I grant you that what you say is true. However, they do make an american style train, and to only make that train available in a high-end set make sit seem like they could have made a few more intelligent choices in their product selections.
Also, they never gave the selection of trains that would appeal to hobbyists. It was marketed as a toy rather than a "train set". Asside from the auto based playsets which Hot Wheels and Matchbox already have the market nailed down for, it was mostly alot of robot trains and sci-fi'ish stuff that couldn't compete with the mass of sci-fi toys already avaialble here in the USA. Also, for the most recent series, you could buy strait and curved rails, but no switches!
Not that such choices would have gotten them the huge distribution through something like Toys R Us, but the combination train shop and better-toy shop is pretty common out here, and they would have lapped up the opportunity to have access to even a few of the japaneese and european style trains.
Suffice to say, Tomica/Playrail was marketed as just another toy and never given the chance to do what it does best. That is: provide a fairly realistic, mid-level model train experience.
(This post was last modified: 05-22-2014, 04:57 PM by eilif.)
Also, they never gave the selection of trains that would appeal to hobbyists. It was marketed as a toy rather than a "train set". Asside from the auto based playsets which Hot Wheels and Matchbox already have the market nailed down for, it was mostly alot of robot trains and sci-fi'ish stuff that couldn't compete with the mass of sci-fi toys already avaialble here in the USA. Also, for the most recent series, you could buy strait and curved rails, but no switches!
Not that such choices would have gotten them the huge distribution through something like Toys R Us, but the combination train shop and better-toy shop is pretty common out here, and they would have lapped up the opportunity to have access to even a few of the japaneese and european style trains.
Suffice to say, Tomica/Playrail was marketed as just another toy and never given the chance to do what it does best. That is: provide a fairly realistic, mid-level model train experience.
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