How Pony is Formed: Production and Business Thread

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Re: How Pony is Formed: Production and Business Thread

Postby Corpy (?) » Fri Apr 10, 2015 7:13 am

I think the holiday weekend was a big part of it
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Thu May 21, 2015 4:55 pm

This was already talked about in the general chat thread, but since ratings were (and still are) discussed a lot in this thread, I'll repost it here for posterity. Ratings-wise, Make New Friends but Keep Discord really beefed it:
It appears as though some fans forgot that there was a new episode last week. “Make New Friends But Keep Discord” drew just an estimated 307,000 viewers last Saturday. That is the lowest total for the show since the start of Season Three. The previous low was “Just for Sidekicks” (324,000). The low is also low enough to knock down the Season Five average to just under 500,000 per episode.

JFS was the lowest-rated episode in S3, so that means last week's episode is hanging around somewhere with low-end S2 stuff.
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Postby Perrydotto (?) » Thu May 21, 2015 5:04 pm

I really think Discovery's awful marketing is to blame. They are so behind when it comes to promoting these it's not even funny.
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Postby ROBOT B9 (?) » Thu May 21, 2015 5:12 pm

Honestly, I'm just floored that they're still promoting Cutie Map...I hope that Hasbro really pushes them to improve on this front. :-/
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Postby Corpy (?) » Wed May 27, 2015 6:32 pm

Discovery's CEO David Zaslav is the highest-paid CEO in the country. $156.1 million (up from $33 million in 2013)

http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/26/investi ... id-zaslav/
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Thu Jun 04, 2015 8:50 pm

Meghan gewtting a big promotion to Head of Storytelling for the company’s Girl brands.

http://deadline.com/2015/06/my-little-p ... 201437791/

Hasbro has named Meghan McCarthy as Head of Storytelling for the company’s Girl brands. In her new position, effective immediately, McCarthy will drive a multi-year strategy, developing deep story and characters across the company’s portfolio of brands, including My Little Pony and Littlest Pet Show. She also will work with film producers on the upcoming My Little Pony animated feature film currently slated for release in 2017. She will be based in Hasbros Studios’ Los Angeles office, reporting to Stephen Davis, EVP, Chief Content Officer.

McCarthy is an executive producer on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. The series, currently in its fifth season, airs on Discovery Network in the U.S., on leading networks in more than 180 territories globally, and distributed on digital platforms, including Netflix, iTunes and Google Play. Additionally, McCarthy is credited with writing and producing for several My Little Pony spin-off films, My Little Pony: Equestria Girls (2013), Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks (2014) and Equestria Girls: Friendship Games (2015).

The move is a signal of Hasbro’s further integration of storytelling across its blueprint. “Having worked closely with Meghan during the past four years and seen first-hand what an adept storyteller she is – clearly one of the best in our business – words cannot express how thrilled we are that she will be joining our organization,” said Davis. “To be able to benefit from Meghan’s ability to create expansive worlds and characters across our entire portfolio of brands is an incredible opportunity for the Company. Storytelling is at the center of our brand blueprint and Meghan will help us continue to advance our strategy of building deep connections and relationships with our consumers and audiences globally through rich content in all forms and formats – across digital, television, animated and live action films.”


I wonder if this means Larson will get bumped out to full time Story Editor and Producer on MLP. :ponder:
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Postby ROBOT B9 (?) » Thu Jun 04, 2015 8:54 pm

Awesome, good to hear that for Meghan. Hopefully, she'll do a lot of good there. :yay:
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Postby Headless Horse (?) » Thu Jun 04, 2015 10:23 pm

Is that a newly created position? Sure sounds like it; it sounds like one of those things where a company goes "whoa shit, we're supposed to be all about X, but we don't have X all over every press release and executive statement", much like Apple naming Jony Ive "Chief Design Officer".
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Thu Jun 04, 2015 10:36 pm

It sounds like Hasbro recognized FiM's magic and wants to spread it out across LPS and other franchises. Now, what I wonder is if there's an equivalent position for the brands that Hasbro decided are "for" boys (Transformers, G.I. Joe, etc.).
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Postby SlateSlabrock (?) » Fri Jun 05, 2015 12:58 am

"Littlest Pet Show"? :hilarious:
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Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Fri Jun 05, 2015 2:26 am

Headless Horse wrote:Is that a newly created position? Sure sounds like it; it sounds like one of those things where a company goes "whoa shit, we're supposed to be all about X, but we don't have X all over every press release and executive statement", much like Apple naming Jony Ive "Chief Design Officer".


No, it isn't. I've seen it many times. I believe I made a point of it some time ago when Hasbro said the position was opened, but maybe everyone forgot, or maybe I didn't say anything. But that position has always been around, and there is naturally a boy counterpart as well (GI Joe, Transformers, that stuff).
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Postby Headless Horse (?) » Fri Jun 05, 2015 3:17 am

More likely I forgot. :-I
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Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Fri Jun 05, 2015 3:24 am

Headless Horse wrote:More likely I forgot. :-I


No, I checked. I actually said something else (I pointed out when Hasbro was looking for a MLP head-storyteller, not for girls). So yeah, I didn't mention it before, my mistake. :modesty:
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Postby Mr. Big (?) » Fri Jun 05, 2015 3:58 am

So yeah, it makes me wonder what McCarthy is going to do on Ponies on season 6+. Will she give the story editing position to Larson/someone else? If the latter happens, she might still have a consulting position.
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Fri Jun 05, 2015 4:03 am

I have to imagine that this job means he will have a smaller overall role in the show. Probably having more of a supervising and consulting role. I might have the entirely wrong idea about this but it sounds like she'll now be the one issuing the toy mandates rather than the one figuring out what to do with those mandates.
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Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Fri Jun 05, 2015 4:04 am

Bakertoons wrote:So yeah, it makes me wonder what McCarthy is going to do on Ponies on season 6+. Will she give the story editing position to Larson/someone else? If the latter happens, she might still have a consulting position.


That is, if it's going to go to Season 6+. I think 6 might finish it with the movie coming out in 2017. Hasbro does seem to have a thing for putting shows on hiatus/ending them when the big movie comes around. Then again, that's only with Transformers and GI Joe.

But as MLP is a toyline, really makes me go :rariwhat: on wondering how long it'll go on. Eventually, like the rest of Hasbro's stuff, they're going to make their reboot, regardless of how well it's doing, to reach out to new audiences. Definitely isn't this year though. But planning out this stuff takes about 2-3 years, bringing us to 2017-2018. Could a possible reason she was brought to this position now was to discuss a new brand direction for the next generation?
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Postby Headless Horse (?) » Fri Jun 05, 2015 4:33 am

Putting someone in charge of "storytelling" across all your brands sounds to me like it could hardly be anything but an explicit attempt to reconcile the toylines and the cartoons with one another, after all these years of the two worlds living at cross purposes and really only intersecting more or less by accident.
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Fri Jun 05, 2015 4:40 am

Headless Horse wrote:Putting someone in charge of "storytelling" across all your brands sounds to me like it could hardly be anything but an explicit attempt to reconcile the toylines and the cartoons with one another, after all these years of the two worlds living at cross purposes and really only intersecting more or less by accident.


Show staff have been pretty adamant since EQG started that it wouldn't affect FiM though. I don't see any advantage to joining them up more when both are doing well on their own.
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Postby Wylie (?) » Fri Jun 05, 2015 5:13 am

I think it's less making EQG and FIM be in sync than it is making FIM and the actual plastic horses and horse accessories that are made available be at least somewhat related to one another.

Like, I still can't believe that Princess Twilight was a thing for almost a whole year before the episode aired, and then when it finally did, there was literally nothing in the stores about it. A company with their waterfowl aligned properly would have had Princess Twilight Sparkle coronation playsets and vehicles (they literally gave her one in the episode that screamed "LOOK FOR ME IN STORES") and, I don't know, maybe an actual Princess Twilight Sparkle figure for sale? But there was not a single thing available for months afterward.
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Postby Mr. Big (?) » Fri Jun 05, 2015 5:29 am

ShieldedDiamond wrote:Could a possible reason she was brought to this position now was to discuss a new brand direction for the next generation?

Isn't it a bit early for the next generation? G1 lasted 13 years (1982-1995), for example.
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Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Fri Jun 05, 2015 5:44 am

Bakertoons wrote:Isn't it a bit early for the next generation? G1 lasted 13 years (1982-1995), for example.


No, that's G1. You're not thinking in terms of current day toy sales and gimmicks, these things go much faster. As it was just the 80s, they didn't have a grasp on switching generations of anything just yet. 8 years seems like the point where they would switch the cartoon at least. Remember, the past MLP cartoons never lasted like this. That does change things.

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Show staff have been pretty adamant since EQG started that it wouldn't affect FiM though. I don't see any advantage to joining them up more when both are doing well on their own.


All it means is just she is now in charge of directions of things. Don't worry, everything is still pretty seperate.
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Postby ROBOT B9 (?) » Fri Jun 05, 2015 6:49 am

Personally, I think that Meghan will still be on the creative team for the next season, but she might not have as much influence as she does now, as she's busy with the rest of the company as well.
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Postby SlateSlabrock (?) » Fri Jun 05, 2015 9:59 am

Wylie wrote:I think it's less making EQG and FIM be in sync than it is making FIM and the actual plastic horses and horse accessories that are made available be at least somewhat related to one another.

Like, I still can't believe that Princess Twilight was a thing for almost a whole year before the episode aired, and then when it finally did, there was literally nothing in the stores about it. A company with their waterfowl aligned properly would have had Princess Twilight Sparkle coronation playsets and vehicles (they literally gave her one in the episode that screamed "LOOK FOR ME IN STORES") and, I don't know, maybe an actual Princess Twilight Sparkle figure for sale? But there was not a single thing available for months afterward.

Oh, but they did. They even leaked it before the episode!

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Every princess needs a special set of wheels – and all the better if it’s driven by a dragon. This “fabulously ornate” aqua convertible comes with its very own magical chauffeur – a.k.a. Spike, Twilight’s confidante – as well as Rarity, a pony who enjoys the finer things in life. “Our major objective [is] to completely sync entertainment and our toy line,” says Tobin, noting that Hasbro and My Little Pony’s overseers regularly discuss “story arching, how that works from an entertainment perspective, and also how it works for our core line and our brand development.” ($22.99)
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Postby Headless Horse (?) » Fri Jun 05, 2015 10:48 am

Wylie wrote:I think it's less making EQG and FIM be in sync than it is making FIM and the actual plastic horses and horse accessories that are made available be at least somewhat related to one another.


Yeah, this is what I meant.


I still think the toys look like more like tropical fish or something than the characters in the show.
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Postby Headless Horse (?) » Fri Jun 05, 2015 10:56 am

ShieldedDiamond wrote:No, that's G1. You're not thinking in terms of current day toy sales and gimmicks, these things go much faster. As it was just the 80s, they didn't have a grasp on switching generations of anything just yet. 8 years seems like the point where they would switch the cartoon at least. Remember, the past MLP cartoons never lasted like this. That does change things.


And yeah, I think this is exactly why any talk of "next generation" is premature. Why would they even be thinking about a complete redesign of all their sunk-cost properties (which is what a generational turnover is)? They would only do that if the current "generation" isn't selling anymore. A company like Hasbro's dream is to have developed a set of physical and virtual IP that they can just keep iterating on forever without ever revisiting. All their cost is in developing new toys and new entertainment; the longer they can avoid doing that, and the longer they can keep harvesting profits from what they've already finished paying for, the better for them.

They won't do a "G5" or a new cartoon to replace the current one until and unless the current show goes completely stale with the target audience and/or the toyline totally dries up. And then they'll redesign according to whatever strategy they think will unlock the profit centers again, tuned to the money-spending dynamics of the present day, which might mean something entirely different from a TV series and a line of plastic dolls. Like maybe an MMORPG or a bunch of iOS games or something.

Either way they've never had brand recognition at the character level like they do now, so trying to extrapolate from the patterns of their past generations is going to be kind of futile. They're in new territory here.
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Fri Jun 05, 2015 11:18 am

Headless Horse wrote:
Yeah, this is what I meant.


I still think the toys look like more like tropical fish or something than the characters in the show.

Well, I don't think the toy designs can change all that much, partly because they're easy to mass-produce that way and partly because they've been that way since 2010 now (and thus they surely have enough fans who love the toy designs as they are). If Meghan's role is as you describe, though, then maybe she can get Hasbro's toymakers to do stuff like giving the correct eyes to Rainbow Dash in all her toys, or other such details.
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Postby Headless Horse (?) » Fri Jun 05, 2015 11:21 am

Incidentally, it's true that Hasbro does iterate their Transformers properties really fast by comparison, starting a new show right on the heels of the last one and even (I think) having more than one show going on at the same time (certainly mixing shows and movies). I think maybe that's because they think boys and girls have fundamentally different attention spans or something, like they view Transformers toys as literally having no more lifespan than the show they come from. (And maybe this dimorphism has even gotten more prominent to them with FiM's success, perversely.)

The fact that Meghan is being named as head of storytelling for the Girls' brands specifically, underlining that to Hasbro Boys and Girls are completely different business units, seems to support that. Is there a similar position on the Boys side?
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Fri Jun 05, 2015 11:25 am

That's what SD said earlier:
ShieldedDiamond wrote:But that position has always been around, and there is naturally a boy counterpart as well (GI Joe, Transformers, that stuff).


If what you suggest is true then I would be interested in hearing why Hasbro's executives think they have to market things so differently just because of the genders of their customers.
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Postby londonarbuckle (?) » Fri Jun 05, 2015 11:30 am

Fizzbuzz wrote:That's what SD said earlier:


If what you suggest is true then I would be interested in hearing why Hasbro's executives think they have to market things so differently just because of the genders of their customers.


Ingrained cultural norms? I mean, I'm pretty sure this is still what literally everyone in charge thinks. :pinkieshrug:
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Fri Jun 05, 2015 1:21 pm

Yeah, but by bowing down to the shitty aspects of our culture, they're only perpetuating it. Wouldn't it be in their financial best interests to help eliminate gendered marketing in the long run? After all, once it's gone, then they don't have to pointlessly divide their brands and have separate people making separate campaigns for selling the same stuff to both boys and girls.
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Postby Headless Horse (?) » Fri Jun 05, 2015 1:35 pm

But that's what my question is about. Do they think that because FiM has had lasting appeal for the brand, despite being the kind of property generation (an experiment) that should have been a fire-and-forget, show-driven kind of thing like Transformers, it actually means that "girls' brands" are fundamentally bound to last longer? Like, they don't even see the "the show is good and thus it generates its own buzz" aspect; they just see it in terms of sales uptake rates and assume that because a girls' property that they ran this time like a boys' property ended up being much more long-lived than they expected, girls' properties deserve even more to be treated as a separate animal?
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Postby The Outlander (?) » Fri Jun 05, 2015 1:40 pm

Yeah, you'd think the ultimate goal would be to have every person on the planet buying every one of their products, but apparently they're fine with just 50% on two different sides that they've made up :-I
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Postby The Ghost Of Ember (?) » Fri Jun 05, 2015 1:40 pm

Fizzbuzz wrote:Yeah, but by bowing down to the shitty aspects of our culture, they're only perpetuating it. Wouldn't it be in their financial best interests to help eliminate gendered marketing in the long run? After all, once it's gone, then they don't have to pointlessly divide their brands and have separate people making separate campaigns for selling the same stuff to both boys and girls.


Gendered Marketing is actually very profitable
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Postby Headless Horse (?) » Fri Jun 05, 2015 2:01 pm

Anything'ed marketing is very profitable.

Target a demographic and you speak to your potential buyers more clearly. It's probably in their interest to reinforce "you girls are different from boys, here are some toys to prove it" because they're that much more likely to close those sales than if they had one product everyone vaguely liked but came with no tribal differentiators to make the buyer feel special.


E: But my point above is that Hasbro is not in the business of social engineering or creating gender equity; rather, they're in the business of exploiting every non-equity they can. In that sense their goals and Lauren Faust's are kind of at odds.
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Postby Master_Twig (?) » Fri Jun 05, 2015 2:10 pm

Girls are different than boys. The problem is when those differences are seen as negatives. Feminism isn't about saying everyone is the same and should be the same. It's about saying that the differences in our genders are a good thing, and that we should embrace femininity as something positive rather than subservient.

That's what's so great about Friendship is Magic. The Mane six are very diverse and show of many different ways to be a girl, but they're all still feminine.

I will agree that a lot of the gender norms marketed are harmful, but recognizing the differences between boys and girls and marketing to that is just common sense.
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Postby Headless Horse (?) » Fri Jun 05, 2015 2:17 pm

But the question about "attention span" remains open. :-I
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Postby Perrydotto (?) » Fri Jun 05, 2015 2:19 pm

Master_Twig wrote:Girls are different than boys. The problem is when those differences are seen as negatives. Feminism isn't about saying everyone is the same and should be the same. It's about saying that the differences in our genders are a good thing, and that we should embrace femininity as something positive rather than subservient.

That's what's so great about Friendship is Magic. The Mane six are very diverse and show of many different ways to be a girl, but they're all still feminine.

I will agree that a lot of the gender norms marketed are harmful, but recognizing the differences between boys and girls and marketing to that is just common sense.


Which differences are we talking about that matter in this context? I don't mean to be dense, I'm legit wondering. I get the differences between feminity and masculinity, but not the differences between girls and boys that matter here, except if you meant the same thing.
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Postby Master_Twig (?) » Fri Jun 05, 2015 2:35 pm

Well, it certainly isn't something that is always true, but we're talking marketing here, which is all about generalizing.

It's mainly that girls do tend towards preferring stories that deal with emotions and nurturing. Things like friendship lessons, exploring your emotions, and romance are things that generally are more appealing to girls than boys. If you market a story towards girls that has these elements, it's going to be more successful than if you market things towards them that are considered more masculine like transformers and GI Joe. Basically, stuff that deal with war and heavy conflict.

And of COURSE there are going to be exceptions. But if you want mass success, you don't market to the exceptions. The problems are when we say that it's not okay for a boy to like these things, and not okay for a girl to not like these things. I'm completely against any marketing that "just for boys" or "just for girls." But the fact of the matter is that most girls like girly things because they're girls, not because we have forced a gender norm onto them.
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Fri Jun 05, 2015 3:17 pm

Master_Twig wrote:It's mainly that girls do tend towards preferring stories that deal with emotions and nurturing. Things like friendship lessons, exploring your emotions, and romance are things that generally are more appealing to girls than boys. If you market a story towards girls that has these elements, it's going to be more successful than if you market things towards them that are considered more masculine like transformers and GI Joe. Basically, stuff that deal with war and heavy conflict.

And of COURSE there are going to be exceptions. But if you want mass success, you don't market to the exceptions. The problems are when we say that it's not okay for a boy to like these things, and not okay for a girl to not like these things. I'm completely against any marketing that "just for boys" or "just for girls." But the fact of the matter is that most girls like girly things because they're girls, not because we have forced a gender norm onto them.

We might be moving past overtly forcing gender norms (for the most part; I know it still happens plenty often in America's redder states), but by doing this sort of marketing, I think Hasbro is still passively implying that some things are to be liked by one gender and other things are to be liked by another gender. It's a subtle and insidious effect, but it's still there and I think it is still keeping gender inequality in place. As Headless Horse said, though...
Headless Horse wrote:E: But my point above is that Hasbro is not in the business of social engineering or creating gender equity; rather, they're in the business of exploiting every non-equity they can. In that sense their goals and Lauren Faust's are kind of at odds.

He is regrettably correct here. It's not necessarily Hasbro's job to be the vanguard of equal gender relations. Consider the scenario I proposed earlier in which Hasbro could save by not having to split their marketing efforts on the basis of gender. Sure, in the long run that would be better, but that's an extremely long game to play, long enough to where Mattel and other toy companies could exploit the segment of the market that still believes in gender separation and possibly grow bigger than Hasbro overall. This sort of change has got to start somewhere, but the unfortunate reality is that this change almost certainly ain't gonna be started by a single entity whose reason to exist is to make as much money as possible.
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Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Fri Jun 05, 2015 3:59 pm

Fizzbuzz wrote:That's what SD said earlier:


If what you suggest is true then I would be interested in hearing why Hasbro's executives think they have to market things so differently just because of the genders of their customers.


Demographics. It's just what's most profitable, they are a company first and foremost. And honestly, whether I agree with it or not, I feel like they have a "If it isn't broke, don't fix it" method to this. It's not really doing them badly, so they probably feel there's no reason to change it, rather than attempt to change and loose money.


Also, I know it was mentioned "Why skip to G5 when G4 is still making money?" The issue with that is that, as I said, it takes 2-3 years to plan a new release like that. They don't have time to wait until things go down, because then it's too late.
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