[LordMudd]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snowflakian

He-man doesn't really sustain them all that much. It has no retail market support, only direct sales, and those are still low in comparison to retail chain sales. That's why they tried the DC vs Masters of the Universe sets, but they didn't really grab a strong foot hold with retailers.

So it's mostly Hot Wheels, Matchbox, and the toddler lines that do. And some of the IPs generated from that besides the licensed in ones too like Pixar's Cars series and Planes series.

And yup Barbie is their main bread and butter.

That's why they've been expanding lately and looking into other forays. The "boys" market isn't one they have a strong footing in outside of their Hot Wheels/Matchbox stuff. That's why they bought Megablok, which also let them gain a foothold in the building blocks toy lines too.

Even the "girls" market they're trying to expand in with DC Superhero girls because even with as iconic as Barbie is, it doesn't have quite the sales it used to.

Some of these acquisitions should lead to some interesting future forays though. Now with Mega Bloks in-house, they can do more with their self-owned IPs in those areas. Like Barbie, She-ra, and He-man lines there.

That's the one mistake Mattel made in comparison to Hasbro. Hasbro has diverse IPs all over the map of self-owned in-house properties. That's why they are switching to a character company. They have wide character rights in high end named properties for both merchandising and media consumption. Stuff like even Mr. Potatohead in potato chip commercials.

Mattel on the other hand, doesn't quite have that many and has mostly relied on Hot Wheels and Barbie as their leading IPs outside of licensed material from Disney and WB.

Which is why it makes even less sense they'd mishandle the DC rights they do have when certain ones paired up right among scales can sell truckloads. Like not having a 4'' Wonder Woman on shelves for that movie to intermingle in with the other military lines across the board is borderline idiotic.

Not doing the clear female figure mainstays from Batman's Arkham series is another one. How Catwoman and Harley Quinn weren't made in higher abundance, how Batgirl wasn't there. I can accept poison ivy getting a skip because ya know the whole girl in underwear thing might a be a hard sell to retailers, but the others with how their sales would more or less print money makes no sense.

The DC TV show rights are another if I were them that I'd beg WB/CW for. The kitschy stylized ones were cute at first while the shows were still getting their footings, but now that they are clear successes and mainstay ones at that, now might be the time to try and snag those rights back for 4''.

The lack of anything Justice League in the scale also makes no sense. You'd think they'd try to capitalize on that with the Multiverse design team too. Zod may not have sold well, but the Reeves Superman and Keaton Batman did. So the market is there. From the looks of things 6'' multiverse isn't really a strong market dominance either. It's staying afloat, but not really market strong either.

I don't look at Hotwheels because it isn't an action figure. He Man is an exclusive property that they don't have to pay any royalty on, unlike DC stuff. That is really the only reason they are still producing it at all.

CCC.