We have the latest Ask Jakks with Craig Drobis, and you can check out this months Q&A below. 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 April 15th, 2021 (send these in right away before we max out of submissions).
Update 4/10 – Submissions are now closed. You can still send them in for consideration in a future Q&A.
Jakks Pacific products can be ordered on Entertainment Earth, BigBadToyStore, Hobby Link Japan, and Amazon.
Regarding the Sonic line: It was mentioned in the November 2020 Q&A that the 4″ Eggman wasn’t entirely in scale with the other characters (I assume this was done to keep him in the same packaging style and price point as the others). What are the chances of a newer Eggman sculpt later down the line with more accurate scaling — possibly a figure in the 6″ scale packaged similarly to Bowser from the Mario/World of Nintendo line? Would you guys be willing to do larger characters in boxed packaging (maybe as online or specialty store exclusives), or do they need to be relegated to the standard 4″ blister card? Lastly, on the topic of Eggman: are there any plans to do vehicles in the line? Tails’ Tornado plane has been a huge request from fans since the early days of Sonic figures 20+ years ago, but Eggman’s Eggmobile feels like a must! If a new, 6″ Eggman sculpt isn’t feasible, then an Eggmobile may just be what the current 4″ figure needs to have a real shelf presence!
Regarding the 4” Eggman, yes the purpose of the relative scale is to maintain the price point with the rest of the figures in the line. There are currently no plans for a 6” figure, but it is something we will certainly consider as we look to grow the line. As the Sales continue to grow, we will continue to have retailers ask for more product which will give us the ability and opportunity to add more scales. In the meantime, we make the figures work within the 2.5” and 4” scales and price points and try to deliver the most variety that we can. There are some more exciting products which will be available this Fall which will be announced soon. I know it will be well received however it is not an Eggmobile.
I hope you all really like the highly articulated Classic Sonic which was recently been released. We are closely following the responses and the sales to determine if and how we can expand upon this particular execution and price point. Modern Sonic would be the next natural extension, although nothing has been determined at this point. More to come in the future I hope.
Thank you for the kind words and I know the design team in particular appreciates it. Managing across 2 scales of figures with multiple waves per year and trying to make sure it is not the same figures in each scale at the same time isn’t easy to manage and I think they are doing a fantastic job. We always appreciate suggestions in particular when it comes to Sonic. He will always be the driver of sales in any particular wave and we want it to be recognizable to the casual purchaser or someone new to the line while also trying to not be overly repetitive to the regular collector who is most interested in the new.
Jakks got Super Shadow’s color wrong, will there be another figure with the right? (which is lemon cream color)
I understand what you are referring to and will look into this. Sometimes, it is more difficult to achieve some colors. I’m not sure if that is the case here or not and can look into when a new release is possible if this is something we can correct. Thank you for pointing it out.
Will there be a Tails figure with his Miles Electric?
We do have a couple variants of Tails in the future. Miles Electric is not currently planned, but we will certainly consider it for the future. Thank you for the suggestion.
Will there be a Sonic figures with him wearing his soap shoes from Sonic Adventure 2?
As noted, we are always looking for variant opportunities with Sonic as well as keeping two scales of figures differentiated and relevant. Thank you for the suggestion.
Any chance that Jakks could make an army build up pack with Eggman’s robots and Koopa’s armies?
We have been doing the multipacks for Nintendo for a couple years in both the diorama packs as well as some retailer specific opportunities. We are always looking for new themes and ideas and a Koopa pack is one we have discussed many times. I think it will happen at some point, but not this year. Having just added the 2.5” scale to Sonic, we are still building our inventory of figures to work with. I think an Eggman robot army pack is a good idea for the future as well. Thank you for the suggestion.