QUESTIONS FOR HASBRO - round 93

[JediTricks]

Question 6 cut.

Nobody has voted, so nobody is refunded a vote.

Let me restate that, NOBODY HAS VOTED YET FOR AN EXISTING QUESTION. I have been in this thread for 2 hours and still have 0 votes in my tally sheet.

For SW, at least, they seem to be addressing it now with the line reset, at least at Targets. But the last few years have seen distribution issues for much of the first half of the year and then a ton of new stuff around late July/early August; they have previously said that they like to have most of it in the fall and holiday season, so I doubt it's going to change much there. They've also said they can't always tell which figures are going to pegwarm, and at this point it sort of seems like it's just going to happen every now and then. It's just that both things were happening simultaneously this year. I don't know what else they could really say on the subject, but I don't really know much about other lines or their distribution woes.

This is the worst I've seen it since 2003 though. I don't know what they COULD say, but if Derryl were still answering questions, I would have liked to have seen him address it. That said, it's a question that was really only going to work up until SDCC, which is why I didn't throw it back in the mix afterwards.

As to the white ROTS clone and the ceiling on figures, Echo Base News interviewed Derryl and he spoke on it:

Thanks for the 411, I'll cut that question. That said, the yellowed helmets issue hasn't been as fixed as Derryl's been led to believe, I just yesterday saw a fresh case of figures with 2 yellowed helmets, the Utapau Clone and the new Stormtrooper.

Obi-Wan and Anakin use a Separatist Shuttle to shoot down Dooku in SW:TCW, I'd say that's pretty aggressive.

We'll no doubt be seeing it appear in even more episodes of SW:TCW, with even more agression shown.

The Mandalorian Shuttle did nothing agressive at all and they made it. It's not even armed in the show, Hasbro just gave it missle lauchers.

I'll add it, I guess. I may be instituting a new policy concerning questions' lifespans though, cutting questions after 3 or 4 rounds if they don't show long-term support. That's not just about your question, I have one that's for sure coming off next round barring a voting miracle (which isn't saying much, as of right now nobody has voted and there's just 11 days left in the round).

Another question,

Hasbro, will you ever release a regular SW:TCW infantry Battle Droid with the Firefighter Battle Droid's arms, and the Separatist Speeder Pilot Battle Droid's legs so that we'll have a more articulated animated Battle Droid?

Yeah, sure, why not.

I like this question and, seeing as how all sites are complaining about the non-answers from the latest rounds, I think we really need to ask them about it.

Here's my rework of it:

With Jeff taking over Q&A duties from Derryl, the first few batches of answers have been brief and less nuanced than what we've grown accustomed to from the brand. Previously, it seems that the answers returned were intended to give fans a real understanding of how the brand works. Now, fan sites are getting subjected to generic PR-styled doublespeak, which we can only assume is intended to artificially generate hype for a brand that people are already hyped about (otherwise they wouldn't be participating in the Q&A), or poor attempts at humor, which makes many fans feel that Hasbro is mocking us. We hope this is just a breaking-in period and not a repeat of the frustratingly pointless Transformers brand Q&A. If so, then what can we fans to do help smooth this transitional period? If these last few rounds of vague non-answers are an indication of what we can expect from here on out, then what's the point of even participating in the Q&A?

Thanks, I wrote it on my phone while waiting for another panel to start. I was just in the middle of working on a different tack to that question when I decided to start working this thread, so I'll take some ideas from your reworking along with my unholy-long quotations (for once, it's not my fault! I used our first, and last, use of paragraph breaks in a Q&A question. ) and throw together question 15. I'm hoping Derryl's words will help explain to Jeff what we've grown to expect.

No worries, I just feel like Hasbro has made some pretty bad decisions recently about which figures to carry forward and think that some input from the collectors before the waves were set would help.

No, I absolutely agree with you, in a perfect world it'd be a brilliant idea. The problem is more one of the reality of the situation, logistics and corporate interference.

Even my wife, who spends more time in the toy aisle with me than she would like, has noticed this trend and asked me this very question. If it were to be added, I would certainly vote for it.

Ok, I'll rework it and put it back in. We've had it before and pulled it due to lack of interest, but I'll put it into the cycle. I am however worried about the Anakin question at the end being a bit loaded and could blow up in our faces (the clone part was already answered recently, they do).

I like this question too. I worry that it may come off a bit harsh on Jeff, but I think that if they know that we are asking out of real concern and not just trying to be mean it could work. I like BigB's inclusion of "...which we can only assume is intended to artificially generate hype for a brand that people are already hyped about (otherwise they wouldn't be participating in the Q&A), or poor attempts at humor, which makes many fans feel that Hasbro is mocking us." It gives them some idea of exactly what we are complaining/asking about.

I agree with his sentiment, but the way it's put is pretty harsh and I don't want to push our relationship with them that hard. Hence I used Derryl's words to do the job instead. But now seeing your post, I do feel like I may have been too soft at the end in my own words, so I've bolstered it a little.

New Questions:

How does Hasbro feel now about making "non-action" Clone Wars figures given that War Plans Padme and War Plans Chancellor Palpatine have shown up on another reputable fan site's rumored figures list? Could figures like Senators Far, Tutchi, and Bail Organna, and Separatist Leaders like Nute Gunray make it into the CW line, perhaps as exclusive figures included with battle packs?

1) SSG has a policy not to deal in rumors if it's going to be in our news. I don't subscribe to the idea that, without presented evidence, there is ever a "reputable" rumor list, even if it's on SSG somehow.

2) They addressed that in a few answers late last year, like this one from Nov 22nd:

GalacticHunter.com: Our Features Editor (ahem) spoke to the Line Lead for The Clone Wars at Celebration V, and there was some difficulty in working Duchess Satine into the line. Now that she's had several appearances in, frankly, powerful episodes, is there room for a refined lady in a gown? (The skirt can be "break-away" as a compromise - just make sure she has something on underneath, of course!)
Hasbro: There are no plans for a Satine figure in the line. Aside from Ahsoka, kids just don't respond to female figures all that well. With kids being the vast majority of the Clone Wars audience, we don't have the luxury of a lot of collector-targeted figures in the line.

and

Sandtroopers.com: If Clone Wars is such a smash hit, is there a chance we'll see a better development of new figures next year? It seems like much of what we are seeing this year is existing sculpts with minor tweaks. IE Senate Guards, various Clone Troopers. Will Hasbro put more behind completely new figures for not only Clone Wars but Vintage?? In a nutshell, does ratings effect the resources Hasbro puts into a particular brand?
Hasbro: Ratings don't affect what we put into the figures, but sales do; more importantly, our understanding of what audience is actually buying the figures is a key factor in what we do. Clone Wars is a very successful line for us, and the vast majority of people buying it are kids. This, combined with the fact that there are fewer collectors engaged in Clone Wars than in Legacy (Vintage), means that we are focusing on major characters for Clone Wars and trimming back on the more obscure characters. We've found that kids don't value these tertiary characters, so there is a high risk of bottling up the line when they don't sell. Also, kids don't care about whether their figures are made with existing sculpts or not: they concentrate on the biggest characters. This helps us ensure that we put our focus where it makes the biggest different for collector, and that's Vintage. Vintage will have many more new figures than Clone Wars in 2011.

and from Sept

KittysPryde.forumotion.com: Many fans love the articulation featured in the 'super-articulated Clone Trooper', but most figures continue to use tooling with less mobile joints. Why have the designers chosen to utilize articulation (especially in new molds) that allows for less movement than articulation already developed?
Hasbro: We assume that you are referring to Clone Wars figures, since the Legacy figures continue to be super-articulated. The simple reason for Clone Wars figures taking a bit of step down in articulation is due to the fact that the vast majority of Clone Wars figures are bought by kids who do not place value in articulation, and in fact find highly-articulated figures a lot more fussy to control and pose. We want to make sure that we are putting our cost investments (tooling, etc) in the right place and we want to make sure that we aren't over-developing figures for the target audience.

It goes on and on like that, there's a pattern which developed in answers over the last year that Hasbro's seeing Clone Wars as struggling with figures like those you're suggesting and thriving when they're minimized. None are "off the table", but their chances are surely lower. As such, I don't feel it's something to pursue in Q&A right now, baseless "is this coming out" sort of questions are very specific when we have such a limited resource, since literally everything could be asked that way.

Has Hasbro looked at ships like Hondo Ohnaka's flying saucer, the Rapier-One for inclusion in the $24 basic fighter ship assortment?

Unless it's currently on the plan for the next 6 months, I'm sure the answer will be of the "yes, but we're not doing it right now" variety.

Enough with Republic ships for a while, as the Solar Sailor is a good choice, too - as is Ventress' ship from the Gennedy series (the Republic Fighter Tank was not from the new cartoon show), but that angel fish ship the Jedi use (Lego made it) does beg for consideration - however that's too big for the $24 price range - isn't it? Maybe the bounty hunter ship that Seripas and the others arrive in is plausible. On Naboo, Padme uses a yellow HazMat version of it when the blue shadow virus strikes. Repaint anyone? It could come with Padme and JarJar in EV suits, and maybe "Peppy" the pink female Gungan. Everyone wants a pink, female Gungan figure!

What is this, are you just typing everything that pops into your head into 1 question?

As for Ventress' ship, it was asked and answered. And the bounty hunter ship Halo is at least as implausible as the Jedi T-6 Shuttle, both of which have been made by LEGO and both are outside the Hasbro Class 2 Fleet (that's the new name for $25 vehicles) scale as-is.

[JediTricks]

For now, I'll vote for 9 and 12. I'd still like to take a crack at writing some more of the SDCC questions; I'll have more time tomorrow to do so.

OH MY GOD, SOMEBODY VOTED WHILE I WAS WORKING ON THE THREAD! It's an August miracle!

Don't worry too much about the SDCC questions right now, we're swamped with questions anyway, 15 live questions and we're only losing 2 at the end of the round instead of 4.

[DarkJedi5]

#5 for now.

[Battle Droid]

#13 and #14 get my votes!

[Mr. JabbaJohnL]

I'd actually like to change my vote from 12 to 15. Last round's answers across all the sites were showing a bit of improvement, but this one was full of "not right now"s, misunderstanding of simple questions (about the Walmart exclusive TPM wave) and outright false information (Kit Fisto's nonexistent running change, unless there's one coming later that nobody knew about). I'd like to nip this trend in the bud as soon as possible, and seeing Derryl's passion for this brings it home.

[sonofsokol]

I really like quite a few of the new questions.
I'd like to vote for 15 & 16

[bigbarada]

So many good questions to choose from this time. I'm going to go with 8 and 15; but I might change my mind later on.

[El Chuxter]

(Kit Fisto's nonexistent running change, unless there's one coming later that nobody knew about)

The Mighty GrinTM!!! Please, God, let it be The Mighty GrinTM.

[mtriv73]

I'm voting for 15 for now

[sonofsokol]

In regards to question 16, which asks about figures appearing in both TVC and Saga Legends: Rebel Scum shows that there has been 32 Saga Legends figures since the packaging was changed to the "shadows of the dark side" style, which also maked the beginning of the Vintage Collection. This numbering started with Bossk as SL01 and the SpaceTrooper as SL32. I did a quick comparison and it appears that 15 of these 32 figures have also appeard in the Vintage Collection. I realize that the Vintage Collection figures have been improved/updated and in some cases are quite different than the Saga Legends version, but it still surprises me how many duplicates there are.
Here is the list that I came up with:
-Anakin (episode III)
-Boba Fett
-C-3PO
-Clone Trooper-Phase I
-Clone Trooper-Phase II
-Darth Vader
-General Grievous
-Jango Fett
-Luke Skywalker (Snow Speeder Pilot)
-Mace Windu
-Obiwan Kenobi (episode II)
-R2-D2
-Stormtrooper
-Super Battle Droid
-Yoda