Quote:
Originally Posted by predahank
Last wave distribution. ramhorm, novastar, rumble/ratbat......
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Absolutely this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lioconvoy81
That has everything to do with retailers and nothing to do with Hasbro.
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I disagree. Hasbro has to realize that if they ship a last wave to retailers for release in, like, October when previous waves are still piled up and trying to be cleared out and then have a new line debuting in late November/December for Christmas, stores are going to choose to sell the new stuff and not give a crap about the previous line's wave. It's doubly worse when the last wave is usually like 1-4 figures instead of a full compliment. I know part of it is on retailers, but that's more an issue of the fact that they won't understand the problem. Employees aren't necessarily or likely to be TF fans like us, so they just see "Another box of robot toys to sell" and not that we're going to be fretting waiting for them to open up the boxes of the last wave for the figures we haven't been able to get before.
They really should just spread things out more. 4 waves, all full range (every wave has like 3-4 "master" minis, 3-5 deluxes, 2-3 voyagers, 1-2 leaders. plus add in a commander and a titan somewhere in the year) and more or less evenly spaced. No stupid half-measure final wave, no stragglers.
December: Wave 1
March: Wave 2 + Commander
June: Wave 3
September: Wave 4 + Titan
There. Everything's spaced out and they have 2-3 months to clear out wave 4 to make room for the next line coming in December. The 2 big ticket purchases are evenly spaced out, and the Titan is held until the end of the line as a capstone and to make it more attractive as a potential holiday purchase for people who might not otherwise justify the giant price tag. They can even bleed releasing the Titan into the early part of the next line as well during wave 1.
Retailer exclusives are a distant 2nd for me mostly because I don't think it's this big of an issue in the US, we just get shafted in Canada by Amazon.ca's lag, EBGames' relative indifference, and TRU being stuck in limbo for long periods when it comes to Target exclusives.
Also that Pulse up here blows and specialty retaliers like A3U and whatnot are a mixed bag.
