According to figures released by the British Retail Consortium annual like-for-like sales fell in five of the last six months, the first time that this has happened since 2005.  In the boys toys market, however, the Year-To-Date figures are up 6%, even though sales for July and August were not able to match the sales of Transformers in the same months last year.

Overall this year Transformers sales have remained fairly strong due to the continued success of the Movie Legends figures. Sales of Transformers did drop heavily at the start of the year, though July and the start of August did see the line return to strength, with increased sales and actually regain the joint number 2 slot of movie tie-in toys along side Batman. Since the start of August however, sales have slowly declined though the Movie Legends are still looking like they may hold on to a top 10 spot for the second year running.

Below you will find the NPD charts for August 2008 as well as the Year-To-Date figures
UK August 2008 - £ Sales - Value
1 BEN 10 FIGURES 10CM - BANDAI
2 BEN 10 15CM ACTION FIGURES - BANDAI
3 CARS VEHICLE ASSORTMENT - MATTEL
4 CLONE WARS BASIC FIGURE 3.75" - HASBRO
5 ALL SURFACE SWINGBALL - MOOKIE TOYS
6 FIRST STEPS BABYWALKER - VTECH
7 WALL-E DELUXE ACTION FIGURE - VIVID IMAGINATIONS
8 HOT WHEELS BASIC CAR ASSORTMENT - MATTEL
9 DOCTOR WHO 5" FIGURES - CHARACTER OPTIONS
10 ITNG 12" TALKING PLUSH - HASBRO


UK August 2008 - Unit Sales (Volume)
1 HOT WHEELS BASIC CAR ASSORTMENT - MATTEL
2 BEN 10 FIGURES 10CM - BANDAI
3 CARS VEHICLE ASSORTMENT - MATTEL
4 SUPER TIPS BRIGHT 12 - VIVID
5 12 COLOURED PENCILS - VIVID
6 TRANSFORMERS MOVIE LEGENDS - HASBRO
7 CLONE WARS BASIC FIGURES 3.75" - HASBRO
8 BEN 10 15CM ACTION FIGURES - BANDAI
9 ZEEBEEZ - RE:CREATION
10 ITNG MINI PLUSH - HASBRO


UK YEar To Date - £ Sales (Value)
1 BEN 10 FIGURES 10CM - BANDAI
2 CARS VEHICLE ASSORTMENT - MATTEL
3 BEN 10 OMNITRIX FX WATCH - BANDAI
4 ITNG MINI PLUSH - HASBRO
5 ITNG 12" TALKING PLUSH - HASBRO
6 TRANSFORMERS MOVIE LEGENDS - HASBRO
7 POWER RANGERS OOD 12.5CM FIGURES - BANDAI
8 BEN 10 15CM ACTION FIGURES - BANDAI
9 HOT WHEELS BASIC CAR ASSORTMENT - MATTEL
10 HSM COUNTRY CLUB FRIENDS - MATTEL


UK Year To Date - Unit Sales (Volume)
1 HOT WHEELS BASIC CAR ASSORTMENT - MATTEL
2 CARS VEHICLE ASSORTMENT - MATTEL
3 BEN 10 FIGURES 10CM - BANDAI
4 TRANSFORMERS MOVIE LEGENDS - HASBRO
5 POWER RANGERS OOD 12.5CM FIGURES - BANDAI
6 ITNG MINI PLUSH - HASBRO
7 WWE RUTHLESS AGGRESSION - VIVID
8 BEN 10 15CM ACTION FIGURES - BANDAI
9 DOCTOR WHO 5" FIGURES - CHARACTER OPTIONS
10 SUPER TIPS BRIGHT 12 - VIVID


As an additional feature this month, we're going to take a quick look at the relationship between film-licensed toy sales for this year as well as the potential for some of next years big releases.

The main toy tie-in movies this year, according to retailers, were going to be The Dark Night and Clone Wars. Due to the success of The Dark Night at the box office, it was expected that toy sales for this line would be extremely high. Clone Wars, on the other hand, had a terrible time at the Box Office and so sales of the tie-in toys were expected to be poor. Neither of these predictions came true. According to figures in the October issue of Toy News Magazine, store managers rated Star Wars as the number one product with Transformers and The Dark Knight both in second position. Sales of Batman toys rose sharply when the Movie was released but they declined equally as quickly. Star Wars and Transformers, however, both continued to perform strongly even after their respective movies had finished. Looking at the charts which the magazine produce, Transformers was the top selling toy from late May 2007 until early October 2007, at which point Spiderman 3 toys re-took the number one spot. As 2007 ended, Transformrs dropped out of the chart which compares sales of Spiderman 3, Transformers, Star Wars, Iron Man, Hulk, Indiana Jones and Batman from April 2007 until August 2008. Transformers re-entered the chart in early June, peaking in July as the joint 2nd best line with Batman behine Starwars which out sold both lines by 3 times. Since then Batman sales have dropped back by two thirds, sales of Transformers have halved, whilst sales of Star Wars toys have almost quadrupled.

Looking towards 2009, both Transformers 2 and G.I-Joe are expected to shift some seriou figures within the UK with G.I Joe expected to be the suprise package. "G I Joe could be a surprise. It is a brand with a lot of staying power, similar to the Transformers leading up to the movie. I ran the Blog metrics against Bakugan of Spin Master – an action figure which, similar to G I Joe, has never had a movie and which nevertheless is selling at the rate of $100 million at retail" writes Lutz Muller. Lutz gones on to say "This graph (Edtitor: which shows G.I-Joe blog posts as between 3 and 7 times that of Bakugan) demonstrates very clearly the strong underlying consumer interest in the GI Joe brand – which I expect will result in above-expectation box office and toy sales results.". Looking further ahead, 2010 looks like another strong year for Hasbro with both Ironman 2 and Spider-man 4 due for release, though the close timing of the release of both films is expected to cause problems with conflicting toy sales. Here is a short list of some of the upcoming movie tie-in lines that have the most potential to be big sellers (according to Lutz Muller). All potential figures are marked out of 10.

Star Trek - 8 - Released May 2009
Terminator: Salvation - 8 - May 2009
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - 9 - June 2009
Ice Age 3 - 8 - July 2009
Harry Potter: Half BLood Prince - 10 - July 2009
He-man - 8 - August 2009
G.I-Joe - 9 - August 2009
Toy Story 3 - 9 - Jan 2010
Teengage Mutant Ninja Turtles - 8 - March 2010
Iron Man 2 - 8 - April 2010
Spiderman 4 - 10 - May 2010
Harry Potter: Deathly Hallows - 10 - November 2010

About Lutz Muller is a Swiss who has lived on five continents. In the US, he was the CEO for four manufacturing companies, including two in the toy industry. Since 2002, he has provided competitive intelligence on the toy and video games market to manufacturers and financial institutions coast-to-coast

Phill:

That's the Red Light of Death from the sounds of it. First port of call is the SONY helpline, you should have their number in the instruction manual. EDIT - This SHOULD be it; Playstation Customer Service Telephone Numbers Europe: United Kingdom: 08705 998877

Hob:

I bought it second hand will they just replace? Got the original one which has backwards compaitbility with PS2. Way out of warenty. Hob.

oddsey:

Morning! Bump this thread tomorrow, there's a letter in last weeks Micro Mart that you may find useful. Too pissed to find and scan it for you now!!

Hob:

If you could scan it that would be great but i'll alos look out for the mag myself. Gonna call them @10am this morning. Hope they are good and swap it for a refurb. Hob.

oddsey:

Morning! (OK, not technically correct, but I've only been up about half hour!) Here ya go: I can't vouch for it working, as I don't even own a PS3!! You will have to put up with a broken PS3 for a little longer, but it must be worth a go for £4.99! ;)

Hob:

Joined Continous play. WIll get letter and go from there. Spoke to 2 people @Sony and both said 145quid to replace. What a load of balls. It may start working again in the mean time will try every day in the mean time. I thought Sony were a good company 15years of buying their products and now this very upset @them. YOU HEAR ME SONY DAMN YOU! Hob.

Starscreams_Ghost:

umm have you tried mentioning the sale of goods act? electrical items are covered for 7 years..........

phantomfish:

My PS3 YLOD'ed (Yellow Light of Death) early this year. There is no known fix for it. It is essentially a problem with the cooling system on early 60GB releases. The heat sensor blows and thus the PS3 permanently thinks its too hot to operate so it won't turn on. Back at the start of the year Sony were giving free refurb PS3's in replacement for the original ones. However, since this started becoming more widespread, Sony now only give people the lovely £145 replacement option. This is why most people are now choosing to go with continuous play instead so if it breaks down, and you haven't previously registered it, you are fully entitled to a free replacement as covered under the policy. Unfortunately it is the case of another big company having faulty products and trying to get more money out of the consumer to comp for it! :evil:

Mirage:

As this is clearly a manufacturing issue Sony can't charge that unless you are silly enough to pay it. As Ghost said "Sale of goods act". After 6 months you have to provide proof that it's a manufacturing issue. But given that this is a widespread and known hardware problem they shouldn't raise too much of an issue over it.

thegreatdestroyer:

£149! maybe mine dying at the start of the year was good as they replaced my way out of warranty 60gb PS3 for free back then although mine was the actual blu-ray drive dying not the yellow light. I'm sure my old PS3 has been refurbished and is out there somewhere with a new drive

Hob:

Morning! (OK, not technically correct, but I've only been up about half hour!) Here ya go: I can't vouch for it working, as I don't even own a PS3!! You will have to put up with a broken PS3 for a little longer, but it must be worth a go for £4.99! ;) Just a quick update on this story. CP has now ceased taking new customers due to abuse. I have just rang to make sure i have a policy and that i can claim. Thankfully i have and i have claimed new refurb PS3 will be on ot's way to me on tuesday. YAY then i can finally play woliverine. Thanx to everyone. Hob.

minion:

How strange that they've ceased taking new custom, yet have inserted their advertising into new releases like Ghostbusters. Glad you got it sorted out Hob.

Hob:

They stopped taking new customers on tuesday/wednesday just gone. The inserts were prob allready put in the case weeks ago. The scheme will come back but with better T&C's i expect as there was a massive lop hole in the original T&C's. still i'm now keeping up with the scheme just incase. Hob.

KingGrimlock:

Woot! Good to hear a happy ending to this Hob! It's put me off a PS3 a bit though!

Mirage:

KG: I wouldn't worry too much mate. As previously mentioned the sale of goods act in these situations will protect you if bought new. And even if bought 2nd hand it's a well documented hardware fault. You can almost certainly argue the point.

Hob:

Well it has arrived and its all shiny and new. Took awhile to get things the way i like it and to set up the wireless stuff, don't remember it being hard the last time. Only satuff i don't like is reupdating the games etc. Hob.

Hob:

Just an update i destroyed another PS3 the other day and got me a new one set through the insurance thing they set up. Why do i have all the bad luck? Hob.