-
New set news Posted by Huw, Dec 1 2008 3:46AM
There's some photos of the parts of a couple of the sets in alldark's Brickshelf gallery. Thanks to bluemoose for the news :-)
-
LEGOshop.com news Posted by Huw, Dec 2 2008 3:33PM
Check our list of sets added to LEGOShop.com (USA) regularly to keep up-to-date. I'm sure they'll be adding loads more in the coming weeks!
-
LEGOshop.com news Posted by shima55, Dec 6 2008 5:10PM
Once again, it is approaching a new year. For LEGO collectors, this usually means one thing: new sets! However, a word of caution, before you start stocking up on Pirates, Power Miners, and City Farm sets, make sure you have everything from this year that you want, as no one outside the LEGO Group knows exactly what will be discontinued. Based on previous years, however, it is almost a guarantee that certain sets WILL be discontinued. For instance: Star Wars Battle Packs, Racers Tiny Turbos, and BIONICLE Matoran are often hard to find around the holidays, and by the time the new year shows up, the next years line-up is there and the last years is gone. Don't forget Mars Mission is being replaced by a new Space line next year, too. Also, anything from 2007 should be snapped up fast, and it goes without saying that any Store Exclusives that are still around won't be for much longer, so grab them while you can!
-
New set news Posted by shima55, Dec 10 2008 1:35PM
Thanks to the early release of some 2009 LEGO sets, we now have confirmation for at least one new LEGO video game for 2009, LEGO Racers: The Video Game! The advertisement for the game, which features preliminary box art, can be seen on the top of certain 2009 Racers sets boxes. Systems the game will be released for have not yet been announced. This is the first non-licensed LEGO video game to be released since 2006's BIONICLE Heroes. It is also the forth racing-centric LEGO video game to be released, after 1999's LEGO Racers, 2001's LEGO Racers 2, and 2002's Drome Racers. We will keep you posted on any other 2009 LEGO video game news to come our way.
-
Miscellaneous news Posted by Huw, Dec 11 2008 3:07PM
Jan from LEGO has asked me to ask you to participate in an online survey:
"As Adult Fans of LEGO, you bring an important perspective to the LEGO Group. We respect your creativity and passion for our brand.
"Please take a few moments to complete this short online survey to let us know your opinion on how we are doing.
"We promise to listen to you and use your feedback to improve!
"You might notice that the link refers to the LEGO Kids Inner Circle; this is because Satmetrix, which hosts that site, is also supporting our efforts to track AFOL opinions. Rest assured that this survey is for AFOL's only. "
There's a question about favourite LEGO websites: don't forget to mention Brickset as one of yours!
As they are interested in responses from adults, please only respond if you're 18+.
Thanks!
-
LEGOshop.com news Posted by Huw, Dec 14 2008 4:47AM
If you're looking to buy gifts from LEGOShop.com for delivery before Christmas you'd better be quick and get ordering soon because the last shipping dates to guarantee pre-Christmas delivery are fast approaching! The exact date varies by country but for the UK it's December 16th and the USA it's December 22nd.
In previous years in the UK, the next year's sets have become available a day or two after the last shipping date, so let's hope that's the case this year so we can order our own presents for delivery just after Christmas!
-
New set news Posted by Huw, Dec 16 2008 3:57PM
Legoloco has sent us nice pictures of the forthcoming Architecture sets designed by Adam Reed Tucker. 21002 features the Empire State Building and 21003 the Seattle Space Needle. As great at these are, I hope future models will feature some European buildings. 30 St. Mary Axe (AKA the gherkin) in London would make a challenging subject!
What do you think he should make next?
-
Site update Posted by Huw, Dec 19 2008 1:50PM
Christmas is nearly upon us and it's traditional at this time of year to reflect on the year just passed, so inspired by this post on brothers-brick I thought I'd share some Brickset statistics.
The site has seen almost exactly a doubling of traffic since 2007. In 2008 there have been 35,173,212 (yes, that's 35 million) page views, 6,258,637 visits and 104,020,606 hits. This compares with 2007's figures of 18,065,605 views, 3,727,744 visits and 52,526,035 hits. (*)
In 2008 Brickset visitors wrote 7397 reviews, compared to 5491 in 2007.
Our top referring sites, excluding search engines which account for 90% of them, are:
I'm rather surprised by the number one site.
2009 is going to be a great year for LEGO and for Brickset. Over the last few months I have rewritten the entire site from scratch and very early in the New Year I will be launching it. I think you'll like it: It's not vastly different from the existing one but I've added loads of cool features, including the oft-requested ability to record how many of each set you own, which I think will be popular. It'll also be a more programatically robust system on which I can continue to build new features so once you see it, if there anything you think I could add, then I'll be happy to consider doing so.
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your support for Brickset: using its features, writing reviews and comments and last but not least buying your LEGO from LEGOshop.com via our links.
Huw
* Hits include images, stylesheets etc. visits are user sessions during which a single visitor will usually view more than one page, and page views are the hits on the actual html pages so are a more meaningful measure.
-
LEGOshop.com news Posted by Huw, Dec 21 2008 12:35PM
If you're near a LEGO brand store (Brighton, Milton Keynes or Bluewater) you should be able to grab some 2009 sets before Christmas. Bluemoose reports that in addition to the town square (priced at a very reasonable 68.50) "they have both new Indy sets (car chase & german plane), both new Star Wars 'army builder' sets, new Jedi starfighter & clone assault gun-boat thing, some of the new racer sets, the new City crane & City digger, the new mini F-14-like creator set, but no Miners or Farm yet."
No sign of them on LEGOshop.com yet though. Looks like we'll have to wait a bit longer to be able to order them from there...
-
Miscellaneous news Posted by Huw, Dec 24 2008 6:43AM
I'd like to wish all Brickset users a Merry Christmas! I hope Santa leaves you all lots of rattling boxes under the tree or in your stocking. There won't be any under my tree unfortunately, but I did get to the Brighton LEGO store yesterday to buy my own presents (10 or so 2009 sets!)
Be sure to log in tomorrow and let us all know what you received.
-
New set news Posted by Huw, Dec 24 2008 7:09PM
The images are too rubbish for us to use here at Brickset but you can get a feel for what the sets will be like in this Brickshelf gallery. Thanks to lukekis07 for the news.
-
LEGOshop.com news Posted by Huw, Dec 25 2008 4:33AM
Power Miners, Pirates and many more sets are now available for order from LEGOShop.com! No sign of the City Farm sets though. Has anyone found them in Europe yet?
They should appear in our product feed in the next day or so.
Update: Most of the new sets are listed on US LEGOshop.com too. Click through on the yellow link on the left to check them all out!
-
Site update Posted by Huw, Dec 26 2008 4:58AM
I've completed the upgrade -- let me know what you think about it, or if you encounter any problems.
Update: The 'My sets' owned/wanted lists should now be working again.
-
LEGOshop.com news Posted by Huw, Dec 29 2008 7:24AM
The post-Christmas sale has started at LEGOShop.com. There's plenty of Mars Mission, Exo-Force, City and even some Star Wars sets at about 2/3rds price. See what's on offer by clicking on Sale now on link on the right!
-
New set news Posted by Grahame, Dec 30 2008 3:20PM
Although these images are not suitable for use here at Brickset, you can get a feel for what these new City sets will be like in this Brickshelf gallery. Thanks to Luke for the news.
-
Miscellaneous news Posted by shima55, Dec 31 2008 8:06AM
2009 is almost here, and we are all excited for the return of Pirates and (sort of) the Rock Raiders. But let’s look back at some of the highlights our favorite toy company had during the current year, because whether it was a new robotic arm for your minifigure, or a mask of life for your favorite Toa, we can all agree 2008 was a banner year.
Old favorites
Creator continued its tradition of not including figures with any sets in the theme, but gave us great reason to buy some extras to populate its brilliant minifigure scale sets, such as 4996 Beach House or 4997 Transport Ferry.
City started off with a bang, bringing a new subtheme into play, Cargo, featuring long-awaited mail vehicles and other things essential to getting LEGO sets to our doors, as well as a sprucing up to the Police line. The expansion wasn’t done yet, as the Coast Guard arrived on the scene in late 08, making all our LEGO cities that much more realistic.
Castle brought two brand new factions our way, (after a small preview to U.S. audiences in 07) the Trolls and the Dwarfs, each with their own unique building style. Knight armies were also built up, and an expansion to our Castles was even released in the form of 7037 Tower Raid.
Space was back in a big way, with the Mars Mission theme bringing with it new, poseable alien commander figures, as well as some interesting design throwbacks to some of our favorite Space sets. Unfortunately, this is the last year for the Mars Mission theme, but don’t worry, Space won’t be leaving us again that soon!
And of course, the Racers blasted back onto shelves in 08 with more Tiny Turbos, more Power Racers, more Ferrari, and (we hope) more sales! There was another feature added this year, but you should check out the licensed themes for that.
A new feature for most of the above themes is a return to form of sorts for the LEGO Company, with the new Impulse range. Consisting of several small, reasonably priced sets, they made it easy to create armies of Knights, Spacemen, Policemen, and Garbage men(?), as well as making it easy for the average kid to start down the same path we did, however long ago that may have been.
Licensed themes
LEGO dug deeper into the Lucasfilm legend this year with the release of the new Indiana Jones theme, which brought Adventurers-style building back to the store shelves. Along with several successful sets, a video game based on the theme was released, earning itself a place in the top ten best-selling Wii games of 2008 in North America.
SpongeBob SquarePants saw three new sets in 08, and Batman came back, too, bringing along the new Harley Quinn minifigure. No doubt thanks to the release of the new film, The Dark Knight, the much-requested Tumbler was released as well. A video game was also released for him.
And the Racers finally saw minifigures again with the Speed Racer subtheme based on the movie based on the animated series based on the 1960’s comic book from Japan. No doubt this got the nostalgia going for a number of Adult Fans Of LEGO.
Of course, LEGO licenses are all follow-ups to the original Star Wars deal, and the little LEGO people in a galaxy far, far, away broke much new ground this year. Although many classic-styled sets were released including the instant classic 10188 Death Star, the Expanded Universe came into play in a major way this year. For starters, a set based off the best-selling video game Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, was released in January. But the big news this year was the start of The Clone Wars subtheme. Bolstered on by a brand new movie/TV show based on a little-explored area of the Star Wars timeline, the new sets gave us many new Jedi figures, all rendered in the unique style created by the show.
Other endeavors
The most hated and most loved LEGO theme ever, BIONICLE, made sure we all remembered 2008 as a big year. Whether we follow the story or not, who didn’t notice the giant, complicated-looking red, blue, and green vehicles with a small BIONICLE figure gripping the handlebars, and wasn’t tempted to try it out?
On a sad note, the Japanese mecha inspired EXO-FORCE theme was discontinued in 2008, following the dismal sales of the 2007 line, with only seven small, jungle-themed sets to mark its passing.
Secrecy returned to the LEGO universe with the launch of the new Agents theme. Similar to 2001-2005’s Alpha Team, it features a team of secret agents attempting to stop an evil mastermind. Dissimilar to Alpha Team, the mastermind and his minions came with several new cyborg/mutant pieces, making one of the most unique minifigure lineups ever.
The Future
Several of us have seen some of the 2009 lineup, and I think we can all agree it is one of the best ever, with several of our favorite themes making a comeback. 2008 definitely left its mark on LEGO, and hopefully, with the strong line-up of current themes, we will see an even bigger and better mark at the end of next year.
