Thread regarding Mattel Inc. layoffs

Herein lies the problem with talking to ourselves and relying on press releases to move the needle. This is ten million dollars of mas----atory self-delusion.

Don’t forget the vidster too. It’s a waste of money.

smart bear, be bo the EDM robot, so many t–ds in so little time.privacy invasion barbie was another fave.

let’s make another max steel movie or try for the millionth time to create content for .99 collectible cars.

Let's not forget the abomination that was Smart Bear 🐻

HyperScan, Juice box, Hello Barbie are all ill-fated concepts. Technology doesn’t mean innovation.

Let's do the math. Start with a $7 car that looks and rolls like every other dollar Hot Wheels car.

Now add a $180 trackset which is nothing but a flat oval and a loop.

Add an iPad or iPhone (BYOI).

It all adds up to... the most boring, featureless, inane, joyless, overpriced piece of ridiculousness ever conceived. Can't imagine a kid playing with this twice. The whole premise that kids prefer numbers on a screen than seeing cars RACING, flying, & crashing is so flawed that everyone associated with it should be fired immediately. Don't even wait until these sad toys end up at the dollar store. Send them packing now.

Mattel is finally reaping what it has sown after so many years of layoffs. All the talent has left the building and this is the very best that the remaining dregs can churn out. FOUR YEARS it took them to make this garbage? Sad day. Sad year. Sad four years.

A new low for Mattel. Isaac, please save us. I prefer your overvoiced passion to our hopeless desperation.

Hyperscan vs Wii. HA!

My all time favorite Mattel tech toy bomb was the ill-fated HyperScan video game console that was released in holiday 2006, less than a month before the Nintendo Wii hit store shelves. Mattel was confident they had a winning system on their hands and had high hopes of cornering the younger market of kids not old enough for a PS3 or Xbox. Long story short the Wii went on to sell over 100 million units while the Hyperscan became a little known oddity that is often considered to be perhaps the worst video console ever made. Did anyone here work on or remember the HyperScan?

Isaac is the kind of bold leader Mattel desperately needs. He legit loves the toy business.

Oops, I meant Jada. Sorry, I'm a freaking id--t millennial and can't type. Or contribute anything useful. Just hand me my paycheck and a trophy for showing up and we're all good.

Who is Jana?

Isaac or Hasbro or Jana help!

So sad. Mattel desperately wants to do a tech toy. But there is not a single example of a well-executed Mattel tech toy to be found. Sproutling? Baby rash. Hello Barbie? On closeout for violating kids' privacy. Aristotle and Thingmaker? Vaporware. Tarting up Hot Wheels with Bluetooth flies in the face of common sense. Even if this works (for adults and engineers), who cares? It's bound to be a pain in the arse for both the kid and parent. Hot Wheels news flash: your core consumers are 4-5 years old. Stick to loops and crashing.

Add this latest flash in the pan to the sc-ap heap. Margaret is laughing all the way to the bank, this is surely her legacy.

*"dysfunction"

The fact that it took four years worth of development to essentially put an NFC chip in a HW car and an NFC reader in a track so it can count how many laps, speed etc. speaks volumes about the distinction within Mattel's development process. That's around 12 months longer then it takes an automaker like GM or Toyota to develop a brand new, ground up vehicle. Think about that. 😐

Sounds like every parents dream. You get spend $7 for a $1 car that only works on a special track you also have to buy. Then you get to spend an hour downloading an app, filling out a lengthy registration, helping your kid name the car and whatever other c-ap is involved in setting things up. After that you'll get to hear your kid whine about whatever tech failure is sure to happen on any Mattel product while you're forced to troubleshoot. Mattel just can't seem to understand that the parents of the 4 and 5 year olds playing with their toys don't want to be bothered with a tech overlay on their toys. They just want something cheap they can pop out of the package and give to their kid without a hassle. They don't want to have to manage the entire play experience because their kid is to young to do it themselves.

For Christ's sake, you Hot Wheels guys are doing it all wrong. Over the past 5 years Mattel has perfected the product innovation pipeline and distilled it down into a comprehensive formula: Step 1: Wait until NYTF to announce your latest hot tech driven toy. Step 2: Wait until September and then quietly delay/cancel development on said tech infused toy. This is how you do tech for tech sake toy development, so you get all the positive buzz in the press without all of the unsold inventory later on It's two freaking steps how hard is that? Mattel really is slipping, sad.

Because Apple shops are famous for selling toys ...

In typical Mattel fashion, we're only eight years late jumping into the "toys-to-life" fad, which peaked back when Obama was still in his first term in office. At least M-Go can rest easy knowing her dream of creating a 360 degree connected ecosystems of toys has finally come to fruition. 👏 👏 👏

Force fit technology into product is innovation.

Chew on it.