The Nerf Vortex
site is now live on
Hasbro.com; it continues with Nerf's marketing trend of using older models with these guys actually look the oldest we've seen to date (
although they may merely suffer from "American TV show highschool teenager syndrome" where 16yo's are represented by 25yos). All the official information is there although if you're a fan of Nerf and not living under a rock for the past few months, chances are you already know everything there is to know:)
What's interesting is they seem to have done away with the 9-10-11 countdown marketing spiel; while I never want to be presumptuous and think it's because of all of the product leaks, but it does seem to be a really odd thing to be hyping something up for months and then... dismiss it a month early? "Get ready! Get Ready! It's coming... Ge...PSYCH! here already!!":P
This is what we'd be calling "embracing the leak". Rather than going into denial and getting angry, it looks like Hasbro have opted to act like the whole early release was almost deliberate. Conspiracy theorists (wow, we even get them in Nerf land) have suggested to me that they're using the post to "flush out" where all of the leaks occurred, but I'm really not convinced that there is really a point to that; one would think a company that was so large and on the ball would know exactly where their distribution channels are pointing and when.
On the whole, they're a toy company and their job is to promote and sell the hell out of as many units as possible so.. whatever works really:)
On a final note, it's great to see that the Australian Nerf site has FINALLY updated their content; admittedly they're still using the old Nerf N-Strike Raider graphics on the front page, BUT they've add the current line of blasters to the products,as well as included RRP and descriptors (no pics yet) of the Vortex line.
