“The Force in Handheld Games”
I can’t remember where I read it, but there’s a statement out there about how we will eventually reach the point where Hasbro, Lego, and Mattel are the only toy companies in existence . . . and then Disney will buy all three of them. It may sound like a ridiculous statement, but as I look back at the history of the toy industry and acquisitions over the last thirty or forty years it starts to sound like a fairly understandable idea that all toy companies will eventually collapse into one corporation.
What does that have to do with this 1997 ad from Star Wars Galaxy magazine (Amazon.com search*) you ask? Well, at the time this ad was published Tiger Electronics wasn’t owned by Hasbro; that happened in 1998 (see Wikipedia). Just how many companies has Hasbro absorbed over the years? Many. Very many.
Related articles
- How Lego Took Over the World (business-opportunities.biz)
- The perils of toy making (thestar.com)
- Toymakers adjust to societal changes, add construction sets for girls (triblive.com)