Skylanders has been a huge console hit for Activision. But it's not just playing on consoles anymore.

Today, Activision announced that it will bring the latest game in the series, Skylanders Trap Team, to tablets as well as consoles when it debuts on October 5. The popular game, which requires interactive figurines to play, has so far been restricted to Xbox, PlayStation and Wii. Activision has released a few Skylanders-branded mobile games in the past, but this is the first time that the full console game experience will be replicated on iOS and Android.

To do that, they've put together a cool piece of hardware. The console versions of Skylanders include the Portal of Power, a near-field communications transmitter that lets your figurine characters communicate with the game. So too do the tablet versions, but their portal is unique: It also doubles as a tablet stand, and underneath it is housed a small Bluetooth controller with all the same buttons as an Xbox pad.

So Skylanders on the tablet seems to be an uncompromised experience. If this trend catches on, it could represent a big bite out of game consoles' profits.

The Skylanders franchise, introduced in 2011, has been another colossal hit for publisher Activision. Earlier this year, the company said it had sold $2 billion worth of the games and associated toys. It was the 2nd biggest game, in terms of dollars earned, in the first half of 2014 in North America and Europe—and Activision didn't even release a new game in the series during that time period. Of course, much of that is due to the sales of the figurines, which cost anywhere from $10-$17 each, and which fans buy by the cartload.

"We've always been a platform-agnostic company," says Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg, "and the tablet is obviously a very compelling and heavily-used new gaming platform for kids."

The potential danger to the established gaming order is that instead of seeing the tablet version of Skylanders Trap Team as a second-best solution, kids may find it to be better than owning the console version. They won't have to fight for TV time, for one. And if they ever have to leave the house mid-game, they can just grab the tablet and take it with them without interrupting their game.

If they can't bring the Bluetooth controller, they can play using on-screen joystick controls. And if they can't bring their figurines along, the tablet versions will let them play with two digital characters that don't require figurines to function.

But Skylanders on the go might not even be the most compelling use case, Hirshberg says.

"A lot of people mistake tablet gaming as mobile gaming," he says. "And yet we see a lot of kids playing the tablet on the couch, or in their bedroom. And sometimes there's a giant television screen 10 feet away, and they're choosing to play on the tablet because it's their preferred platform."

Activision

While other console games have made the move to tablet computers in the past—2007's BioShock, originally released on Xbox 360, is making its way to iOS later this year—but Hirshberg says that the release of Trap Team will be "the first time that we're aware of" a console game also releasing on tablets on the same day.

The tablet version of the game was engineered by Vicarious Visions, which designed last year's entry Skylanders: Swap Force. (Original Skylanders creator Toys For Bob designed the Trap Team.) You can download the entire game, around 6 gigabytes of it, if you want to. If you'd rather save space, you can just download a portion of it, and the game will automatically download more levels and characters as you need them.

It won't work on every tablet. Activision says the game will be compatible with iPad 3rd generation and later models, the Kindle Fire HDX, Google Nexus 7 and several later-edition models of the Samsung Galaxy Tab and Note.

But no matter which model you own, you'll acquire the game the same way you buy the console versions—walk into your local store and buy the Starter Pack box off the shelf for $75. That creates another level of parity between console and tablet, as consumers will now see them positioned as equals when out shopping.

The Skylanders app will be available for free, and you'll be able to play a couple levels of the game without buying the Starter Pack. Once you buy the Pack in a store and sync up the Portal of Power and the controller, it'll unlock the full game content. So even though you can play the game without all the accessories, there's no way to actually unlock the entire game without buying the physical Starter Pack.

This would seem to be a great deal for Activision: If the app is free, and there are no in-app purchases, do Apple, or Amazon, or Google get cut in on any of the profits? "We don't discuss our arrangements with the first parties," Hirshberg said, "but suffice it to say that if Apple wasn't supportive of it, it wouldn't be on Apple's platform."

Activision has traditionally made its money in the console business and hasn't embarked on many big mobile initiatives, but that could be changing. This year, it reported greater than expected profits thanks to increased revenue from digital products, including its new Warcraft-themed online card game Hearthstone.

As tablets get more and more powerful (and your PlayStation 4, its specs frozen in time, does not), it's possible we'll see many more console games appear on tablets. And that could take more bites out of consoles' dominance of the gaming market.

"You've seen a very strong start to the console generation and there's still a healthy market for that," says Hirshberg. "But it's undeniable that tablet has become a very large, very appealing gaming platform. And one that has been hard to unlock for a full console gaming experience."

"If it works, it's a win-win."