Jazwares Answer Results

So that it will be pretty much permenent...
These are the 'quick answers' to that Jazwares Interview at the SegaBlogs. Who knows if they pull down their old content after a while, so this is just a fast run-down of everything they said. With some comments/speculation added in. All the ambiguous, question-dodge, unclear and already-known items have been skipped. The original should still be here: Sega Blogs vs Jazwares 2

1. ALL the AllStars Racers should be getting figures
2. They'll do a Blaze the Cat figure (Likely on the small line)
3. They'll do Super Silver (Small line, I bet)
4. Chaos emeralds confirmed to come with Super Sonic Super Shadow Pack
5. No more forced re-buying of Sonic
(Paying 13.99 for 1 small-line figure was getting old. Everyone's got like 4 Sonics now because they had to keep buying him to get stuff. It's a good thing they recognized this.)
6. Playsets are NOT in the cards (yet)
7. Charmy Bee, Big & Froggy, Eggman ARE coming to the small line
They don't have rights to non-Sega-JP chars, so Sonic R stuff is out. (IE no Tails Doll or Metal Knuckles which were exclusive to that game unless they somehow get the rights)
8. Fang- Who has the rights to this guy?
9. 10 Inch Sonic IS GOING to get made (same size as the big MS)
10. They don't consider bendies yet (I do wonder about them doing bendies. As the asker jabbed at them about breakage within the question...it was a rightfully done jab. They'd likely do a good job with bendies, but 'bendy' has a stigma of being 'low end junk' EVEN after Joyride produced the awesome Shadow who everyone wants. I hold nothing against well done bendies and have no predjudice)
11. They WILL BE making more 5 inch line figures
12. WHERE can you buy the figures?
Transworld, Amazon, Hot Topic, specialty shops and local Comic Book stores
13. There WILL be a Super Poser Tails (this was announced before, but it bears repeating)
14. Direct ordering from a 'Jazwares Store' is NOT in the cards now
15. They don't have an Archie license
16. There WILL BE Tails, Knuckles & Silver plushes in a 2nd plush line

Comment Zone:
More 5-inch is absolutely going to please the fans. Everyone LOVES these, and so do I. I don't care about paying more for the larger size, they do such a good job, they're great to have. I would 100% buy anybody they make at this size.

Lack of JW direct store is painful
JW can't control the X TREEEEME markup$ that online $tores are grubbing from de$perate fan$. It's totally unfair to tell little Billy or Suzy "No you can't have that Sonic figure because it's $39.99, when JW want it to retail at $4.99" but it happens all the time. These scalpers get away with it because there's no reliable source to just GO GET FIGURES AT SUGGESTED PRICE. (TRU isn't in the area, you live non-usa, TRU is out of them online/offline, your hot topic doesn't have them, there are no comic book stores at all within 25 miles, etc etc on and on)

Lack of Archie is awesome
Yes, I collect all the Archie Sonic books monthly, and read them. But do I think that their chars deserve figures? NO NO NO. Archie is a huge swamp that is sure to only anger the fans. Finish this sentance "I hate____" everyone will fill it in with a different archie-exclusive char then do nothing but scream about it and create bad news all over the web if it is produced as a figure. The other half who love ____ will then start a war.
Retail does not need more contraversy, and humpteen billion irrelevent characters regardless of their level of being derivitive, boring, ill-concieved, forgotten about, poorly written, plot-hole driven, killed-off, loose-ended, obscure, continuity-dumped, or sheer plot-device'd will not help. Screeching like a rabid monkey and punching out anyone who disagrees with eternal undying love of Archie Char X is commonplace. Please, keep this out of my figures and never get the license.

A Mystery:
Where is Rouge the Bat? Why is Blaze (A DS only char, pretty much) getting a figure first? Rouge is a fan fave appearing in multiple titles. Everything with her sells like hotcakes. Certainly more people like her than do Big the Cat...yet he is getting a figure first? What's up with that?

Mystery 2:
Gamma or Omega or Mecha Sonic. The 'good guy robots' have their fans too, and (S&K Mecha Sonic) does look cool. These should get on the roster at some point. But I can understand not feeling any need to front-line them. JW is not going to 'run out of' people to make figures of any time soon.

Plushes:
Here's where _I_ get contraversial. I hate their current line. The 'improvements' failed. I still think the dolls are ugly and over priced. I would never buy them. I don't see why they're adding more characters, I DO see these warming shelves in local stores. I'm not going to dump on the 2nd line because I have not seen it, but it had better be 50% or more better than the first.

"Go bigger or get out."

Plush is a VERY HARD thing to make, and harder still to get right. I know, I have tried. Working small (or huge) only makes it harder. But GE is easily trumping anything they've done, on a larger scale. Their 'big werehog' beats JW hands-down and is at least twice as big, retailing at 14.99. (JW are about 7 inches, and 9.99 each) The high price and bad look combine to make the first line look sad indeed. This is an opinion. If you love the first line that's fine, but you havn't seen the sold for 800 dollars Rouge the bat or the 725 dollar Shadow. THOSE are nice dolls.

Bottom line:
In all, it's good news. They sound like they're really connected to the fans, listening to who is in demand, then actually making them. With the way the figures fly off shelves, one can only agree that this stance is working like gold. The future also has great promise with more good choices and cool surprises. (Chaos emerald pack!) The fact that they keep doing interviews like this and directly answer fan questions is also wonderful. The more connected a company is to it's buyers, the better it tends to do. By far, Jazwares is the best company yet for Sonic figures, and it looks like they'll stay on top for good, with how great they are acting.
Also: I predict we get wisps.

Birthday- Sonic Video Contest!

Today's the big day!
Happy Birthday Sonic!

And this time, it's Sega who brings the surprise, in the form of a really cool contest. If you can make a great enough video about Sonic and post it on youtube, you'll win a trip to Tokyo and great prizes too! It may be Sonic's birthday, but with that kind of contest around, the fans are getting the present! Plus, Sonic Rivals as well as various data packs (for your games, like extra levels and stuff) are also on sale now as a part of the birthday celebration. If you don't own any of these things yet, but want to, NOW is your chance to save!

This is a fantastic contest, which I think will benefit both the fans AND Sonic too, by raising his popularity and hopefully getting people out of 'psycho hate mode' which has really been going around the internet lately, if the articles are true.

Meanwhile...
The Golive is once again up to no good. This time figuring out a whole NEW way to ruin the update, which is by adding "The mysterious code block" to new pages before they get content. Since they're fresh, and not saved yet, most of the time deleting the code block RUINS the entire thing...and forces it to shut, thus losing all that was there. But that's not all...

Shenannigans list:
Pasting in images SUPER TINY for no reason
Pasting an image causes the page to stretch miles wide, for no reason, at random
Upon save, converting all text boxes to miles high, but only a single letter wide!

It's totally baffling. HOW is it doing any of this? It's like the thing is smart! How is it this inventive? It's never done that before, and nothing's different! Pages are all made in the same way, placing images and writing in text boxes. It's not like there's flash or java or anything fancy being introduced. So how, when doing the same thing every time, does it magically produce a different (and horribly destructive) result SOMEtimes?

A few things did make it on though, despite the trouble,
Neat keychains, a nice Knuckles patch and several Dreamcast themed commercials. It is a total shame that this had to go wrong on Sonic's Bday itself. I'd wanted a big, good update for it, and all golive did was waste all the time trying to ruin pages instead.

Figure-lover's update

This update is great!
It sure is super that this is the week of Sonic's birthday because some AWESOME figures are arriving in the news. Finally, photos appear for the Jazwares Small Line 3: which has Super Sonic, Super Shadow & Espio & Vector (PLUS news that the supers will come with a full set of Chaos Emeralds!) As usual, the figures look great.

Then, First4Figures unleashes photos for their CLASSIC Super Sonic statue...and it even has...a Light Up Base! Normally, one might consider that gimmickry, but they did an amazing job with the light up effect. It's like a 'speed blast' on the base and the glow is really appropriate here. It just sets the tone for the whole statue. And it's only a bit more money too...that one is my pick for sure! Not that the non-lighting one is bad...this statue is still wonderful in classic style, and the base is reminiscent of the final boss battle in Sonic 1's piston-trap thing...though it is actually representing Chemical Plant Zone.

First4Figures took some really great photos to show off both versions, this is def. going to be quite the collector's item, especially with numbered editions and everything. They are really maximizing their sculptors, and the addition of light effects only makes the statue better. Even though it's expensive, I figure fans will fight over the light up version because of the low numbers being made.

That doesn't mean the rest of the update is slacking off, there's still plenty of other items to see like wall scrolls and another Shadow plush-but by far the figures stand out.

Sonic Birthday Kickoff 2010

Sonic's Birthday Week 2010!
As is the tradition with celebrating here on Gear, there will be updates throughout the week. So, if you need to look at the weekly update bits on the index...better look at them now as they all get pushed away quickly each time this happens.

The star of the show started it off, which was the 15th Anniversary cake. Yes, this was 'sat on' for about 2 weeks so it could kick off the bday week in style. The cake topper is curiously off-model, which you'd think they'd of solved by year 15, but...I guess not. Those photos could have gone into any of 3 categories, events, mascot suits OR Food, which is rather unusual for just one thing.

A theme is unlikely (but, you never know) to show up during the week due to clearing out much of the mail. A Store Update is likely, as there are lots of great products to be found that should be added. Plus, with stores running out of items, their links still do need replacing.

Item highlight of the day: Knuckles lolly pop coating/shell.
It's a rare thing that a food from the USA can show up that absolutely no one knew about before. This Knuckles figural lolly is certainly one of them. It's likely also especially collectible because early merchandise hardly ever featured Knuckles alone.

Robotnik fans- yes, there are these, and they've got a treat this time. The Robotnik-exclusive slide viewer fast food toy. The slides inside are also likely rare (or rare-er) art, and again, it's great to see an item that features him. The Tails & Sonic viewers should show up eventually because they were added to wanted gear. (The problem being that Carls Jr restaurants are not as 'everywhere' as McDonalds or BK)