Hope noone here wanted more SW lego

[ReaperFett]

From TF.N:


We've had several folks emailing us over the past few days about the recent loss of 242 million dollars for 2003 that LEGO recently posted. We first broke the news here and have since seen many various articles popping up online at various news sources. I found this one at Yahoo and this particular quote about made me cry.

Lego's owner and president, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen -- the 56-year-old grandson of company founder Ole Kirk Christiansen -- said he was now taking matters into his own hands and had fired the company's number two and the head of product development.

He said the company would now go back to its roots, focusing on building blocks and abandoning its forays into multimedia and film products.

"We are returning to Lego's former concept. We're going to focus on building bricks as our main product, concentrating on little kids' eagerness to assemble," he said.

"That's why we're pursuing much more aggressive marketing for building bricks, leaving products linked to films such as Star Wars on the back burner," he said.

One key factor for the weak result this year was the poor sales of games based on the Star Wars and Harry Potter (news - web sites) films in 2002.

So if I'm reading this right, 2004 will either see a major scale down in Star Wars related LEGO product or the complete halt of anymore Star Wars LEGO toys. Only time will tell. Read the entire Yahoo article here.

[Jedieb]

They won't give up on EP3 legos. The worst that will happen is that they'll scale back their EP3 line and then wrap things up the end of that same year or early into the following spring. This year, they just had the typical off movie dulldrums that Hasbro usually has. At least witht their SW toys. I've read about their overall loses earlier this month. They're struggling across the board. But EP3 sales are a lock and they won't abandon those. You just won't see them pushing SW product without a film behind it anymore.

[JMK]

I'm actually glad that they're doing this. For years I've been complaining that Lego just isn't lego anymore. Most of the stuff they do does not involve simple building bricks, but more and more complicated parts and motors in some of them. They became more like model kits than creativity kits. The great thing about lego was a child's ability to build 50 different things with one set. Nowadays they get to build a robot that takes 4 different shapes, but it all HAD to be a robot. I'm actually very glad that they're going back to what lego was when we were kids.

[Jedieb]

Here's some more info from LEGO. This is pretty much what I expected to hear:


In the last few days, I’ve seen much discussion, and recevied many questions about the future of the company. As you probably saw/heard, 2003 was a rough year for the LEGO Company, for a number of reasons. Kjeld has retaken the helm, and has said that we are returning to “our core”.

Rest assured, “our core” simply means our toy business. Which is to say, our toy product lines present and future.

Licenses

Harry Potter and Star Wars are NOT going away any time soon. Licenses are not going to stop, simply continue to improve. We have to take (and have taken) steps to ensure we manage the peaks and valleys that licensing brings with it (Movie years vs. non-movie years, for example). We are still going to be going after the top licenses with the right brand fit.

In fact, we have announced what I think is going to be a great license today:

Dora the Explorer

Mindstorms

Mindstorms is not going away, but may continue to evolve. Like all technology products, Mindstorms will continue to grow and improve as consumers gain new technology knowledge and technology itself continues to get better and smaller.

WWYM Line

Another fear I’ve heard is that the “What Will You Make?” line is going away. This is not true, and the 2003 product line showed great success and potential. Stay tuned for more great WWYM products in 2004!

More information will be forthcoming, as the changes progress.

Thanks!
Jake

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Jake McKee
Community Development Manager
LEGO Community Development

[jjwr]

I think the site figures.com has pictures from the recent Toy Fair and shows a few new Star Wars Legos including a relrelease of the Millenium Falcon, which is cool as the last one they put out goes for like $300 on ebay now.