Supersoaker.com is truly Nerfed

[isoaker]

At the time of this post, SuperSoaker.com is just redirecting visitors purely to the Nerf landing page and not even attempting to bring visitors to the Nerf Super Soaker section. Granted the actual Nerf Super Soaker product listing is a far cry from the water blasters many of us are much more familiar with.

Not sure when the switch-over to the pure Nerf re-direct occurred, but this just seems like one more nail in the coffin for the Super Soaker-brand.

Edit: looks like NerfSuperSoaker.com also goes straight to Nerf stuff, not soaker stuff...

[HBWW]

N-Strike Elite is where it's all at now. Super Soaker is just an afterthought down the line.

Although perhaps I was wrong about them trying to destroy the Super Soaker brand. They seemed like they're more focused on just ensuring it gets shoved as far aside as possible, being nothing but an afterthought and a pretty penny in the cash flow. The removal of pressurization systems was done for easier operation in order to sell to the younger audience, and the styling and gimmicks sell it to the older audience. So far, that seems effective, although it doesn't explain the new line of SS's leaked, which seems to regard the SS brand as something that undercuts their other brands.

Perhaps someone more familiar with marketing and with the industry could offer more insight into their product strategy. Or perhaps it really is as simple as we've all suspected: shrink the size of the market and continue pushing towards the other Nerf brands.

But this just raises a slew of additional questions. What exactly is going on with the market? Is there any possibility of market conditions being suitable for Gorgon-class blasters in the near-future? (Say, as soon as next year.) There is a bit of a disconnect between the community knowing what's going on in the market and being able to predict whether anything of interest will happen. The size of the serious nerf enthusiast market is not something to take lightly, but it seems like things are settling down for the water blaster enthusiast group, judging by eBay activity and the seemingly increasing difficulty of finding buyers for quality vintage products (DX would be the best judge of that). Edit: Apparently not; a lot of blasters sold for good prices this year.

I've actually considered saving up some cash over the next 10 or 20 years or so in order to start producing proper water blasters (see my post in the "If you only had One" thread), and by then, I expect the technology to enable it. CNC systems get smarter, and even if additive manufacturing (popularly known as 3D printing) doesn't become effective enough, we can still scan and model parts in programs like Sketchup or AutoCAD and pass them off to shops. I know a few friends who would be very helpful with an undertaking like this, but it's one of those super-ambitious things that I have no intentions for until the future. (It's a huge task, considering the fact that we need our own ball valves due to the current ones being rather unsuitable for our needs.)

Not that I mean to hijack this thread into a discussion on equipment solutions (the easiest and most cost-effective short term solution is still continuing to buy CPS's and repair them where possible), but there's really not much this discussion can go to.

[marauder]

Wow, that is strange. I would think that foam nerf being popular would be good for super soaker as well, but maybe not. I don't think the market is drastically bad, I just think that nerf realizes that they can make more by marketing and designing their foam blasters for both casual kids play and serious enthusiasts of all ages, and they can save money and time by cutting back on the quality of their waterguns.

[HBWW]

^ *by cutting back on the performance.

They're built with good quality, no doubt about that. And the MotoSquirters™ are not cheap to build, but as heard from earlier, they are more accessible to a larger audience due to lack of pumping requirement. There was an interview with them some magazine did, and they said they wanted their blasters to be easier to use, but of course, they took that to the point where they don't even have remotely usable performance. Performance doesn't even seem to matter in the market anymore, just branding. Performance only mattered for establishing the brand.

I'm not surprised at all though. I think their ultimate long-term goal is to push the SS brand aside as far as possible and leave it as a tiny niche in their lineup so that they can focus on non-seasonal and potentially higher margin N-Strike Elite blasters.

[marauder]

Well, now they have shifted away from motorized squirters and it's all piston pumpers. Although these might be simpler to use in that the pump resistance is less, they actually take more pumps/shot than most old AP blasters. You can get a good 4 tap shots for every pump with a 150, or something like a second and a half of shot time for every pump vs less than a second worth of shot time for a piston pumper. Even the XP 270 gets about 1 second worth of shot time for every pump you make.

What these new blasters (2014) are, however, is simpler. Less moving parts means that they are most likely cheaper to make, and if Super Soaker continues to charge the same prices/hit the same price targets, their profits will be much larger.

[HBWW]

See, the actual stats, volumes of water, etc. don't matter to marketing and don't matter to the general public (or at least not enough for people to buy up Water Warriors' in droves, or else BBT would be able to push performance very aggressively). People don't know nor care that you can pump out a so-called "clip"'s worth of water in a few pumps. The XP 270 may whoop most piston pumpers in terms of performance, but... but... oh no, it has to be pumped? We can't be having any of that!

Perhaps I exaggerated the problem, but Hasbro's recent products are selling very well. Take any picture of any general public event/soakfest and all you're going to see are PumperSquirters™ and MotoSquirters™. I think the Hydro Cannon was a poster child of their marketing, trying to "prove" that more expensive and higher performance blasters don't sell by having a tiny PC, very low pump volume (so people complain about having to pump even more), and horrible nozzle design.

Also, the MotoSquirters™ are still on the 2014 line. http://www.target.com/p/nerf-super-soak ... per+soaker There's only one this time, but it's still there. See the relevant thread for reference: http://www.waterwar.net/site_wwn/board/topic6313.html

[marauder]

I think part of my point was the irony in saying you don't have to pump piston based blasters when really you have to pump them more

[SEAL]

^Well yeah, but with piston guns, water comes out whenever you pump, so Junior can have instant "soaking" fun instead of having to pump the thing up 20 times before being able to shoot. I heard somewhere that people expect to have everything instantaneously these days, due to living in this so-called "Information Age" (puh-leeze...). I don't know if that has anything to do with weak soakers, but it's interesting and definitely true for some people.

Super Soaker has been dead to me for a while now. And I don't let it bother me anymore either. As soon as I am able, I'm going to make myself a homemade superweapon that will spare me from ever having to hunt around for a good primary.

[HBWW]

^ The greatest irony to that is that pulling a trigger to release water pressure is far more instantaneous than any pump (especially free-pump piston shooters where you have to keep the pump retracted to prevent it from breaking).

[martianshark]

Supersoaker.com has redirected to the Super Soaker section of Nerf.com since SS became part of Nerf. Not sure when they decided to just redirect to the Nerf home page though.

[isoaker]

Not sure when they decided to just redirect to the Nerf home page though.

This is more-or-less what I meant by my original post. It was bad enough when the felt a need to slap the "Nerf" name before "Super Soaker", but now it seems they are striving to drive water blaster users into dart gun users.

[SEAL]

We are beginning the transition to hairdryer fighting. First Hasbro dumbed down the soaking power of their water guns, and now they're promoting Nerf guns that don't get the target wet at all. Soon that won't be enough; they'll start producing "guns" that actually dry the target off. My logic is flawless.

[isoaker]

We are beginning the transition to hairdryer fighting. First Hasbro dumbed down the soaking power of their water guns, and now they're promoting Nerf guns that don't get the target wet at all. Soon that won't be enough; they'll start producing "guns" that actually dry the target off. My logic is flawless.

See iSoak'D 062

[HBWW]

^ YES. I miss those lol. Ought to start linking to them from the FB page.

[isoaker]

^ YES. I miss those lol. Ought to start linking to them from the FB page.

The nice thing about the holiday season - I find time to make more of 'em. More coming soon...