Toys R Us to close all 800 of its U.S. stores
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madman
Blame madman, You Know You Want To.,
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There was. It's in the link you provided.
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Never heard of Kiddie City. In New England we had a store called Child's World, though. They had AES games.
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^^^
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The North Reading location got turned into a bowling alley that was actually really good. Big balls. They closed in '06 or '07 though.
ChopstickSamurai
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Children's Palace was a cool store too. First place I ever saw Turbografx stuff.
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You're welcome.
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Checked out the wiki regarding Kiddie City, at one point it was the nation's second-largest toy store and apparently merged with (unknown to me) the third largest, Child's World.
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Ha, crazy!
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And, it's coming back.
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Twitter and Facebook. They also commented on the picture that went viral yesterday saying that Geoffrey was just going on a "little vacation"
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The rumor on social media is that one of the former CEOs has teamed up with the group that tried to buy it already and a "major US retailer" to attempt to buy the IP. Supposedly there is an auction occuring in August. Take all that with a grain of salt.
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I agree this all needs to be taken with a grain of salt until further details of exactly what they are discussing is released. The only part of this that seems odd is the fact that they are mentioning more is coming, which would mean the current iteration of TRU is going to remain in some capacity. I don't see how they could throw something like this out there to the masses if they are hoping for an opportunity to buy the IP. That is why I'm betting on it just being a continuation of their Imaginarium brand toys and Babies R Us brands being sold in other stores.
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You're probably right, but I think another route they could take is a store-within-a-store like Apple and Samsung in Best Buy. Target or whoever could gut their toy aisles and put up TRU signage and whatnot.
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going to toys r us and seeing all the tmnt, thunder cats, transformers, ghost busters, he man toys and playsets was some of the best memories of my childhood. but toys went shit after the 80's and so did the toys r us experience.
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toys were still super cool in the 90s!! Beast Wars, video game toys etc.
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Yeah, OG Power Rangers series was great. They were huge. And the Megzord and Dragonzord sets were amazing. Oh and the morpher / dagger pack.
I'm trying to think of what else...
I loved the Resident Evil figures when those came out. Still have 'em but am planning on selling them. I remember magazines previewing them but they took forever to actually get on the shelves.
The Terminator 2 figures were cool. I hadn't seen the movie back then. I just liked the Terminator design because it was so creepy without being gorey.
I'm trying to think of what else...
I loved the Resident Evil figures when those came out. Still have 'em but am planning on selling them. I remember magazines previewing them but they took forever to actually get on the shelves.
The Terminator 2 figures were cool. I hadn't seen the movie back then. I just liked the Terminator design because it was so creepy without being gorey.
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oh, yeah, dont even get me started on the power rangers. i had like, all of the metallic 12 inch jointed figures or whatever, and the regular ones, and a ton of the villains. I used to always look at the picture that was on the back of those, I think it was like some kid with ALL of the toys in a bathtub or something. Made me so jealous. The figure I wanted that I never got was the Silent Knight villain.
I had the Green Ranger turtle zord, and the whole megazord with all the Rangers' individual zords. Connect them together to make the big daddy. Ummmm.... I still remember when Power Rangers In Space were kinda big, certain rangers were always sold out, particularly the silver and black ones if i recall correctly.... I had the Red guy and the silver guy.
And TRU was where I went to get all of them. Seemed like there was an entire aisle dedicated to Power Rangers although that is probably just my little kid brain speaking.
I had the Green Ranger turtle zord, and the whole megazord with all the Rangers' individual zords. Connect them together to make the big daddy. Ummmm.... I still remember when Power Rangers In Space were kinda big, certain rangers were always sold out, particularly the silver and black ones if i recall correctly.... I had the Red guy and the silver guy.
And TRU was where I went to get all of them. Seemed like there was an entire aisle dedicated to Power Rangers although that is probably just my little kid brain speaking.
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I remember always wanting to go straight to the clearance aisle at TRU because they would have the craziest shit. Like stuff they found in the corner in a warehouse. I found a bunch of Zelda trophy-type things and a Gumby-style Battletoads figure there, off the top of my head.
Hikaru Ichijyo
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We drove past our local location and they had papers on all of the doors saying that the location was now closed. There were still people pulling into the lot as we were leaving and a quick glance into the store showed that it was virtually barren.
I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if there were scores of people waiting to snap up the branding rights to TRU/KRU/BRU/Imaginarium. The brand is just way too popular/ingrained.
The Store-In-A-Store seems rather plausible but I think with the right management they could run a B&M operation as well. IMO I think if someone were to resurrect the B&M business that they change it up to where instead of there being multiple locations per city that they instead go the Ikea route and have one super store per metropolitan area.
One floor could be dedicated to the KRU/BRU business with kids clothes/baby stuff and the main floor could be for the toy store with a section for set up play-sets, a bike-store-in-a-store and of course a proper video game area.
Of course with fewer locations and warehousing on site they would have to price themselves more in line with their competitors and not do that $5 more bullshit.
I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if there were scores of people waiting to snap up the branding rights to TRU/KRU/BRU/Imaginarium. The brand is just way too popular/ingrained.
The Store-In-A-Store seems rather plausible but I think with the right management they could run a B&M operation as well. IMO I think if someone were to resurrect the B&M business that they change it up to where instead of there being multiple locations per city that they instead go the Ikea route and have one super store per metropolitan area.
One floor could be dedicated to the KRU/BRU business with kids clothes/baby stuff and the main floor could be for the toy store with a section for set up play-sets, a bike-store-in-a-store and of course a proper video game area.
Of course with fewer locations and warehousing on site they would have to price themselves more in line with their competitors and not do that $5 more bullshit.
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When did Toys R Us start charging over MSRP? I remember as a kid if I ever saw something I wanted at KB, I'd wait and get it at Toys R Us because KB was higher than MSRP but TRU was spot on if not a little lower for sale items.
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I couldn't tell you, cause at least here in MA they weren't. Everything was on par with Target. Amazon usually has a cheaper price, but nobody can compete with the volume.
Kid Panda
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I will say this, when Final Fantasy 3 came out, the local KB was out of stock and it was priced at 89.99. My friend and I drove to Greensboro, NC to a TRU and I paid 109.99 for my copy, a month later the local Wal-Mart had it and was priced at 79.99. I have no idea why the price point on that game in particular was all over the place, but it was an instance where TRU was way over MSRP.