.

Quote: eHow

Passive RFID tags do not carry their own power supply; the energy they need to communicate is provided by radiation from the RFID reader. * They have no battery to run out and, as such, have a virtually unlimited life expectancy of perhaps 20 years or more. Passive RFID tags are usually attached to library books, for example, which may spend long periods of time on a shelf and be issued many times during their lifetime. Library books require RFID tags that operate reliably over and over again for years or decades.

Amazing if true (and this is not the only source which mentions it)

(Interestingly, in an interview, it was once stated that Acti would like the franchise to be a long runner for about 20 years or so as well.)

*Skylanders figurines are definitely not "Active" RFID devices. I will assume that they are Passive since LightCore figurines do not use an internal battery either and memory can still be written to Passive tags.

Very interesting!! Thanks for sharing this buddy!!

Never even thought about checking that out. Good to know I should be able to get use out of these figures for some time.

This is some good info!

Well, this can be somewhat bad news. What if in 25 years, I want to play with my Skylander figures from the first game? I wonder if they go bad based on how often they're used to?

Like, if no Skylander was used for 20 years, would their RFID chip be as good as new?

Quote: GameMaster78

What if in 25 years, I want to play with my Skylander figures from the first game?

LOL at the thought of me playing Skylanders when I'm in full-blown retirement mode.

Personally, I think the bad news for you, GM, would be 20 years of buying hundreds of new figures with each release.

Well, if I'm too old to do anything (hoping being fit will allow me to do more at really old ages), I want to sit and play with my Skylanders.

They could always - one day - release a compilation that has all Skylanders games on it. Instead of releasing figures, they could make all characters accessible via the same method LEGO games allow you to select playable characters.

Personally, in 20 years(which is actually much longer than I expected), I will just have already hacked the game and made my private version of it with no figures required. Oops talking about hacking #dare

The figures will be unusable then, but what's to say your consoles will stay around, too? Nothing is infinite. As Dr. Seuss said- "don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened"(kinda like , just without yellow skin, and with a nose). If you're really so worried about it, 1. Hack the game in the future so that you can play characters without needing soon-to-be-dead figures, 2. Find a way to move the required info to new RFID chips and repeat the process as required, or 3. Spend a buttload of time enjoying them while you have them!

Besides, new versions of old figures are coming out all the time, if the franchise lasts as long as they want (which I don't expect it to anyway) some people here could be dead before the very final series is.

Personally, I'm more worried about what will happen if I ever move to my dream city, Tokyo, and find some friends and we all want to play it, since the game has no Japanese language option

In 20-25 years, all of our video game stuff will probably be all digital. I can definitely see at some point down the line Activision having an all digital version of the game, where you can scan in your collection and then buy the characters online, which are then added to the game.

In 20-25 years, I will be doing my thing. Being myself. I would've probably sold all my skylanders figures but kept some for myself. I would also talk about the nostalgia of Skylanders and how great it was and all that crud.

There's already ways to read Skylanders RFID tags, I have an app on my Samsung Galaxy Note 2 that reads them. If there's a way to copy that data to another RFID tag, that would be awesome!

People have figured out how to read, modify and rewrite to the same Skylander. Can change everything from hats, to heroics etc. But no one that I have heard of has been able to write a Skylander to a fresh Rfid tag. I am sure it will become possible in the future, but Activision has done a great job with their hardware to prevent this from happening.

All of the videos done in the early stages of Giants where the sidekicks, and unreleased (at the time) characters were done from the game coding and not with the Rfid figure side.

Quote: Sparx_Dragonfly

There's already ways to read Skylanders RFID tags, I have an app on my Samsung Galaxy Note 2 that reads them. If there's a way to copy that data to another RFID tag, that would be awesome!

What app is that?

If all else fails, I'm sure that when the game falls into obscurity hackers will create a version without figures needed to preserve it. The data for them is all in the games. I was actually considering buying future games when they get discounted to do that myself in some years when I understand coding(of course, I would never release the ROM- even though the publisher is Activision, it doesn't mean that my many grudges against them magically makes me, aspiring to become a game developer, provide easy-to-get pirated material in any way).

If someone could design a UI for it, I'm sure that they could make PC versions of all the titles in one massive compilation, and map out a button for a "select Skylander" screen.
It's just a matter of time before someone does something cheeky anyway... Look at the 3DS, remained unhacked for nearly 2 years and then breakthroughs late last year.

Acti is careful as hell with these though, judging by that other C&D against a Portal mod. I wouldn't be surprised if someone has already broken through the system privately, but aren't releasing the news publically, because Activision would slam them like a shovel. If I understood how to do it I probably would have from the start, but I'd keep it to myself and never even check the forums because I'd probably be personally assassinated by Bobby.

P.S. For the record before someone hits "Report", we are allowed to talk about hacking but may not link to ROMS, emulators, etc. Check Forum Rules.

skylanders in 20-25 years better get online mp game play or i'm getting really angry!.

Activision did nothing to stop hacking of the figures other than pick a reasonable technology to use.
They are standard (ISO 14443 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_14443 tags, that's all.
Commonly referred to as MiFare Classic (Used on many payment cards and travel cards) they have an encryption key.

Sadly the whole "Classic" side of MiFare has been cracked and is now not secure at all. The reason Skylanders hasn't suffered is the tools required cost more than the toys. It's not as much fun paying £30 for a blank card that looks like a white credit card instead of £10 for a cool toy!

There is no real benefit to hacking the toys. The Wii version got cracked to "swap" figures with others when placed on the portal and I expect the PC version was too. The whole point of Skylanders is collecting the figures so you just cheat yourself by hacking them.

I wouldn't worry about the figures remaining working for 20 years, I doubt they will ever break in your lifetime if they last 5 years.

Quote: GamingMaster_76

Personally, in 20 years(which is actually much longer than I expected), I will just have already hacked the game and made my private version of it with no figures required. Oops talking about hacking #dare

But the bigger problem you're going to have is the Activision lawyers showing up at your doorstep in 3...2...1...

Quote: Pyrofer

Activision did nothing to stop hacking of the figures other than pick a reasonable technology to use.
They are standard (ISO 14443 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_14443 tags, that's all.
Commonly referred to as MiFare Classic (Used on many payment cards and travel cards) they have an encryption key.

Sadly the whole "Classic" side of MiFare has been cracked and is now not secure at all. The reason Skylanders hasn't suffered is the tools required cost more than the toys. It's not as much fun paying £30 for a blank card that looks like a white credit card instead of £10 for a cool toy!

There is no real benefit to hacking the toys. The Wii version got cracked to "swap" figures with others when placed on the portal and I expect the PC version was too. The whole point of Skylanders is collecting the figures so you just cheat yourself by hacking them.

I wouldn't worry about the figures remaining working for 20 years, I doubt they will ever break in your lifetime if they last 5 years.

It was good researching the technology side of Skylanders...very interesting. And I concur on the RFID chip--in my view these things are like CDs...they just keep working and working. I'm still going to ask Activision Support to see if anyone has thought far enough ahead.