Bad News Out of Hasbro

Last night, Hasbro held a pre-Comic Con event in New York City where they covered some of their upcoming plans for Star Wars, G.I. Joe, Marvel, Transformers, Angry Birds and My Little Pony.  While they were showing off some cool stuff for G.I. Joe (Kre-O) and Transformers, along with the Angry Birds sets just announced on Monday, it wasn’t so good on the Star Wars action figure front.  Jedi Temple Archives and Galactic Hunter, among other websites, attended and reported back with some 2013 changes that aren’t so hot.

First up, forget the Mandalorian Assault Transport and Naboo Starfighter.  Although Hasbro talked about releasing the Transport again in 2013, those plans are now scrapped and so is the Naboo Starfighter, which suffered because of the early 2012 release of the Pod Racers.

Darth Maul with his spider legs, from The Clone Wars appearance, will be coming in realistic style as a deluxe figure and possibly as an exclusive.

Hasbro also has plans to release more of the late 2011 Vintage Collection figures, along with some 2012 figures, to online retail.  They’ll still be on their VC cards and not part of the Droid Factory line.  We’re not sure if this means all the cases of figures they said were sitting in distribution warehouses will be pushed our or if these will be new.  We may hear more about this by Toy Fair.

While I’m hugely disappointed by the cancellation of the Mando Transport and Naboo Fighter, it’s squarely on Hasbro’s shoulders for this situation.  While you can’t always gauge retail sales based on secondary market prices, the insanely low prices that the 1999 versions of the Pod Racers, which included figures, were pulling on eBay suggested there wasn’t enough demand for them.  While I did see some sell through at local stores, the fact that the local Target is still stocking new cases of the assortment in October points to a huge overproduction by Hasbro.

I love The Clone Wars, any new character announcement from that property is welcomed, but to bring out a deluxe Darth Maul with spider legs and make it look realistic while we still don’t have a Cliegg Lars is kind of crappy.  Hasbro has said that The Clone Wars is aimed more at kids than collectors so why not make this figure so that he looks like his appearance in the cartoon?  I have to think that some Saga collectors are going to pass on this because they feel it’s an Expanded Universe appearance, some just don’t like The Clone Wars and kids may pass if it looks too creepy.

As for releasing hard to find Vintage Collection figures to online retail?  I’ll believe it when I see it.  Hasbro said they’d re-release Wedge and the Gamorrean Guard because so many people missed them yet I saw more of the Gam Guard figure in 2010 than I did this year when he was supposed to be more abundant.  And I’ve still never seen Wedge at retail.  How can I believe that bringing Bastilla Shan, Ponda Baba and other hard to find figures back to retail, or online, is going to be any more successful?

And let’s face it, $10 per figure is too much.  I can pretty much guarantee that sales have suffered because of that price, especially when stores went to great lengths over the last two years, at least, to exclude Vintage Collection from sales that did include the Movie Heroes and Clone Wars figures.  You don’t see nearly as much talk of “army building” on the forums as you did even two years ago.  Nobody can afford it, especially when they have to pull their most wanted, and unique, figures from the secondary market, or order by the case and eat up to 6 figures, in some instances, that they don’t want or already have.

Hasbro has a long way to go to bring back interest in their action figure lines and abandoning the Clone Wars style figures, dropping vehicles and overloading on re-release and rehashed characters is not the way to do it.  I’m not looking forward to 2013 since the past 3 years, when averaged together, have mostly been a failure at retail for collectors.