Yeah... because Disney will forgo making $, over making sure Star Wars fans have articulated figures.

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But that IS making money.

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I'm pretty sure making money is actually having product on the shelf to buy.

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Don't get me wrong... I collect SW, and I think Hasbro is doing the best job of designing the toys. I don't want anyone else to get the license. I'm just saying that Disney is about profit... and if their main toy license holder on a four billion dollar investment can only manage to get 'Star Wars:Angry Birds' to the store shelves... there's gonna be a problem.

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And there's ZERO reason to think Hasbro can't get SW product on the shelves when a movie hits. Isn't the problem with SW product now based in that nobody wants TPM crap, not that the shelves are empty

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If product is not on the shelves, it's because your store hasn't put any out. Just because your store is bad for that, doesn't mean all stores are like that.

No... No, almost all stores do seem to be really bad about that.

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Go to any Star Wars board that has a thread about the 2012 line... it's a natonwide thing.

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Maybe distribution is bad because stores don't order them?
Maybe they don't want action figures without a big movie in the theaters attached to them to motivate the sales?
When SW 7 hits, the stores will order the products.

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This years product hasn't been selling, so stores haven't ordered. It's why the part wave of VOTC is net exclusive and has nothing to do with the Disney discussion. They aren't at all loyal to Mattel. Wreck It Ralph toys are some company that's not even known for action figures. They go with whoever is interested in the license and whoever is willing to pay the most. Sure, Cars makes sense for Mattel, they're the biggest game in town for die cast, and I bet the Toy Story deal was as much because they wanted access to the Fisher Price and Barbie concepts in the movie and had to give Matty the toy license in return. If anything this is a good thing for Hasbro.

Yah, Tron Legacy went to SpinMasters. Disney doesn't care two shakes of a dianoga's tails for Mattel.

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Nah, that's too logical. It's got to be something more sinister.

I've slacked off a lot on Star Wars, but I still check to see what shows up in store. From what I have read on other sites and Star Wars boards, there have been so many remakes of the same figures over and over. Mostly focus on Clone Wars too. All that combined to a slump in sales. Collectors had backed off and we already know the issues with kids. So when the more desirable figures would have shown up, stores didn't order. We're just now seeing some of the newer waves of Clone Wars. I saw the wave of figures with with the special card backs the other day, but the figure choice just wasn't worth much.

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I buy SW for customizing fodder only - I admit - but I do pay a little attention to new product because of it. And it seems that the new items that interest me - and apparently also interest the collectors, given ebay pricing and difficulty to find, are almost all extended universe figures. Kind of funny, but makes sense given the multitude of remakes from the movie characters referenced above.

I take this limited and unscientific data and hypothesize that for the toy part of it, an episode 7 that simply re-hashes all the known characters might be the worst thing that the toy line could ask for, whereas a movie with a lot of new blood might prosper as a toy line.

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The new MiniRigs sell well, too. Hasbro has no problem getting product made and to the stores, customers currently have a problem with buying so much stuff from a movie practically no SW fan actually enjoys. I dunno whose mistake it was, but pimping the 3D TPM movie was not a smart idea for an entire year's worth of product.

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