[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.