Do You Remember The Product Onslaught Of Late 2009?

Durning the Fan First Wednesday follow-up Q&A, I asked what would happen when the current global logistics crisis ends. Will Hasbro try to play catch up and ship product more frequently, or would Hasbro just resume their regular shipping schedule (thus everything is essentially pushed back in perpetuity). I'm paraphrasing, but the reply was basically that Hasbro would have to evaluate the situation when the time comes because they wouldn't want to cause a situation where product starts backing up a retail. You can listen to the entire answer HERE.

This got me thinking about what I consider one of the most fun times in the history of the hobby. I don't remember the reasoning, but in late 2009, the waves stacked up. This is probably my memory over-glorifying the moment, but it felt like a new wave was showing up at brick and mortar every other week. Each trip to Walmart seemingly paid off. I can vividly remember my wife calling me from the store, and I was in disbelief at what she was describing. She was listing off the Luke Snowspeeder wave. I was sure this was some sort of cruel joke. I had picked up the Commander Cody wave only a few days prior. How could this be? But it was true. All of it. She brought the figures home to me, and I celebrated like Gollum. Now this was Podracing! I don't ever recall a brick and mortar experience like that. I had a blast during that run.

Of course, both in terms of the retail landscape and global realities, 2009 probably has more in common with 1909 than it does with 2022, so trying to project that situation forward to today is an imperfect fit. Plus that was the Legacy Collection, and not the Vintage Collection. I'm buying a lot more today than I was back then, but part of me thinks it would be fun to increase the shipping rate to play catch up a little when the shipping crisis gets resolved. It looks like we're going to go roughly three months between waves 1 and 2 of 2022 (the Bo-Katan wave is wave 1 of 2022 despite being found in December 2021). I would be fine if later in the year we got waves in consecutive months to get TVC back on schedule, but I know that can be a strain on budgets, especially with recent price increases.

So what say you? Would you like to see the release schedule pick up some steam later in the year if possible? Or do you appreciate spreading things out a little bit more so you wallet can recover?

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