Robot Heroes line ending

[jestergoblin]

Preserve: Do you plan to continue the Robot Heroes line beyond the current movie figures?

Hasbro: We do not have any plans to continue with this expression of Transformers past the ROTF line.

Full Q&A over at www.parrygamepreserve.com/newsDetail.php?jID=1218

Can't say I'm that surprised, as a collector this line never got me in the "must have them all" mode like SHS. Plus the scale issues made this line near impossible to be compatible with other Heroes lines.

[schoolhater18]

does that mean the movie transformers robot heroes are cancelled too or just the transformers universe robot heroes?

[stewbacca]

No Laserbeak-- I am disappointed

[schoolhater18]

what i dotn get is hasbro already spent the money to have the figures sculpted, had the molds made, which is very expensive) and had prototypes made with no release of the figures? they did that with CH too. they wasted money. it would be in thier best intrest to release the figures. right?

[et2west]

unfortunately there's a lot of variable costs associated with distribution that I'm sure they looked hard at. You have to keep in mind that the decision to cancel the line stems from poor sales performance. So it's not guaranteed they'd recoup the costs of contractual agreements with distribution. Not to mention, often in these situations the retailers have a contractual stipulation to be refunded for what doesn't sell. I'm not sure if that number is at MSRP, but I'm sure all of those stipulations went into the calculated decision to end the line.

[jestergoblin]

Et2west is right.

The creation of mold is a flat cost, one Hasbro knows it can absorb. But once the line goes into production it's a whole different thing. Variable costs include everything from raw materials, labor, shipping, stocking fees, return fees. Look at it this way:

Not going further with production means they will not lose any further money. The designs and molds are sunk costs. Cost = Design + Mold both of which are fixed costs and will not change.

Or if they went into production it becomes:

Cost = Design + Mold + X(Raw materials + Labor + Shipping + Shelving)
where X equals the number of units produced.

Without the draw of a movie or cartoon show, there is little interest in retailers carrying this line. Throw in the fact that aside from SHS and GH, the Heroes lines do not perform particularly well at retail.

Combat Heroes? Flooded the market with wave 1, wave 2 barely showed up at retail. Wave 3 got canned before the Movie versions came out.

Adventure Heroes? What a joke! Waves 3 and 4 barely got released!

Robot Heroes? First few waves did well but Transformers Universe didn't work at retail with many sets going to discount retailers. The Movie versions fared slightly better but didn't move at nearly the same pace as actual toys that transformed.