Are Hasbro's Sales Expectations of Kre-O Being Met?
 

I'm actually kind of curious on this, is Hasbro's Experimental push into the world of Buildable Block Sets succeeding as they had envisioned?

I'm constantly seeing Kre-O sets everywhere, and today I'm finally going to buy one of the sets I can afford so I can see just what the look and feel of these things are like in person.

But I'm curious, has Kre-O done better buisness than the old Built-To-Rule merchandise? Are Kids clamoring for Kre-O as much as they are LEGO? (And some Mega Blocks, though I don't see why, I purchased Mega Blocks sets at the beginning of this new Millennium, they didn't do much for me and after a while I wound up donating them to Value Village because they just weren't as impressive as I'd thought they'd be.)

Kre-O must be doing something right, right?

Fun Fact about Kre-O:

In the Alphabet, K comes before L, So, was Hasbro trying to subtly imply that their products were better than LEGO by picking a name that starts with the Letter K and ends in O?

As Mikey said in TMNT II Secret of the Ooze, All the Good Ones End in O.

ABCDEFGHIJ
Kre-O
LEGO
Mega Blocks
NOPQRSTUVWXYZ

Yep, Mega Blocks are definitely bottom rung products. But will Kre-O deserve such a lofty spot above LEGO products? Will Kre-O begin introducing GIJoe and My Little Pony brand building sets to open up the market and marketability of these figures?

Or have the sales so far of the Transformers brand Kre-O prooved once again that Hasbro should stick to action figures and avoid making forays into the building block sets area of the toy market?

I don't have the answers, TF Wiki doesn't say anything about it so far, what do the fans think on the subject?

And who should be my first purchased Kre-O figure? Jazz or Mirage?

Re: Are Hasbro's Sales Expectations of Kre-O Being Met?
 

The problem I have with the Kreo sets is that they don't actually transform. You have the choice to build the robot or the alt mode. If they went that one step further and included the peices you would need to transform them, I would not have any problem buying them! :) As far as sales go, judging by the shelves in the toy aisles, I'd say they held their own over Christmas.

Re: Are Hasbro's Sales Expectations of Kre-O Being Met?
 

I have some mega blocks, the halo stuff (which could be a good reason why they are still in busniess). I actually like them. I have only three sets, but they are awesome.

Lego has been around for a while, so I dont think choose the letter K to imply their product is superior. Hasbro cant beat Lego, not when Lego has Star Wars.

The only superior thing about Kre-o to Lego are the kreons. But MegaBlocks little figures beat both.

The only thing Kre-o is doing right is the fact that they are Transformers genre. If they were some sort of alien or uder water ting the lego has done repeatly, I dont think Kre-o would have ben noticed.

As for your first purchase, I have only two, Megatron and OP(got him for 45 t walmart), both truck modes are fantastic. Bot modes, OP is great, Megs is...weird if done by Hasbros instructions, however. Ive done a modding on him which makes him much better and includes his fusion cannon. Cant help you on the little ones.

Re: Are Hasbro's Sales Expectations of Kre-O Being Met?
 

I never thought I'd buy any myself but have already bought 5 sets:
Big Prime
Sentinel Prime
Megatron
Bumblebee-big one
Mirage

Lately I have been getting more and more lego and these Kre-o sets are great because they are both things I like to collect.

Re: Are Hasbro's Sales Expectations of Kre-O Being Met?
 

this is simply the first year of their release, they have been doing a good job (I've even seen their ad's on a few youtube videos months age) but kre-o is not a household name yet.
I hope that they continue the kre-o sets as a decent competitor to the 2 major building blocks companies because you rule in both a challenging build and a transforming robot/car.

Re: Are Hasbro's Sales Expectations of Kre-O Being Met?
 

Transforming Ker-o should be the unique feature that Ker-o could stand out and most valuable point to purchase. BTR is too big a bloks that seems to lack of details.
I dont mind that you could donate or dump those as trash to me.:)

Re: Are Hasbro's Sales Expectations of Kre-O Being Met?
 

My Nephews love Kreo but they also love Lego so it makes sense. I think the best thing Hasbro did with the product was make it so you build either the robot or the vehicle, then disassemble and build the other. If you built a TF'ing bot, why not just buy a normal TF? Since if it did transform, you'd build it once and then (probably) never take it apart and rebuild it again. Why would you? You already have a transforming toy, there's no need to disassemble just to rebuild it. Having to build it in either mode you get the fun of building a robot then a car then a robot then...

Re: Are Hasbro's Sales Expectations of Kre-O Being Met?
 

Kre-O, based on this intial batch, really isn't in Lego's league imo. The bricks are a decent enough quality and very close to being on par with Lego - my issues are more with the decals and the instructions.

Not all, but a few of the decals I've gotten have been coming/curling off the toys. And the instructions are a little tricky at times. They don't differentiate well between similar colors like grey and silver and I find it isn't always clear which particular lego post I'm suppost to be attaching something to. Twice now I've gotten half way done a project only to realize that I've got something in the slightly wrong spot.

It's always fixable, but its also something I've never run into with the Lego sets.

Re: Are Hasbro's Sales Expectations of Kre-O Being Met?
 

I think the simple way of knowing whether expectations are being met or not is if Hasbro announces more sets in 2012. If we get past Botcon and not hear about anymore, I bet it's safe to say that it underperformed.

Re: Are Hasbro's Sales Expectations of Kre-O Being Met?
 

I don't know if there doing well or not, all I know is the plastic is god awfully cheap, and no matter how cool they are, I refuse to buy anything that's damaged in the package. I was going to buy them all for the Kroens mostly, but all of the sets I opened had stress damage around the wrists (bir Prime, Megatron, Sideswipe, Sentinal). And the small Prime I kept (Iexchanged the damaged sets once, then when I found out the new sets had the same problem I returned them all) has cracks around the ball joints where his legs plug into the waist just from standing on a shelf. Such a cool idea ruined by awful, awful quality control. :(