All About Bricks Question & Answer

A new column, that I didn’t imagine would kick off this soon, has sprung up from the buzz around the rumour lists for next year’s LEGO range. The following questions were asked by readers of All About Bricks, and I have endeavoured to answer them. So read on to find out something or nothing about Technic, Castle, Harry Potter and the chances of a Super Heroes video game.

Ryan asked: “Everyone’s thinking there will be a LEGO Super Heroes video game, but will it be DC and Marvel? How likely is it?”

Anyone can tell you that with the popularity of these games that it’s likely. But I’ll tell you that it’s Summer 2012 likely (bear in mind though how often video games get pushed back). How the DC and Marvel licensing thing will work out with it I’m not sure yet.

Ondra asked “Is there possibility get some information about Technic sets?”

So here is a rumour list of Technic sets potentially coming from LEGO in 2012. As with all of the previous rumour lists, nothing is confirmed at this stage, they are just rumours.

9390 Mini Tow Truck
9391 Tracked Crane
9392 Quad Bike
9394 Jet Plane
9395 Pick-Up Tow Truck

Michael Rex asked if there was “any word on new Castle sets?”

Not the Castle/Kingdom sets are used to. But a new theme is heading into the mix towards the end of 2012, as revealed at the end of the article “Are LEGO taking on too many licenses?”. This theme is probably too similar to Castle/Kingdoms for LEGO to have both out at once.

Beth wrote in to ask about the fate of Harry Potter. “Surely this had hardly had a chance to get going again before being cancelled? With another video game coming out I’m not convinced there will not be more sets.”

This was the reaction of many when back in 2009 I said there would be no more LEGO Indiana Jones in 2010 - disbelief. LEGO even gave an official statement to say that the rumour was wrong. Well technically Indiana Jones may not have been cancelled. But there were no new sets, and it was not easy to get any Indiana Jones sets after the Summer. Just like Harry Potter, a new video game had only just come out at this point.

For some reason, LEGO seems more content now to finish a theme themselves rather than wait for sales to go down. Or maybe they buy the rights to licenses for shorter periods of time, rather than going for long term deals. Either way, it is frustrating, and I’m sure Harry Potter could have continued quite happily for another year. I’m sure it would have sold less sets than this year (as this year there is a movie out), but I would imagine interest would still have been high enough to sustain it for a bit longer.

So there we have it, the first All About Bricks Question & Answer. This feature will appear again on the site if I get more questions, but it really does depend on how many questions and the quality of them. I can’t often just answer questions with future information, as it’s only occasionally that I have it. So leave your questions in the comments section, and I’ll aim to answer them in the next Q&A.