darkSpyro

It just occurred to me a reason why variants like Royal Double Trouble, Gnarly Tree Rex, and Punch Pop Fizz are being stocked in starter packs is because the special figure will drive the sales. Think about it. If Wii was wanting to release a bundle with a game, and didn't want to have trouble getting rid of them, putting a rare Skylander in it might just do the trick. Activision was taking quite a leap releasing Battlegrounds for iPad, exclusive Skylanders game only FOR the iPad. What if they don't sell? THEY WILL, because people want to get their hands on Royal Double Trouble. And how many of you bought the 3DS starter and don't even have a 3DS!! That's what I thought. Punch Pop Fizz sure does look good in your collection, doesn't he.

"But riverhippo, I'm still not interested in buying it."

The point is, that eventually, a mild price drop would be enough for Skylanders fans to buy what no one wants. It's a retailer's dream come true. Activision is happy. Stores are happy. Gamers are happy (minus the cost of the pack).

Sooo...

To give a prediction about future variants. We know there will be a Scarlet Ninjini, a Jade Flashwing, a Polar Whirlwind, and more (I can't remember at the top of my head). But how will these come? Well, try not to get your hopes up because it's very possible that future variants will be released much like the previously mentioned. The only exception I can almost know for sure is Molten Hot Dog, who I suspect will release as a battle pack #2 variant.

tl;dr - Activision is probably using variants to market the more stubborn shelf-clogging starter packs. Also, why is this too long? can't you read?

^ welcome to the world of sales and marketing:

usa ...

nintendo needed to dump stock of an ugly blue wii ... add a gnarly tree rex and let the customer get rid of the wii they don't need on ebay

microsoft needed to dump stock of a low spec xbox ... add a gnarly tree rex and let the customer get rid of the xbox they don't need on ebay or upgrade it with an expensive hard drive

rest of the world ...

sony needed to dump stock of a low spec ps3 ... add a gnarly tree rex and let the customer get rid of the ps3 they don't need on ebay or upgrade it with an expensive hard drive

the wii only got a color change, the xbox have nothing.. the ps3 is actually a new revision of the ps3.. so that is a good bundle with the giants.

when it comes to the worst skylander bundle, it must be the xbox green gill bundle... that one just stink of desperation to sell of a few more old xboxs...

I like the blue wii. D:

Quote: ThePunchPopFizz

I like the blue wii. D:

i guess that was unavoidable...

Quote: kappapopm

the wii only got a color change...

I'm going to go ahead and inform you, in case you haven't, that in-game variants, like Gnarly Tree Rex and Punch Pop Fizz actually have boosted stats that their counterparts will never get. All of them have +6 armor, and +10 critical hit, if I'm not mistaken. Which means, if you are really so obsessed with getting the highest stats for your characters, then the variants are actually the way to go.

Edit: Of course, I know you're just talking about the Wii itself, Im talking about the characters.

Couldn't agree with you more.
Though I went the slightly more expensive way and just got these variants from ebay. Since I didn't need another Xbox, and I REALLY didn't need another Wii (Ewwwww)-sorry don't like the Wii. lol.

But the variants I agree are slightly better than the regular counterparts.
Though props to Activision for thinking of it, its a great marketing tool lol.

Quote: riverhippo

Quote: kappapopm

the wii only got a color change...

I'm going to go ahead and inform you, in case you haven't, that in-game variants, like Gnarly Tree Rex and Punch Pop Fizz actually have boosted stats that their counterparts will never get. All of them have +6 armor, and +10 critical hit, if I'm not mistaken. Which means, if you are really so obsessed with getting the highest stats for your characters, then the variants are actually the way to go.

Edit: Of course, I know you're just talking about the Wii itself, Im talking about the characters.

no doubt the gnarly and punch fizz have great stats... as with darkspyro that was exlusive for for the 3ds last year, it did come in a single pack in the end... gnarly we will just wait and see... but nothing i need to buy, i think the 16 new ones is more than enough at the moment.

even the GITD Cynder

Royal Double Trouble is only available at GameStop...

Quote: kappapopm

the wii only got a color change, the xbox have nothing.. the ps3 is actually a new revision of the ps3.. so that is a good bundle with the giants.

when it comes to the worst skylander bundle, it must be the xbox green gill bundle... that one just stink of desperation to sell of a few more old xboxs...

Any PS3 that's not backwards compat is useless to me.

Well, I'm of the opinion that the variants will almost entirely be used to sell bundles in the coming months. One of them might show up as a Frito Lay promotion or something. Maybe a WiiU bundle or a new XBox bundle. I honestly think that we may not even see one or two of them at all. They were put in the game for the potential of marketing promotions - that doesn't mean they will all pan out. I do imagine that we won't see them until all of the regular ones are out. Come Summer, we might see some late pushes before game 3 like with Blue Bash and Red Drill Sergeant on these, so who knows? Maybe they intend to get everything out much sooner, then uses store promotions on the variants to keep interest up until Fall.

I got the 3DS starter, but I wanted the 3DS version, I liked the first one and it gives additional value to our figures - Punch Pop Fizz was a great bonus - I just waited until I could get a really good deal on it ($25 after a price match and a coupon). I also have a Granite Crusher, since he came as a single.

Gnarly Tree Rex, I won't be getting unless an unusual opportunity presents itself (friend wanting a Wii or something, but I already have one of those to get rid of after getting a WiiU). Same goes for Royal Double Trouble - I like his paint scheme, but paying $50 for a $5 game (on sale), 2 figures I already have, an item I already have and a portal that does nothing except save me time from entering web codes and him is too much. If I have to pay a lot for something I don't need to get one, I'll have to settle for my collection doing without it.

Quote: kappapopm

the wii only got a color change, the xbox have nothing.. the ps3 is actually a new revision of the ps3.. so that is a good bundle with the giants.

when it comes to the worst skylander bundle, it must be the xbox green gill bundle... that one just stink of desperation to sell of a few more old xboxs...

I'm sorry, but that's not true. Check the front of the xbox in the images available. An old white xbox has two memory ports in front right? This one doesn't. It also has a slim's shape. This guy is a white slim bundled with a gill grunt varient. So it's not so desperate after all.

There's some pics in this thread:
//forum.darkspyro.net/spyro/viewposts.php?topic=64835

you seem to be striking out kappa. But I'll let you off the hook if you can show me a single pack of dark spyro that you seem to believe exists.

Edit: I guess it did exist at one point

http://www.tesco.com/direct/sk...ro/624-2696.prd

Still not really 'available'

Quote: riverhippo

you seem to be striking out kappa. But I'll let you off the hook if you can show me a single pack of dark spyro that you seem to believe exists.

Edit: I guess it did exist at one point

http://www.tesco.com/direct/sk...ro/624-2696.prd

Still not really 'available'

//www.darkspyro.net/skylanders/packs/

Check the Wave 4 section. It was available in certain countries and certain events. Apparently none of which I was. ' They also sold it on amazon for awhile there.

Quote: riverhippo

you seem to be striking out kappa. But I'll let you off the hook if you can show me a single pack of dark spyro that you seem to believe exists.

Edit: I guess it did exist at one point

http://www.tesco.com/direct/sk...ro/624-2696.prd

Still not really 'available'

Their are some pictures floating around and I have seen one on here, that show the Dark Spyro as being Target exclusive. A very very very few made it to the public. They ended up getting the axe, however no one ever really said why.

Quote: Bazinga

Quote: riverhippo

you seem to be striking out kappa. But I'll let you off the hook if you can show me a single pack of dark spyro that you seem to believe exists.

Edit: I guess it did exist at one point

http://www.tesco.com/direct/sk...ro/624-2696.prd

Still not really 'available'

Their are some pictures floating around and I have seen one on here, that show the Dark Spyro as being Target exclusive. A very very very few made it to the public. They ended up getting the axe, however no one ever really said why.

Never heard that. How odd right? Could it be that they're rare here but not overseas?

They did come out in single packs overseas. I ended up getting one off of Ebay.

Quote: Bazinga

They did come out in single packs overseas. I ended up getting one off of Ebay.

I saw how much it cost for it and just waited for a good deal on a 3ds starter. It cost less than any of the Dark Spyros I saw for sale, and I got the 3ds game, which I'd wanted anyway.

Yeah, that is the way to go. When I got mine it was still the 60 or 70 bucks for the starter pack. Even loose figures are going for about 30-35 dollars from what I have seen.

Well, fortunately for me, I already have Dark Spyro. However, I'm unsure if Dark Spyro has a stat boost or not compared to regular Spyro.

Series 1 Spyro, Dark Spyro, and Legendary Spyro all 3 have different stat sets.

On the Skylander cards that come with each figure, the stats are slightly different, although I'm not sure if this is true in-game.
Spyro:
Attack - 60 / 100
Defense - 50 / 100
Speed - 90 / 100
Luck - 60 / 100
Dark Spyro:
Attack - 70 / 100
Defense - 40 / 100
Speed - 90 / 100
Luck - 60 / 100
From looking at this, it seems Dark Spyro lacks the defense Spyro has, but makes up for it in his attacks.

Quote: WickedRogue

Series 1 Spyro, Dark Spyro, and Legendary Spyro all 3 have different stat sets.

trading card stats, or game stats?


get a load of this: i found these numbers on skylander's wiki pages. I cant check my own because they are at different levels and such.

Dark Spyro:
Health: 280 (max. 560)
Speed: 43 (max. 91)
Armor: 24 (max. 54)
Critical Hit: 20 (max. 70)
Elemental Power: 25 (max. 100)

Spyro:
Health: 280 (max. 560)
Speed: 50 (max. 98)
Armor: 18 (max. 48)
Critical Hit: 30 (max. 80)
Elemental Power: 25 (max. 100)


According to these numbers, Regular Spyro is better than Dark. Dark has better Armor, but reg Spyro has better overall speed and critical hit. It's possible these numbers are only refering to Spyro's Adventure's max numbers, which are shown in parenthesis, but the overall difference should be the same.

Quote: riverhippo

Quote: WickedRogue

Series 1 Spyro, Dark Spyro, and Legendary Spyro all 3 have different stat sets.

trading card stats, or game stats?


get a load of this: i found these numbers on skylander's wiki pages. I cant check my own because they are at different levels and such.

*insert stats here*

According to these numbers, Regular Spyro is better than Dark. Dark has better Armor, but reg Spyro has better overall speed and critical hit. It's possible these numbers are only refering to Spyro's Adventure's max numbers, which are shown in parenthesis, but the overall difference should be the same.

I never noticed Spyro's speed was faster. The trading card shows the speeds as being the same, but to me it always felt like Dark Spyro was faster. Maybe it's because of heroic challenges, a hat, or maybe just the path I chose.

series 1 spyro cards ...

Keep in mind that the card stats included with the figures have very little to do with the actual, in-game stats.

Gill Grunt's the perfect example. His defense went up from 60 to 70 on the cards, but in-game both Series 1 and Series 2 still have exclusive ownership of the worst starting Defense (6!) out of all 48 Skylanders.

Whereas Legendary Trigger Happy (with a card defense of 20) actually has one of the best starting Defense values in-game.

If the card defense is also considering overall Health, the ratings make a bit more sense. But there's still no way Series 2 Gill Grunt and Series 1 Stump Smash should have an identical Defense, no reason for Lightcore Jet-Vac to be rated faster than regular Jet-Vac, etc.

I seem to have missed how this topic went from variants being sold with systems or game starter packs to the stats of the skylanders. I dont care about stats at all. I use the figures I like.

But I was lucky enough to get the 3ds starter pack for $50 over boxing day sales and i plan on re selling everything but punch pop fizz. and I got gnarly tree rex from some one selling it locally. She didnt like the game and didnt know why he was special but i made a fair offer of $30 and she was willing to seperate him from the wii game. because i dislike the wii also. I'm very happy i didnt have to pay shipping or over $50 just for gnarly tree rex. I had to buy green gill grunt off ebay and granite crusher. But I was in the market for SSA anyways and got a new starter kit with the green gill grunt.

So yes, it does boost sales in some cases, but only really for die hard collectors. people who dont want an extra system or game will take another route.

Quote: Tupelo

I seem to have missed how this topic went from variants being sold with systems or game starter packs to the stats of the skylanders. I dont care about stats at all. I use the figures I like.

But I was lucky enough to get the 3ds starter pack for $50 over boxing day sales and i plan on re selling everything but punch pop fizz. and I got gnarly tree rex from some one selling it locally. She didnt like the game and didnt know why he was special but i made a fair offer of $30 and she was willing to seperate him from the wii game. because i dislike the wii also. I'm very happy i didnt have to pay shipping or over $50 just for gnarly tree rex. I had to buy green gill grunt off ebay and granite crusher. But I was in the market for SSA anyways and got a new starter kit with the green gill grunt.

So yes, it does boost sales in some cases, but only really for die hard collectors. people who dont want an extra system or game will take another route.

The variants you have would make someone happy to know that they are more powerful than the regular characters. It makes something to show off on your physical collection, but also in-game performance.

Quote: t7gga

series 1 spyro cards ...

it will be interesting to compare the s2 spyro with this...