I would like to give you some perspective on this as to why this is a bit of a big deal. Metal Sonic is a very popular character, Metal Sonic merchandise is also very popular. To date there have only been 2 Metal Sonic plushies, both of which are extremely rare and can often go into the several hundreds when they come up for sale.
There is a huge demand for Metal Sonic merchandise.
About 2 years ago, a Metal Sonic plush was spotted at a Toy Fair, despite not looking amazing, many people including myself were quite excited at the prospect of owning a Metal Sonic plush which wouldn’t require the use of Nathan Drake to find and Scrooge McDuck to fund. Since that toy fair, the plush was never seen again.
Then at the start of the year, the plush turned up at several toy fairs along with an Amy Rose plush. Both have appeared in officially released press photos and have even been up for pre-order. The UK’s ‘Smyths toys’ have it listed as being eventually available and it’s even on the Jazwares official website.
It looked like Sonic merch collectors and Metal Sonic fans would finally get their wish and a Metal Sonic plush would finally be released.
Well… Jazwares have decided to cancel the plush.
Several people who have pre-ordered the plush have been in touch to say that they’re now reciving emails saying that Jazwares have cancelled the plush, no explanation as to why it’s been cancelled where given.
Please accept our sincerest apologies, Jazwares contacted us this morning & told us they no longer plan to Manufacture the Metal Sonic Plush which you ordered.
As a result, there will be no way for us to source this product.
We feel absolutely terrible about this & would like to remedy this issue as painlessly as possible for you. Here are a few options we would like to offer you
1. We could replace the Metal Sonic Plush with another Sonic Plush of your choice,including our new Silver Sonic!(we will refund any price difference.)
2. We could provide you a full refund including an extra $5 as our small compensation for this situation.”
Several online retailers who have had pre-orders up for both these characters have also either pulled them or changed their listing to cancelled. Big bad Toy Story & Entertainment Earth have both change their listings for these items. It does indeed appear like these highly anticiptated toys will never see a release.
Speaking as someone who was really looking forward to this, I cannot believe how bad a decision this was. Two years of showing this at toy conventions, even going as far as taking publicity shots of it and only to cancel it? Seriously what was the reason behind that one? This would have sold, so many people were looking forward to it.
It should be also pointed out that at a toy fair earlier this year, Jazwares also showed a Super Sonic plush, however there has been no word yet as to the fate of this one.
For fans of merchandise, the wait for a reasonably price Metal Sonic plush continues.
P.S. In the email quote you can see the words ‘Silver Sonic plush’ this is actually Silver the Hedgehog and not a plush based on the Sonic 2 boss. Let me leave you with this thought, Metal Sonic and Amy have been cancelled… The Silver plush however is still being released…. … … Yeah I’ll let you lot debate how good that decision is in the comments.
Source: Entertainment Earth: Metal Sonic Listing, Amy Listing.
While I’m not big on the plushies like I know many fo you are, I have to agree with WHAT THE HELL, JAZWARES?
You think the price of an MS plushie on eBay is bad now, wait until those prototypes end up on it.
They might never appear, it’s not the first time Jazwares have cancelled something so close to release, they did the same with a (quite awesome looking) Big Plush, but this is however the first time they’ve done it with a character as popular as Metal Sonic.
Combined that with the decision to keep Silver in production is just all the more baffling.
All I care about is finally getting that Rouge figure that their supposedly working on. This collection I have feels complete enough without Cream. Big, Metal Sonic, or even Omega (whom I love to death because he’s so awesome) but it doesn’t feel complete at all without the Batgirl/Catwoman of the Sonic series.
How dare they do this on this, the 20th anniversary of Sonic CD.
You’re right, this happened 3 days after the 20th anniversary of Sonic CD’s JP release date.
That really really sux! I had no plans on buying these plushies… I just think of the fans who collect them and they’re utterly disappointed now. Thank you Jazwares…………………..
Yeah, that pretty much blows. What a weird choice. I mean, Metal is more popular, more important to the franchise’s history, has appeared in more games (and a movie), and has appeared in more recent games than Silver has. He is literally the most marketable antagonist Sonic has (unless you still count Shadow as an antagonist, that might be a close race). In fact, I’d go so far as to say he’s more marketable than even some of the other “main” heroes like Blaze, Rouge, or any of the Chaotix.
Maybe all the plushies were designed to be stuffed with asbestos and dyed with mercury and they just now caught it.
Actually, Silver’s been out for several years; it must just be a “new” item for that retailer (I think it released in Spring of 2011).
But man, that sucks! 🙁 I was REALLY looking forward to it, especially since they improved how he looks after the first initial showing. I purposefully did not buy a Classic Amy plush from GE Animation so I could get Jazware’s version (since I’m more into collecting Jazwraes products and own nearly every figure and plush they’ve ever made for Sonic).
I’m starting to wonder if Jazwares is losing the rights to Sonic? Their Facebook and Twitter pages have been completely dead, they hold no contests anymore, they don’t interact with fans,they won’t comment about figures of new characters like Rouge, there have been MANY complaints about the quality of their Sonic merchandise lately, and the only new piece of Sonic merch releasing as of now is a re-release of the 5″ Classic Sonic that comes with light-up emeralds (which I am still excited for though!). Even when I went to Toys R Us last, I asked about the Sonic merchandise and they told me that the figures/plush havent been selling; they even moved the Sonic section to the back of the store to make room in the video game department once Disney Infinity released…
It’s funny. Where I live, there are several toys r us stores in the area and each one seems to have a differing sonic climate. My local store has a shelf devoted to sonic and I see new shipments every week that are gone by weeks end. However, I go to the TRU 3 towns over and it’s a ghost town. I’m still waiting on classic Knuckles and I’d love to see Jazwares do mighty the armadillo and a classic chaotix boxed set, Maybe a 10inch metal sonic Kai to go with it. Also, an eggmobile that fits both classic and modern Robotnik(eggman).
Aw, what the hell, Jazwares? Why did you do that?
The cancellation puts a lot of their other upcoming toys in limbo.. how long now has Rouge been up for pre-order on Toywiz?
We were never shown a Jazwares Super Sonic, they picture they posted was of the GE plush.
What else have they promised us.. Super Poser Silver.. we’ve seen him a while ago now and still no sign of him in stores, Sir Gawain was rumored shortly after Lancelot was released..
Maybe this is the end of the line for Jazwares x Sonic
*sigh* 🙁
I’m quite empathic, so I know how it feels.
geez a CD boombox wow
At some point, I wanna get it. I like the boombox.
They already made a Sonic boom box a couple of years ago; this one just simply has pictures of Sonic and Shadow instead of Sonic,Tails and Knuckles…
I’m not a big fan of plushies but perhaps this means that Sega has lost some faith in Metal Sonic? Think about it, recently they released a “character select” pic for investors and Metal Sonic wasn’t there, now they announced Blaze is the next playable character in Sonic Dash (not that I’m complaining cause I’m a big fan of Blaze too) and they released her before Metal Sonic! That’s weird specially considering how cheap in animation Metal Sonic could be (he just hovers above the ground without a real running animation), so I think Sega doesn’t think Metal Sonic is as strong as he was some years ago, and if that happens to be true I have an easy solution; feature him in a mayor Sonic game!! (Sonic 4 and Sonic Rivals doesn’t count as mayor games) He really deserves it, more than Orbot and Cubot at least!
Did you read the article?
This has nothing to do with Sega, this is Jazwares’ decision.
Didn’t read LOL
I WANT THAT KNUCKLES PLUSH!!!!
But I am disappointed about the Amy plush… I don’t have one of those yet. Honestly though, when you go to buy them at the store, they will only have Sonic and Tails anyways… at last that is my experience…
Well this is weird because I have that Amy plush. I got it off of amazon, so I don’t see how it got “cancelled”
oh nvm, different company. 😛
YOU MONSTER FRISBEES!
How very strange. Metal Sonic, and even Amy, have a bigger following than Silver (on account purely for the fact Silver hasn’t been around as long as either of those two, and the game he debuted in didn’t help), yet…
I have to question. Was this truly Jazware’s decision, or did Sega tell them not to do it? In either case it would be a question of why…
How dare they do this, in the Year of Luigi?!
Sorry, someone had to said it.
Im not really disappointed as I am not a fan of Jazawares plushes, but still bad for the fans who wanted these.
They wanted to cancel Silver too, but IT’S NO USE!
The hell. Seriously? I was looking SO FORWARD to this. I’ve gone out of my way to get every scrap of Metal Sonic merchandise I can and they do this? On the year of his 20’th anniversary?
Low blow, Jazwares >=|
It seems lately that Jazwares has put their video game figures on hold while the popularity of their cartoon show based figures flourishes. I’m guessing they’re going to wait to release any new sonic products after they see how Lost Worlds does with fans and critics. I guarantee if that game does really well, jazwares will suddenly readjust its focus back to its sonic line.