2005 Soakers - Your expectations...

[Adrian]

So what do you guys think is coming in the year ahead? More SoakerTag? EES rerelease? The return of the CPS? More MXDs/XPs? Think Storm will return? And what do you think Water Warriors has in store for us?

I think we'll see a new line of SoakerTag guns, possibly including one new CPS (though I'm not holding my breath). I predict a new mid-sized pistol, a mid-sized XP-tech rifle, and at least one pump action. From Water Warriors, I think we'll get some kind of new Super Charger system (hopefully not QFD dependent), along with a possible rerelease of either the Pirahna or Blazer. I expect to see a handful of Storm recolors and maybe one or two new pistols.

Anyone else want to take a shot at predicting the future?

Adrian

[Field Marshal Yang]

Looking back at the 2003 and 2004 releases of the EES and ST lines and the ending of the EES line, I predict that Hasbro's core lineup will be a new soaker line with a novelty twist. Soaker Tags will simply be assimilated into next year's lineup as a standard component of Super Soakers. Any possible CPS soakers will come only in the form of rereleases. There will of course be a slew of XP and MAX-D releases in 2005 and probably one or two 1998 XP soakers (ex: this year's XP 70 rerelease).

As for Water Warriors be prepared to be more than satisfied by Big Bee's 2005 lineup, including several new diaphragm soakers. The air pressure line will also be rapidly expanded due to this year's great market success. It is possible that Adrian's prediction of a new quick-fill system will come to full fruition. Buzz Bee Toy's former Larami R&D will have done an excellent this year designing new soakers.



Edited By Field Marshal Yang on 1093004877

[Drewsky92]

I think that 2005 soakers will be much like 2004, only with "cooler" gagets and the same power. Almost all of the guns will be vaporizer size (a six year old came over yester day and he could barely hold the 3A full.) and will be air pessure. One will be called the "Soaker Tag Super Shot", whick shoots out 3 .5x streams. Water Warriors will have mostly small/medium sized air pressure pisols, with 2 or 3 diaphragm soakers. I think CPS will never be rerealsed, but in a few years they might come up with something even better than CPS. But they won't release that "better than CPS line" untill kids stop buying Soaker Tag and start buying Big Bee's smaller, more powerful pistols. Then, I think around 2007, that "better than CPS line" will be released.

[Field Marshal Yang]

Now what could "better than CPS" be? A soaker could use bulky mechanical gas pressure but that would have an astronomical price tag. Piston pressure is sometimes more powerful than CPS, but that already exists and dosen't have the versality of CPS. What kind of system do you guys think would be "better than CPS"?

[Drewsky92]

<unrealistic>A air pressure water gun pumped to 3000 psi could not only rip a human to pecies, but shoot as far as a WBL.<unrealistic>

[Iceman]

To be honest, we do not know what is actually planned in store for next year's lineup. However I will take my guess at it.

Hasbro- New line of Soakertag Guns, called maybe SoakerTag Elite or something. will continue the line for Aqua Squirtz, and possibly make 1 or 2 larger cannons not replated to soakertag. Again i will not know if the performance of SoakerTag Elite will be good or poor.

Water Warriors- Improved Diapraghm technology. With a few re-releases of some old favorites, and the hope of a few larger cannons. I know for a fact we are expecting a backpack cannon here. Again I do not know the performance of these new blasters, but I expect par/above average compared to CPS mid-weight weaponry.

Storm- Err... the are dead. Trendmasters dropped the line and/or is dead. No new guns, lol.



Edited By Iceman on 1093020088

[Adrian]

^^^I wouldn't count Storm out just yet. JAKKSPacific ran the 2003 line under their name, and then rereleased a ton of the pistols this year. I don't know why they'd do that if they weren't planning on doing something with the line...why would they go to the trouble?

Adrian

[Soakologist]

The CPS line is definitely not coming back in case anyone here is delirious. Iceman and I called Hasbro and it's looong gone.
Looks like we're going to rely on WW.
Poor Lonnie. I guess Hasbro doesn't need him anymore.

[Shadowstrike Prime]

I expect another dissapointing lineup from Hasbro in 2005. Our fanbase isn't large enough to have an impact on Hasbro's sales, so they will see that no changes will be needed to keep sales up. They'll continue rely on the "Super Soaker" brandname for the forseeable future.

[Soakologist]

I guess that Nerf's fanbase is large enough. Funny, it doesn't seem that way though...

[Field Marshal Yang]

I guess that Nerf's fanbase is large enough. Funny, it doesn't seem that way though...

Are there any examples of when the Nerf fandom changed some of Hasbro's Nerf lineup designs? It would be interesting to see a general Super Soaker fandom outside of our relatively small fandom convince Hasbro to change it's SS designs.

[SSCBen]

Are there any examples of when the Nerf fandom changed some of Hasbro's Nerf lineup designs?

Modding is so prevalent in Nerf that many guns are designed to be hard to open or mod. Lanard buys old, generally recommended Nerf guns to base their designs off of. The boxes of Nerf guns say only use ammo designed for the gun, likely put on to prevent people from using the homemade Stefan dart. There's many examples.

[isoaker]

The CPS line is definitely not coming back in case anyone here is delirious. Iceman and I called Hasbro and it's looong gone.
Looks like we're going to rely on WW.
Poor Lonnie. I guess Hasbro doesn't need him anymore.

Calling Hasbro doesn't necessarily mean you were talking with the right people.

At any rate, even if the "CPS-line" doesn't return, that doesn't make CPS-based blasters impossible for sometime in the future. They may just go under another line name (i.e. SC or Monster lines both used CPS-tech).

Of course, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for new CPS-based soakers to appear in 2005, but I wouldn't count them out either in the later future. We're in a time of market change/adjusting.

[Soakologist]

I'm afraid that you're fooling yourself, iSc. CPS tech is simply too expensive and too dangerous a path to be pursued by a big company like Hasbro. Because Buzz Bee is a small company, it is more agile and can therefore meet the wants of its consumer (namely us) on a more personal level.

[isoaker]

I'm afraid that you're fooling yourself, iSc.

Nope.. no fooling myself. I'm a scientist, thus I question everything! I just talk to different people than you do.

At any rate, we're both talking about an unknown future. Some say never. I say maybe sometime in the future. It'd take a long time to prove I'm wrong.

[Space_Cowboy]

It depends on weather you see the pressure chamber as half empty, or half full.

As for my view, if a company makes a CPS tech soaker, I'll think about getting it. I really couldn't care less about what company makes it.



Edited By Space_Cowboy on 1093398818

[Field Marshal Yang]

Exactly. Any new water pressure technology for soakers has room in online soakerdom for discussions, testing, and reviews. Also, one thing I noticed about Nerf is that the refill darts my brother bought for his Nerf gun were different from the ones that came with the gun. And by the way, why do Nerf guns still carry the Larami logo on them?