Board Thread:General Nerf discussion/@comment-51577-20140611213050

Jeeeeesus.

I've seen variants of nearly every blaster at German retail at this point. And with "variant", I mean "paint operations are expensive so we're going to axe like 75% of them".

In addition, all the older Nerf models on the packaging have their faces replaced with distinctively younger boys. There are at least three versions of both the Strongarm (original full deco and original older model, "economy" deco and original model, "economy" deco and new younger model) and the Retaliator (original older model holding the blaster in inaccurate "prototype" deco with "prototype" deco on the back of the box, new younger model holding the blaster in inaccurate "prototype" deco with "prototype" deco on the back of the box, new younger model holding the blaster in accurate "economy" deco with "economy" deco on the back of the box; no idea which decos are inside the box since I don't intend to buy three more Retaliators).

The Rampage also exists in the variants "original older model and original deco in the box" and "new younger model and economy deco on the box". Firestrike exists with original and younger models, but the blaster appears to be unchanged (unless there are paint operations missing on the opposite side of the blaster not visible inside the packaging).

I've done a full comparison of original and "economy" Strongarm with side-by-side comparisons of the packaging variants here. I intend to post some more comparisons, although most will be limited to in-packaging only.

I think the "economy" decos have arrived at IS retail as well by this point. How about the packaging with the updated Nerf models? 