General Marvel Legends

JRoug said:
Suppose the recent sold-out but not MTO robo-Punisher exclusive is a good sign for DTC exclusive figures, too - wonder if they're kicking themselves for not making more?
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DTC.. ?

I think they're probably celebrating a very successful production run
 
Enforcer said:
Oh so like... just Pulse exclusives? Can't see that going away. Bullseye and Muse sold out.
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Yeah, Pulse exclusives, and yeah, those are a great way to get out stuff like the Punisher suit.

Honestly the only thing I'm surprised at is that there are still plenty of sentinels left. I check them every now and again just to see if they've sold out. If they ever go on sale I'll grab a second one.
 
With the Sentinel, I would believe that the tariffs really screwed them on margins (for those who locked in the initial price a year earlier), so they made a second batch to try and recoup... and also increased the price which took them to *just* outside what your average collector would be willing to spend. Once season 2 hits, I wouldnt be surprised if the remaining stock of those sell out.
 
Enforcer said:
With the Sentinel, I would believe that the tariffs really screwed them on margins (for those who locked in the initial price a year earlier), so they made a second batch to try and recoup... and also increased the price which took them to *just* outside what your average collector would be willing to spend. Once season 2 hits, I wouldnt be surprised if the remaining stock of those sell out.
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Yeah. I'm going to keep checking in on them. If stock starts to fall low I might pull the trigger early, but I got one so if I miss my window I'll live. Ultimately I'd love two of them flanking my Haslab, but that's aspirational and I do have dwindling space as it is.
 
The sentinel order seemed so large that I wonder if the tariffs forced them to bump up the factory order (the timeline seems to work out) to a number where they would make a profit if it sold or nearly sold through at the new price following delivery of the preorders. If it was bumped up to a number where they would only make a small profit or break even then that's obviously not good. I don't think they'd be that conservative about it, but who knows? That one seemed like the most obvious winner here since collectors like X-Men, sentinels are fun, and the 97 look is close enough to the comic books to widen the customer base. Maybe it's a case of our bubble here distorting my opinion and for the average collector it's still too big and too expensive to order or enough people are content to just have the HasLab version.

It would be a good question for anyone with access at SDCC to just ask, broadly, how has the response to the made-to-order model been? Assuming it's not made off-limits in a formal interview setting (I know they basically shut down all talk of pricing and costs, but not sure if this would qualify).
 
Misfit said:
The sentinel order seemed so large that I wonder if the tariffs forced them to bump up the factory order (the timeline seems to work out) to a number where they would make a profit if it sold or nearly sold through at the new price following delivery of the preorders. If it was bumped up to a number where they would only make a small profit or break even then that's obviously not good. I don't think they'd be that conservative about it, but who knows? That one seemed like the most obvious winner here since collectors like X-Men, sentinels are fun, and the 97 look is close enough to the comic books to widen the customer base. Maybe it's a case of our bubble here distorting my opinion and for the average collector it's still too big and too expensive to order or enough people are content to just have the HasLab version.

It would be a good question for anyone with access at SDCC to just ask, broadly, how has the response to the made-to-order model been? Assuming it's not made off-limits in a formal interview setting (I know they basically shut down all talk of pricing and costs, but not sure if this would qualify).
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The Sentinel price jump had to have been something like what you're describing. The new price was adjusted to account for tariffs and they were likely trying to make up some of the shortfall that was introduced on every unit that had been preordered at the original, pre-tariff price. It worked out well for those that preordered, but the jump was significant. The stock level is showing +3,000 still in inventory, so they're still sitting on a decent amount.
 
Misfit said:
If it was bumped up to a number where they would only make a small profit or break even then that's obviously not good.
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I mean, I think people are overthinking the sentinel thing. It's one of the most popular X-Men 'villains' of all time. EVERY time Hasbro or ToyBiz put out a Sentinel figure (with maybe the exception of the '90s Water Wars one), it has been wildly popular and successful. People bought multiples of the same wave of figures to army build Sentinel BAFS. People raided the Marvel Universe pegs to get those 16" Sentinels for their ML displays.

There was no universe in which they weren't going to produce extra sentinels, and it stands to reason you'd even want to charge more for the folks that didn't bother to pre-order. That's not unusual these days. 'Pay up front, or pay the fence-sitter tax.'
 
Damien said:
I mean, I think people are overthinking the sentinel thing. It's one of the most popular X-Men 'villains' of all time. EVERY time Hasbro or ToyBiz put out a Sentinel figure (with maybe the exception of the '90s Water Wars one), it has been wildly popular and successful. People bought multiples of the same wave of figures to army build Sentinel BAFS. People raided the Marvel Universe pegs to get those 16" Sentinels for their ML displays.

There was no universe in which they weren't going to produce extra sentinels, and it stands to reason you'd even want to charge more for the folks that didn't bother to pre-order. That's not unusual these days. 'Pay up front, or pay the fence-sitter tax.'
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All of this is likely closest to the truth, and very accurate. But the Tariffs are a wild card thrown in right in the thick of it that must have impacted it in some way.
 
Damien said:
I mean, I think people are overthinking the sentinel thing. It's one of the most popular X-Men 'villains' of all time. EVERY time Hasbro or ToyBiz put out a Sentinel figure (with maybe the exception of the '90s Water Wars one), it has been wildly popular and successful. People bought multiples of the same wave of figures to army build Sentinel BAFS. People raided the Marvel Universe pegs to get those 16" Sentinels for their ML displays.

There was no universe in which they weren't going to produce extra sentinels, and it stands to reason you'd even want to charge more for the folks that didn't bother to pre-order. That's not unusual these days. 'Pay up front, or pay the fence-sitter tax.'
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I agree that they were likely always going to make extras, but I think saying the big jump in the price wasn't in response to tariffs would be too charitable to the 'bro - we know they aren't just going to eat that extra tax on our behalf.
 
Chooch555 said:
I have to imagine there's Haslab/MTO/Big figure fatigue. We got a lot of them in a short amount of time and now economic conditions for most customers are worse. They could just be resting the idea for a year or two to make it feel special when it comes back.
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All this, plus the total chaos that is our current economy probably makes it much harder to use a model that makes them commit to a retail price over a year out.
 
Chooch555 said:
I have to imagine there's Haslab/MTO/Big figure fatigue. We got a lot of them in a short amount of time and now economic conditions for most customers are worse. They could just be resting the idea for a year or two to make it feel special when it comes back.
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Well, and also, so much of the Marvel Universe has been made now. They're getting more and more niche as time goes on. They've got to really weigh the investment on what options they have left. They aren't going to produce some gigantic Haslab scale Fin Fang Foom, and they seem to want to avoid multi-packs (though I think there's a gold mine there for stuff like Warriors 3) so your field of characters that are large enough scale to warrant a MTO, but popular enough to warrant production costs (with the returns Hasbro will want) is narrowing.

Like, I think there's still gas in the tank for some stuff, but every idea I have is a little bit more unlikely than the last. I still think a Fantasticar is probably a good bet for MTO, but it's hard to tell what lessons they learned after EoV.
 
JakeEkiss said:
Well, and also, so much of the Marvel Universe has been made now. They're getting more and more niche as time goes on. They've got to really weigh the investment on what options they have left. They aren't going to produce some gigantic Haslab scale Fin Fang Foom, and they seem to want to avoid multi-packs (though I think there's a gold mine there for stuff like Warriors 3) so your field of characters that are large enough scale to warrant a MTO, but popular enough to warrant production costs (with the returns Hasbro will want) is narrowing.

Like, I think there's still gas in the tank for some stuff, but every idea I have is a little bit more unlikely than the last. I still think a Fantasticar is probably a good bet for MTO, but it's hard to tell what lessons they learned after EoV.
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I would love a Fantasticar - but I just can't see them revisiting vehicles any time soon. Price issues aside, I really believe the team thought they had delivered something very cool in EoV with enough bells and whistles to get people really excited. The amount of absolute outrage they got was not at all what they were expecting, and they were disheartened by the whole experience. They want to give fans something really cool with lights and effects, but realized in order to do so at the price Hasbro wants to sell it for... it's not possible to do successfully. I don't think they just want to do a Fantasticar that doesn't really light up or do anything else, and it would be hard to make it and justify a higher $200 price point of a HasLab. Should they have known the EoV was priced too high for the general Legends audience? I don't know. They definitely have a good idea now of what is acceptable and what is not.
 
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