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« on: February 8, 2013, 01:26 PM »
My hopes? That Hasbro can find a balance in the 3.75" figure system to keep it both viable AND profitable. So what does that mean?
Distribution that works.
Working closer with the retailers to get figures, etc to stores in a timely and even fashion on a regular schedule.
Balanced Character Selection / Case Packs
We've seen what happens when some fan oriented figures come to market in too high of a quantity. The fact is that I can STILL find a Yarna as well as a Willrow Hood on the pegs of a TRU store if I really wanted to. Those figures are now going on 4 - 5 years old. And this is clearly a case where short-packing is appropriate. That 15th cantina alien probably needs to be put in this category, and probably needs to be short packed.
There's also a major fact that collectors need to get over: core characters NEED to stay in the line with a higher degree of regularity than might suit our own sensibilities. Sure, collectors may have some 30+ renditions of Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, Yoda or Obi-Wan Kenobi. But these are the characters that sell to parents & kids. If we want the line to remain viable & profitable, these characters need to be readily available to the much larger market segment that is parents & their kids.
Aside from that, what am I hoping to see?
Continuing on with realistic versions of Clone Wars characters. The rumblings are that the Clone Wars animated line is coming to a close. So why not continue the trend of making realist versions of Clone Wars characters? We already have three of those in Anakin, Obi-Wan and Ahsoka, plus another two scheduled in Mace Windu and Rex. There are definitely some prime candidates for figures from seasons 4 and 5 that might sell reasonably well. Darth Maul? Death Watch? Savage Opress? Darth Sidious?
From the OT, there's still plenty of fertile ground. I can think of a number of renditions of core characters that would be most welcome. Throw in some of Jabba's goons, Imperials and Rebels and you've got some good 2nd & 3rd tier characters. And with the PT? TPM and it's characters need some time off after the TPM 3-D fiasco. AOTC and ROTS still have some options in terms of character selection, but Hasbro needs to be incredibly selective.
Also, how about working in some more video game characters? Figures from KOTOR and SWTOR have been pretty well received. Again, they need to be done very selectively, but if Hasbro is going to keep up with the broadening Star Wars fan market which is very much about video games, they need to approach this market segment seriously.
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