I think classic Falcon is a given as either part of the rumored Avengers Retro Card wave, the Secret Wars wave or a single card store exclusive tie-in to the upcoming Cap film.
Also, Yellowjacket as part of the rumored Avengers Retro Card wave to coincide with HasLab Giant-Man shipping.
I have two omnibus collections of Rom in hand, with a third and final one coming out in November, none of which I thought was possible for many, many years. If they could somehow make the stars align to show off a Rom figure the same year I might freak out.
Crystar seemed to be the fan favorite last year AND seems to have sold well. No reason why Rom shouldn't take that spot this year!
Dark horse (literally): a couple years ago Dwight mentioned Valkyrie in some context about characters needing updates. The crazy-cool Odin deluxe figure gives me renewed hope for a Valkyrie + Aragorn set.
That and the new Power Princess body. Not all that many characters that body makes sense for.
And sure there are some logistics things to deal with but the truth is - it's likely much cheaper for them to ship all of the product together on a single container ship than space it out, and cheaper still to send it out directly rather than hold it back in a warehouse. So they don't care that's it's burdensome to their customer to get hit with a bunch of charges at all at once because it saves them a ton of shipping and storage costs. Not until we just stop pre-ordering altogether to avoid the tidal wave.
Hasbro's dates have been off by two months pretty consistently for two years now. Instead of asking them to change, just expect the pre-orders to drop two months earlier than advertised and budget that way. Every now and then something will ship late but at least the money is already accounted for.
After they got terrified of having to pay fines for products not arriving on time during the pandemic, they adopted this strategy of almost always delivering two months early.
Target exclusives pretty much release on their street dates (for better or worse) and Walmart doesn't typically send things earlier than a week (if that - my Zabu wave shipped overnight on 7/1, the advertised date). Amazon likes to jump in and charge/ship as soon as possible, but Pulse usually gives a courtesy heads-up that a pre-order is shipping/shipping early.
Some people may pay for preorders up front, like via Paypal. And they are trying to spread things out a bit, but controlling manufacturing and shipping across the ocean have a ton of variables which aren't going to allow for things to arrive exactly when expected. The best you could hope for is everything has a street date and retailers would somehow all have to agree to stick to those streetdates. It's just not feasible to have all product arrive at exact times.
Here's the thing - their own damn site doesn't charge until it ships. So helping out the small handful of folks that pay up front via Paypal isn't particularly magnanimous while still burying the vast majority of your customers in an avalanche of product that all ships out at once.
And sure there are some logistics things to deal with but the truth is - it's likely much cheaper for them to ship all of the product together on a single container ship than space it out, and cheaper still to send it out directly rather than hold it back in a warehouse. So they don't care that's it's burdensome to their customer to get hit with a bunch of charges at all at once because it saves them a ton of shipping and storage costs. Not until we just stop pre-ordering altogether to avoid the tidal wave.
Not trying to be overly gracious to the multinational here, but I don't think it's unreasonable for them to want to ship and store their products in the most efficient way possible. Retailers are the ones identifying a ship date, so if anything wouldn't it be incumbent on Amazon or whoever to stick to the date they gave? If spreading out purchases is important to someone is it really on Hasbro to delay freight, or warehouse products longer to do that? Especially when there are options - 1. Pay upfront with Paypal where it's accepted, 2. Only order from Pulse (most accurate ship dates + a heads up when they're changing), 3. Forgot preorders and order in-stock items. Are these not workable solutions?
You aren't entirely wrong. All of those are potential options - though each of them also has it's own negative aspects as well
Solution 1 is an option to space out the spending - although one I typically choose to forego because it does allow me the flexibility to cancel the pre-order without having to try and pursue a burdensome refund process.
Solution 2 is not one I will consider unless there is no other choice because I don't appreciate Pulse for a variety of reasons - one their shipping costs are higher - certainly than Amazon which is free since the Prime membership is paid for from the household budget and is used multiple times a week outside of my toy purchases, whereas a Pulse Premium membership comes out of the toy budget; and more expensive than BBTS or others as well - and also because I have had more than one snafu with Pulse where they did not fulfill my order.
Solution 3 is the best way to avoid the avalanche - but also the riskiest in terms of potentially missing out on one or more items that sell out swiftly.
So at the end of the day - given those choices I still put in the pre-orders and gird myself for the onslaught of giant product dumps.
It isn't surprising anymore - the pattern is recognizable now. But it was the nonsense statements from Hasbro about "we heard the complaints and are spacing out the pre-orders" that chafed. Spacing out the pre-orders isn't helpful because you don't space out fulfillment. All of that anniversary product ships at the same time even if you slow played the ordering process over a 3 month span. Don't pat yourself on the back for listening to the customers and helping since you didn't help the actual problem at all.
From a consumer perspective it would be better for me if one anniversary item hit each month from February through October rather than have them all ship within a six week window at the same time that half a year's worth of G.I. Joe product is also shipping. That's all.
I understand why it's not better for them, and why Hasbro isn't going to change their logistics to ensure that's how things roll out. Understanding it doesn't make me not grumpy about it though.
I gotcha. Seems like it's mostly how it was presented that's grating, since the spaced out preorders only help the folks who pay in advance.
It really seems like not preordering is the answer. There just isn't that much that sells out these days, or at the very least it's pretty easy to pick out the things that are going to remain available for a while. It might be a little riskier this year since the conventional wisdom is they're lowering production across the board, but most figures from the waves stay available, and only a handful of the anniversary products will go quickly. But I hear you - preordering is convenient, and fun, and frankly good for Hasbro and something they should want to encourage people to do as much as possible.
More than you might think, although not all are very likely: Titania, Lascivious, Letha, Valkyrie, Warrior Woman, Frenzy, Namora, Man Killer/Amazon, Gladiatrix, Arclight, Battleaxe, Poundcakes, Punchout, Crazy Eight, Stunner,
could all be potentially done on that buck.
It would be very ML to 20 years in still not have classic Blastaar, Annhilus, Jack of Hearts, Crystal , Gorgon, Lockjaw, etc and a Poundcakes figure be made.
Shouldn’t Titannia be a little bigger? I never thought of Namora as being over 6 feet tall.
Iceman - brand new dedicated sculpt with a little bit of Crystar thrown in
Was the Crystar figure faceted or just translucent?
It would be very ML to 20 years in still not have classic Blastaar, Annhilus, Jack of Hearts, Crystal , Gorgon, Lockjaw, etc and a Poundcakes figure be made.
Shouldn’t Titannia be a little bigger? I never thought of Namora as being over 6 feet tall.
perhaps. Titania is shorter than She-Hulk, and since Hasbro tries to avoid new sculpts whenever possible the next most likely one would probably be Power Princess, and Hasbro does subscribe to a “close enough” policy, particularly with minor characters.vAo again we’re looking at PP. Mind you, Titania’s height has fluctuated, depending on the artist, so I guess there’s some wiggle room, so to speak.
Namora might be stretching it, but I could see it happening.
There's a sickening lack of X-Men chatter in here.
Saying a prayer to plastic gods for Magik, armored Psylocke, and Armor.
Since it's Wolverine's 50th anniversary, I'm hoping that we get to see Albert /w/Elsie Dee, and also hopefully we get Birdy.
One thing's for sure, we'll get a reveal of the Wolverine that Dan said was his favorite.
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