darkSpyro

Amazon currently has all SuperChargers Starter Packs on sale:

3DS: $39.99
Regular Starter Pack: $49.99
Dark Edition: $74.99

Amazon.ca has them on sale as well:

3DS: $59.99
Regular Starter Pack: $64.99
Dark Edition: $109.99

I take this as a VERY bad sign of poor sales. The XBox One dark starter price was reduced almost instantly...now others have followed suit. It might be panic on the part of Activision...people won't buy figures/vehicles unless they have a starter pack (which people aren't buying). It's either panic on the part of Activision or Amazon.com having a huge glut of starter packs, but I suspect panic because they're even discounting the yet to be released mobile starter pack.

Yep. A sale this early? Something has gone amiss.

During January~Feburary, Trap Team (used, but near-perfect condition) was up for $25~30.

With other games I'd say it's bad, it's not great obviously . But for toys to life games it's probably a good strategy now days. The more people that buy the starter will raise individual figure sales.

I've noticed this already. After the initial rush, shelves are pretty darn full at the stores. Variants hang untouched, where previous at least those would be lower stock. I thought it might be because they had shipped a ton, but I just don't see people looking at them like before.

The biggest indicator will be when Black Friday rolls around. Maybe parents have realized they don't have to jump on these so early anymore to get what their kids want. I know for me this is the first year I put off getting the Starter until Black Friday. I'd get on the Amazon one, but I'm hoping for a good Best Buy deal on top of GCU. I'd like to pick up the XB1 and the 3DS Starters, I think my youngest will enjoy the 3DS version, he loves racing games.

Hmm. I dunno, everything Toys to Life seems really well stocked recently. Loads of Infinity and Lego along with Skylanders, it doesn't seem like there is any shortage of anything. Amiibos this week were rather plentiful with restocks of some previously rare figs and brand new stuff like Yarn Yoshi. I honestly do not know if anything is really selling or the stores are restocking like mad. Still with Skylanders you only have something like 5 different characters out right now on the pegs and it makes the shelves look overstocked. It was a bit better when there were twice as many characters to pick from.

Any bets on how low each of the starters will go for Black Friday? $35 used to be the lowest for Skylanders but $40 was the number last year. I'm hoping Lego will go down to at least $40 so I can get myself a set (I've only watched it being played online).

You can tell by the shelves if you go a few times that stock is not circulating. Same things are in the same places in similar numbers. I examine the Skylanders shelves pretty closely, looking for variants and new stuff.

The only Amiibos other than the Mario Party series that are on shelves is the new stuff/restock, because they shipped those in massive numbers recently. And most of those are gone.

Infinity is well stocked and most stuff isn't changing, although the original trilogy that recently came out seems to be low stock. Can't beat Darth Vader and Han Solo.

Lego stuff, I can't really tell hadn't looked at it much before. I'll also be watching for a Black Friday deal on that.

I keep saying it...there's no $9.99 price point for figures this time around (big mistake) causing consumers to opt out of Skylanders. There's also a general Toys to Life fatigue with the novelty wearing off and so many different types of Toys to Life games out there. Having to buy a different portal every year for each doesn't help either. A company can come out with the absolute best Toys to Life platform next year with innovation and gameplay that can blow away Skylanders, Disney Infinity, Lego Dimensions, and the rest, but it won't sell well because consumers in general are getting fatigued with the cash pit associated with the Toys to Life games. Many fans here are feeling it and I'm sure parents are starting to draw the line for what they purchase for their kids as well.

Quote: mastermc54

I take this as a VERY bad sign of poor sales. The XBox One dark starter price was reduced almost instantly...now others have followed suit. It might be panic on the part of Activision...people won't buy figures/vehicles unless they have a starter pack (which people aren't buying). It's either panic on the part of Activision or Amazon.com having a huge glut of starter packs, but I suspect panic because they're even discounting the yet to be released mobile starter pack.

Quote: mastermc54

I keep saying it...there's no $9.99 price point for figures this time around (big mistake) causing consumers to opt out of Skylanders. There's also a general Toys to Life fatigue with the novelty wearing off and so many different types of Toys to Life games out there. Having to buy a different portal every year for each doesn't help either. A company can come out with the absolute best Toys to Life platform next year with innovation and gameplay that can blow away Skylanders, Disney Infinity, Lego Dimensions, and the rest, but it won't sell well because consumers in general are getting fatigued with the cash pit associated with the Toys to Life games. Many fans here are feeling it and I'm sure parents are starting to draw the line for what they purchase for their kids as well.

pretty much both these points. the skylanders are on 5th year of the game and they took out the cheap point of figures for the lower number but made it so the fact is you spend more on just a combo of figure and vehicle - that runs 30 bucks approx. while people can pay at most 13 -20 for an amiibo (the yoshi yarn ones are the most expensive to date) the fact is there's been too many games and i've seen people go to infinity instead of skylanders and some cross over to lego. the fact of another thread also showing off how many variants they went crazy on. it's ridiculous. it's how they killed the lightcore by doing too many as such and now the variants aren't that rare anymore like they were in previous games. remember giants in how rare they were? i do and worth to collect. to put so many out for a year is nuts. i think other stores are going to follow suit and just simply lower the price of the figures and it's possible you might not even see a full wave of them released. if things don't pick up for black friday i'd expect this might be it.

I also take it a sign of incredibly bad sales as the first year for summer and fall of no frito lay promo. there was little to none relating to trap team and we're on superchargers now? i think there won't be anymore of them.

I think they are full steam ahead on Skylanders 6, but if sales don't pick up by Christmas, it might end here (for now). Skylanders is a HUGE up front investment for Activision, both for shelf space and lots of physical items. If the game doesn't do big numbers for the holiday, I don't see them pushing things with a new game right away. Normally a publisher wouldn't abandon a franchise that has been so big, but like Tony Hawk and Guitar Hero, having lots of plastic items you cannot sell on clearance puts an end to it real quick. If a regular game doesn't sell, you can eat the discs at very little loss and you are just out the dev costs you didn't make up.

Not saying it is going to happen, I'm sure things will pick up closer to Christmas. But I'll bet there are a few uncomfortable executives at Activision right now.

I hate the "doom and gloom" talk about Skylanders as much as the next person, but I feel the toy fatigue associated with Toys to Life is very much an issue with all franchises across the board. And it most definitely is a step backwards to raise the base price of the cheapest figure as Activision has done with Superchargers. Perhaps a viable option moving forward would be to do something along the lines of Amiibo cards like Nintendo has done with Animal Crossing...it kills several birds with one stone as it would cut back on the plastic consumers are collecting, it would cut down the cost for consumers (can't charge $10 or more for a card), and it would cut down on manufacturing and distribution costs for Activision. The fact that they stopped making stats cards for figures and put an end to the Frito Lay promos clearly shows that they're cutting corners to keep costs down and special promotions aren't really doing anything to bring in new customers to the franchise (maybe the Skylanders Amiibo thing was a last ditch effort/partnership to bring new people into Skylanders).

Sales are so bad because they keep raising the price of the toys every year...raising the price 6 bucks for a toy that is about the same size as the others is pure greed. I'm sure there pay'in the same prices for these new figures as the last figures. Unless the company that makes the figures is getting greedy also....witch i doubt because thats how you loss business clients...charging more for figures that use the same amount of plastic to mold the new figures as the old ones did.

I got the 3DS starter, which is good because Skymiibo Bowser is worth 39.90 on Amazon, with clown cruiser going for 11$.

Quote: Phoenix_Lord

Sales are so bad because they keep raising the price of the toys every year...raising the price 6 bucks for a toy that is about the same size as the others is pure greed. I'm sure there pay'in the same prices for these new figures as the last figures. Unless the company that makes the figures is getting greedy also....witch i doubt because thats how you loss business clients...charging more for figures that use the same amount of plastic to mold the new figures as the old ones did.

Greed backfires big time when people stop buying your product except for the loyal fan base (all of us chumps). The number crunchers and penny pitchers at Activision should be fired as they're accelerating the downwards spiral for the franchise. They didn't take into account that Little Johnny's allowance might cover a $9.99 figure at most. Both kids and parents draw the line even faster when a a pre-existing money pit of a franchise decides to start charging more for the cheapest figure. And I totally agree that they're paying the factory in China the same for each figure (plus/minus 25-50 cents) as they were in the Spyro's Adventure days when figures retailed for $8 (or less during sales). Let's hope we see at least one more Skylanders game that preferably wraps things up in a nice way.