Author Topic: Wal-Mart Droid Factory Sets  (Read 130890 times)

Offline Brian

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Re: Wal-Mart Droid Factory Sets
« Reply #525 on: November 17, 2009, 02:07 PM »
Yeah, I guess this isn't real surprising.  Although, these sets disappeared quickly around here, and haven't shown up again (yet).  The higher price was killer though, and I only picked up a couple because of that.  Actually, the Geonosis sets really seem to be sitting at Target right now too, but maybe the upcoming price cut will help that.  I remember with the past Order 66 sets, there were just tons of them piled up on the shelves - but they still sold reasonably well, with certain sets hitting clearance in mass quantities.  This time, there is maybe 6 or so of these on the floor at a time, and they don't seem to change much from day to day.  It is too bad really, as I think the two packs are a neat idea (I guess maybe we'll only see "Under the Helmet"/Clone Wars styled ones from now on) - and they used to be a good value - but maybe it is just more of collector burn out and higher prices.

Offline CHEWIE

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Re: Wal-Mart Droid Factory Sets
« Reply #526 on: November 17, 2009, 02:19 PM »
A couple Wal-Marts in my area just restocked to the max with these.

Offline Jesse James

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Re: Wal-Mart Droid Factory Sets
« Reply #527 on: November 17, 2009, 04:20 PM »
I agree with Jeff...  $10 to $12 = fine, $17 = not fine. 

Can't blame the fans on that one really IMO.  That's purely the price.

I wanted 3 or 4 Dark troopers.  I likely would've bought 2 complete sets at least, at full price, possibly 3 to build the DT, and hoped for a sale to get the last.  I really would've plunked down a lot had the sets been reasonably priced, but they weren't.

They were good sets.  Good character selection, all the figures were nice figures, and the BAD was nice...  But at some point the pricehikes have to cease, and that one was pretty insane for 50% repacks and 50% retools or repaints.
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Offline Pete_Fett

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Re: Wal-Mart Droid Factory Sets
« Reply #528 on: November 17, 2009, 11:46 PM »
If these had been $60 a set instead of $85 a set, I would have been more inclined to pick up a third set of these to open. $180 for three sets is a much better pill to swallow then $170 for two sets.

The other contributing factor for me was that even though they have yet to re-release a BAD figure, I feel that one day, they will either start making the BAD figures easier to obtain either via gift sets, or as a fully-assembled carded figures or perhaps even as a mail-away figure offers and out of all of the BADs so far, the most prime candidate for that kind of "second chance" is the Dark Trooper - even if it's a Dark Trooper silver repaint like the original POTF2 EU release version.

I never thought they would have re-released the McQuarrie figures back in 2007, and even though the sets are missing accessories, they are easily available in 2009.
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Offline Darth_Anton

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Re: Wal-Mart Droid Factory Sets
« Reply #529 on: November 18, 2009, 09:13 AM »
Yep, it's all about price. Keep it around $10 for 2 figures and an extra piece, I'll buy 'em until the cows come home.
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Offline JACKOFTRADZE

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Re: Wal-Mart Droid Factory Sets
« Reply #530 on: November 18, 2009, 09:40 AM »
Like many other have reported I came across two full sets worth sitting on the shelf this morning. No comic packs, Dewbacks or AT-St's just these. While the price was too much and the overall figure selection really weak I liked the fact that they came and went. I actually thought they were successful given the nature of the scarcity of them. No wonder why WM is not going forward with more, they were stuck in limbo!

I already have two complete Darktroopers so I am more then content. For those that missed out I am sure they will clearance them shortly.
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Offline Hobbie

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Re: Wal-Mart Droid Factory Sets
« Reply #531 on: November 18, 2009, 10:04 AM »
Even $12.99 would have been pretty attractive, but as it is, it sounds like it killed off the DF 2-packs.

Offline Nicklab

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Re: Wal-Mart Droid Factory Sets
« Reply #532 on: November 18, 2009, 10:24 AM »
The character selection did not help the second Droid Factory series.  The Darth Maul was a Meh offering for collectors.  The Corran Horn should've been in the green flightsuit to appease the fanboys.  The Grievous was inferior to the basic carded Grievous.  Anakin?  Uck.

And some of the droids were underwhelming.  The pack-in with Grievous (CB-3D)?  Not good.  The Cortosis Super Battle Droid?  A great way to kill a good figure.

If Hasbro just worked a little harder to get these sets to be a bit better, I think people would've have bought these.  Even at the higher price.
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Offline Keonobi

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Re: Wal-Mart Droid Factory Sets
« Reply #533 on: November 18, 2009, 10:28 AM »
I know its been argued before but if they made sets with army builder type figures they likely would have sold multiple sets to a lot of people, and therefore would have had a higher volume and could have sold these at a lower price.

I think the Droid Factory line was dead when Hasbro and Walmart agreed that they should sell a smaller number of sets this year and therefore needed a higher price point.  After that it was just waiting for the body to hit the floor.
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Offline CHEWIE

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Re: Wal-Mart Droid Factory Sets
« Reply #534 on: November 18, 2009, 11:59 AM »
The character selection did not help the second Droid Factory series.  The Darth Maul was a Meh offering for collectors.  The Corran Horn should've been in the green flightsuit to appease the fanboys.  The Grievous was inferior to the basic carded Grievous.  Anakin?  Uck.

And some of the droids were underwhelming.  The pack-in with Grievous (CB-3D)?  Not good.  The Cortosis Super Battle Droid?  A great way to kill a good figure.

If Hasbro just worked a little harder to get these sets to be a bit better, I think people would've have bought these.  Even at the higher price.

I'd have to say that I agree with that sentiment.  Price was a factor some, but the figures that Hasbro selected were the main problem... I think if they had put some more research into some more sought after figures or had not been available in a while, these sets would have been much more popular.  That Grievous was a terrible choice like you said (though the tall, Legacy version would have been okay I think), the Anakin sucks, the Super Battle Droid is at best a decent figure, two astromechs was a bad call, and the Corran Horn should have been like you said rather than the orange flight suit - Hasbro has almost made me sick of orange flight suits with all the ones they put out since 2008.  YUCK.

I think the two protocol droids were cool and new enough to stay in there, but they could have put more effort into the Maul, which should have been the first Evolutions Maul, with new arms.  And the Fett would have been more appealing had he come with a removable helmet.  Everything else should have been something different.
  
For example, I think something like this would have been a bit more appealing -

- SAGA2 Pablo Jill w/ ROTS Shaak Ti
- TAC Darth Revan w/ TAC Darth Malak
- GREEN Corran Horn w/ Whistler
- FIRST Evolutions Darth Maul (new arms) w/ I5-YQ
- Animated Boba Fett (removable helmet) w/ BL-17

Maybe some sort of spin off of that sort of figure selection... I can't imagine those would not have been more popular than what was actually offered.  

So, basically what I am saying is that I blame Hasbro for the failure of these sets.  They set themselves up for failure with the figure selection, and certainly did not do Wal-Mart any favors.
« Last Edit: November 18, 2009, 02:33 PM by CHEWIE »

Offline jedi_master_sal

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Re: Wal-Mart Droid Factory Sets
« Reply #535 on: November 19, 2009, 10:30 AM »
...So, basically what I am saying is that I blame Hasbro for the failure of these sets.  They set themselves up for failure with the figure selection, and certainly did not do Wal-Mart any favors.

And the high price point. Don't forget that!
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Offline CHEWIE

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Re: Wal-Mart Droid Factory Sets
« Reply #536 on: November 19, 2009, 03:39 PM »
The price point does hurt too... if these were $10, it woudn't have stung so bad to buy some crap figures to get those Darktrooper parts.

Offline Jesse James

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Re: Wal-Mart Droid Factory Sets
« Reply #537 on: November 19, 2009, 03:54 PM »
For $10 I don't think the figure selection would've bothered me really.   Maybe Grievous but there's always one set in these assortments that sucks (Yoda/Droideka is sort of the stinker in that series).

But still I wasn't disappointed in the sets so much as the price.  $10's fair for what they were, if $12+ is fair for the Geo sets I think.  I thought all the droids were pretty well great save for maybe Grievous'.  Lots of new tooling smattered in those.
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Offline JACKOFTRADZE

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Re: Wal-Mart Droid Factory Sets
« Reply #538 on: November 19, 2009, 04:05 PM »
For $10 I don't think the figure selection would've bothered me really.   Maybe Grievous but there's always one set in these assortments that sucks (Yoda/Droideka is sort of the stinker in that series).

The Grievous set's only salvation was the cloth cape and the extra sabers not to mention another astromech. It would have been sweet to get the pockt on the inside for sabers kind of like the Pruneface cape. But yes that figure was a real turd, the ROTS Deluxe Grievous was a nicer early version of him, at least it looked more movie accurate. Not that it would have helped much but would have been a better choice of old tools. The two Protocol droids and the Darktrooper really were the only good figures to come out of these sets. Corran Horn looks nothing like all of the source material out there he is just a Generic pilot on Luke body to me nothing more. Whistler is a cool repaint but it was a repaint. More than half of this series sucked with a hefty price tag.

The worst figure of the whole series to me was the Cortis Destroyer even more so than Grievous. Grievous had good accessories the CSBD has nothing going for it not even hands!

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Offline Adam_Pawlus

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Re: Wal-Mart Droid Factory Sets
« Reply #539 on: November 19, 2009, 06:49 PM »
The figure selection was probably the main fumble.  The 2009 sets had figures that were indistinguishable from previous release, save for a single accessory while the 2008 packs had, for the most part, at least repaints.  (Darth Vader being a notable exception.)

As a collector, $17 per pack is a bit more than $10 was and as such, isn't as welcome.  However, $10 was a freaking bargain for a pair of $7 figures and a build-a-droid piece. $17 isn't awful and as far as I can tell between my haunts in LA and in Phoenix over the weekend, for the most part, this stuff sold through.  Two figures and 1/5 of a large figure for $17 isn't being violated-- it's not as awesome as a Battle Pack, but it's basically what it would cost you as individual figures.   Sometimes the per-figure price on an exclusive is higher, as we've seen with individually carded figures many times over at conventions, StarWarsShop.com, etc.

The least Hasbro could do is slightly different deco.  Grievous could've been repainted in movie colors, or the cape could have been given to the new 2008 figure which is still somewhat in demand.  Maul could have been one that wasn't also available in Evolutions packs or on an individual card.  Anakin could have been cleaned up or made dirtier.  Boba Fett could have been the figure Hasbro showed at Toy Fair and Comic-Con-- the animated sculpt in movie colors.  (And seemingly, Boba sold the best from what I've seen so far.)

I agree with Jack, the Super Battle Droid from the GBA game nobody remembers was a totally weak choice.   I admit not everybody was thrilled to see a droid from the Droids cartoon series, I was, but hey, that's me.  I can't recall anyone asking for any figures from any non-Battlefront portable-only SW games.

Compared to the Clone Wars 2-packs Wal-Mart got (which will likely ultimately all see regular carded release with slightly different deco), these were disappointing.   But I'm still curious how Wal-Mart and Hasbro define a non-success, or if the non-success remains cluttering up a large building somewhere on the west coast.

No matter how it shakes out, it seems a product that fans decided as a group was overpriced has failed.  In other words, we may have successfully, as the kids say, voted with our dollars.   Hooray?  (If the third series was like the second, I'm fine not getting whatever it would have been.  The first batch was just too good.)
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