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Vintage Collection in 2013

Eric Franks 1064 Views,

We’ve got a followup to the earlier posting about Hasbro releasing Vintage Collection into 2013.

If you look at the 2012 cases, based on Entertainment Earth’s listings, Hasbro is releasing Wave 4, Wave 4 Revision 1 and Wave 5.  Those three case mixes account for every figure listed in the press release.  There are two figures missing from the list that are in those cases; Qui-Gon Jinn is in Wave 4 Revision 1 and Darth Malgus is in Wave 5. It’s possible that Hasbro just missed them when writing the release or Malgus isn’t actually in Wave 5.  I can confirm that Qui-Gon is in the W4R1 case as I purchased it, but will need independent confirmation on the Malgus.

What this appears to be is a release of cases that barely shipped to retail this year, when they were supposed to be out.  Basically, it’s stock that Hasbro’s been sitting on in their warehouses for the past 6 months or so.

Now, Yakface.com is now reporting on their Facebook page that there will be additional news in the next couple of weeks about Hasbro’s plans for 2013.  It’s only speculation on my part, but it’s possible that we’ll see Vintage Collection figures at retail through the first or second quarter of 2013 and the upcoming Build-a-Droid line is being pushed until Fall to better correspond with the theater releases of Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith in 3D.  That would also allow Hasbro to run the BaD line through 2014, leading into the new film announced for 2015.

By pushing BaD, Hasbro could use the first part of this year to plan their 2014 releases and free themselves up later this year for 2015 movie planning.  It would also keep them from having to relaunch in 2014 with new card art.

Again, that’s speculation on my part, but it fits.  What I don’t think is speculation is that Hasbro is just dumping 2012 Vintage Collection into 2013 in order to not take a bath on all the unsold product from this year.  We’ll see how it shakes out in the coming weeks, and it’s definitely going to make for an interesting Toy Fair.