[Steevy Maximus]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jay West

Saw some pics of the new 4 inch line over at Hisstank. New sculpts but a bit softer like the early Spinmaster DC. Miles is kind of cool. Looks like he may have a hoodie sculpted on him. It’s not pulled up but resting in his shoulders. Hard to tell. Gwen looks pretty similar might be the same sculpt.

I’d argue they aren’t “softer sculpts”, but more “stylized”. If you look at decent res shots, the actual sculpt work is actually VERY good. There is actual texture to the spider-suits, and despite being bulk sprue molds for accessories, they DO have nice detail across the board.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Autobot_Goldbug

they are 4.5 inches so not compatible with anything really
looks like the interns are in charge over there

Which is neither new, nor novel.

The sad reality is that NOTHING. NOT A THING. Hasbro could do at this price point is EVER going to completely satisfy large swaths of collectors. They’ll be too big, too small, not detailed enough, not enough articulation, not enough deco, just main characters, etc, etc, etc…

Quote:

Originally Posted by AFU

Your really telling me they could not restart Old School MU 3.75 again?

Note: It would be so cool if they revamped the old MU 3.75 line and made them pinless! One can dream, I guess….

Given the time and production shifts…Hasbro likely does NOT still have much, if any, of the old MU figure molds. More importantly, though, is that the average MU figure sported more articulation (ie, more parts and more labor) and more deco (more labor) than any of the kids stuff from the past 5 years or so. The entire POINT of stuff like Epic and ActionVerse is to make stuff affordable to kids/parents as the cost to maintain “collector grade” products has pushed Star Wars TVC figures to $20 and 6” figures to $30.


Here’s my vibe on this line:
Hasbro’s been doing various scales for years. We’ve been getting 4” kids stuff in Marvel for almost, what, 4 years now? In that time, I’m assuming Hasbro has been tracking sales numbers and have seen that the 4” scale doesn’t seem to be doing much to “move the needle” in sales. It hasn’t brought back droves of collectors, those have largely stuck to the 6” scale. If the sales between the 5-6” figures and 4” figures were fairly consistent, then that says that scale isn’t a deciding factor as much as price. As costs are still a big pressure on margins for both manufacturers and retailers, there is a balance between factors Hasbro seems to be trying to walk.
In general, kids don’t stick around for more than a couple years on a toy line (or toys in general) so “legacy” isn’t much a factor. In addition, even Spinmaster (who seemed to be the impetus for the Epic Scale to begin with!) dumped 4” figures this year with Superman25 and Batman Ninja. I think that goes back to the old issue of: if a figure of comparable complexity cost similarly across most scaling…what is going to attract consumers? Could Hasbro have continued 4” figures? Sure. But will a larger figure with more accessories attract more buyers? Maybe, certainly enough of a maybe to try. Especially with both Star Wars and Marvel seeing major mainstream film releases.

The actual toys? I’m a softy for more stylized stuff, but disregarding that…they don’t look like bad TOYS. They are well articulated, well sculpted, and seem to have a better “product vision” than I’ve seen from Hasbro in some time. Does that vision evoke Playmates’ handling of TMNT? Sure, but TMNT is one of the FEW lines out there that actually still seem to be kid focused where as Hasbro’s stuff skews REALLY heavy on collector product.
The sprue/racks are a novel means of getting accessories to these figures in a cost effective form (AND be able to store said accessories!). I mean, shit, when was the last time you got a Spider-Man with more than a webbing piece or a web shorty thing for less than $10? While I would have preferred a grey coloring to better match things, Spider-Man’s sprue gets you: a shooting web shooter (with sculpted web shooter element), spider-tracer, “web cape” (Ditko callback?), web gauntlet, and a god-dang camera. Among Miles’ sprue, you get headphones and a skateboard.
That’s more “world building” in those fucking sprues than we’ve seen over the past 4 years of this “Epic World of Action”.

And if you’re going to launch a new scale/style…can’t do worse when Marvel has TWO major films and Star Wars is seeing it’s first new film in 7 years.

[AFU]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steevy Maximus

I’d argue they aren’t “softer sculpts”, but more “stylized”. If you look at decent res shots, the actual sculpt work is actually VERY good. There is actual texture to the spider-suits, and despite being bulk sprue molds for accessories, they DO have nice detail across the board.

Which is neither new, nor novel.

The sad reality is that NOTHING. NOT A THING. Hasbro could do at this price point is EVER going to completely satisfy large swaths of collectors. They’ll be too big, too small, not detailed enough, not enough articulation, not enough deco, just main characters, etc, etc, etc…


Given the time and production shifts…Hasbro likely does NOT still have much, if any, of the old MU figure molds. More importantly, though, is that the average MU figure sported more articulation (ie, more parts and more labor) and more deco (more labor) than any of the kids stuff from the past 5 years or so. The entire POINT of stuff like Epic and ActionVerse is to make stuff affordable to kids/parents as the cost to maintain “collector grade” products has pushed Star Wars TVC figures to $20 and 6” figures to $30.


Here’s my vibe on this line:
Hasbro’s been doing various scales for years. We’ve been getting 4” kids stuff in Marvel for almost, what, 4 years now? In that time, I’m assuming Hasbro has been tracking sales numbers and have seen that the 4” scale doesn’t seem to be doing much to “move the needle” in sales. It hasn’t brought back droves of collectors, those have largely stuck to the 6” scale. If the sales between the 5-6” figures and 4” figures were fairly consistent, then that says that scale isn’t a deciding factor as much as price. As costs are still a big pressure on margins for both manufacturers and retailers, there is a balance between factors Hasbro seems to be trying to walk.
In general, kids don’t stick around for more than a couple years on a toy line (or toys in general) so “legacy” isn’t much a factor. In addition, even Spinmaster (who seemed to be the impetus for the Epic Scale to begin with!) dumped 4” figures this year with Superman25 and Batman Ninja. I think that goes back to the old issue of: if a figure of comparable complexity cost similarly across most scaling…what is going to attract consumers? Could Hasbro have continued 4” figures? Sure. But will a larger figure with more accessories attract more buyers? Maybe, certainly enough of a maybe to try. Especially with both Star Wars and Marvel seeing major mainstream film releases.

The actual toys? I’m a softy for more stylized stuff, but disregarding that…they don’t look like bad TOYS. They are well articulated, well sculpted, and seem to have a better “product vision” than I’ve seen from Hasbro in some time. Does that vision evoke Playmates’ handling of TMNT? Sure, but TMNT is one of the FEW lines out there that actually still seem to be kid focused where as Hasbro’s stuff skews REALLY heavy on collector product.
The sprue/racks are a novel means of getting accessories to these figures in a cost effective form (AND be able to store said accessories!). I mean, shit, when was the last time you got a Spider-Man with more than a webbing piece or a web shorty thing for less than $10? While I would have preferred a grey coloring to better match things, Spider-Man’s sprue gets you: a shooting web shooter (with sculpted web shooter element), spider-tracer, “web cape” (Ditko callback?), web gauntlet, and a god-dang camera. Among Miles’ sprue, you get headphones and a skateboard.
That’s more “world building” in those fucking sprues than we’ve seen over the past 4 years of this “Epic World of Action”.

And if you’re going to launch a new scale/style…can’t do worse when Marvel has TWO major films and Star Wars is seeing it’s first new film in 7 years.

C’mon! Hasbro has those old molds…But, maybe they can use those old molds (save money) for limited runs for certain characters…X-Men, Fantastic Four, Ironman, and Spiderman box sets could be a good starting point, considering these are top sellers .That why they would not have to launch a complete and different line at the same time saving money because they already have the molds! Detailing the figure is all they would need to do, one less step out of the manufacturing process.

[Autobot_Goldbug]

I'm afraid they do not anymore since my Epic were made in Vietnam
Hasbro did destroy molds when they were moving some operations to there from China. Apparently it is too expensive to store the old molds.

[Steevy Maximus]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Autobot_Goldbug

I'm afraid they do not anymore since my Epic were made in Vietnam
Hasbro did destroy molds when they were moving some operations to there from China. Apparently it is too expensive to store the old molds.

To be more accurate, storing the molds have to make sense from a cost/usage angle. Hasbro DOES actually store quite a bit (especially for Transformers) because they usually have a perceived value in keeping those molds for later use. If you’re not going to use a mold in a reasonable amount of time, there isn’t a financial benefit to keeping the molds around.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AFU

C’mon! Hasbro has those old molds…But, maybe they can use those old molds (save money) for limited runs for certain characters…X-Men, Fantastic Four, Ironman, and Spiderman box sets could be a good starting point, considering these are top sellers .That why they would not have to launch a complete and different line at the same time saving money because they already have the molds! Detailing the figure is all they would need to do, one less step out of the manufacturing process.

Just “having the molds” isn’t the biggest cost factor. LABOR costs have actually increased substantially since the late 2000s/early 2010s. That’s been an HUGE reason for the shift away from China to Vietnam for a large number of products. And in an assembly line system, the more complex a product is, the greater number of persons are needed. The average MU figure is significantly more complex, with more articulation and deco, than the given Epic figure.
These figures aren’t all made by machines or pop out the molds assembled and ready to go

Just from my limited experience and knowledge, the “cost” to produce a given 4” Epic Universe figure and an ActionVerse figure are probably close to the same, given the same articulation and comparable deco (ActionVerse probably costing a few cents more due to increased size and the accessory tree). So this comes back to a prior statement I made:
Hasbro has some 4 years of sales to draw from. If sales aren’t growing (adjusting for the typical spike seen with a movie buy in), they don’t have a strong incentive to NOT try a different approach. Especially when they can goose things with potential film support (though, it would NOT surprise me if some of the movie stuff ended up Epic World scale just due to production lead times).

Character selections will probably still suck, though I’m HOPING that this style is used for the upcoming films to bolster the selections.