Some of the most common questions we get here at Galactic Hunter, the finest toy news site 2002 had to offer that for some reason hasn't been shut down yet, is "When am I going to get a toy of this thing?" Well, the answer may be "not soon" because articles like Hasbro cuts half of its SKUs as sales fall 23% in Q4 were being forwarded around today.

From the article:

"For the full year [2023], Hasbro’s revenue fell 15% to $5 billion from $5.9 billion a year earlier. The company saw an operating loss of $1.54 billion, including $1.3 billion of impairment charges related to divesting eOne, as well as nonrecurring inventory costs and royalty expenses."

"Hasbro’s full-year outlook anticipates revenue for its consumer products segment will be down 7% to 12%. The company also raised its cost-cutting target to $750 million from its previous goal of $350 million to $400 million by the end of 2025."

What does it mean, you ask? We don't know, but if a company says "we're predicting flat" they mean "we're down" and if they say "we're going to be a little bit down" you had better believe them. Hasbro makes thousands of SKUs across multiple brands, and as Doc Brown might say we don't know what this means fourth dimensionally. Compared to last year, Hasbro will have licensed out some of its Avalon Hill games to Renegade Games Studios, Wilson Sports will be getting the Nerf sports products with Hasbro hanging on to blasters, Super7 will be doing O-Ring G.I. Joes and other Hasbro character toys in other formats, Just Play will be handling FurReal, and the list goes on. Also a lot of items just plain won't be continuing - Indiana Jones? Dead. Ghostbusters? Not dead, but pretty light for a movie year. Thanks to numerous delays, Marvel Legends and kid toy lines will be punted to 2025 too, and it's not like Star Wars has been putting new product on shelf day-and-date with its entertainment offerings. The House of Mouse doesn't have much to offer movie fans this year, so it is unlikely we're going to see evergreen or "classic" toys swoop in to fill the ever-widening void in the toy aisles.

Hasbro also has a business that's largely invisible to adult collectors with lower-dollar products specific to the food/drug channel, value channel, and international markets.  I saw some of its wonderful bagged 3 3/4-inch Marvel cheap action figures at a Five Below just minutes before pounding this article out - those aren't high dollar collectibles, but there are a lot of things meant to sell for a couple of bucks that probably aren't bringing in the kind of money that they'll get from an E-Wing Starfighter.

After Hasbro cut 1,100 jobs late last year, it stood to reason there would be some significant changes coming, and this is probably just the beginning as we see if they do or don't hold to their plan to focus more on collectors with more high-dollar products. Anecdotally, it sounds like a lot of 1980s kids in their 40s or late 30s are eyeballing the exits and it seems there aren't new classes of toy collectors coming up due to a lack of investment in new IP at the turn of the millennium. I may love Xevoz but it didn't exactly light the world on fire, nor can I name a whole heck of a lot of successful action boy brands other than Ben 10 created after my time commuting on the yellow bus.

Modern kids still love video games, Pokemon cards, and streaming - but trends change and you never know what the next fad will be. Maybe kids will get interested in 12-inch G.I. Joe again, or Dave Brubeck records. The Beats are bound to come around again eventually, right? Or maybe just a whole generation of Tom Waits wannabes?