SSG’s Bi-Weekly Hasbro Q&A – March 12th

SSG’s Bi-Weekly Hasbro Q&A – March 12th

Posted by jeditricks on March 12, 2008 at 10:10 PM

A few days late due to who knows what this time, but it’s still Hasbro’s answers to SSG questions for March 12th, 2008. Thanks again to Hasbro for the answers, to all the folks who sent in questions and especially those who voted on them.

Hasbro Q&A for the week of March 12th

SSG: Why was Titanium Series so poorly represented at your Toy Fair display? Can you tell us what’s forthcoming for Titaniums later in the year (preferably with pictures), and why they are delayed until fall? Are we ever getting the Outrider mentioned back in ’06?
Hasbro: We simply could not give adequate coverage to everything at Toy Fair, and some sublines regrettably did not get the true time and attention they deserve. Titanium certainly was not alone in this respect, as we lightly covered it as well as Unleashed 2″ and Star Wars Transformers Crossovers as well. In Fall, we will be doing a Clone-Wars inspired redeco wave for the 7/26 Clone Wars brand reset. After that, Titanium will have some exciting new vehicles, a total of twelve all new tools for the Fall including the Cloud Car, and some other surprises we will reveal at Comic Con. Going forward, we are determined to keep Titanium vibrant and exciting, with new tools drawn from movies as well as Expanded Universe.

SSG: The Hasbro SW Toy Fair press release has The Legacy Collection clocking in at 30 basic figures. Back in October, you told us “For 2008, we are going to take the classic total down by about one wave. So from the current 60 figures this year, expect around 53 figures or so.” The ’08 TAC line has 15 figures total across its 2 waves, so according to your info, adding another 30 basic figures will give us a total of just 45 figures, a whole wave smaller than the 53-ish you originally stated. Has an ’08 wave been pushed back out of the year, or are there more figures to be expected in the TLC line than the press release stated?
Hasbro: The answer is that yes, a wave has moved due to sculpting delays, but no the number will not come down to less than 50 figures for 2008. Here’s the score: you know about the 15 from TAC in Spring, along with the 16 that were shown between Waves 1 and 2 of Legacy Collection (Droid Factory), bringing the total to 31 “seen” so far. In addition, another 24 figures are on schedule, including a redeco wave which was created to replace the delayed wave (there will now be 8 unique Droid factory figures for the Fall figures, four Astro droids in Waves 1 & 3 and 4 Protocol droids for the subsequent waves). These figures will be spaced out from 7/26 launch until the end of the year, or about 6-8 per month through the Fall if all goes according to the firmed up schedule.

SSG: In recent years, many Darth Vader figures have included a silver piece of fabric material around the neck to represent the chain that holds Vader’s cape on. However, every time this feature has been included, the “chain” ends up looking too big and out-of-place, while Vader figures that do not include this chain end up looking much better. In the interest of accuracy, could the chain either be scaled down (to better match its look in Episodes III, V, and VI), or done as sculpted plastic (as on earlier incarnations), or simply left off (as in Episode IV) on future Darth Vader figures?
Hasbro: The thickness of the soft goods chain cannot be reduced any further than it already is due to minimum material strength needs. Sculpted plastic would be the alternative, but it doesn’t always work with the soft goods that we choose.

As well as the questions, we sent to Hasbro these 2 comments:
– In your Toy Fair display, one of the Comic Packs is from SW Legacy, it’s of 2 Imperial Knights. While the figures look very accurate, they are sporting red lightsaber blades which is inaccurate, in the comics they use “silver” saber blades as seen here . We’re mentioning this now so if it was done as a mistake, it could be corrected before the error goes to production.
– Finally, on behalf of the readers and forumites of SSG who have been campaigning for over 7 years to get a Yarna d’al Gargan figure made, and the collector community overall, it is a great pleasure to extend a huge thanks to the folks at Hasbro who have made our Yarna figure a reality. THANK YOU TO THE HASBRO STAR WARS TEAM!!!

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And the questions at ActionFigs.com:
[LIST]
[*]- You’ve said in the past that you were done with animated figures, that your testing had shown the realistic style to be far preferred over animated, yet the new Clone Wars show’s figures are based on its animation rather than the realistic style. What was the thinking behind going animated-style with these rather than realistic?
[*]- Hasbro’s Toy Fair press release uses a July 26th availability date for all the Clone Wars products, as well as the new Legacy Collection line, and does not include an “approximate” qualifier. Will this be just a tentative on-shelf date, or is this a more “concrete” release date like those of the intial prequel films’ product lines?
[*]- The Comic Packs are a very welcomed addition to a lot of Star Wars collectors, but there is a lot of buzz about Hasbro’s choices of whom to include in these packs. Many collectors are wondering how does Hasbro chose which characters to make, since the ToyFare fans’ choice poll a few years ago included a lot of comic-based characters such as Exar Kun, Guri and others who have yet to receive the action figure treatment. So how does Hasbro plan these packs, and just what goes into your choices?[/LIST]

jeditricks replied 16 years, 7 months ago 0 Member · 11 Replies
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