collapse

* Navigation

* User Info

 
 
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

* Who's Online

Poll

How does G4 do in your area? How is the stock?

G4s are very popular here and we always have the newest releases!
2 (3.2%)
G4s sell well here and things are updated often.
6 (9.5%)
G4s use to sell well here, but things have slowed down.
40 (63.5%)
G4s are shelf warmers! Rarity, Capper, and Cheese Sandwich will survive the apocalypse!
14 (22.2%)
Other?
1 (1.6%)

Total Members Voted: 63

Author Topic: In Your Opinion, How Successful Was G4 During Its Run?  (Read 8053 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Ragamuffin

  • Trade Count: (+3)
  • Lil Cupcake Sister Pony
  • ****
  • Posts: 1032
  • Gender: Female
    • View Profile
    • Tumblr
Re: In Your Opinion, How Successful Was G4 During Its Run?
« Reply #15 on: February 11, 2019, 07:20:41 PM »

For me it's a complete fallacy that the kids want the mane six on reboot. I think it's fine to release a few of each character over the course of things to attract the new kids watching, but ten or so releases every year is too much and that is reflected by the fact you can see the shelves here picked clean of anything not mane 6, with the mane 6 characters left here to rot. Yes, mane 6 do sell, because otherwise they wouldn't do it. But it's impossible to say that kids prefer this system as they get so little chance to buy other characters. I've watched the kids go through the whole rack to find the particular non mane 6 character they want, and I've seen a girl get super excited to see Soarin in among all the Rainbow Dashes.

I agree. As a kid I wasn't big on repeats, and the ones I had came in sets of other ponies. I think they should keep Mane6 in production and on shelves for whoever's new to the series and wants their favourite character, but it's redundant to have the same ponies over and over for a decade. If I grew up with MLP today, I wouldn't have any interest in collecting them like I did with G2s and G3s. I say that as someone who focuses on toys, if I was a kid I don't think would've had access to watch FiM, so I would have no attachment to the characters.

Hasbro got a new head of the Girls Department or the MLP Department a few years ago (I can't remember which) and I think that is the reason for the new direction with the molds.  I don't think there's any "conspiracy", I think the new lady just looked at the line and said "Why the heck are all these ponies in the same standing-there pose?"  (And I mean . . . fair.  I'd been asking that for years, lol.)

Hasbro would never try to purposely drive down toy sales to have an "excuse" to reboot.  They don't need an excuse, they can reboot whenever they want.  There've been, like, three Transformers reboots during MLP FIM's lifespan.

I didn't say they purposely made things bad just so they could reboot it. I meant it like, judging purely from how ponies do here, that maybe G4 wasn't doing well already. It was during this time the stores quit carrying anything new. I guess the movie was the right time to reboot, but it still doesn't make sense to me when they could've continued to use the same old 2010 standing pose. I didn't know there was someone new in charge, maybe she really is the reason behind everything!
visitors can't see pics , please register or login



Offline NightGliderSA

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Mommy & Baby Pony
  • ****
  • Posts: 1624
    • View Profile
Re: In Your Opinion, How Successful Was G4 During Its Run?
« Reply #16 on: February 12, 2019, 01:01:57 AM »
We really do not get much in the way of variety, especially with regards to characters in SA. It is mostly the Mane 6, with just a VERY FEW extras, and they are not in brushable form: mainly to be found in the blind bags. So, funnily enough, they are just sitting there and warming those shelves.

Offline Minty_Magic

  • Trade Count: (+27)
  • MOC Mimic
  • *****
  • Posts: 4921
  • Gender: Female
    • View Profile
Re: In Your Opinion, How Successful Was G4 During Its Run?
« Reply #17 on: February 12, 2019, 01:18:17 AM »
G4 started off really strong here. I remember Target and Toys r Us (rip) had whole aisles for my little pony it’s a lot of product and variety. I still remember the first couple years of FiM very fondly because it was so exciting! I’m not sure when things started to stagnate, but by now ponies only have a tiny shelf presence at stores near me.

I noticed the movie toys sitting for an exceptionally long time. Target FINALLY did a reset after the holidays this year, but prior to that I never saw the best gift ever sets or the glitter symbol lines. And I actually wanted glitter Trixie!

I can definitely feel that this is the end, but I think all things considered G4 actually had a pretty solid run. The fact that he line lasted for nearly 10 years with almost no variety is....something. I have a bad feeling the next line is going to be core character based again since it really did work the first run. I mean, even non toy stores like Hot Topic had full fledged my little pony sections for a while, it was a big deal!

A little off topic, but I’m pleased to see the retro lines seem to be doing well! When I go to Target the retro ponies always seem to be moving, and now that more companies are picking up on the retro trend, I’m hoping I’ll have those to be excited about for a while! :) The main line being this dead makes it very easy to decide where to spend my money!
visitors can't see pics , please register or login

Thank you to Squarepeg for my avatar!

Offline Sunset

  • Trade Count: (+9)
  • G3 Prototype Pony
  • *****
  • Posts: 2883
  • Gender: Female
    • View Profile
Re: In Your Opinion, How Successful Was G4 During Its Run?
« Reply #18 on: February 12, 2019, 07:02:24 AM »
G4 started off really strong here. I remember Target and Toys r Us (rip) had whole aisles for my little pony it’s a lot of product and variety. I still remember the first couple years of FiM very fondly because it was so exciting! I’m not sure when things started to stagnate, but by now ponies only have a tiny shelf presence at stores near me.

I noticed the movie toys sitting for an exceptionally long time. Target FINALLY did a reset after the holidays this year, but prior to that I never saw the best gift ever sets or the glitter symbol lines. And I actually wanted glitter Trixie!

I can definitely feel that this is the end, but I think all things considered G4 actually had a pretty solid run. The fact that he line lasted for nearly 10 years with almost no variety is....something. I have a bad feeling the next line is going to be core character based again since it really did work the first run. I mean, even non toy stores like Hot Topic had full fledged my little pony sections for a while, it was a big deal!

A little off topic, but I’m pleased to see the retro lines seem to be doing well! When I go to Target the retro ponies always seem to be moving, and now that more companies are picking up on the retro trend, I’m hoping I’ll have those to be excited about for a while! :) The main line being this dead makes it very easy to decide where to spend my money!

I’d say all of that is true in my area, also.  G4 was really big for a while but has been shrinking for the past couple of years.  And non of my stores got in the best gift ever or the school or the two packs with the two new characters I actually wanted  :huh:  Here’s hoping that when the Hasbro website comes back up that they will have some of that stuff listed so that I can get Sandbar.

Offline Strawberrysweets

  • Trade Count: (+7)
  • Brush N Grow Pony
  • ***
  • Posts: 323
  • Gender: Female
  • Like a strawberry, I'm sweet but I can be sour too
    • View Profile
Re: In Your Opinion, How Successful Was G4 During Its Run?
« Reply #19 on: February 12, 2019, 08:56:05 AM »
Cant say G4 was huge hit in Norway.
My nieces are far more intrested in my G1 collection.
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
Icon by Minty_Magic

Offline Moonbreeze

  • Trade Count: (+202)
  • MIB Rapunzel Pony
  • *****
  • Posts: 6118
  • Gender: Female
  • G2 nut
    • View Profile
    • My personal site
Re: In Your Opinion, How Successful Was G4 During Its Run?
« Reply #20 on: February 12, 2019, 10:52:59 AM »
It started off pretty well. But the lack of new characters made it uninteresting for me.

Show-wise: yeah, pretty cool :)
Toy-wise: No...I've seen the same ponies on the shelves for months. So I have the feeling that it wasn't doing as well as the other gens.

Offline poniesthatsparkle

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Rainbow Curl Pony
  • ***
  • Posts: 414
  • Gender: Female
  • TAF Enthusiast
    • View Profile
Re: In Your Opinion, How Successful Was G4 During Its Run?
« Reply #21 on: February 12, 2019, 11:52:45 AM »
G4S are still selling here, but many stores have shrunken their selection as they aren't selling as well was they used to. We still get new releases, but very few. My Target still hasn't gotten the glittery Celestia and Luna. The only new things I've seen there were the Mane 6 singles and wave three of the Cutie Mark Crew.

In 2010-2013, before I even began collecting, I could tell that ponies were popular everytime I entered the toy isles. There was a large selection and many times they'd sold out. Things have certainly slowed down since then.
visitors can't see pics , please register or login

Offline lonewolf

  • Trade Count: (+5)
  • Scribbles Pony
  • ****
  • Posts: 1239
  • Gender: Male
  • Lyra the dance master
    • View Profile
    • Deviantart account
Re: In Your Opinion, How Successful Was G4 During Its Run?
« Reply #22 on: February 13, 2019, 01:25:32 PM »
I think it was hugely successful. As for now: I don't get out to stores like Walmart that often, but compared to a couple years ago, the selection is limited, and it seems like it's the same stuff every time. I've stopped buying brushables myself because of how the G4.5's look, but if I see the older ones that WM sold in bags laying around I buy them for possible future customs.
visitors can't see pics , please register or login

I'm the D to the E to the --- and no filly's got the moves like my big wall eyes. I'm De---licious.
Listen to this song while watching my sig: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTi11bFNdMs :P

Offline Magicharp

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Power Puff Pony
  • ***
  • Posts: 185
  • Gender: Female
  • Playing music on my harp named Grover!
    • View Profile
    • The Punisher's Harp
Re: In Your Opinion, How Successful Was G4 During Its Run?
« Reply #23 on: February 13, 2019, 03:39:21 PM »
I collected a few G4s before but I lost interest in them and gave them up. They not the type of MLP series I'm most accustomed to. I prefer G1. Nothing else.
"One Batch. Two Batch. Penny and Dime." - Frank Castle

Offline Ragamuffin

  • Trade Count: (+3)
  • Lil Cupcake Sister Pony
  • ****
  • Posts: 1032
  • Gender: Female
    • View Profile
    • Tumblr
Re: In Your Opinion, How Successful Was G4 During Its Run?
« Reply #24 on: March 01, 2019, 12:30:32 PM »
I've been looking through each year and comparing Mane Casts (Mane6 + Celestia, Cadance, and Luna) with non-Mane Casts, and it's pretty bad. And by pretty bad I mean really bad. Really, really, really bad. Just the brushables. No EQG, blind bags, FiM Collection, or GoH.

My math is definitely off because I kept leaving off releases, I kept finding more, and I probably still am missing some from my count. But... is 149 Mane Cast ponies in a single year really necessary? Yes. 149, approximately. Around 136 if you don't count the princesses. 136 for just the Mane 6.

In 2017 there were, at LEAST:

- 24 Pinkie Pies
- 26 Raritys
- 28 Twilight Sparkles
- 16 Applejacks
- 21 Fluttershys
- 21 Rainbow Dashes
- 6 Celestias
- 5 Cadances
- 2 Lunas

Last year there were about 95 total Mane6 releases, 108 if you count the princesses. And from those 95 Mane6 releases, only two new characters were released, Silverstream and Sandbar. There were about ten other releases, including glittery Trixie, glittery Cheerilee, 2 Starlight Glimmers, light-up horn Tempest Shadow, Chrysalis, pearly Shining Armor, that Songbird Serenade with the skirt, and 2 Flurry Hearts.

I can't justify the "what about those who are watching FiM for the first time and want their favourite character" argument when there were over a hundred Mane6 releases in 2017 alone. Even if every single one of those Mane6 ponies sold really well (which I doubt because they either didn't stock them here or they're shelf-warming), there were 28 different Twilight Sparkles, JUST in the brushable variety released (nevermind the plushes, figurines, and other merchandise). Who wants this? There should've been, like... one brushable, one fashion style, one seapony, and one fashion style seapony per pony. That's 4 releases for each of the Mane6, 24 total, compared to the 100+ we got.

Some little girl out there must've wanted a seapony Rainbow Dash after seeing the movie, right? Well lucky for her, there are five different ones! Did she happen to like hippogriff Queen Novo? Well that's too bad! How about one of the seven seapony Pinkie Pies that were released instead? Maybe another little girl watched the show last year, and Ocellus is her favourite pony. Hmm... that's too bad... Ocellus doesn't exist in toy form... she likes Twilight Sparkle, right? Nineteen of those released last year...

Spoiler
EDIT: Here's the graphic I made for 2017 Mane Cast releases if you want something more visual. It's nearly 4,000 pixels wide of just Twilight Sparkle.

visitors can't see pics , please register or login


« Last Edit: March 01, 2019, 12:33:19 PM by Ragamuffin »
visitors can't see pics , please register or login



Offline Taffeta

  • Trade Count: (+62)
  • Colombian Baby Pony
  • ******
  • Posts: 16058
  • Gender: Female
  • UK Pony, Jem and Mediaeval Japanese obsessive :D
    • View Profile
    • The My Little Pony Scrapbook
Re: In Your Opinion, How Successful Was G4 During Its Run?
« Reply #25 on: March 01, 2019, 12:39:55 PM »
Wow, Ragamuffin. That really puts it in some perspective.

Adding to that global distribution - a lot of the sets the US had had in the last year with other characters (land hippogriffs, the exclusive haven bay, Sandbar, etc) didn't get here. We DID have nauseating amounts of wave 2 baby sea ponies and then a reasonable amount of wave 1 (in that order) but we must have had every. single. release. of seapony mane 6. I went into Hamleys last summer (London's big niche toy shop that mostly tourists and rich people shop at because it's fun to visit but expensive) and it was literally a WALL OF PINKIE PIE. In various releases, but that was it. JUST pinkie pie. Most of them in the musical shells.
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
|夏草やつわものどもが夢の跡|

Offline TheBeatlesPkmnFan42

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Rapunzel Pony
  • *****
  • Posts: 3710
  • Gender: Female
  • Can buy, but cannot sell/trade
    • View Profile
    • My Tumblr
Re: In Your Opinion, How Successful Was G4 During Its Run?
« Reply #26 on: March 01, 2019, 01:10:37 PM »
Oh wow, I mean we all knew the amount of Mane 6 vs everyone else is awful, but when you actually write it out. Yikes! And that's just one year? Wonder what it'd look like for all years of G4 so far!
visitors can't see pics , please register or login

Snupps|MLP Discord server|Instagram

Offline Zapper

  • Trade Count: (+22)
  • Rapunzel Pony
  • *****
  • Posts: 3547
  • Gender: Female
    • View Profile
Re: In Your Opinion, How Successful Was G4 During Its Run?
« Reply #27 on: March 01, 2019, 02:02:08 PM »
I can't speak on FiM's success in general because I don't have the numbers compared to G3 or G1. The show was of course successful. If not, they would have pulled the plug earlier. In my area MLP started sitting around 2015 and now we don't even get Cutie Mark Crew and especially not the EqG dolls (we didn't even get the posable minis).

However, I think the repetition of M6 was a problem after all. The "there always needs to be a M6 character on the shelf" explanation is fine, but then why did some characters not get toys at all? Even the ones with celeb voices. That's not how you use your animation vehicle.

Example, the pearly wave with new characters came way too late when the crystal ponies weren't relevant anymore. And it contained two Brony faves the adult collectors snatched up. I couldn't find the nurse or the dolphin one for ages until I caved and ordered them from a Chinese seller.
If the Bronies made up such a small portion of sales, why did Hasbro always pander to them even in the playline for girls on top of their already big influence on fan faves? What kid who watches MLP but doesn't follow adult fandom would care for Muffin or the nurse or Octavia Melody who was turned into an EqG doll with extra pony. A casual young fan would have wanted any pony, not specifically the grey boring one that never talks but sometimes is in the background with an instrument. Come on! :lol: And quite naturally, that one was snatched by adults who wanted the exclusive Octavia brushable and tossed the doll in the trash. So dumb.

It's like the tie-ins to the show only worked occasionally when Hasbro ruled there should be a royal wedding or a baby (still creeped out how that corresponded with Prince William's and Kate Middleton's life... does Hasbro believe girls are into the Great British crown?) :P Or a winged Twilight Sparkle. Let's face it, those were the biggest successes because they perfectly synched with the show.
Years later when they did the themed blind bags and I saw all the Nightmare Night stuff, I got real sad because they could have released those years ago back when I still gave a crap about Luna. I hope a few kids saw a rerun and remembered what that stuff was all about :lol:

Post Merge: March 01, 2019, 02:12:24 PM

- 16 Applejacks

Poor AJ. I wonder if her problem was being a cowgirl/farmer or was it just the color orange? I remember when everyone was like "where is Applejack?" It led to my highest ebay pony sale ever (Fashionstyle AJ) so I can't complain :lol:
« Last Edit: March 01, 2019, 02:12:24 PM by Zapper »

Offline LadyMoondancer

  • *Arena VIP*
  • Trade Count: (+96)
  • MIB Licensing Show Pinkie Pie
  • ******
  • Posts: 11464
    • View Profile
    • http://www.superpony.com
Re: In Your Opinion, How Successful Was G4 During Its Run?
« Reply #28 on: March 01, 2019, 03:18:36 PM »
16 Applejacks . . . RIP Applejack!  (But I also sold a FS one . . . for over $70 . . . so I can't complain.)

I saw an amazing lot of ponies on Craigslist about two months back and I wish I'd saved pictures of it.  It was a dad selling his daughter's ponies because she'd outgrown them.  She had a pretty big pony collection, which included EQG and actual ponies.  I think there were between 30 to 60 ponies, can't exactly remember.

A huge portion of these were Mane Six plus a smattering of others (the yellow alicorn, Trixie in EQG and pony form, Octavia EQG, Sunset Shimmer, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, a few others).  The funny thing was there was NOT an even distribution of Mane Six.  There were maybe two Applejacks, LOTS of Rainbow Dashes, a fair amount of Rarities, a few Fluttershys, more Twilight Sparkles than there were stars in the sky . . . and one Pinkie Pie, lol.
Visit my Tumblr, Heck Yeah, Pony Scans!

Offline Ponyfan

  • Trade Count: (+39)
  • MIB Licensing Show Pinkie Pie
  • ******
  • Posts: 13778
    • View Profile
Re: In Your Opinion, How Successful Was G4 During Its Run?
« Reply #29 on: March 02, 2019, 06:21:57 AM »
Did someone mention Wave 1 and 2 baby sea ponies? :)  Maybe Lilly and Sea Poppy should start doing silly pictures again.


I think the movie releases were the last "big" releases we will see from G4 MLP. Although I loved the movie and bought many of the movie releases there were problems with the distrubution in my area. I think there were too many Mane 6 sea ponies and not enough other none Mane 6 characters released. I think 2 Pinkie sea ponies would have been fine (the pearly and the musical shell) and we also had the Land and Sea sea ponies witih the tail skirts that covered their back legs.

I never saw the Wave 2 Baby Sea ponies, the baby Hippogriffs or Captain Celanao where I live. One Walmart still has the Mane 6 pirate set and was overstocked on the green bird pirate. It took me almost a year to find All About Tempest Shadow 

My stores only stocked the first wave of glitterey ponies and skipped to the excess plastic packaged ponies.


The 2nd set of pearly G4 ponies had bad distrubution also and most of those ended up at stores like Big Lots . I think Hasbro messed up by only releasing Queen Novo in a big playset and only 2 of the students.


Ponyfan

visitors can't see pics , please register or login


Thank you SDS for my avatar and sig

 

SimplePortal 2.3.5 © 2008-2012, SimplePortal