Novelties 2022 (second half)

[Janilew]

Yeah, the internal structure is maddening, but also there hasn't been enough effort to make sure sets are searchable for relevant keywords. Sometimes I don't have a specific set in mind and want to browse with a keyword. "Mythology" brings up nothing. "Victorian" only brings up sets with the word in the title, not corresponding sets like the Baby's Room (which doesn't come up for "nursery" either). The list goes on.

And "mermaid" brings up whatever the hell it pleases from Novelmore to City Action. MADNESS.

[Rasputin]

Oh no not the key work search nightmare

I typically go theme by theme and search every single item just to be sure I’m not missing something for our collection, it’s very time consuming but I do enjoy looking at a all  the sets

[Janilew]

Oh no not the key work search nightmare

I typically go theme by theme and search every single item just to be sure I’m not missing something for our collection, it’s very time consuming but I do enjoy looking at a all  the sets

Same here. But for some unholy reason the Faun in particular was just floating in the aether. It's directory was just Shop/Faun. No category whatsoever.

[Oliver]

Same here. But for some unholy reason the Faun in particular was just floating in the aether. It's directory was just Shop/Faun. No category whatsoever.

  Honestly it's such a mess. I just looked, and for completely unclear reasons they have separated out some themes into a main section and an 'add on' section, while under 'western' there is only the (discontinued) water tower 

[Tiermann]

Was just shopping at Amazon and noted they show the release date of the upcoming Ayuma and Novelmore sets as January 2023. Might just be to them, but signs of a delay perhaps.

[Tiermann]

The US 2022 second half catalog is now online at Playmobil.us
PDF download link

As mentioned in my previous post, looks like Ayuma and Novelmore new waves won't be coming until next year. Also missing was a splash page for the upcoming Dragons series, and nothing about Naruto. Both of those have gotten coming soon pages in other region catalogs. So also delayed in the US until next year at least. Hopefully they are in fact coming eventually. No additional collector cars listed. The corvette or whatever it was fell through maybe?

What was included in the US catalog are Stunt Show wave 2 in August, school bus and ambulance in August, 123 and Aqua in August, Wiltopia Amazon in September, all the advent calendars except Asterix in September, and the new zoo theme rereleases listed for January 2023.
There is a coming soon page for the Klingon ship for Star Trek listed for December.

Maybe they've realized it's difficult right now due to shipping times and maybe production time as well to release everything worldwide at the same time. Hopefully they will continue releasing everything possible in all markets. Seems unlikely that the Dragons series won't be released in the US since a US property, unless someone else got a license block for toys in this market. It may be possible that Naruto is only licensed for Europe and those of us in other markets may have to hunt it down overseas. We won't know until early next year I would guess.

[Rasputin]

Thanks Tim for the thorough update

I sure hope your right about the US getting the sets , it so difficult  and ads expense to  source them from afar

[collectobart]

Maybe they've realized it's difficult right now due to shipping times and maybe production time as well to release everything worldwide at the same time. Hopefully they will continue releasing everything possible in all markets. We won't know until early next year I would guess.

Could be, but i sense there is more going on. Inflation and difficulties in obtaining and shipping out goods were mentioned as a reason for the turnover decline and keep getting mentioned to justify delays and crazy pricing policies. But if you look at competitors like Lego who under exactly the same economic circumstances manage to grow their turnover significantly while managing to uphold their release schedules and strategies worldwide... I just think there are too many things going on that just do not make any sense.

[Tiermann]

I think the bankruptcy of Willfilm is having unexpected effects. There is someone on Instagram that is having a serious disagreement with Playmobil over payment for some media because of it, and from one of the letters they posted online it sounds like Duck on Call may get severely pared back or cancelled since they don't have the video series to support it. Hopefully Novelmore and Ayuma are doing well enough without the videos to continue on without too much interruption.

[collectobart]

I think the bankruptcy of Willfilm is having unexpected effects.

I am afraid that the bankruptcy of Wilfilm is just another symptom, not really much of a cause. Wilfilm was expecting work for new seasons for Ayuma and Novelmore to come in any moment, but Playmobil kept stalling endlessly to give a green light as it couldn't agree internally on whether to keep walking that media-dependent fantasy franchise road or go back to the old path of effortlessly milking their generic evergreens.