I have seen Falcons at a couple of TRU stores recently but nowhere near as many as I have AT-TEs. What I'd like to know is how TRU and some discount chains have been blowing out the AT-TE for $50 or less this year if it was really such a great seller last year. Just seems odd.
I haven't seen a lot of Turbo Tanks moving at my local Target, which is the only store in town carrying them. They have sold a couple, but not like they sold the AT-TE last year. I think the lack of the Tank in the cartoon may play a role. The AT-TE is showing up in nearly every episode this season already...where's the tank? Still seems like kind of an odd choice to me since the only exposure to the Tank was one scene in ROTS, 4 years ago.
I've seen people posting about how the AT-AT "has" to come out, that it's an iconic ship and will sell, blah, blah, blah. But honestly, the previous release of the vintage/POTF2 version was about $100 and it's still rather large. Could Hasbro go much larger and hit the $100 price of the AT-TE/Tank or would they have to go Falcon price at $150? No matter how iconic the AT-AT is, does it rise to the standards of the Falcon? Even in a better economy $150 is a significant investment and could the AT-AT pull that kind of money?
The Falcon makes an excellent playset. The AT-TE and Tank do also, to a slightly lesser extent IMO, but would an AT-AT? Maybe, but I'm not sure what they'd do with it to take it up a notch.
I really think that if Hasbro wanted to do another larger vehicle and have it sell, they should tackle the Twilight. Make it large enough to be a fun playset with a cockpit and docking bay, but make it so that a 4-8 y/o kid can still pick it up and play with it like a spaceship. Probably couldn't get it large enough to fit a Jedi Starfighter in it, but you could get the new Freeco speeder and/or a couple BARC speeders in it...room for two cockpit seats and a console for R2 to plug into. Maybe a spot for the holo table that came with Yularen to plug into the floor for briefings, sick bay for droids and humans. Firing missiles, maybe some sounds. Throw in an Anakin figure and price it $100-$125 for Christmas?
I've seen Slave I kicked around as an option. I'm not sold on that. We've seen the cockpit and the loading ramp. Sure it would be nice for a larger version that could realistically get 2 people into the cockpit and have a spot for a Carbonite block, but we mostly see Slave I chasing Han in ESB and blasting away at Obi-Wan in AOTC. That's all it really needs to do, anything else becomes more of a playset and that's not really the ship for it IMO.
The Republic Gunship is another one mentioned. While I could argue in favor of a larger ship; hold more of the hundreds of Clones we own, split the doors, better scale with the turrets, etc., this is a large ship that's already running us $70 now. Bigger may be too big. I'm actually fine with a few more tweaks to this version (split door, fasten in that floor panel) and then maybe one per year with new nose art.
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