Shelf News

So a trip to my local Wal-Mart pretty much sums up two big shifts from their stock alone.  The first being that Nerf's Vortex launch was extremely successful.  This store had stocked the shelves one day ahead of the official release date.  They are now down to only one Nitron left.  After seeing the dismal launch of the Light Strike laser tag line, seeing the Vortex series do so well reflects on Hasbro's reputation as a leader in the industry.  Also, I couldn't find one single "Gear Up!" series blaster left either.  Judging from other retailers that I've seen, this is the going trend for Vortex.  I'm hoping from the success of this launch that we'll see more new Vortex designs in the future (as well as a restock of the shelves quickly!)

Next, I observed the official mark to the end of summer.  Nerf's Super Soaker line is all over the clearance shelves, though it should be noted that they were some of the last water blasters to do this.  Most of the other summer stuff had been clearanced long before this.  With Tornado Strike's at 13 bucks and Hydro Cannons at 17, it's tempting to pick up a few for next year.

That same trip to Wal-Mart also got my hopes up.  It was kind of funny actually, when I saw the Nerf Whiteout series display and about messed in my pants before realizing that I had jumped the gun.  Improperly stocked, there was a Spectre among the display for the Whiteout Series.  The glimpse of it at first had me thinking that they had actually released the fabled Whiteout Spectre, but alas it was a mere mirage.

Lastly, there's also a new Dart Tag refill pack out there with 36 darts.  Hadn't seen this one before, so it's good to see the Dart Tag blasters still getting some attention. I worry that the new Dart Tag stuff has been neglected recently, as I haven't seen it disappearing off store shelves as quickly as Vortex did.  Then again, the new Dart Tag stuff didn't have the hype of a big release date and "teaser footage" that Vortex had. It just goes to show that if you market things right, you can make a killing on the release date.

So that's just a few things I've noticed in a recent trip to my local retailers.  I'm getting my Nerf collection ready for our Vortex vs N-Strike match this weekend.  Kinda getting excited for that!  So far it seems like the majority of the blasters will be Protons and Vigilons and a heap of extra ammo.  Thanks to Toys R Us' "Free Vortex Refills with each blaster" and the other retailers having disks in stock, I'm hoping we'll have enough ammo to warrant a game against N-Strike to be even.  I'm kinda psyched for this match, as I'm dying to see how the two actually match up.