The Playset Thread

[ruiner]

And the $20 price point is drunk prom date for Hasbro, it just keeps putting out. It is a value price point for collectors getting multiple figures, it is a gift pricepoint for parents/grandparents, it is the reason all vehicles now have to be shrunk or blown up to meet the target selling price.

That's probably the most accurate statement I've read this week.

[jedi_master_sal]

...I probably have more figures than I can ever reasonably display/enjoy anyhow. But if they made some cool places for me to display some, I would be very pleased.

I have to completely agree with this staement.

I'm into the several thousand figures and nowhere to put them that looks like a nice display. While I've got my plans for large diioramas, I'd still be more than happy to buy small dioramas made by Hasbro. So long as they ar close to movie accurate, have a few accessories and better yet interlocking/modular.

If they did that, it might curb my diorama building. I'd welcome that too as it's much more expensive to design and build one yourself than to have a manufacturer do it for you.

[CHEWIE]

Quite simply, the key to a successful item (according to Hasbro's SW strategy) is that it must appeal to both consumer markets (kids and collectors).

I challenge anyone to examine their line and find an item that doesn't (role play being the exception).

Look at the lines that they've dropped and you'll see that they didn't fit the above criteria - they either appealed to collectors only (Titanium figures) or kids only (choppers and Jedi Force).

Challenge accepted - I'd say the vintage line is directed at collectors too, which for the most part has done ok.  Just overpriced because of packaging.  But these days more and more of the basic line is reaching the vintage style quality anyway, so the vintage line to me is a dying breed (but also because they are running out of appealing figures to add to the line).

I agree with Dan that the $20.00 pricepoint is the way to go for Hasbro in most cases, at least if they're going to try and mass market something.  If they go towards a smaller niche, they could get away with higher prices (in theory).

I'm running out of display room too, not for enviroments but actual shelf space for figures.  My scenes are mostly all custom made, which is a lot of fun but some non-custom environments would be nice.  Just stuff like this would be welcome in my book -



 

[ruiner]

You're right on the vintage collection but is it really a line?   It's difficult to consider it a successful line when they produce six figures a year. 

To me, it's more like a promotion. 

Retailers carry it for what, three months, and then drop it.

[Deanpaul]

The thing about the vintage line was that items seemed to have a much longer shelf life.  I seem to remember almost always being able to purchase a Millennium Falcon or other vehicle and whatever the current movie playset was at retail most of the time.  It might have meant ordering from the Sears catalog, but they were at least fairly available.  Good luck picking up a Falcon over the last 10 years.  Even with a number of rereleases, they've had short shelf lives and been pretty spaced out.

The vintage line isn't a comparable situation to today's market.  I've never heard Kenner or Hasbro comment on who was buying the vintage line when it was available, but I believe the ratio was more skewed to the kid/consumer than we see today.  The price points were also different, and as Travis mentions so were the number of items available.  I don't remember anyone commenting that they had thousands of figures with no means of displaying them effectively back in the day.

[ruiner]

I thought we were talking about the 'new' line of vintage figures?

You know, the $9.99 ones that you only see for three months of the year at your local Wallyworld before they hit the clearance aisle next to lawn care.

[Jeff]

so the vintage line to me is a dying breed (but also because they are running out of appealing figures to add to the line).

And right there, you just proved that the "Vintage" premium figures are ultimately aimed at kids too.

Think it's a coincidence that we've seen multiple Hans and Lukes in the assortments so far?  Nope, because kids love Han and Luke.  If the line was solely aimed at Collectors, there would be no need to worry about having each wave having a Han/Luke in it.

Sure, the nostalgia evoked by the line is targeted at the older collector set, but the character selection that goes into it shows that Hasbro is thinking about making sure it's appealing to the kids too...

[Jesse James]

I have to concur with Jeff there...  I've got a kid here right now pestering me for the whole vintage wave this weekend if we can find it cheap enough.  He's already got IG-88 as a gift.  Kids like those too when they see Luke's/Han's they don't have, I just don't like paying $10 a figure.

[CHEWIE]

Ok, so in a sense the modern vintage stuff may be keeping kids in mind, but I think a lot of adults want to see the main characters made in this line before we see a wave consisting of something like this -

- Walrus Man
- Lobot
- Romba
- Imperial Dignitary
- B-Wing Pilot
- General Madine

Now a wave like that, would bomb with collectors too.  I guarantee it.  Even if there are the diehards who want to see those made on vintage cardbacks, I'd be in the group waiting on those to hit clearance (I'd get Walrus Man though right off the bat).

Also, I didn't mean to imply that no kids want the vintage figures.  Just with the higher pricepoint and vintage-esque packaging, the niche they are going for is primarily collectors.  If it wasn't they wouldn't be packaged in those plastic casings.

 

[Jesse James]

Maybe it's not that it would bomb with collectors so much as it would bomb because it was aimed only at collectors and we cannot carry anything without the other demographics.

[CHEWIE]

Looking around now the only figures left from the vintage figures in my area are Han and Leia - at TRU and Walmart.  I think that collectors have had their fill of this year's line, and the more "kid friendly" characters are being passed on in favor of the basic line, which is around $3-$4 cheaper depending on where you shop... though I did pick up a Bossk on clearance for $8 the other day at one Walmart for a custom.   All they had after that was the typical main characters.

[Rob]

I was at Toys R Us in Times Square over the weekend and they had all the vintage figures - right down to a crap load of Snowtroopers - all for $9.99.

[CHEWIE]

I think at one time EE had listed a "refresh" case of the VTAC figures with 6 Snowtroopers per case!  Or did I read that wrong?

[ruiner]

No, you're right.

Though I don't think they ever made it to mass retail.

[JediMAC]

I know everyone enjoys bashing the hell out of playsets (and Justin) around here for whatever reason, but what happens once they finally come out in 2 - 3 years? 

Speaking of which, I'm a bit surprised that no one's commented on this little blurb from one of GH's Hasbro Questions this past round (unless I just missed it elsewhere here).  Indeed, I did miss it, as it's all lumped into the Q & A thread.

Galactic Hunter: At Dragon*Con 2007 this [past] weekend Heath Hammond from Sideshow Collectibles stated (to the audience) that Sideshow and Hasbro are in talks to produce playsets/environments in the 3 ¾" scale. Can we get any sort of official comment from Hasbro on this?

HASBRO: We can confirm that we have had discussions with Sideshow but any public confirmation beyond this is premature.

Interesting.  I was yelling at the Hasbro guys several years ago (and ever since) to pass the playset portion of their license along to Sideshow, GG or MR, and they said "never".  Heh.

I'm curious now as to exactly who is working on the OT playsets that they've said they're already developing (Cantina, Jabba's Palace, Death Star), including one that was supposedly already in, or pretty close to, production - Hasbro, or Sideshow.  I guess if the Sideshow deal's not quite complete yet, it couldn't be them, unless they were just in the proposal stage so far.  Either way, we'll be set up with some nice dioramas pretty soon here, so that's a major relief.  I'd probably prefer to see Sideshow produce these sets, since they're geared more toward higher-end collectibles, and are more detail-oriented than Hasbro is, not to mention they wouldn't be messing around with silly action-feature oriented playset kinda crap.  Of course, that means exclusivity could be a negative factor, along with the price, so who knows.  Can't wait to see how this plays out...