[Snowflakian]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Psycho Pirate

There are simply too many movies and shows to keep pace with. And they have already stated that 6" will get the movie figures.

The problem is, they have it backwards. The TV shows can only be watched by adults due to content. TV show figures should be in the larger, more expensive format for adult collectors.

The cartoons are accessible by kids, so those should be the focus of low articulation kids' lines.

The movies are accessible by both kids and adults. Movie figures belong in the 3.75" line with more detailed articulation for both collectors and (older) kids.

Remember the Man of Steel figures? A big chunk of the toys were lower quality and gimmicky - clearly aimed at kids. But young kids had no business seeing that movie! The result? I can still find them on the pegs years later!

Your toy/collector product needs to line up with the audience of the media tie-in. Hasbro needs to shift a few things around to accomplish that.

Part of that is also on retailers.
AOS gets a pass because much of what we see there will be in Infinity War. So they'll get an outlet that way eventually, which works in hasbro's favor too. So Deathlok, Mockingbird, and Quake will probably get a figure in that alongside Coulson and maybe some random others like Melinda May.

Retailers want blockbuster movie products though because they do tend to move normally and have a short life cycle overall for quick profit turnovers. Hasbro has to juggle that mixed with getting the same customer base to purchase the same figures when released again later. Retailers tend to avoid tv show products, and they actively pushed out the toon lines in favor of the movie product lines. (That's why avengers assemble went discount shop before the Fury/Hawkeye/Leader wave. Hasbro did try to do an articulated animated line, retailers pushed it away.)

So for now, that means low articulation fillers so the consumer will purchase the higher articulation figure released later. (Except in instances where costumes change regularly.) With the MCU, most costumes don't change all that much and doing new tooling with high articulation figures every year would get too costly. So they split the middle on that with the low articulation figures (which are still moving pretty decently at retailers) for the time being.

By infinity war though, we should start getting the original classic articulation movie figures we were getting before. The ones right now are more like place holder filler until then to keep the market from oversaturating on repacking vision or similar that don't change in three consecutive lines as the same figure. Kind of like what's going to happen to ant-man. His costume isn't going to change much, so we're probably going to see him repacked a couple times as the movies expand.

Black Panther is another example of that. His costume more than likely won't change until they possibly do a Shuri changeover. So his figure would be packed with Civil War, his own movie, and Infinity war. That's 3 toy lines for 1 mold. Black Widow tends to be unique in the fact her base buck can be used for other SHIELD agents too. So from her mold alone we can get 4 different characters per mold if the movie pertains to it.

Stuff like the Defenders are set to appear in Infinity War too, so that's where we'd be likely to see Daredevil, Ironfist, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage. Dr. Strange too.

The bad guys from various films can also filter into Infinity war since they really don't have that many bad guys per film. Having one per wave would knock out all the villains from the movies while still providing all the characters from the infinity war movies too.

For Hasbro, it's about timing. What can they profit on now to buy time with to still profit later. Infinity War is the endgame there with it having a 2 year movie cycle, so it'll have a longer shelf life for a toy line that'll need to move to stay on shelves. This induced demand for higher articulation figures plays into that and will make the line an immediate success because we all want those figures.

So it's a matter of do you trade sales now for sales later for the quick boon of MCU spider-man in a Civil War line, or do you wait for later to better capitalize on MCU everything across 2+ years with high grade articulation.

It's a juggling act. One we might start seeing better pay out later on once the floodgates are open and demand is high enough for it.

You also have to keep in mind, we're stuck in middle man syndrome with Retailers as the gatekeepers of the material we want. If a retailer won't carry it, Hasbro can't profit, and we can't buy it.
Retailers are Hasbro's bread and butter and we're the bread and butter of retailers. If retailers don't think it'll sell, or don't see the volume moving they'd like, they lower their orders even if the product would move if the later on orders would go through.

Like the Hawkeye/Leader/Fury avengers assemble wave would have moved tons, but at that point major retailers already lost faith in the line and moved on to other marvel things for the shelf space. That's not on Hasbro, that's on retailers. More waves didn't happen because retailers stopped ordering after the initial on shelves waves. The rest went to outlet stores that buy in bulk for cheap because major retailers didn't want it.

There's a lot of issues on the retailer side of ordering that hinders full coverage across comics, animation, and movies in that regard. Though I do hope eventually animated GOTG does make that leap since their designs are movie enough that it can dual both in the same line. Again though, that's another one that could see release through the 2 year cycle of infinity war. They are set to cameo in those films too.

Infinity War is where I'd expect full coverage to happen the most because of all the characters set to appear. Maybe hopefully some more single character teases like they did with Ant-man for key players in solo films like Black Panther, and Captain Marvel. Depends on how much it could dent or help sales later. With Marvel movies, Hasbro knows they need to think ahead to best monetize now for great returns, but also still leave enough demand for better later to still cash in then while also working within the confines of the retailer middleman problem.

They might start that trend with Civil War though too. So they can start re-using molds later in infinity war to open the doors more across the new molds needed for many characters that won't be in movies until then. Getting a new mold Black Panther, Spider-man, falcon, vision, and maybe scarlet witch now, would cut costs on new molds for later when Infinity war has everyone. So then the new mold cost would fall to other characters like the defenders, SHIELD or GOTG (if GOTG 2 doesn't have a standard orig articulation line that can draw on for mold re-usage in Infinity War) and the villains. This would let them repack Black Panther for his own line, and maybe even Captain Marvel for her own too. That way they can repack them with infinity war to help cut new mold costs across all the characters they can make.

This is the kind of juggling act they need to do.
AoU was definitely a filler line though. No arguments about that. It's also a filler line that really moved though and retailers seemed to like. So for now at least it provided some basic filler for us like Scarlet Witch and Vision, but I do expect better molds of those two later when the timing is right. Scarlet witch herself will probably go through a couple costume variations until they settle on her final, kind of like how Hawkeye is now slowly changing his too as is cap. Falcon's might start evolving more too between AoU, Ant-man, Civil War, and infinity war or any other cameos.

Civil War is a maybe on seeing some great figures again. Many want the final costume versions and not every iteration until the final though. Only in select cases does that work like Captain America where he's from two different time periods. Falcon is another that can do 2, but maybe not more. His jacket version is perfect, but do we really need 5 figures of slight variations on his costume version that only have minor differences? Or 5 Hawkeyes that all have minor differences until his final one in Infinity War? The initial Hawkeye avengers figure at least can be repacked in a comic line like it was the toon line, but with the variations that's not as possible if each minor change had a new mold. Falcon is lucky like that too where his current figure can be repacked in a comic line as Ultimate Comics Falcon.

Infinity war is where I'd expect the most diverse coverage though considering it opens the full MCU in one line as possibles to make. Including the tv show characters. And needs to maintain high profile shelf-space across 2 years +dvd releases anyway.

Speaking of re-releases.
Kind of surprised we haven't seen an Ultimate gift pack that used:
Ultimate Hawkeye
Ultimate Thor
Ultimate Cap
Ultimate Ironman
Ultimate Black Widow
Ultimate Falcon
Or even a repainted Ultimate Wasp