ROTS Gunship - Where the hell is it?!

[Ryan]

It's gone already....

[Jayson]

That's bull****! It was there, I signed in to purchase it and it was gone!

[Jeff]

I know of one person who lucked out and got one... 

they must not have had very many left!

[Jayson]

I know where you live

[DoctorPadawan]

You know, even though there is a 90% chance that I wouldn't get one for myself, Hasbro really needs to ship more of these already.  There's sufficient demand amongst the collecting community, the majority of whom have either seen it once or not at all, and it's cheap enough that it could be bought as a decent Christmas present by parents looking for something during the holiday season.

This doesn't even take into account the toy being part of the actual artwork for the "Clone Attack on Coruscant" Battle Pack that Target will be getting in the fall.  I just don't see the logic in putting a toy on packaging and not having it available for purchase (I have the same complaint with the "new" Falcon).   

[MetalJedi]

I agree with DoctorPadawan. This is extremely frustrating. I want one yet I either have to shell out 60+ bucks for one or get raped by people who wanna trade a complete OTC collection for one.

Plus I think its ridiculous that Hasbro decides to repackage the same Falcon from last year and make it an exclusive to TRU for 55 bucks. Knowing it'll just sit there collecting dust. Hell all the TRUs around here still have the original OTC Falcon for the same price.  And yet they are worried that the Gunship won't sell so they won't send it back out.

[DoctorPadawan]

Since I've been doing this a lot lately, and since I had some free time today, I decided, for the benefit of the collecting community (well, us, really) I was going to try and get to the bottom of this whole Gunship shortage. 

My first stop was practically every etailer online.  None of the big ones (WM, KB, TRU/Amazon, or HasbroToyShop) had the Gunship in stock, and the latter of those four didn't even have it listed on the site.  Several of the smaller etailers (EE, DNS Toys, New Force) didn't have it in stock either (as expected).  Pretty much the only e-commerce site that has the Gunship is Ebay, and I think we all know how ridiculous that is, so I won't even go there.

Since it wasn't in stock anywhere, and nobody was even taking orders for future assortments, I decided to have a look around at the local retailers to see if they had any ARCs that would indicate a possible future shipment of Gunships.  None of the three Wal-Marts in my immediate vicinity even had space in the SW section for this assortment at all, and both Targets and K-Marts had eliminated shelf space for this assortment entirely.  So, etailers didn't have it, retailers didn't have it, so I emailed Hasbro Consumer Affairs late last night to see if the thing was ever going to ship again, and I pointed out what I did in my earlier posting above:

This doesn't even take into account the toy being part of the actual artwork for the "Clone Attack on Coruscant" Battle Pack that Target will be getting in the fall. I just don't see the logic in putting a toy on packaging and not having it available for purchase (I have the same complaint with the "new" Falcon).

So, being the impatient freak that I am, I decided I might get a quicker response by calling Hasbro's 800 number, which I can give to anyone who wants it so you can bother them too.    The woman with whom I spoke seemed rather surprised that a toy that was (according to her) released in March was not in stock at any retailers or etailers, and that HasbroToyShop did not even have them in stock.  I asked her if the toy had been discontinued and she attempted to sidestep the question, but eventually she stated that she had nothing that indicated it had been discontinued, and she suggested contacting Hasbro Toy Shop's 800 number to see if they could tell me if any more were on order for that website, as that could give an indication of whether or not more would be showing up at retail.

Sooooo...HTS couldn't even find it as having been available on their website, and had to go to the actual Hasbro site to make sure it existed.  Apparently (and this much I gleaned from my prior conversation with Hasbro CA) HTS is not directly operated by Hasbro, but is a subsidiary in the same way that NBC is/was a subsidiary of GE.  HTS still has to order cases of product from Hasbro itself, which explains a LOT of why their website is such a mess.  Anyway, she stated that the Hasbro system still showed that the Gunship could be ordered by retailers, and that (watch out for the mantra) since it was such a popular item, the possibility existed that HTS could get it and stock the site in the future.  So, pretty much, no new information from them.

So, long story short (if you even bothered to read all that mess), here's what I learned from two divisions of Hasbro:

1.  The Gunship may or may not ship again (nothing new) but Hasbro's various reps couldn't confirm or deny anything.

2.  HTS being a wreck is Hasbro's own fault for not shipping enough product to itself.  Now, here's where my Hasbro humor kicks in: Hasbro is always keen on blaming retailers for the gluts or droughts of product.  In this case, the retailer is Hasbro.  Now, since Hasbro never wants to accept any wrongdoing or blame in any situation, how will they be able to not blame themselves for either over/underordering on one end, or for either over/undershipping on the other end.  Will this be the logical fallacy that makes Hasbro's heads explode, or will this be the point where Hasbro's SkyNet becomes self-aware and exterminates us all?

But yeah, I'm still no clearer on if and when the Gunship is going to ship again.  Sorry guys, I did what I could. 

[DoctorPadawan]

I woke up this morning to the following email from Hasbro Customer Service in my mailbox:

Thank you for contacting Hasbro, Inc.

We are sorry to advise that the information you have requested is not readily available.

We are sharing your question with those internal parties who are more familiar with this piece of our business. We will respond to you, as soon as we receive the information from them.

We thank you, in advance, for your patience.

I thought to myself, "Uh oh, another Hasbro smokescreen" along the lines of the Obi-Wan JSF label sheet debacle I'm still going through.  I didn't think I'd actually get another email back from the Hasbro ChatBot, but surprise surprise, late this afternoon, I found this email in my inbox:

hank you for being patient in waiting for my response.

After checking with our product team regarding your concerns, they advised me that this product is still in production and shipping to stores.

Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee product availability at any one store.

Many Hasbro products can be purchased online at www.hasbrotoyshop.com. We ask that you continue checking with this website as it is updated on a daily basis.

All current Hasbro products are also carried by Toys R Us, Wal-Mart, Kmart, Target, Kay-Bee, as well as other toy and mass merchandise retailers.

Some of our products can also be found online at http://www.entertainmentearth.com (figures & collectibles).

Again, thank you for your interest.

Now, I'm not going to do the obvious thing here and let out a huge guffaw at the audacity of the "updated on a daily basis" comment about HTS.com (okay, so I just did), and I realize that this is probably a form email they send out, but at least we have it in writing that the Gunship is, according to the ChatBot who might be a real person, still in production and still shipping to stores.  So, even though Hasbro's word doesn't hold much salt with many (including me a lot of the time), they claim that there are still Gunships being made and shipped.

Of course, this could all just be wishful thinking, but if you're looking for a Gunship, this is at the very least a positive sign, I suppose.

[DualSaberMaster]

ROTS Republic Gunship is in stock at Amazon as of now!

[TheBlackDog65]

Ok, can someone explain to me why all the fuss over this ship? I mean I have an orginial and the CW one so I passed. Not needed IMO, and in my case I actually wished I had only one of the ships.  I like the ARC 170 much better!

[Gatillo]

Well I really like this ship and will like to have all three paint schemes, need the ROTS one.

The ship is awesome.  It has all sorts of play features for kiddies and collectors alike.  You can put a speederbike inside as well as a full complement of clones, can it get better?

Plus it is huge.

It rocks.  I have 5 I think.

[Ner_vod]

I went to the military base at Norfolk, Va last time and were in stock, but i didn't get though.

[DoctorPadawan]

Ok, can someone explain to me why all the fuss over this ship? I mean I have an orginial and the CW one so I passed. Not needed IMO, and in my case I actually wished I had only one of the ships. I like the ARC 170 much better!

I think that most of the fuss about the ship is based on the availability of it as opposed to the ship itself.  Hasbro shipped these in one case assortment very early on, and hasn't reshipped it since.  There are a lot of inconsistencies with the marketing of the line as it relates to the Gunship (most obviously with the toy itself being used as the backdrop for the upcoming Target Clone Battle Pack), and the fact that it isn't available at retail right now is, IMO, a major faux pas by Hasbro.  At least that's how I feel about it.

The majority of collectors that want the ship seem to be wanting it for diorama reasons.  They collect a lot of Clones and want something for them to ride in on their missions, be they in photo novels, displays, or just to play with.  At this point, it seems to be more economically sound to pay 30 bucks for a ROTS Gunship than it is to pay through the nose for a Saga/CW Gunship.  So, there's that perspective. 

As always though, you've got the speculators who actually have this thing buying them up whenever they see them so they can sell them on Ebay and support their Doritos habit.  One per case in one assortment for a rather visible and popular ship design is just asking for Ebay pandemonium, so that's why I went on my rather long and involved quest to find out what the exact status of the ship was last week.  It was not so much to get one for myself (like I said, this would be something I would probably pass on), but to try and figure out the truth behind the situation surrounding the toy since nobody seems to really know what's going on right now.

The ship itself, as you already know from having two, is a great toy, and if it weren't for the fact that it's so damned big and impossible to display on a lot of my shelves, I'd probably be hunting for this new ROTS version.  It's one of my favorite ships from the modern SW line(s), but as I said, my problem with it not being more widely available has to do with the massive amount of Clone toys being marketed (being found is, obviously, a totally different matter) and having nothing to ride around in. 

So yeah, in summation (since I'm long-winded as hell), it's a piece that a lot of people want for various reasons, that kids should be able to get on Christmas morning from Santa Claus for their Clones to ride in, and a great ship design with what appears to be a very cool paint job, and for whatever reason, Hasbro and retail haven't really followed through on its availability to any one group of people.

[TheBlackDog65]

DP, you make excellent points. I agree that with the ARC 170, this is one of the best ships to come out of the Prequel era. I love the 2 I have, but as you noted, due to size etc, I was determined that 2 are enough for me. I would agree that the biggest frustration with this unit is availability. I had not kept up on how Hasbro had marketed it, having seen the ship several times at TRU's in April.  Shame that their are some who want it only to profit by it; but I think we see that from anything hard to find.

[Tijuanajedi]

I feel lucky I picked up 2 of them.