Hasbro Named Master Toy License Holder For Ghostbusters

On 8/22/2019 at 2:23 PM, InspectorZartan said:

Undoubtedly large companies are going to look at the alternatives but even if they found one there would be an increase in costs via operational relocation costs, downtime during transition, QA standards establishment,and regional supply shortages. I.e.there are a limited number of factories in any region, thus as companies start to pull out of one (large)region or nationthe second region is not going to be able to meet all thatnew influx of manufacturing needs. Thus themanufacturing region now being faced with significant increases in demandwill have a higher demandfor manufacturing time thanthey can supply thus they will start raising their prices to premiums as the naturalresponse. And as others have pointed out during an administrativetrade war any region could get hit so relocating to Vietnam only to have Vietnam likewise get hit with tariffs would be doubly expensive.

yes but Hasbro is already manufacturing things in Vietnam

39 minutes ago, Thinwheat said:

Can Hasbro even handle this? They've got how many lines going on now? Star Wars, Marvel, Overwatch, Power Rangers, Transformersand that's just the "boy aisle" action figure product.

Granted, their plate is pretty full, but I don't see any problem. It's not like anyone is talking about some company wide open-ended line like Marvel Legends.

Can Hasbro even handle this? They've got how many lines going on now? Star Wars, Marvel, Overwatch, Power Rangers, Transformersand that's just the "boy aisle" action figure product.

13 hours ago, mako said:

Actually, with all the trouble around the WWE brand lately, there has been talk of them leaving Mattel. If so, one of the companies considering a try for the license is Hasbro. So, uh . . . yeah.

Well then, I guess they'll stick with Barbie and MOTU. lol

You still miss my point, the only time I mentioned cost for consumers is in relation to the secondary market, where the Ecto1 with box no missing parts and unapplied stickers goes for more than $100 on average. While the Firehouse goes for more than double that, I said development costs would be lower therefore higher profits. While I'm sure the likelihood of the dies still existing is low, there is a reason why, beyond nostalgia marketing, that a large number of lines are getting releases again. It's easy to assume that the heavy steel molds would be among the first victims in a struggling company's efforts at staying open through scrapping them. Kenner ran Batman, Ghostbusters and Jurassic Park toys at 4.5" Star Wars at 3.75" (though I don't have any ot the few OG I have in reach to measure) not sure about their other lines.

On 8/21/2019 at 11:49 AM, Belmont13 said:

Whoa! At the rate Mattel is going, they are only going to have WWE left but cool on Hasbro, curious to see what they do.

Actually, with all the trouble around the WWE brand lately, there has been talk of them leaving Mattel. If so, one of the companies considering a try for the license is Hasbro. So, uh . . . yeah.

1 hour ago, Goldbug said:

you guys may be forgetting that they could make them in Vietnam thereby bypassing the tariff

Undoubtedly large companies are going to look at the alternatives but even if they found one there would be an increase in costs via operational relocation costs, downtime during transition, QA standards establishment,and regional supply shortages. I.e.there are a limited number of factories in any region, thus as companies start to pull out of one (large)region or nationthe second region is not going to be able to meet all thatnew influx of manufacturing needs. Thus themanufacturing region now being faced with significant increases in demandwill have a higher demandfor manufacturing time thanthey can supply thus they will start raising their prices to premiums as the naturalresponse. And as others have pointed out during an administrativetrade war any region could get hit so relocating to Vietnam only to have Vietnam likewise get hit with tariffs would be doubly expensive.

53 minutes ago, Goldbug said:

you guys may be forgetting that they could make them in Vietnam thereby bypassing the tariff

Trump has threatened to put tariffs on goods imported from Vietnam next.

you guys may be forgetting that they could make them in Vietnam thereby bypassing the tariff

7 hours ago, scibott said:

You fail to take into consideration most of the toylines need to calculate the cost of developing the line, molds, prototypes, package design, etc into the overall price. With vintage lines, all of that has already been done, they'll just need to modify the legal stuff and upc on it. It's almost pure profit for the company, should those molds still exist. As for your mentioning the size of the firehouse, they can abandon the original method of shipping it assembled, and reduce the footprint of the box, by having the walls, floors, roof and cylindrical pipe laying flat. This will need some package redesign, though the announcement of going plastic-free packaging will probably necessitate redesign of the packages the Ghostbusters came in. That said, package design is a fraction of the cost of tooling.And if you're that worried about tariffs, write to your politicians and get them to relax on the taxes for industry, specifically factories. They need to make opening/refurbishing them cost competitive to building overseas ones, that way the tariffs and shipping costs will tip the balance into in country manufacture. Plastic injection is very highly automated, labor requirements, therefore costs, are nothing compared to what it once was.

It is extremely unlikely that those Kenner molds and tools still exist.

Either way you are over estimating the impact of tooling/designcosts when it comes to mass produced retail lines. When it comes to items that have low print runs like exclusives, online collectibles, limited editions,etc then yes, those tooling/designcosts become a big factor because one has to average that costs across a smallernumber of units made. But when there is a mass release at retail there are more units made thus the average tooling costs per unit is much smaller and much less of afactor on the overall price. So youre not going to see a real savings there as a consumer.

This is also backed up by real examples we see at retail. For instance even though the retro 5POA Star Wars figures are based on already designed figures they are still $2 more expensive than thenewly designed and newly tooled 5POA Star Wars figures Hasbro is also producing. Ditto the Retro Transformers that are based on pre existing designs and tooling have MSRPs that are higher than equivalent scale modern TF MSRPs. So all the market examples confirm that them lowering the price due to it being based on an existing design is something that has just not been the case for any other retro rerelease Hasbro has done.

So history shows these factors arent going to really lower the price in any notable way.

The bigger issue is the reality of how well playsets do at retail and how little space retailers are willing to dedicate to them. Real Ghostbusters is essentially a 5 to 6 scale action figure line. There are reasons we dont see playsets for those size lines at retail very often if ever, but when we do they are typically in the price range I mentioned. I mean the closest thing weve seen to that recently that I can think of is the newerTurtles play-sets that are in the 4-5 scale(which was released multiple times with no new tooling and no new designs besides a couple of stickers and cardboard art yet youll notedid not have any MSRP price drop). Those playsets I believe had an original MSRP in the range I mentioned (and keep in mind a large chunk of that playset was just cardboard).

As far as the tariffs go its not that Im that worried about them. Myfeelings about them are irrelevant. As of now they are happening regardless of how someone feels and if they happen they will impact these prices. Thats just the reality. And I dont need to write my congressmanIve had dinner at my congressmans house, and Ive had multiple in person exchanges with the last 3 sitting Presidents (although with the current POTUS all those exchanges were prior to him running for/taking office). None of that affects the fact that there are much more complicated issues going into policy decisions than just a letter campaign is going to change and both companies and consumers need to havethe awareness that these policies will have a significant impact on pricesshould they happen.

At the end of the day I hope you get your playset (again I have one and its awesome so I hope you get one too). I just think expecting Hasbro to rerelease it is extremely unlikely, and even if they did it would still be expensive at MSRP (although you could probably catch it at clearance eventually). But I just dont see anyway this would ever happen realistically so if you really want one keep checking eBay, conventions, Craigslist, flee markets, etc. Keep hunting and I think youll find it for less than Hasbro would charge anyway