Less than two years after rolling out toy exclusives and direct retail options to toy collectors in Asia, American toy company Hasbro is pulling the plug on its Hasbro Pulse service in Asia. The notice on the shutdown was made known on the website’s homepage today, on the day of its shutdown.
The service, which offers crowded-funded collectible exclusives, including Transformers and Ghostbusters, made its debut as a store in the US in February 2019, and launched in Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia in May 2023. It was made available in Taiwan in July 2023.
The service is supported by the annual virtual fan-oriented Hasbro Pulse Con event, where crowd-funded collectibles, such as Star Wars The Vintage Collection Mos Eisley Cantina and Ghostbusters Plasma Series Ectomobile (Anniversary Edition) are made available for fans.
While there was demand for the releases, Geek Culture understands that market conditions in the region, including frequent sales and promotions by retailers, made it more attractive for consumers to adopt a wait and see approach before buying from stores, as prices can be much lower than ordering directly from Hasbro Pulse.
The Asia operations has official shut down as of 10 January 2025, at 9am GMT+8. However, they sites will continue to take orders on pre-order items until 12 January 2025 at 11:59pm GMT+8, and all orders on in-stock items until 7 February 2025 at 11:59pm GMT+8. All existing pre-orders and HasLab funded orders prior to today’s shutdown will still be fulfilled. More details are available on Hasbro Pulse’s FAQ page.
Speaking of HasLab projects, here are some of our favourite ones we have obtained over the past few years (before Hasbro Pulse Asia started operations):
Yonk is a geek who is fortunate enough to have an equally geeky Star Wars fan for a wife, who owns a LEGO Millennium Falcon encased in a glass coffee table as their home’s centre-piece.
Si Jia
