[trebleshot]

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Originally Posted by Ninjinister

Oh snap. SDCC exclusive? There goes chances of stocking up for customs.

Yup. Unless you've got a money tree in your back yard, of course.

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Originally Posted by Ninjinister

It ain't just Hasbro. Mattel and Playmates, at least, are doing the same thing and arguably have been doing it much longer. While Hasbro's Star Wars seems to have a Skywalker or two and Kenobi at least in every wave, at least they also litter the waves with obscure characters people want (then again I'm still seeing whatever that four titted monster was at TRU burning a hole on the peg every time I'm there).

Star Wars is a special case, due to the [present] lack of media support for the movie characters. Basically, SW toys are almost completely driven by collectors (and more recently CW fans) so they're able to get away with more obscure characters than lines like Avengers, Iron Man, Batman or Superman.

It also doesn't hurt that Hasbro has already made multiple versions of every single "major" character in the SW films, so they have to spice things up to keep collectors interested.

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Originally Posted by soundwavempl

From my understanding, it is actually the big retailers (like Walmart and Target) that request multiple versions of the main characters and toy companies have to oblige to get their product sold by those retailers.

Correct.

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As far as case assortments, I don't know if retailers or manufacturers have the final say. And if manufacturers do have final say, it is baffling why Hasbro couldn't put Vision in series 5 versus someone like Silver Surfer.

Manufacturers have the final say for both case assortments and case ratios. But as you've already said, retailers do have some influence over those decisions. Collectors do too, but there's only so much that can be done and Hasbro can't please everyone (not for lack of trying).

As for Vision, supposedly the mold used for him has been retired (according to Hasbro). So that's why he hasn't shown up again since his translucent variant, and probably why we won't see him again unless it's a new mold (with Avengers 2, I hope).