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Ask Jakks Pacific Q&A With Craig Drobis – February 2020

 

Craig Drobis is the SVP of Marketing for boys action figures and collectors for Jakks Pacific. Craig will be answering your questions for all Ask Jakks submissions. ToyHypeUSA will be sending him monthly questions and we will have your answers back on or around the beginning of each month. Send us your questions to [email protected]. Send in your questions by February 15th.

Jakks Pacific products can be ordered on Entertainment EarthBigBadToyStoreMegalopolis: City Of Collectibles, Hobby Link Japan, and Amazon.com.

1) We all love love love this line, but any chance of more girl characters? Daisy, Rosalina, Toadette (Peachette!), Birdo, Pauline…. We need more diversity in the lines other than 749 variants of Mario. Please consider adding more amazing female characters.

We are very happy that many people are enjoying the line and we are delivering on our promise to deliver a great product at a reasonable price.  As you know from Ask Jakks, we love getting suggestions of the next characters to add to the line.  We have way more than we can get to at any one time.  We can also appreciate that those who have been collecting for the last several years have seen many versions of Mario.  He remains the best-selling character in the franchise and we also want to include his friends (and foes) in the mix as well.  So, we will continue to try to manage that balance and have something for everyone to get excited about.

2) Playsets for the 2.5” figures have been amazing! Can’t wait for more to be released.. would love a Bowsers Ship playset or a Hat ship from odyssey. I would also love to see a Yoshi house and a toad house for the Yoshi and toad figures

These are some more great suggestions.  The reception to all the sets, especially Bowser’s Castle, has been tremendous.  We will continue with to add to the line.  I think the one which will be unveiled at New York Toy Fair, while not one of these, will receive a similar, positive reaction.

3) Is there any chance other nintendo related characters could be making an appearance again? Would love to get more figures from The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Pikmin, etc.

That is definitely something we are thinking about for the future.  We made the intentional shift from World of Nintendo to the Super Mario positioning and it has been well received.  We haven’t completely abandoned the other game franchises, as the light up Metroid, Metroid multi-pack, and Splatoon multi-packs at GameStop in the past year indicate.  We will continue to look for opportunities like these.

4) Have you thought about making a Smash Bros line of figures? It would be fun to be able to get little figures of all the fighters and than a couple “battle stages” as a playset! I get it would be hard with the different game licensing and all that, but it would be amazing if it could somehow happen.

We definitely share your enthusiasm for this idea.  Unfortunately the licensing complications have prevented us from being able to do this.  It remains a dream for both of us.

5) Do you think you guys would try doing more Luigi figures, the green plumber hardly gets any spotlight and I know that me and many others will be pleased with any figures for Luigi’s Mansion in a more detailed fashion like Odyssey Mario or maybe even just more power up variations?

We have done a few versions and variation of Luigi.  He is clearly a fan favorite and we will continue to find ways to refresh him in the line.

6) Is their any plans to release more variants of existing figures? An example is blue and yellow shelled Koopa Troopas/Paratroopas.

We do try to include variants of the figures wherever it makes sense while also trying to not overdo it.  As an example, we have done several versions of Yoshi and we will look to do more with the Koopas and others.