Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision, spoke with Family Gamer TV about the recently announced Skylanders: Swap Force.  Skylanders: Swap Force is the next entry in the popular Skylanders franchise and this new game also brings new features to the series.  The Portal of Power is the circular device used in Skylanders to read the Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) information off of the toys set on it.  This unique functionality known as Near Field Communication (NFC) is what brings these Skylanders toys to life within the video game.  With the introduction of Skylanders: Swap Force comes a new Portal of Power.  Activision created this new Portal of Power to accommodate the new toys that are also being launched with Swap Force.  These new Skylanders toys can be split in half and switched around in hundreds of different combinations.  Then when the swapped toy is set on the Portal of Power, the character in the game will share the name, look, and powers of the two different toys.  Gamers who have been collecting toys from the prior Skylanders games will not have to hold onto the old Portal of Power because the new one will support all of the old characters as well.