Mattel buys up Mega Blocks (Mega Brands)

[griffin]

With Hasbro constantly trying to compete with Lego by trying things like Built To Rule and Kre-O, their main rival Mattel, just went ahead and bought Mega Blocks, who are an established construction block company, and a growing competitor to Lego for licensed/themed series.

If Mattel plan to invest in the Mega Blocks Brand to take on Lego even more (who themselves are experiencing massive growth recently), it will probably leave Hasbro struggling even more to get noticed with their own construction blocks, that is yet to get a foothold in Retail Stores after 3 years since it was launched.
After all, Mattel have a lot of their own licenses that they can now give to Mega Blocks for free, and they have a lot more capital behind them to produce and market Mega Blocks than Mega Brands had.

So unless Hasbro starts competing on price, or expanding their library of Brands into Kre-O like Mattel did with Mega Blocks (with the Barbie brand), Kre-O is going to start looking like "beating a dead horse".

[Sinnertwin]

The Megablocks/Hot Wheels crossovers are already available now

[Sam]

With Mega Bloks' foray into licences such as Halo, Warcraft, and Call of Duty, and now Mattel buying them, I think Hasbro is gonna struggle in the building blocks sector.

But maybe they should focus on their strengths (e.g. action figures) ?

[i_amtrunks]

I don't think it is a coincidence that the mega blocks licenses are more "adult centric". I have a room of 27 seven to eight year olds, with both lego and some mega block (skylanders and other stuff) a parent donated last year. The mega block stuff, bar the figures do not get touched.

With all the Mattel license, I expect we will soon need a whole aisle dedicated to non lego building products, including knex which refuses to die quietly.

[griffin]

With all the Mattel license, I expect we will soon need a whole aisle dedicated to non lego building products, including knex which refuses to die quietly.

That's already happened. At the Toyworld CBD store in Brisbane, there was both sides of an entire aisle with Lego, and one side of an entire aisle with Mega Blocks. And no Kre-O anywhere...

But visually, it looked like Mega Blocks was a serious contender with all their licensed brands. And their exhibit at Toyfair is often about half the size of Lego's too.

[Lint]

I think the biggest licensed theme Mega Bloks has is Halo, I'd be interested to see if that makes up as much of a proportion of their sales as Star Wars does for Lego.