It's not the toy industry as much as its "Hasbro." While I was at Target waiting for that Target employee to wander away so I could take pictures, I browsed the "princess" aisle. I am not a particular fan of the Disney Princess line, but the first doll I picked up was SO CUTE.

It was Tiana from "The Frog Princess" as a little girl, wearing a lovely and well-made dress. The glossy cardboard insert of her box had been made to look like she was standing in a kitchen and she came with sturdy, carefully made accessories for cooking gumbo.



The accessories were painted nicely (no paint splashed about) and well-molded. It was clear they were made for this particular set--not the same accessories they threw in with Snow White or Cinderella (who were on the shelf with their own sets and their own unique accessories.) The vegetables had magnets in them so you could "cut them into pieces" and then put them back together. The company who made this set, Tollytots, really put some thought into it.

Clearly this set used more materials (plastic etc) than the Canterlot set. It took more time to make than the Canterlot set (creating new accessories rather than tossing in accessories from other sets). The cardboard insert "kitchen scene" in the box looked just sturdy and glossy as Hasbro's "castle", and less "clip-arty".

And yet, and YET, my pony friends, Tiana's party set costs $25. While we got two remold ponies, reused accessories, and a cardboard castle for $40.

Something is rotten in the state of Rhode Island. This is not the Hasbro I grew up with, the one that hired artists to do watercolors for the packaging of each set of ponies and put individual stories for them on the backcards.

I like the fact that the castle is cardboard, I mean there's too much plastic in the world, but $40!!??

gabumon wrote:

So my expectations are now really low... until Year 2 or 3 of Friendship is magic. Remember, G1 had like 8 years of development? What year did Paradise Estate come out? EDIT: "kimsites" says Year 4. So... 2014 for FiM? www.kimsites.net/dream...ise_estate

What about Dream Castle? Wasn't that only year two?

LadyMoondancer wrote:

It's not the toy industry as much as its "Hasbro." While I was at Target waiting for that Target employee to wander away so I could take pictures, I browsed the "princess" aisle. I am not a particular fan of the Disney Princess line, but the first doll I picked up was SO CUTE. It was Tiana from "The Frog Princess" as a little girl, wearing a lovely and well-made dress. The glossy cardboard insert of her box had been made to look like she was standing in a kitchen and she came with sturdy, carefully made accessories for cooking gumbo. The accessories were painted nicely (no paint splashed about) and well-molded. It was clear they were made for this particular set--not the same accessories they threw in with Snow White or Cinderella (who were on the shelf with their own sets and their own unique accessories.) The vegetables had magnets in them so you could "cut them into pieces" and then put them back together. The company who made this set, Tollytots, really put some thought into it. Clearly this set used more materials (plastic etc) than the Canterlot set. It took more time to make than the Canterlot set (creating new accessories rather than tossing in accessories from other sets). The cardboard insert "kitchen scene" in the box looked just sturdy and glossy as Hasbro's "castle", and less "clip-arty". And yet, and YET, my pony friends, Tiana's party set costs $25. While we got two remold ponies, reused accessories, and a cardboard castle for $40. Something is rotten in the state of Rhode Island. This is not the Hasbro I grew up with, the one that hired artists to do watercolors for the packaging of each set of ponies and put individual stories for them on the backcards.

But Hasbro ain't the only ones cutting corners these days. Mattel gave Ghoulia a cardboard beach umbrella in their Target exclusive Gloom Beach 5pack (and the rest of the dolls in the set are just the same exact dolls they released before). I almost wonder if Target requested for the "playset" to be cardboard to keep with their earth friendly image.

ThunderBoomer wrote:

gabumon wrote: So my expectations are now really low... until Year 2 or 3 of Friendship is magic. Remember, G1 had like 8 years of development? What year did Paradise Estate come out? EDIT: "kimsites" says Year 4. So... 2014 for FiM? www.kimsites.net/dream...ise_estate What about Dream Castle? Wasn't that only year two?

I think you're right. Still I sorta think Hasbro is testing the waters with th new expanded audience, the thing is, I doubt the new audience has the patience to wait for a year.

On the other hand, i agree with the comment about Target requesting a card board play set.. Maybe so!

I still think the set in itself isn't too bad a set for the line being less than a year old (despite ponies being round for a while each generation is its own line). It is more the fact that Target wants to charge 40 bucks for this. I mean I know Target is supposed to be "upscale" compared to Walmart but do they have to charge so much for what is essentially a $30 set?

Oh, royal wedding at Canterlot castle, lovely! Man, Rarity is going to be so jealous PP is marrying into the royal family, though.

This is kind of cute, I guess, if you want a storage box and like accessories, but not what I would want from a castle playset.

I do like how the windows are cut out on the second floor, that's nice.

Also I showed this to my 7 year old girl. "coooool"! Is what she said.

I think the main reason behind this is still that it would make no sense at all to spend a lot of work on an EXCLUSIVE line! They'd loose out on too many customers making - especially - the castle exclusive.
So from a companies point of view it makes sense not to put too much effort into the target line for your customers for that are limited. At least if I were in charge I would do the same.. (tho maybe I'd ditch the 'secure with *your own* string'-part and include a nice ribbon)

I agree they have been lazy, and some of the other playsets aren't all fancy either (like the 'barn' or the school 'house') and quality control has been lacking just like it does on the LPS line.. but they created all these molds for the little animal friends, and so far each new pony got their own. That's something I honor even tho I cannot understand why they do not use some generic ponies from the show for the box art. Flash even uses vector, it cannot be that hard..


But to make *THE* canterlot castle a store exclusive is stupid. It is. So there's a high possibility they will release a better castle later on.

For that price, I'd say it's not worth it. It's a shame that's the only way to get Shine Bright Luna, she's really cute. I can see her being very sought-after in the future because of the way she was marketed.

I purchased the Fashion Style Luna and Celestia set from Target and they have similar packaging to this castle, in that you can reuse the cardboard part as a foldable traveling case. While I love the ponies themselves, and the concept is a cute little bonus, the packaging is cheap and flimsy. I couldn't imagine an entire playset made in a similar fashion holding up for very long.

The castle is neat in theory, but too expensive for what you're actually getting. I would have preferred dropping twice that on an actual castle playset, but what can you do? The Canterlot sets are only Target exclusives anyway, so there's no telling if we won't actually see a real castle in the main line somewhere down the road. I honestly wouldn't worry about it, I just see these exclusives as a nice little bonus for those who want them.

On that note about Target, try checking out their furniture line some time (actual, not pony-sized). Most of it is also really cheaply made and over-expensive for what you're getting, so I'd put the blame on them over Hasbro, lol.

I have a feeling this castle will actually become quite valuable in the future. Being made of cardboard, not too many of these will survive over a decade. And that Shinebright Luna? Totally going to become more valuable if this is the only way she's released.

I don't think this set is too bad at all, but the price is far above what I would personally pay for it. I just don't need something that big taking up space or all those little bits and pieces to get lost. And I certainly don't need another Pinkie Pie!

This is actually the first time I really really wish for a pony to show up loose at taobao or some Chinese eBay sellers.. LOL.
I'm not enough of a Luna/shine bright fan to justify all that money for her, but as a single I'd buy her... XD

1) Applejack is clearly on one of the inside edges of the box. You can see her ponytail sticking out.

2) I don't get the impression that Pony fandom is used to how exclusive toys work, but, as people have said several times in this thread, there was never going to be a giant plastic castle as part of a Target exclusive line. Hasbro doesn't want toys to be exclusives. They want to sell as many of them as possible. The Canterlot stuff is a way to keep their retailer partner (Target) happy, get some product out that doesn't fit into their plans for the main line (like Shine Bright Luna, Twilight and Fluttershy), and have a huge sparkly blinking endcap to remind girls (and parents) that MLP exists.

There might be a big plastic castle at some point. If there is, Hasbro is going to want to get as many as possible into as many retailers as they can - and it'll almost certainly be more than $40 in today's economy.

I just opened up the castle and IMHO it's pretty cute & cool! The folding parts work much better than with the Fashion Style Luna/Celestia (that container was useless crap). It's not plastic, but the cardboard is nice and sturdy--maybe it won't hold up long in play but it's a nice display item for sure. I wasn't planning to mail the castle part to the buyer, but I think I'll have to strongly encourage them to take it too. It'd be so cute if the main 6 in their little "gowns" arrive at their destination inside the castle.




Applejack is indeed on there--you can see her when you fold the castle up into the closed position.

Honestly, i really do think it looks rather cute and i do like the printed decors.
Nice to see it out of package.