The Hasbro Q&A is back for 2010! But, we get one less question, and only one Q&A per month! Well, click here to find out what our first questions (and answers) of 2010 are!
Don't
forget, you can submit
questions in our forums and we'll try to get as many as possible submitted to
Hasbro. We can send only three questions per week, so make sure they are good ones! Now,
on to this weeks Questions and Answers directly from Hasbro.
Q. Questions about everyone's favorite Jedi librarian seem to be on the rise. Especially since Jocasta Nu made the top five for ToyFare's online poll for this year's Fan Choice Figure Poll. But we've also seen comments from Hasbro to the effect that "an old lady librarian" might not go over well with the figure buying fanbase. And Jocasta Nu's dismissive attitude scene in ATTACK OF THE CLONES led to mixed feelings from some about the character.
But fast forward to the debut episode of season 2 of STAR WARS - THE CLONE WARS. And Jocasta Nu is back in the mix, albeit not quite herself. In the episode (sorry, we don't mean to spoil but the episode debuted on October 2nd) bounty hunter Cato Parasitti shapeshifted into Jocasta Nu, to the point where she even had a lightsaber duel with Ahsoka Tano while still disguised as the Jedi librarian. Given this scene's departure from Jocasta Nu's matronly demeanor, might we at the very least see a Clone Wars rendition of Jocasta Nu at some point?
A. Clone Wars is first and foremost a kid-targeted line, so this is the last
place where we would do a figure of Jocasta Nu. As for Legacy, despite
her showing in the poll, we believe that she would really struggle as a
figure. We'll learn a lot of Willrow Hood on whether the fans' choice
results can translate into solid support for obscure figures like this.
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Q.
The Droid Factory build-a-figure program has easily been one of the best received value added pack-in's that Hasbro has ever offered to collectors. It has provided droid fans an outlet to get a wide range of droids from a variety of sources, both from the film saga as well as a number of EU sources. We also recently read the news of the end of the Droid Factory program and were some what disappointed by this development.
It seems that Droid Factory is one of so many good things in the Legacy Collection have suffered from bad timing due to the current state of the economy. It has forced a number of collectors to scale back on their purchases, and some to stop collecting entirely.
We've seen some sort of value added pack-in packaged with the basic figure line for most of the history of the modern basic figure line. But with the current economic conditions in mind, could we see the value added pack-in dropped altogether in an effort to bring the MSRP of the basic figure line down to a price point that might bring more collectors back into the fold?
A. The pack-ins have been dropped from the new Legacy-type line starting with
this Fall. They will still continue on in the Clone Wars and Saga Legends
figures, though, in a new approach that will allow kids to play with their
figures in a new way. The replacement for Legacy, a new Vintage line,
will not have pack-ins. Nor will it have a reduced retail price. The
only way to continue to bring significant newly tooled figures to
collectors is to keep the price where it's at. Unless many of the
collectors who have left the hobby come back, the new reality is that we
are dealing with smaller release numbers, which means that our tooling is
a bigger proportion of the cost of everything we do. Price decreases
would not be possible unless we dramatically cut back on the number of new
figures, which we do not think collectors want to see.
Check back in a few weeks and we'll post
the next round of Questions (and answers) as soon as Hasbro offers them.
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