1. Sea Cow
2. Tower of Orthanc
3. Maersk EEE
4. Santas Workshop
5. Death Star
6. Red 5 X-Wing
7. Tumbler
8. Opera House
9. Pet Shop

Would be my guesses.

I come from Pedantry so I´ll put SW in the 2016 retirement list. Opera House is a tricky one to call but I think it may hang around till Big Ben comes in the spring. PS might just crawl over the 2015 line too -it could go either way so between 6 and 8 is good and par for the course.

Well DS is marked sold out. So that settles it I guess. Except for the 5000 other times it has been marked sold out in the last decade.

So far this year we've had eight new exclusives:

Helicarrier 

Ferris Wheel

Detectives Office

Kwik-E-Mart

Temple of Airjitzu

Slave 1

Tie Fighter

F40

We know Sea Cow, Tower of Orthanc have gone and X-Wing, Death Star plus Tumbler are going (Have I missed any?). 2016 already has the Ghostbusters HQ and Brick Bank earmarked for release, plus a pending landmark announcement so surely more shelf space is still required. Assuming there are others on the list, what exclusives can we expect to be discontinuing over the coming months? 

I wanted to highlight your post. Maybe I've missed something like this In the past, but think it's important to mention.

We have that spreadsheet for the modulars. It would be interesting to take it a step further and do one for all exclusives.

How many exclusives have we gotten in any one year? How many have retired in that same year? How many exclusives do we typically see on the shelf at any one time.

By no means is it some secret insight, but it does offer some additional analysis for consideration.

I´ve got it all written down on a scrap of paper  - give me a sec and I´ll post the summary.

Ok, the data I have since 2007 is as follows:

Format: Year/New Exclusives / Retirements

2007/ 5 / no data

2008/ 7 / no data

2009/ 6 / 6

2010/ 7 / 6

2011/ 7 / 5

2012 / 8 / 7

2013/ 9/ 3

2014/ 8/ 11

2015/ 9/ 3 confirmed + Red 5. DS, SW, PS, Tumbler???

This is based on EU set launch and retirement dates. I have the full list of launched and retired sets but it is too much work to type up - bbrickset is your friend for that kind of thing.

As we can see,  2013 and 2014 stand out for the few and many retirements but the overall average prior to 2015 is 7 launches and 6 retirements per year (hello Mr Death Star, T1 and Tower Bridge!)

Edited December 7, 201510 yr by valenciaeric

Thanks Eric. Well done.

You forgot to mention the Tumbler. As it is retiring soon according to Lego.

 

Fixed. That would take us up to 8 for 2015 if they all go before 31/12/15. I have a similar list for Architecture but I need to update it with recent events. That list also shows how many sets were on sale at the same time if anyone is interested.

Bring it on Mr. BB!

Architecture - feel free to move if not in correct thread:

Year / sets launched / sets / retired / sets available at end of year

2008/2/0/2

2009/4/0/6

2010/4/2/8

2011/4/1/11

2012/4/0/15 (record high)

2013/3/6/12

2014/2/4/10

2015/3/6 (TBC) /7 TBC

Studio is not counted but the limited edition sets like Robie, Ssung and MS are.

If all retirig soon sets go by end of year, we will have the lowet number of sets since 2010.

Six new sets are confirmed for 2016 so far.

Edited December 7, 201510 yr by valenciaeric

Tumbler???, i cannt believe it...

32 minutes ago, valenciaeric said:

Ok, the data I have since 2007 is as follows:

Format: Year/New Exclusives / Retirements

2007/ 5 / no data

2008/ 7 / no data

2009/ 6 / 6

2010/ 7 / 6

2011/ 7 / 5

2012 / 8 / 7

2013/ 9/ 3

2014/ 8/ 11

2015/ 9/ 3 confirmed + Red 5. DS, SW, PS, Tumbler???

This is based on EU set launch and retirement dates. I have the full list of launched and retired sets but it is too much work to type up - bbrickset is your friend for that kind of thing.

As we can see,  2013 and 2014 stand out for the few and many retirements but the overall average prior to 2015 is 7 launches and 6 retirements per year (hello Mr Death Star, T1 and Tower Bridge!)

I take it you count the Winter Village sets as exclusive? 

For 2015 (8, 9 if you include winter village), there was the following: Creator (3): Ferris Wheel, Detectives Office, Ferrari - Star Wars (2): Slave 1, Tie-figther - Ninjago (1) - Temple of Airjitsu - Simpsons (1) - Kwik-e-mart  - Superheroes (1) Helicarrier. ..  . The only other one I can think of is the Toy Shop.

2014 (9, 10 if you include Santas Workshop) - Creator (4): Fairground Mixer, MINI Cooper, Maersk Line EEE, Parisian Restaurant - Star Wars (1): Sandcrawler - Simpsons (1): Simpsons House - Lego Movie (1) Sea Cow; Superheroes (1): Tumbler

2013 (7, 8 if you include WV set ) Creator (3) - Palace Cinema, Sydney Opera House, Horizon Express - Star Wars (2): Ewok Village, Red 5 - Superheroes (1): Arkham Asylum - Lord of the Rings (1): Tower of Orthanc

Edited December 7, 201510 yr by fossilrock

Winter sets are only included once per set number for launch (1st launch) and once for retirement (final retirement). You are right, EEE launch was Jan 14 and I had it in DEC 2013. There are always going to be issues with sets that launch and retire in Jan/Dec as the zones may vary.... In any case, the averages don´t change.

Edited December 7, 201510 yr by valenciaeric

30 minutes ago, Haay said: Exactly. And SOH did NOT get a box redesign.... So I think it's more likely that SOH will retire before TB.

It may be the case that SOH has sold so slowly that they have not even gotten to sell off the sets with old boxes. Anyone seen a mid 2015 production set of SOH?

Most of my SOH's have been sent with third quarter seal codes

Winter sets are only included once per set number for launch (1st launch) and once for retirement (final retirement). You are right, EEE launch was Jan 14 and I had it in DEC 2013. There are always going to be issues with sets that launch and retire in Jan/Dec as the zones may vary.... In any case, the averages don´t change.

While the US still had EEE's kicking around this year, in the UK it was done and dusted by December so I'm inclined to consider that a 2014 retirement.

3 hours ago, JM123 said:

10188 - DS is done most probably. Saw one in the lego store Oberhausen today. The employee also said that the Pet Shop was done, should be gone in January to free shelf space for the Brick Bank, for what it's worth..

And oh yeah, manager said that TB will live a long and happy live also next year (I know, wrong thread).

Funnily enough the store manager there told me the same about Pet Shop in June - that it was done and never return...

13 minutes ago, Crustybeaver said:

While the US still had EEE's kicking around this year, in the UK it was done and dusted by December so I'm inclined to consider that a 2014 retirement.

I believe 29th Jan 2015 was when it sold out at EU lego shop. It certaly made it through to 2015, I remember that it was a surprise to many it went so soon.

1 hour ago, Ciglione said:

Thanks Eric. Well done.

You forgot to mention the Tumbler. As it is retiring soon according to Lego.

 

Source? Link?

13 minutes ago, TurboSpecC said:

Source? Link?

http://shop.lego.com/de-DE/The-Tumbler-76023?fromListing=listing

"Auslaufmodell" means "Retiring Soon".

Edited December 7, 201510 yr by Ciglione

5 minutes ago, Ciglione said:

http://shop.lego.com/de-DE/The-Tumbler-76023?fromListing=listing

Interesting - thank you.

LEGO head honcho's probably reading this thread and laughing at all of us...

5 minutes ago, binici said:

LEGO head honcho's probably reading this thread and laughing at all of us...

Maybe you are a bit too sceptical? If we even cannot trust these annoncements anymore we are really poor souls.

6 minutes ago, Ciglione said:

Maybe you are a bit too sceptical? If we even cannot trust these annoncements anymore we are really poor souls.

I'm just being silly and sarcastic, buddy! X-Mas is today, right?

Nice work valenciaeric and CrustyBeaver

At least here in Europe there has been chatter that the Lego production lines are over stretched and wont be able to meet the x-mas demand.  Maybe its a change in strategy? They've spread themselves too thin so had a board meeting and are retiring a bunch of sets in one axe swing so they can concentrate resources on the newer stuff.

I mean, it cant look good for them when half there stuff is TooS and now even the Dr Who set has an expected ship date of Jan 11th on the UK site.  Yeah maybe this was expected and the B&M stores and tru etc are well stocked.  But if they didn't have to worry about a number of the larger exclusives or 2014 SW releases then maybe they've theorized they can keep a better inventory.

Just my opinion, i don't run a business (and to date never have) so outside of some accounting classes not qualified at all to talk on inventory management, economies of scale etc etc... but isn't that what the internets for right?  

 

And back to DS.  Who's now wishing they picked up more???