Posted by Chuck | March 02, 2007 at 04:40 PM ET
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.
With your great Dark Horse partnership in action figures, can we foresee
the selling of cost-friendly "SABER SLIPS" (the pieces found in
build-your-own UltimateLight sabers) yet "SLIPS" culled and characterized
from EXPANDED UNIVERSE sabers / characters such as Quilan Vos, Darth
Revan, Darth Krayt / Talon / expandable to Nihlus, and Exar Kun, etc.? I
can see this compliment sales of the "Ultimate Lightsaber" as well as the
EU line and interest.
A. Good question and one we have given consideration to as we approach a new
era of entertainment. Role-play (such as the Ultimate Lightsaber) is
driven overwhelmingly by kids, not collectors, so we'll look at new
character sabers as they make sense given the recognizability and demand
for those characters among the kid audience. Right now, there is almost
no awareness of the EU characters among this audience, and as you know, we
have even stopped short of generating sabers for the "second tier" level
of Jedi like Saesee Tiin, Plo Kloon, Kit Fisto and Sith like Palpatine
because the demand for these characters is not as high as the primary
heroes. It is likely we would go to these characters before we would get
to EU. We hope that helps frame our direction for character selects when
it comes to role-play.
Q. With the
success of large vehicles (old-molds with better-paint) can we
see the mother-of-all-ships; the Royal Naboo Starship, CHROMED to a
super-shiny mirror finish? Maybe include a new figure Darth Maul, or
new
Amidala?
A. We have looked at the Naboo Starship for re-release, but are holding off
on it right now and working on other ideas to keep demand satisfied. As
for your suggestion about chrome, this is an extraordinarily expensive process and
does have some tricky issues with adherence on surfaces that
larges, but we'll look into it if and when we do a re-release.
Q. Customising is very popular
among SW fans; ever thought of bringing "Customising Kits" onto the market
... would save us the trouble of
hurting our fingers prying figures apart. They could come complete with
pots of paint and little "how to" manuals.
A. Unfortunately, this area is not one in which we are investing a lot of
time since it is likely any expertise we develop would still be dwarfed by
the great work that you guys are doing and the more advanced tool set you
have developed to do the job to your satisfaction. In short, you guys are
the experts here, not us, and we prefer to keep it that way. Continue to
amaze us with your work...that's the involvement we seek to continue
having with this segment of the hobby!
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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