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« on: March 02, 2005, 11:27:48 AM »
In 1996, Hasbro toys discontinued production on their 3 3/4 line of Joe figures due to slipping demand in the market place. This was mainly due to the fact that nobody wanted to buy war toys anymore.
Hasbro tried a number of times to relaunch their flagship brand, but sadly (to some people) to no avail.
When issue began to arise and the people of the world's mindset began to drift back to those good old days of the 80's and the cool toys they used to play with as a kid, suddenly Hasbro became excited to develope their Joe line further - this being said, we began to see 3 packs showing up at TRU and then it happened, the day we were looking forward to as Joe fans for over half a decade... they were back.
This time, the toys were awarded a renewed success through the older fans, and a new group of kids that were drawn to the line due to the conflicts happening around them.
But here we are again, the world is getting sick and tired of war again and we discover the sales of Joe are slumping again (of course that would have nothing to do with the fact Hasbro cut their own throats by ignoring 17% of their Joe market share - Canada).
Now we have Sigma Six and the "SHUT DOWN" of the 3 3/4 line. Why, you ask?
Hasbro is in the game to make money, simple as that. You might have a million collectors wanting to buy these action figures, but if you update them, make a cartoon that looks like a carbon copy of all the other cartoons that are doing well at the moment, then you make what looks like a civilian version of a military power ranger toy, you all of a sudden open you market to at least 45 million children at any given time.
(Based on the average age of child watching, and is only counting the American market share).
So with all this said, who do you think Hasbro cares about --- let me tell you this, it's not the group that is 45 times smaller than their target market.
