The former just leads to your house becoming the new That TRU With All the Transquitos.
Makits: Hasbro wants in on that Blokees money
- Thread starter LordGigaIce
- Start date
Mine broke almost immediately.
Maybe it has widespread issues and we never knew about it because hardly anyone bought one.
Maybe it has widespread issues and we never knew about it because hardly anyone bought one.
Well, my Transquito didn't break because of any GPS issues like his Japanese counterpart Bigmos has. Rather, the springs in the mosquito head halves exploded, resulting in those head halves breaking off the rest of the body. On top of that, one of the translucent wings snapped at the base where it wraps around the metal pin that connects it to the body.
(makes note of Bigmos likely having quietly crumbled to bits in storage)
I had similar issues. Almost immediately the spring in one of the head halves tore through the surrounding plastic. It didn't break in a way that caused it to fall off, but it did render it unable to stay closed. The spring unwound and lost all tension. Then both wings broke around the metal pins, though I would say the plastic crumbled rather than snapped.
It may not be GPS but there had to be something wrong with that plastic.
We can joke about Hasbro UK (even though they don't really exist any more, it's Hasbro Europe now), but it's not just them. Hasbro's buying terms for retailers are terrible, and have not been competitive with other manufacturers for a long time. They are bad at on-boarding smaller accounts.
Well there's your problem. Brexit means Brexit, after all.
I've had a few bad thoughts.
With Blokees starting to increase their range of IP, I worry they might over-extend themselves and become less 'novel' and becoming an empty shell of themselves while at the same time having shelves full of product no one wants anymore. (See: Funko)
Hasbro trying their own hand at this can not be good for anyone. Hasbro themselves. (See: Mighty Muggs, Kre-O). With Blokees already having a head start, they had time to refine their process, build their following, work with distributors, priced products affordably, and not have an imposed character limitation (engineering aside) so anything Hasbro does will be unfavorably compared to Blokees, not just for "not being Blokees" (see: Kre-O).
So in short: Hasbro is gonna Hasbro. Best case scenario: they get a few years out of MaKits and it'll become another footnote in Hasbro's production history.
Worse case scenario: This 'poisons the well' and takes Blokees, and maybe any non-gundam model kit company, down with MaKits.
With Blokees starting to increase their range of IP, I worry they might over-extend themselves and become less 'novel' and becoming an empty shell of themselves while at the same time having shelves full of product no one wants anymore. (See: Funko)
Hasbro trying their own hand at this can not be good for anyone. Hasbro themselves. (See: Mighty Muggs, Kre-O). With Blokees already having a head start, they had time to refine their process, build their following, work with distributors, priced products affordably, and not have an imposed character limitation (engineering aside) so anything Hasbro does will be unfavorably compared to Blokees, not just for "not being Blokees" (see: Kre-O).
So in short: Hasbro is gonna Hasbro. Best case scenario: they get a few years out of MaKits and it'll become another footnote in Hasbro's production history.
Worse case scenario: This 'poisons the well' and takes Blokees, and maybe any non-gundam model kit company, down with MaKits.
I really hope this is something that complements Blokees and the like rather than competing directly with it. Hasbro struck a great balance here, with multiple companies (Auldey, Blokees, Yolopark) paying them to create non-transforming poseable versions of various characters so that Hasbro doesn't have to. And those have been reasonably profitable where Hasbro's efforts (R.E.D.) were more than likely not.
I'm not even the main audience for Blokees and I want Hasbro to let them have their own space. It's just better for everybody to leave the golden geese alone. Make something that accommodates and complements existing partner products instead -- if this is where we finally get modular action and display sets (the gladiator pits! Iacon! The Lost Light! The Sharkticon pit!), that would be dope.
I'm not even the main audience for Blokees and I want Hasbro to let them have their own space. It's just better for everybody to leave the golden geese alone. Make something that accommodates and complements existing partner products instead -- if this is where we finally get modular action and display sets (the gladiator pits! Iacon! The Lost Light! The Sharkticon pit!), that would be dope.
This seems rather hyperbolic for a line that we have seen exactly nothing from.
While there is certainly an appeal to Hasbro just collecting licensing fees from Blokees, Yolopark, and whoever else we don't know the specifics of those details. It's entirely possible that these companies got relatively good deals because Hasbro didn't know how popular this stuff would be, and they're paying relatively below market value on a popular licence to rake in cash.
It's also possible that Hasbro execs are going "wait why are we letting someone else rake in that cash on our IP?"
There's also the fact that Hasbro doesn't own Star Wars and Marvel, they merely licence it from Disney. And that licence clearly doesn't include model kits, because Blokees is doing Star Wars and Marvel model kits.
So Hasbro getting in on the model kits business may be their way of pitching to Disney that they should have that covered under their umbrella.
Which isn't an unreasonable move... there's a very real chance that WB opted to move the DC licence back to Mattel from McFarlane and SpinMaster because they liked the idea of one company covering everything instead of splitting it between two companies.
So if Hasbro can make a case that they can do model kits too... Disney might be inclined to move the SW and Marvel model kit licence to them and consolidate their licensing deals a bit.
Obviously if you're a fan of Blokees or Yolopark or whoever else has been in the Transformers model kit game this isn't great news.
And to be fair we don't know the terms of Hasbro's licensing agreements with these companies so this is all speculation. As is the idea that this will replace Blokees. For all we know, Makits may share self space with them rather than push them out.
Still, it makes sense that Hasbro would see this emerging market and want in on it.
To be fair, we likewise don't know how much either side is "raking in". There's every reason for the arrangement to be slanted in favor of the IP owner, and if they didn't set it up that way, that's on them.
But the track record of "making ancillary stuff based on our IP" is not exactly in Hasbro's favor. There's a whole SpongeBob Pointing To Diapers meme that can be made of the misadventures of the side lines of the 2010s.
I don't know the circumstances that led to Somehow Mashers Returned, and I'm still sad about Kre-O shuffling off this mortal coil, but that these side lines keep having the life span of a mayfly is telling. One of the most recent ones (R.E.D.) sputtering into oblivion and being directly followed by apparently-successful stuff Hasbro doesn't have to spend to produce (Yolopark, Auldey, etc) is a pretty solid argument.
But I'm not in the know about the specifics, and for all I know it COULD be a bigger net win to spend on churning out their own things again for however many years that'll limp along. I likewise don't know how profitable Bot Shots or Battle Masters (the Rock Em Sock Em things) or Construct Bots was. Maybe they did fine. I guess there has to be a reason they keep trying with these lines.
This I don't dispute. I've spent the last year or so quietly saddened by how much shelf space has been taken from the converting main lines to be given to Yolopark kits (which have a pretty wide footprint) and the rest, but glad that there's definitely a market for the many flavors of this.
But not everything that makes sense necessarily ends up sensible in the long run.
This is almost entirely based on the Transformers end of things. I see your point about elbowing in for a place at the table to do this for the Disney licensed stuff. I can see some consolidation and simpliification being appealing to the house of mouse. (I wonder if there's a way for Disney to keep both going, as they'd probably be happy to do.)
Still, yes, gonna have to keep tempering all this with "we basically know nothing right now". I'd like nothing better than for a niche to have been identified that accommodates or even enhances the existing offerings rather than displaces them.
Last edited:
I love how the doom rumors have already gone full circle.
"Hasbro is going to give up making toys and just license everything out!"
"Hasbro is going to stop licensing things out and just make all the toys!"
"Hasbro is going to give up making toys and just license everything out!"
"Hasbro is going to stop licensing things out and just make all the toys!"
Once upon a time someone would've had Awesome Inside Sources and gone He Tell Me that this was us finally getting a G1 remake that looks like the characters stepped right out of the show, with modern articulation and accessories and Optimus would finally have a Matrix and there would be a Mākits cartoon by Toei and here's a screencap of some tiny evidence, it's been redacted to crap but trust me bro.
You can't go home again. And it's all Mākits' fault.
You can't go home again. And it's all Mākits' fault.
"Hasbro is going to stop giving licenses to toys and just make out!"
DEYTUKRTOYS