Monday, June 10, 2013

In With Some New: Lost World , Facebook & More

This week's update has more new than old...
Which is actually slightly unusual if you exclude fan items, everything post-Adventure and look at trends. (2003 was actually 10 years ago...so 'old' is relative anyway) Which is actually really weird because why hasn't all the pre-Adventure stuff ran out / all been posted by now? Still, I say: good.

New stuff is at least stuff you can get a hold of without ebay, and it keeps the franchise fresh. There are 3 topics for today.

But first...a handy group!
Facebook Group: Do you have Facebook & collect Sonic stuff?
"Sonic Collectors" is a group on there to join to talk about it. I don't have facebook but everyone else does so  www.facebook.com%2Fgroups%2Fsoniccollectors%2F , as it has recently been improved and refurbished. Their blurb is "Basically, the site is for those who collect Sonic merchandise to share photos of their collectibles, trade, sell, and discover new items. It's basically a social group for Sonic Collectors" , which seems to be really needed as most forums are mostly games, & Gear itself has no social aspect.

#1 Lost World has some gameplay trailers up and it looks really weird/interesting. You have to pay attention to the "multiple paths" part which was something people had said they missed. It's certainly unlike any Sonic game that was out before. Everyone will wonder "Will there be toys of the Deadly Six" ?

Theory:
Maybe. Sega has a hand in forcing things onto the market toy-wise, JW making werehog stuff despite the fact that he wasn't that popular FIRST before anything else proved that. (3.75 werehog came out before Shadow at that size, and guess who they KNOW has more fans?) Along with the super-saturation of vehicles all over the market of figures as well. They can force things out that normally wouldn't of been given a green light.
vs.
The "fear" of villain toys combined with lots of different looking "things" that aren't clones of eachother. People want to buy the hero more than the villain in most cases, which is why it took forever to get Eggman, and why we have almost 0 badniks even though wacky colorful robots should be a big winner for toy design. Would anyone buy the 6? Maybe a.....6 pack?
You never saw a wisp pack with like......ALL the wisps in it, nor did you ever see any little specialized chao figures packs either. This 6 thing could go the same way. How about a 'mini animals' pack (Cucky Pecky, Flicky etc)? There's loads of opportunity but nobody ever bothers.

#2 JW is (apparently) releasing their next round of stuff
They never gave a date in those announcement pages so...good for that. It's more AllStars Transformed stuff and Shadow (who has appeared first so far) looks good. Is this good or bad news? Well it's super if you really dig racing and cars but....Here come the forced re-buys on figures again. Is it TOO much cars/racing? Loads of the previous racing stuff is still on shelves anyway. Should they have done the Black Knight figures first to shake things up? Only time will tell.

Personally: I want SBK more than racers. They're bigger / more detailed / very very different from anything that's out now.

#3 Archie Megaman Sonic Worlds Collide Crossover is going on
Crossovers got a new page on Gear this week, with the commentary on it. Is it TOO many variant covers? Are they being rough on the fans? Hardcore comic collectors must decide. Write in if you have a lead on where to get a picture of ALL of the variant covers! Since they're harder to track down, the covers should be displayed on Gear so no one misses out.

Sonicmerchandise.com
Continues to get exclusive goods for just Europe (Watch as Canada/USA/Australia frustrates away) however, people are apparently flipping them on ebay, so for a few bucks more if you NEED anything but live elsewhere, you can have it. This week's thing was that Knuckles Hidden Palace tee...makes one wonder if those Redbubble fakers were knocking off the entire STYLE seen here. (either 'yes' or it's a coincidence)

It's almost that time of year again!
Time for E3? Well yes...but Sonic's birthday is coming up! And with SonicGear, you know what that means...