G5: Realistic Predictions and How To Succeed?

[Ragamuffin]

A lot of people talk about what they would do if they were in charge of G5, or what they would like, and there's a thread dedicated to this as well, but given what we know and current trends, what do you think we can expect from G5, realistically? My guesses:

• They WILL keep the Mane6. I don't want this, not a lot of people do. Collectors are burnt out, a lot of bronies are burnt out, everyone would just rather have the Mane6 retire and we can move on to a brand-new cast. And those who do like the Mane6 don't want them to be reinvented because they like the current versions so much. I could maybe see them making new characters over the backlash (I think there was an email leaked somewhere about the fans' response to G5 and whether to listen or not), but I wouldn't hold my breath for that. Expect Pinkie Pie to return.
  
• More variety. Not because I'd like that, but because it's what's popular now with things like blindbags/surprise toys.
  
• Blindbags/surprise toys, assuming kids won't be burnt out by them next year or 2021.
• Slime. In general I predict they'll try to be more trendy. Scrap Pinkie being a pegasus. Pegasuses aren't marketable. They'll make her a unicorn instead, with rainbow hair!
• Big eyes!! Biiiiiiiiiiiig eyes!
• Tiny muzzles! Kiss your normal horse noses goodbye! Chihuahuas/deer are here to stay!
• Out-there prediction that I think makes sense: A younger, teenaged cast. Why have a character be a businesswoman when she can be in a theater class? Why freak out about the Gala when the cast can freak out about prom? Kids love high school. Put the ponies in fantasy high school. Maybe something similar to what Filly Funtasia is doing? Or the School of Friendship? So they're still in high school, doing teenager things, but still going on adventures.

A lot of things like quality (terrible hair, awful decals, seams galore, and flimsy playsets) are something to improve on, heck, something they NEED to improve on, but I don't think they care about that as long as they can get as many overpriced horses into the hands of little girls as possible. What are your thoughts? From a business standpoint, what do you think they'll do with the new generation of My Little Pony?

[banditpony]

Continue with what's strong about the brand : colorful brushable ponies marketed toward 4-8 year olds.

*shrug*

You also will not see quality go up unless you want a price increase, and parents will just opt for a cheaper toy.

[SpacePinto]

I have an awful feeling they're just going to make it as close to G4 as possible just to keep bronies interested...

[Zapper]

Cool subject! We all love to dream but modt of my wishes for G5 are outlandish, I admit. At least when looking at the market.
I don't know how realistic these are, considering toys often fail for reasons that are not always easy to pin down (like, Barbie being on a downward spiral despite the objectively great changes in posability, careers, ethnicity and bodytypes).
But here are some of my predictions:

-Superdeformed look will stay, we won't be getting Spirit Riding Free or G1 because G4 has left an impact on pop culture and the G4 look is established as MLP look now.
Also the smaller bodies are cheaper to produce.

-Hair quality will remain so-so. Amount of hair will stay the way it is right now, once again because more hair = more expensive.

-Core cast idea will remain but there will be new recurring characters.

-Ponyland will be ruled by a king and queen because we need that Disney element. Maybe their daughter(s) will serve as the purple and pink alicorn replacements for Cadence and Luna.

-Spike will have a bigger role, will get aged up. Cool character for the boys to identify with so the ponies won't make your son gay
Romance with a pony still possible.

-Cartoon will be more adventure based like similar Disney or CN shows, but it won't show in the toys. Toys will be your usual baby, wedding, glitter stuff because these are established and safe "girl themes". Boys will get Spike in all forms imaginable and he will have action features and evil eye decals. Spike's dragon friends are a spinoff line. Collect them all.

-IF Hasbro is really smart they will being back the pony friends. So they can chase all the animal trends. Cha Cha, the llama needs to be the most produced because llamas will be hot for 2020.
But there also needs to be a sloth, a fennec fox, a cat and so on.

-A new blind bag line that is kinda like Cutie Mark Crew but with more tiny surprises added like L.O.L.

-A jewel theme not unlike the Elements of Harmony. But now girls can buy the jewelry and other props for cosplay.

-Something like Equestria Girls where the ponies become girls will exist somehow.

Edit: I will come back in 2021 to laugh at my predictions.

[Ragamuffin]

Cool subject! We all love to dream but modt of my wishes for G5 are outlandish, I admit. At least when looking at the market.
I don't know how realistic these are, considering toys often fail for reasons that are not always easy to pin down (like, Barbie being on a downward spiral despite the objectively great changes in posability, careers, ethnicity and bodytypes).
But here are some of my predictions:

-Superdeformed look will stay, we won't be getting Spirit Riding Free or G1 because G4 has left an impact on pop culture and the G4 look is established as MLP look now.
Also the smaller bodies are cheaper to produce.

-Hair quality will remain so-so. Amount of hair will stay the way it is right now, once again because more hair = more expensive.

-Spike will have a bigger role, will get aged up. Cool character for the boys to identify with so the ponies won't make your son gay
Romance with a pony still possible.

-Cartoon will be more adventure based like similar Disney or CN shows, but it won't show in the toys. Toys will be your usual baby, wedding, glitter stuff because these are established and safe "girl themes". Boys will get Spike in all forms imaginable and he will have action features and evil eye decals. Spike's dragon friends are a spinoff line. Collect them all.

-Something like Equestria Girls where the ponies become girls will exist somehow.

Given how other toys are nowdays, I think Barbie is kinda irrelevant because of how things just are. Everything's superdeformed like you said, Barbies don't come with giant heads and big eyes or sentient foods with eyeballs... they're just not cool! They don't have unicorn horns or vomit slime!

I think the hair for G4s is decent, but it just needs to be higher quality. Like how it was back in 2010/2011. I never was big on styling hair for my ponies, I can't even braid, so if they don't have a full head of hair like G3.5s it's no loss to me. But maybe this is something they might play with if Hairdorables become big and everyone joins in on the bandwagon?

I was wondering how Spike could play in G5. The "little brother" thing in G4 was cute for a while but it gets kinda old and I can imagine he can be hard to write for. I might be interested it if he got a spinoff, not gonna lie. I've been playing the MLP Gameloft game and I was so excited that you can collect the dragons for your town too!

Spoiler

In the leaks they mentioned that every race has their own homeworld, including dragons that have a humanlike culture and wear clothes. Maybe it's not so far fetched!

And in the leaks I think they talked about continuing Equestria Girls in some way. Smart move, EQG seems popular. If it wasn't, it wouldn't have gotten all those bootleg cartoons on Youtube...

[brightberry]

These predictions sound pretty awful.   

[Pinkie21]

They’ll probably do away with the brushable hair, I’m guessing.  They’ll also probably be 99% blind boxes and incredibly tiny.  Quality control will more likely be practically nonexistent.

[Leave a Whisper]

These predictions sound pretty awful.   

Do they ever! And it certainly won't be a sign of suceeding. That sounds like a recipe for sinking their own ship.

Post Merge: March 06, 2019, 08:10:02 PM

They’ll probably do away with the brushable hair, I’m guessing.  They’ll also probably be 99% blind boxes and incredibly tiny.  Quality control will more likely be practically nonexistent.

Shh shh shh! Doooon't jinx it worse.

[Ragamuffin]

These predictions sound pretty awful.   

Do they ever! And it certainly won't be a sign of suceeding. That sounds like a recipe for sinking their own ship.

Implying they're not doing that already?

[banditpony]

They’ll probably do away with the brushable hair, I’m guessing.  They’ll also probably be 99% blind boxes and incredibly tiny.  Quality control will more likely be practically nonexistent.

The brand that is known for colorful ponies with brushable hair. They also need their toy line to stick out against competition which is "blind box and tiny". So this is really unlikely for the main line (sublines, sure).

In fact we saw that early on with g4.. blind bags never over took the main line.

[GillysJubilee]

I guess I am one of those people who is quietly happy they aren't completely scrapping the Mane 6, though that is mostly because I didn't care much for the G4 toys in the first place and really focused on the show. I do hope they've learned their lesson from this gen and will intoduce a wider variety of ponies, and not just remake the same ones over and over.
I think that variety may be the only thing that could make the current tiny, skinny models appealing to me. And, unfortunately, I don't see them going more toward the G1 styled models again...

[DreamvalleyMLP]

• Out-there prediction that I think makes sense: A younger, teenaged cast. Why have a character be a businesswoman when she can be in a theater class? Why freak out about the Gala when the cast can freak out about prom? Kids love high school. Put the ponies in fantasy high school. Maybe something similar to what Filly Funtasia is doing? Or the School of Friendship? So they're still in high school, doing teenager things, but still going on adventures.

Please no clone of Tales. If anything, more fantasy and otherworldly than a basic human style world with ponies.

[Taffeta]

I dunno if it's realistic, but from a business model perspective...

Learn from Mattel's dramatic fail to soft reboot MH. Cutting the middle ground between the old school fans who love the previous and the not interested people who don't care about the characters from the previous and you get nobody buying. So either go completely new or don't bother. It gives more options down the line too.

Learn also from other toys like Enchantimals etc which also have amazing levels of variety and seem to do okay. Shopkins also have quite a lot of variety.

Also following those trends, keeping a core brushable line with offshoots like the blind bags/cmc style is also probably a good idea - to create both a core loyal toy fan and a fad "this looks cute, wow, now I'm bored with it" fan appeal. Balance a core cast alongside variety, again to please new fans and keep older ones interested.

I have no real comments on the setting. I don't care about the TV series, MLP hasn't ever been totally off the wall awesome with any of its animation series so I think whatever setting they choose, make it something that's going to stand out with kids and appeal to them. Drop the morals and the preachy messages and just make it fun.

Keep EQG but keep it separate from MLP and don't let it lassoo in whatever MLP is going to become. It doesn't need to be hogtied together.

Finally.

Obliterate Pinkie Pie.

[banditpony]

Obliterate Pinkie Pie.

But,............ PINK.

I feel like even if she's gone we are going to get some other pink obnoxious thing

[Taffeta]

Obliterate Pinkie Pie.

But,............ PINK.

I feel like even if she's gone we are going to get some other pink obnoxious thing

Probably. But at least it would be a new pink obnoxious thing.

Besides,  the idea that girl = pink is about as gendered as you can get. Not that I think mlp should market as a 'girl toy' so blatantly anyway...but we can survive without quite so much pink.