Rebekah Valentine Senior Staff Writer Wednesday 11th September 2019 Share this article Share

Companies in this article The Walt Disney Company

Disney is reportedly planning the sale of its game-focused business FoxNext, reinforcing its aim to exit game development and publishing entirely.

Bloomberg reports that Disney is currently planning the sale of the studio with the decision driven by CEO Robert Iger. Though executives such as direct-to-consumer chief Kevin Mayer have expressed interest in retaining the arm, Iger wants to leave the business of making games behind.

FoxNext was created as an arm of 21st Century Fox in 2017, and was then primarily responsible for VR, AR, and location-based entertainment. The studio was acquired last year by Disney as a part of a larger acquisition of assets from Fox, and its free-to-play mobile game Marvel Strike Force grossed $150 million in revenue as of its first anniversary in March of last year.

The possible sale of FoxNext is consistent with Disney's past attitude toward the games business, with the company shuttering Disney Infinity and its studio, Avalanche, back in 2016 as part of a move to exit games publishing. It has since preferred to license its properties out, though the games developed by FoxNext were one of its few remaining holdouts.