Soapbox Sunday: Latest Mattycollector Sale Shows Shortcomings; How to Turn it Around

Mattycollector Shortcomings

Remember the good (or bad, depending how you fared) old days when there were toys that you actually wanted to buy on Mattycollector on their monthly sales dates? Those toys would sell out in hours, sometimes minutes. And while that truly meant missed opportunities through lost sales, the quick sell-outs became the barometer for successful products.

Fast forward to today. We’re a couple of days past the Mattycollector sale for October, and looking at the sale page, there’s not a single item on the page that’s sold out. There’s not even a single item that’s marked with the “Almost Gone” tag that Mattel would add to give you a sense of urgency to grab up those soon to be sold out toys. And for a company whose marketing team is so fond of saying “We’ll keep making them as long as you keep buying them,” I’ve got to wonder how much longer Mattel will keep making them, because we certainly not buying them – at least not like we used to.

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SDCC 2014: Hasbro Marvel Universe Infinite Series

SDCC 2014 Hasbro Marvel Universe Infinite Series

I’ll wrap up my posts tonight coming full circle back to Hasbro and their Marvel offerings – this time here’s a look at their Marvel Universe Infinite Series 4-inch offerings, including the massive diorama that got a very cool update this year (I’ll have to go back to get some more pics of it). The line had become a little too hard for me to follow even back when it was still just Marvel Universe – with the re-issues and often-delayed variants, with my casual interest it was hard to keep up. And it’s even more true now that I’m cherry-picking the line.

But I can say this – the line continues to deliver some obscure figures that please fans of the broader Marvel Universe, and the current crop of base bodies is holding up just fine. I hope the brand refresh to “Infinite Series” can come close to living up to its name. Look for an update after the Hasbro Marvel panel this Saturday.

SDCC 2014: Recap of Hasbro’s San Diego Comic-Con Exclusives

Hasbro SDCC 2014_30th Ann Tour Edition_subway lineup

We’ve already covered Hasbro’s SDCC exclusives for the Star Wars Black Series, Marvel Legends and Marvel Universe, but they’ve got so much more.

Included in this update are their exclusives for G.I. Joe, Transformers, Magic the Gathering, and more. Read on!

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SDCC 2014: Hasbro Goes Cosmic with Marvel Exclusives

Hasbro has released the details of its Marvel exclusives for San Diego Comic-Con, and we’ve got the pics in all their high res glory. Like last year, they’ve got figure packs in both the 3.75-inch (formerly Marvel Universe, now Marvel Infinite) and 6-inch (formerly Marvel Legends, now Marvel Legends Infinite) scales. The figures continue to be comics-based – this is for Comic-Con, after all – but this year there’s a unified Cosmic theme. The Marvel Legends Star Lord we knew was coming shows up in the Legends pack, as well as Hasbro’s second attempt at Black Bolt. There’s heavy reuse on the figures, all fan favorites, but I think they’re all smartly done with nothing to complain about at this stage.

The cosmic theme is a nice tie-in to Guardians of the Galaxy, which opens shortly after SDCC, but with the connections to Thanos on both exclusive packs, it begs the question – is Hasbro tying in to Marvel’s upcoming films in the cinematic universe? Thanos was revealed in one of the after credits scenes in The Avengers movie, but we were surprised that the big bad for Avengers 2 was Ultron. It might be too early to start hyping Avengers 3, but perhaps Thanos could rear his ugly mug in a Guardians sequel. Where do you guys think Thanos is going to show up?

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The Pre-Toy Fair 2014 Hasbro Marvel Update

This upcoming weekend we’ll be braving the cold weather in New York City to attend the Hasbro Toy Fair Preview, of which Marvel will be one of the major brands to show – among others, Transformers, Star Wars, and in a limited capacity, G.I. JOE. But we’ve got some catching up to do, so here are some updates to the Hasbro Marvel lines which will bring us up to speed before the big event.

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