Subject:
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Re: Comment Now at LEGO.com: New Grey and Brown
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.lego
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Date:
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Fri, 12 Mar 2004 15:51:03 GMT
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Viewed:
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3084 times
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In lugnet.lego, Christian Treczoks wrote:
> Take Spybotics & similar sets: TLC wants kidproof quality stuff, so each
> of the electronic single use black boxes for these projects come with
> heavy investments in R&D, just to save a few cents in the end product. A
> generic (and therefor more Lego-like) solution would have been the use
> of the RCX for all kinds of programmable systems, thereby spreading the
> calculated R&D and all the support costs over a larger number of lots.
> Taking into account that the plain material and production costs of an
> RCX are nearly neglectable (I'd daresay that a competent production
> facility could build an RCX for about US$10-15 apiece, testing
> included), this would have spread the influx of R&D costs over larger
> numbers, which could propably negate the factor of having more different
> parts in the set, besides giving the customer a way better and more
> Lego-ish product. (Spybotics have been scrapped)
The RCX as-is would have looked hideous when tossed in with the sleek color
schemes of the Spybotics sets (speaking as someone who was thrilled to see black
gears finally see production, as well as trans-purple Bohrok eyes, I love the
color schemes enough to have bought three for the non-electronic parts).
Perhaps a good compromise (from our viewpoint) would have been to redesign the
RCX-terior, but leave the guts relatively unchanged (beyond any physical layout
adjustments that might have been necessary). New and simpler software
(essentially whatever they loaded into the Spybotics modules to begin with)
would have answered the problem of handing over an RCX to younger kids who were
more interested in running the intended missions, but allowing the full RCX
software package to be loaded in would have satisfied the Mindstorms crowd, as
well as offering the possibility of advancing interested kids to the next level.
The downside would have probably been a $30-50 jump in price, which would have
been the point where most store chains wouldn't have even carried the line to
begin with, and the line would failed even worse with the target market, but
might have seen a significant jump in business from the hardcore Mindstorms
crowd.
> It can't be a sane business decision to burn an established brand with such
> a high recognition rate for the sake of change alone.
My understanding is that the TECHNIC name was dropped from packaging
specifically because they had themes that were crossing the system boundaries
(most notably the Racers theme, and to a lesser extent, Star Wars), and they
wanted the themes to appear more unified than presenting them with multiple
systems allowed. I suspect that the idea behind dropping the DUPLO name was
like-minded, where they wanted the expanded EXPLORE theme, but they didn't want
to have some things be released as EXPLORE/DUPLO, while others were just
EXPLORE.
> Parents who had Duplo as kids are astonished to hear that Duplo is no more,
> and, when presented with an "Explore" box, tend to say: But that IS Duplo!
Therein lies the biggest problem. Parents and grandparents would have kept
buying DUPLO product hand over fist in 2003 if they'd known what to look for,
but all they know to look for is that familiar little DUPLO logo. It's like if
Coke was renamed "Shizzle Pop" and the Coca-Cola Company never bothered to
inform the public. Pretty soon they'd lose a lot of business to the other
brands.
> (Duplo is Duplo again)
And TECHNIC is TECHNIC again...for basic non-themed stuff (though the showroom
booklet lists them as Make & Create "Technical Wonders". BIONICLE, Racers, and
(if they ever release more of them) Star Wars product will not sport the TECHNIC
logo on their boxes, but the four non-themed TECHNIC sets this year should. One
thing to note, however, is that some of the DUPLO product is too close to
release for the packaging to be redesigned (I think this is pretty much limited
to the Dora the Explorer batch), so they'll still end up shipping under the
EXPLORE logo.
> (Clothes have been scrapped, AFAIK)
Not t-shirts, from the looks of things. There's a new Metru Nui-themed t-shirt
listed both online and in the S@H catalog. Of course, t-shirts are t-shirts,
and all you really have to do is bulk-purchase them from a quality manufacturer
and stick your design on them (or have them delivered with the design already
added). All you need at that point is a good purchasing agent and a graphic
design team, and those are integral to the company already.
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Comment Now at LEGO.com: New Grey and Brown
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| (...) Yes, but putting a different cover/box/whatever onto the existing design wouldn't change the interior. There is no natural law for RCXs to be yellow/grey forever. (...) OK, T-shirts and baseball caps as simple promotional items are a different (...) (20 years ago, 15-Mar-04, to lugnet.lego)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Comment Now at LEGO.com: New Grey and Brown
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| (...) Dear Jake, I would never attribute an action to malice if it can easily be explained by blunt stupidity ;-) Honestly, in the last years, the TLC management has made a lot of plain stupid decisions, and some quite good. And with plain stupid I (...) (20 years ago, 12-Mar-04, to lugnet.lego) !
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