Hasbro's Domination of the Action Figures Market

[samurainoir]

Wandering around the Toy Aisles yesterday, it occurred to me that Hasbro has a near-monopoly of the Action Figure Market with Star Wars, Transformers, GI Joe and Marvel Superheroes. With Mattel carving their little niche of DC Superheroes, and the rest of the small companies fighting for whatever peg-space is left over. MacFarlane seems to survive with it's Sports figures and niche of Halo, but otherwise isn't anywhere near the presence they once were.

Is this necessarily healthy for the toy industry? Is it a true-ism that consumers are the winners when there is healthy competition amongst a variety of manufacturers?

[rche]

If you want to see Mattel, go a few isles over to the land of pink and purple. Plenty of dominance there.

[toys2cool]

yeah Mattel is more for chicks, they do how ever now have the WWE

[ODBJBG]

Yeah Hasbro and Kenner used to split the aisles, then they merged.

A lot of it has to do with Mattel's blunders, moreso than anything. What's amazing is that a huge portion of Hasbro's stuff in the boys aisle is made of their own creation, as opposed to licensed toys. Though there's no shortage of those, either.

It goes in cycles though. Plenty of other toy companies have had a big presence in the toy aisle. Jakks and Playmates were both tiny unknown companies until they played their cards right and both have dominated the toy aisles through the years as well.

[toys2cool]

I know it's not action figures but remember that they also have Hotwheels

[AAAAA]

I know it's not action figures but remember that they also have Hotwheels

THEY ALSO OWN MATCHBOX

[boynightwing]

Hasbro is better because they make sure that their goods are available everywhere. I'm not talking about "exclusives" but the generic material. I can find the 3 3/4 Marvel stuff at my Walmart, or Zellers, or Toys R Us and even Winners. Same with Transformers and for the most part GIJoe. But when the 25th Joes first came out, they were hard to get where I lived.

In the same Isle, the only DC Mattel stuff is Infinite Heroes and nobody is buying them. I've seen them as low as 2 bucks in clearance. I've only seen wave 1 of DCUC in stores and a few 2 packs. (Superman/Brainiac and Batman/Clayface). I've only seen JLU at Toys R Us. That was Batman/Wonderpig, John Stewart, and Superman plus a few others I hadn't heard of.

Mattel needs to take it up a notch in their distributing if they want to compete with Hasbro in the boys isle.

[B-Lister]

Mattel may not rule the aisles in brick and mortar, but I have more Mattel toys in my room right now than Hasbro.

DCUC, MOTUC, Ghostbusters are all sweet lines.

[jwyblejr]

If you want to see Mattel, go a few isles over to the land of pink and purple. Plenty of dominance there.

Hasbro is catching up with My Little Pony and Littlest Pet Shop. Anyways if Mattel plays their cards right,they should be able to catch up with their WWE stuff.

[Werewolf]

Hasbro doesn't dominate my toy shelves. I have way more Mattel stuff.

[Thor]

Since I was primarily a Gi joe collector hasbro dominates my collection. The problem that I have with hasbro on the store front is that I'm seeing decreased quality with higher prices. I may gripe about Mattel's DC prices but at least the product is usually up tp par.

[Nostalgiabuff]

yeah Mattel is more for chicks, they do how ever now have the WWE

is there any difference?

[palitoy]

Canadian Toy stores are somewhat of a bad example, it seems Mattel Canada only brings in certain lines/waves. US stores have a better representation, it's still not as good as Hasbro but it's slightly better.

Hasbro Canada is really kicking butt here, sadly when Hasbro took over the Marvel license, Grand Toys seems to have been wiped out as a result.

[BlackKnight]

I'm just disapointed on a few different levels as to the Hasbro Merchandise that has been clogging the shelves everywhere ...

Star War's }
Man ..., I haven't scene a new figure for Months, only re-paints, and re-issues here ... The loss of the 12inch line is also disapointing.

G.I.JOE }..., No 12incher's for 1..., and nothing but Movie Toy's, of characters and Vehicles that nobody seems to want, bring back the ANN. figures already !!!

Transformers}

For the most part, just the same Movie toys, with re-paints here or there...., with only about 4to5 new Transformer's in Months.

Those 3 take up more space than any other line on the sheleves, and they are lackluster right now imo, and need new product.

[bgiles73]

Hopefully when the new Masters of the Universe Movie comes out it'll give Mattel a presence in stores again. It doesn't hurt that there are talks of The Four Horsemen sculpting team eyeing the Thundercats license! If Ghostbusters 3 ever gets made I think it's a safe bet that we will see some figures for that. Don't rule out Batman 3 either! Mattel has a nice roster the only thing that would make me happier with them is the reaquisition of the Harry Potter license they lost to NECA and maybe if they would take on the Star Trek name for figures. Who doesn't want to see the Four Horsemen tackle both of these franchises? I just hope Mattel handles these better than they did "Avatar", those were nice but there were scale issues and some of the sculpts were a little weak like early DC Infinite Heroes sculpts!