Do the large number of exclusives indicate anything?
Broke
not counting Machine Wars. With Cryotek at Target (by the way, does anyone else
think there was a joke in making him a Target-master in his tech specs?), the
cycles at Wal-Mart, Megs at KB and Scourge at TRU, all the major toy retailers
got an exclusive, with the exception of K-mart, but their bankruptcy may have
soured them on things like store exlcusives.
Does this mean anything? We didn't see this with Beast Wars or Beast Machines,
who only got a few exclusives between them. Correct me if I'm wrong but the
only BW exlusives were Wal-marts Tripredicus Agent and the Rattrap repaint,
which wasn't even a new character (I know he was retconned into Packrat, but at
the time of release, he was just nice redeco of Rattrap as Rattrap), and BM
only got the Target Magmatron.
RiD had 4, each at a different store. Does this say that stores are more
confident in the Transformers brand, or that Hasbro had to find stores willing
to carry these toys since there wasn't enough demand for a wide release? Three
of the four are coming out in the tail end of RiD, and despite brisk sales at
first, quite a few shelf/peg warmers have made themselves obvious the lasy
couple of months.
-------------------
Broke
Random thing I enjoy about Transformers and the fandom-
Genuinely frightening pictures of Cyclonus
http://members.aol.com/tdenton642/freaky.jpg
Jesterinazz
>soured them on things like store exlcusives.
Hell, they lost ONE BILLION dollars last month in sales, I doubt *any*
manufacturer
would stick it out and offer them an exclusive!
The next post has been created to irritate you, and make things generally
unpleasant.
Trixter
>
> RiD had 4, each at a different store. Does this say that stores are more
> confident in the Transformers brand, or that Hasbro had to find stores willing
> to carry these toys since there wasn't enough demand for a wide release? Three
> of the four are coming out in the tail end of RiD, and despite brisk sales at
> first, quite a few shelf/peg warmers have made themselves obvious the lasy
> couple of months.
I think it's a little of both. Some of the toys that have been
released as exclusives, like the cycles, are toys that the line would
have been complete without. They weren't show characters, they were
just new-character repaints of existing toys. So they seem more like
the kind of exclusives that are created because Wal-Mart asked for
exclusives. However, Scourge and Fortress Maximus seem like they
became exclusives because Hasbro was unable to sell them to a
mass-market. Scourge is a high-price-point villian, and villians are
traditionally the poorer sellers at any price point. And Fortress
Maximus is just HUGE, and in today's market your everyday discount toy
stores are hesitant to carry such high-price-point toys. (Not to toot
my own horn, but I had hypothesized that Fort Max might see an
exclusive release to FAO, since they're one of the few toy chains
willing to handle such expensive items, and Hasbro has dealt with them
before. They've also carried Power Rangers exclusives in similar
Japanese-with-English-stickers packaging. The online retailers are a
very nice touch, though.) Megabolt could go either way, as he was a
mold they already had around, but a toy that BM seemed incomplete
without. And Hasbro must have wanted to recoup their design costs on
him. But since he wasn't exactly an integral part of RiD, and 3H had
already been interested in having him produced if no chains picked him
up, I suspect KayBee came to them for an exclusive. Cryotek is also
hard to make a call on, since his design had also been in the pipeline
as a Fox Kids rerelease. I think part of why RiD has so many
exclusives is because retailers were begging for exclusives for such a
popular brand, but I think it's also because Hasbro had a lot of
exclusive-worthy merchandise to throw at them. So, as the saying
goes, from the looks of it I'd say a little of both. ;)
-Trixter
Zobovor the Boxing Kangaroo
>With Cryotek at Target (by the way, does anyone else think there was
>a joke in making him a Target-master in his tech specs?)
D'oh! Okay, that is actually funny. :)
>Does this say that stores are more confident in the Transformers brand,
>or that Hasbro had to find stores willing to carry these toys since there
>wasn't enough demand for a wide release?
From the looks of it, I'd say a little of both.
Zobovor... this box of videotapes is big and heavy!