Slot of opportunity for Bandai
 

I do not know until what extent do people in Bandai pay attention to the market news sometimes I feel that if half of the people the come to these forums worked at these toy companies things would be a lot better.

Anyway moving along....

The recent delay of the GI Joe movie is the talk of the day and probably the week. I'm mostly a GI Joe collector and I have been seeing the frustration on several topics. If the movie delay was not received well the uncertainty of the toys even less. Specially because this was badly handled and done from one day to the other.

Retailers should be now pissed off because they bought or reserved space to a line which won't sell that much (the toys for most weren't goo due to the lack of articulation and accessories and without movie to promote them the situation is worse).

So the rumors say that probably all wave 2 onwards will be placed on old and some cancelled but the main issue here is that there is a big time slot without new toys which could be filled by another line.

I assume that hasbro won't be placing anything new until September or October by then they can probably continue with the 30th line. Some radicals even mention that nothing will surface until march 2013 and others that GI Joe should take a sabbatical period. I doubt on both of them.

However there is a time-slot of 4 to 5 months without anything new from GI Joe even the wave 2 that comes out (if they come out) will be in small quantities.

Given this Bandai should do something, the cartoons viewers has increased and there are several people looking for some of the rare figures that came out in February like 6'' Tygra and Cheetara.

Bandai should take this opportunity to push sales trying to place these 2 figures in most of the retailers, and releasing some new figures, complete the 6'' line main characters (kittens and Snarf) and completing the 4'' which was the one closest to completion.

Retailers will have space and will be pissed off with hasbro and may give Thundercats a new opportunity.

Off course Avengers from what I've been reading is a serious competitor some even say it is the reason why the movie was delayed. And there is a very awaited wave on the way including Black Widow but still I think there is space for Thundercats if GI joe is out of the way for a while.

Do the sudden movie delays really give ANYONE time to have something ready though?

I don't think we know how sudden or unexpected this announcement was in the industry, but if Bandai doesn't have anything new to announce of what they have in development, I don't think they can take advantage of this.

I would personally LOVE it if they could though. I'm just being pessimistic towards Bandi concerning the latest rumor.

Ye if they don't have anything in the works at most they can stock the hard to find figures. But I'm hoping that they have been planning some figures which we didn't see.

The Gi Joe delay is a total shocker. Maybe it will work out for them. I'm willing to bet re-writes has more to do with it than the 3D.

Unless Bandai is willing to do something drastic like buy back the Thundercat product already clogging their shelves I can't see retailers taking on anything new for any reason.

5 bucks says the meeting will go like this --
Hey GI joe bombed, wanna do something with that 80's property we have to fill in the gap? - Yeah!! - What was it called again? - Ben 10? - YEAH!! FUCK YEAH!! - BEN FUCKING 10!!!!

LOL

I was just looking at my collection tonight and thinking about the opportunity Bandai just threw away. They really dropped the ball big time and it honestly sickens me. I remember a few months back posting about my wave 3 dream line-up. With the way things have been recently, I'm about 99.999% sure I will never see it. FML

I agree. I have been trying hard to be optimistic this whole time, but I am starting to just hope that another company picks up the line at least...