Hasbro Shifting Away from Kre-O?
The big news in the construction toys category is the purchase of MEGA by Mattel, but a comment in the Global Toy News post about the purchase has me wondering what Hasbro has planned for their Kre-o blocks (Amazon.com search*).
According to Gerrick Johnson in his February 24, 2014 “Toy Scout Report†on Hasbro: “The company seems to be Moving away from its Kreo construction line, now making the product as an exclusive at Toys “R†Us with Dungeons & Dragons, Transformers, Cityville Invasion, and GI Joe themes.â€
I’d not even considered that Hasbro was looking to abandon their Kre-o series, but if true then things should get pretty exciting as the construction market in big box stores turns into a battle between Mattel and LEGO. Who will win? I’m better LEGO, but Mattel could surprise us all with the right licensing move.
Related articles
- Dungeons & Dragons Kre-O at ToysRUs (battlegrip.com)
- Hasbro Releasing Kre-O Dungeons and Dragons Toys (battlegrip.com)
I don’t think the TRU Exclusive status on KREO was Hasbro’s choice.
I’m a huge LEGO fan and you would think that I’d be all in for Transformers & GI JOE themed construction sets. But the engineering on the sets seemed poor and the quality of the bricks were lacking. Hasbro has so much on their plate, I don’t even know why they would try to go head to head with LEGO.
This is rather sad. I saw that the local Wal-Mart was carrying the CityVille Invasion sets around the holidays last year; I’m guessing they didn’t do well.
I guess my dreams of not having to visit one of the two TRU’s in the Southwest United States to get my mini-Joes will stay just that, dreams.
I have no problem with this as my local TRU regularly has Kre-O on sale, hence my large collection of Kreons lol.
But if Mattel is getting into the block game, what IPs they gonna be bringin to the table to compete with LEGO?
I love the Transformers Micro-Changers but I don’t honestly care for the rest of the Kre-O products. I woulda bought the GI Joe blind bags but neither series was available in my area unless you’re one of the couple scalpers who camp out at TRU and buy everything up. More power to them but I have a wife, 3 kids, and a job… can’t hang around the loading docks at stores anymore.
I think the best bet for Mattel is to create He-Man building blocks under their new Mega brand and make it readily available at all retailers. None of this online “Adult collector” nonsense. Building blocks should always be for kids and can easily appeal to adults. Make them the same quality as the Call of Duty sets and they’ll fly off the shelves. Mega Blocks can be found at my local Kroger, Walgreens, Target, Meijer, Walmart, and TRU… no reason to give up that exposure!
My thought/hope for Mattel and Megablocks is that they have merely “acquired” it and will basically just leave those in charge at Mega Blocks HQ to continue to run things as they see fit… with the occasional request to do a Castle Greyskull! 😉