QUESTIONS FOR HASBRO - round 49

[JediTricks]

Please post your VOTE for up to 6 {six} of the questions provided in this thread, letting us know which ones you most want to see asked on May 2nd. Keep in mind that your votes in round 48 do not count in this round, so if your question is still on the list you may want to vote for it again.

Also, feel free to post new questions. For reference, here are Hasbro's answers to previous SSG questions; to ActionFigs.com's questions; and from other sites. The questions we asked last round can be found here.

Current questions (vote for up to 6):

1. - Are there folks today at Hasbro who were working on the Star Wars line back when it was reborn in 1995? Was there any clue behind-the-scenes back then that the Star Wars toy line would garner such a huge adult collector following? Were adult collectors considered at all on any level back then when forging the line's beginnings? What do you folks think of the extensive adult collector enthusiasm for the line today, 13 years later?
2. - Twice during the prequels, a vehicle toy's MSRP was dropped significantly without any changes to its mold - the first being the Episode I Naboo Royal Starship which went from $100 to $50, and the second being the Republic Gunship which in the Saga line was $40 but subsequent releases were $30. What were the causes of these price drops? Why hasn't this happened with other vehicles in similar high pricepoints?
3. - The new Clone Trooper and Rebel Trooper role-play blasters are pretty cool. With that in mind, will Hasbro be offering more role-play weapons such as all-new sculpts of Han's blaster, the Stormtrooper blaster (with more accurate size and folded stock under the barrel), Biker Scout pistol, and perhaps even larger ones like the Hoth Rebel rifle and Clone Trooper long rifle? (Please discuss the specific possibilities of each of the examples in this question.)
4. - What are the requirements that a retailer must go meet to get a Star Wars exclusive, do they have to be a certain size company, make a certain number of Hasbro orders a month, etc.? Is there some sort of process that a retailer has to go through to get an exclusive, do they work with Hasbro on what item to produce or is it out of their hands?
5. - Will you ever release any Neimoidians & Separatist Leaders in the Galactic Heroes line?
6. - A few times in Q&A's history, you've suggested collectors submit their local stores' pegwarming data to you so Hasbro store reps can get these problems fixed. Some of the stores did show signs of improvement in this department, however others still suffer old TSC pegwarmers (Moff Jerjerrod is pretty consistent) and show absolutely no signs of moving, and the reports on these were coming in from all over the country. What if anything was done to fix the problem, and what will be done in the future? If nothing else, having several Hasbro Star Wars pegs filled up with very old product is going to hamper sales of newer product hurting your business and hindering collectors' ability to get new figures.
7. - With The Force Unleashed videogame being pushed back to mid-September, will early TFU product be re-released to coincide with the game's release?
8. - 2007 was likely the best year ever for army builders. Every trooper - with the exception of the McQuarrie Concept figures - was widely available in large numbers, even in the heavily competitive Los Angeles area. Several battle packs reflected the love of army builders. Even the troops from the 2006 Saga line were available far into the year due to the delay in the TAC. Is this the distribution model Hasbro will be using from now on, where troops will be plentiful and the previous year's assortment will available into the next year's line?
9. - The Order 66 packs from last year were great and the new ones out now look just as good. How long will it be before we start to see these clones sold on their own though? It would be great to army build them but not on a 1 to 1 ratio with their Jedi commanders.
10. - Although the Cruisemissile Trooper vehicle has its share of detractors, including those at Hasbro, the concept and design have some fun and interesting toy merits, though not fully realized. Perhaps the original design could be embellished and resized to fit into either the current Starfighter Vehicle pricepoint or a Battle Pack or other smaller medium. And of course, this time around it could have a removable pilot and cooler features to make it a fun new vehicle with unique Star Wars credibility. Would Hasbro ever consider making an update to this vehicle with design and features befitting the modern line?
11. - At Toy Fair in both New York and now Australia, from the Padme Amidala Legacy Evolutions set, the Revenge of the Sith Padme figure is shown without her japor-snippet necklace that she wore in the film with this costume, Anakin even makes a point of it in the movie, making it a fairly integeral aspect to this character and an odd item not to include. Will this be a separate accessory included with the final product?
12. - What are the chances we could get a Comic Pack set of Siri Tachi in "Zora" disguise and Obi-Wan in "Bakleeda" disguise from Jedi Quest? It gets you a new character and a core character which helps sell it, but in a new look which adds action figure credibility and is spawned right from the series.
13. - With a wave pushed out of this year making way for another repaint wave, does this give Episode I fans a chance to buy some figures in 2008? There's the oft-requested Holographic Nute Gunray, or perhaps a different color variation to the Post-OTC Queen's Handmaiden (Rabe) figure. This could compliment nicely next year's Ep 1 wave that you've already confirmed, so, what do you say?
14. - With 2 of the finalists in the most recent Saga Legends fans choice poll being from the Battle of Geonosis - Pablo-Jill and Coleman Trebor - might Hasbro consider releasing a second Battlepack focused on the Geonosis Arena battle containing those 2 figures? Pablo-Jill could use some actual leg articulation and this would be a good time to add it to the figure, you could also include a retooled Nikto Jedi (his actual name is Fi-ek Sirch) since he was in the scene but the figure was nearly unarticulated, and of course the prerequisite core characters that each Battlepack needs. This would make a nice counterpart to the first Geonosis Battlepack, plus it'd get some popular figures re-released.
15. - A while back, we asked about the possibilities of pre-orders on the HasbroToyShop website, your response was enthusiastic and passed along to the HTS team, but since then there has been no change to that matter. Since that time, gas prices have soared to nearly double, making it far more difficult for collectors to hit their local retailers day in and day out to find the newest Star Wars figures. With this in mind, might we see a preorder system on HTS any time soon? If not, why not?

Vote now, and suggest new questions too. Thanks for participating!

[highlander3000]

Will Transformers/Star Wars Commander Cody be repainted into Commander Gree? I think the colors would look really nice on that toy.

[Banthaholic]

JT,
I just noticed the former question # 17 (see below) was delted since you said it was similarly answered by Hasbro, do you know what the answer was? I couldn't find anything by looking at last weeks around the web answers.

With a wave pushed out of this year making way for another repaint wave, does this give Episode I fans a chance to buy some figures in 2008? There's the oft-requested Holographic Nute Gunray, or perhaps a different color variation to the Post-OTC Queen's Handmaiden (Rabe) figure. This could compliment nicely next year's Ep 1 wave that you've already confirmed, so, what do you say?

[bigbarada]

1, 3, 6

Those are the only ones that really interest me right now.

[Darth Cruel]

1,3,5,7,10, and 11.

I actually asked question number 4 at last years Comicon. I was referred to a gentleman (I can not remember his name) whom I was told was the guy who decides on who gets what exclusive. After everything was said and done and the conversation was completed. It seemed to me that he pretty much makes up the criteria as he goes along.

He told me that in order to get an exclusive, the retailer has to support all of the toy lines that Hasbro sells.

I asked hime if Wal-Mart, TRU and Target sell ALL of the lines that Hasbro makes and he basically told me no, but close enough.

Then I mentioned that Entertainment Earth certailny does not and he told me that they sell the few lines that they do in such large quantities that they are "close enough" as well.

He also told me that the choices of exclusives are not the retailers'. He offers them an exclusive as a reward and they eithe axcept or decline. But they have no choice in the matter as far as what eclusive they get.

[JediTricks]

Question 13 added.

Will Transformers/Star Wars Commander Cody be repainted into Commander Gree? I think the colors would look really nice on that toy.

I'll have to think that one over, it's a little too specific for us, but we don't have many SWTF questions lately.

JT,
I just noticed the former question # 17 (see below) was delted since you said it was similarly answered by Hasbro, do you know what the answer was? I couldn't find anything by looking at last weeks around the web answers.

With a wave pushed out of this year making way for another repaint wave, does this give Episode I fans a chance to buy some figures in 2008? There's the oft-requested Holographic Nute Gunray, or perhaps a different color variation to the Post-OTC Queen's Handmaiden (Rabe) figure. This could compliment nicely next year's Ep 1 wave that you've already confirmed, so, what do you say?

They said it was a Clone Wars era wave and kid-targeted:

Rebelscum.com: In a recent Q&A session with our friends over at Jedi Defender, it was revealed that there will be another wave of Saga Legends repacks in the fall, featuring kid-targeted characters from the Clone Wars era. Without giving away the figures in this line, I'm wondering which characters you have listed as "kid-oriented", meaning are there in fact specific characters that are primarily targeted towards kids? If so, who are they? Also, which characters do you consider targeted towards collectors?
On a similar note, are there any characters that are "must haves" when you are setting up a line for the year? Presumably the ones listed above would fall into this category, but are there any others that are shoo-ins?
Hasbro: Kid-targeted figures include heroes and key villains (characters like Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, Yoda, R2-D2, General Grievous, etc) as well as core troopers and key droid opponents. In general these are figures that kids want in order to play out the major battles, which are also figures that we have a strong history with as "outperformers" because kids select these before anything else.
Since these are re-releases, with no changes, we consider these releases to be kid-targeted, even though collectors may be interested in the troops, or to some extent, the change to a new line. We don't have room in the Fall assortment to offer any collector-targeted Saga Legends as we did for the 30th line (based on voting). It's possible we could add that later for 2009, but for Fall '08 it will be all hands on deck to get the hero potential on shelf as quickly as possible for the movie and TV series.

And now I see I missed the part about it being another Saga Legends line, I had thought they meant LIKE a Saga Legends line rather than actually being one. Sorry about that, 50 questions per round to collect, it gets confusing. I'll re-add it.

[Battle Droid]

5 and 13 for now.

[Jedi_Kal-El]

8, 9, 12, and 13

[Sinscia Fat'o]

13, 12, 9.....for now.

[Banthaholic]

And now I see I missed the part about it being another Saga Legends line, I had thought they meant LIKE a Saga Legends line rather than actually being one. Sorry about that, 50 questions per round to collect, it gets confusing. I'll re-add it.

It's all good. I read the around the web summary here at SSG, and I was trying to figure out what I missed so I reread them, so good to know I haven't lost it even more than I already have

12 and 12 for me for now