Why did the ROC movie toys fail?

The transcript of Hasbro's 2009 Earnings Call is up, and it has something interesting to offer.

During the question and answer segment of the call, Hayley Wolff, an analyst for Rochdale Securities, asked two questions that will be of interest to collectors. The first was about the sales split between the US and international markets for GI Joe and Transformers (answer: 60/40). The second was about the Rise of Cobra sales, to which Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner responded:

I think one of the big mistakes we made on G.I. Joe was really just in the pricepoint. It really had less to do with the enjoyment of property. In fact if you look at the DVD sales they were quite strong and property performed really well. At the lower price points G.I. Joe has performed very well, in fact we shipped G.I. Joe product in the fourth quarter and feel very good about, we did some research with consumers and see great consumer appetite for the brand.

We’ve begun work on the second film as well as looking at television. For us it was more a matter of probably ignoring some of the price point challenges that are out there from a consumer spending standpoint as we developed the line 18 months ahead of the movie launch.

It's refreshing to see a spokesman - especially one so high in the company - being that honest. People liked the ROC toys, but the price was just too high.