Lego City 2022 Rumours, Leaks, Information And Discussion

[Lion King]

I’m under impressed that we (North Americans)  get these cool sets until August 1st. It totally doesn’t make sense at all. 

Well, I guess I will try to buy farm animals off B&P or Bricklink or eBay….

Cow says “moo”

Sheep says “baaa”

pig says “oink”

Lego fans say “DARN IT!”

[jonwil]

I wonder if the delay in North America has to do with lingering effects from the pandemic. Is LEGO back up to full production worldwide yet?

 

[Lion King]

4 hours ago, jonwil said:

I wonder if the delay in North America has to do with lingering effects from the pandemic. Is LEGO back up to full production worldwide yet?

 

I don’t have an answer to your quesiton but it kinda doesn’t make sense to me. Jurassic World sets were released worldwide on April 117th and Harry Potter sets will be released on June 19th. 

New Monkie Kid and Ninjago sets will be released on August 1st instead of June 1st. Friends sets will be released on May 29. 

[TeriXeri]

9 hours ago, jonwil said:

I wonder if the delay in North America has to do with lingering effects from the pandemic. Is LEGO back up to full production worldwide yet?

 

North America is suffering a lot from container shortages, and the shanghai port lockdowns, I know most NA LEGO is made in mexico but there are certainly lingering transport problems. 

Both Europe and America also have shortages of Truck drivers.

I don't know where LEGO gets it's raw materials like ABS and Coloring from for each factory, or how many parts are made in China itself.

But this is more affecting the "Out of Stock" issues rather then Release dates.

Edited May 6, 2022 by TeriXeri

[williejm]

17 minutes ago, DBlegonerd7 said:

I don’t have an answer to your quesiton but it kinda doesn’t make sense to me. Jurassic World sets were released worldwide on April 117th and Harry Potter sets will be released on June 19th. 

New Monkie Kid and Ninjago sets will be released on August 1st instead of June 1st. Friends sets will be released on May 29. 

I think that only speaks to the priority that different themes / licenses are getting, not least because of because tie-ins with movie releases, and licence agreements

[Maple]

7 hours ago, jonwil said:

I wonder if the delay in North America has to do with lingering effects from the pandemic. Is LEGO back up to full production worldwide yet?

 

I don't think so. Pretty sure LEGO did this before the pandemic. NinjaGo would get released January in Europe and March in USA. I just figured it's so they can make more sets.

[TeriXeri]

1 hour ago, Maple said:

I don't think so. Pretty sure LEGO did this before the pandemic. NinjaGo would get released January in Europe and March in USA. I just figured it's so they can make more sets.

True, June and August seperation has been a thing for themes between EU and North America for quite a while.

 

[LCP]

It's a Lego City foil pack that will be released in June 2022.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CdPDjJGBlrl/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

[jus1973]

On 5/3/2022 at 7:28 PM, danth said:

Maybe, but I don't have any expectation that Lego would pass savings on to their customers.

In fact, I'd be perfectly happy if all the Lego execs took a pay cut so we could get paper inserts showing other sets, prints instead of stickers, and alt builds on the back of each box.

The alternative builds would be a welcome return for sure. 

[TeriXeri]

5 hours ago, jus1973 said:

The alternative builds would be a welcome return for sure. 

Now of course 3-in-1 exists and Technic does have 2-in-1 smaller sets regularly, however for other sets I have a few concerns.

• Official Alternate builds on a box would have people "demand" instructions for them (people are a lot more entitled today as well)
• Is the Alternate build for a set an afterthought or designed alongside the main model if they would re-implement it.
• Is there really big demand for it? While alternates for 3-in-1, Speed Champion, or Creator Expert vehicles seem numerous on Rebrickable, many sets have none at all, Animals and Cars look like the most popular categories.
• I don't think LEGO would make official alternates for sets like Speed Champions or Creator Expert due to the set being based around a specific car type , people would complain about the cars not being their own sets, or not being accurate, for City it'd be perfectly fine tho.

3-in-1 sometimes have a 4th, 5th or even 6th downloadable model, maybe LEGO should do that method instead of the old back-of-box thing, and maybe with a link, LEGO already advertises their digital instructions so adding alternates there would be easy as well.

Overall it's very nice that sites like Rebrickable exist and I do hope the popularity increases, especially in other set themes and set types.

 

Edited May 7, 2022 by TeriXeri

[danth]

3 hours ago, TeriXeri said:

Official Alternate builds on a box would have people "demand" instructions for them (people are a lot more entitled today as well)

Well, now they're making sets that say "Build with story, not instructions", so apparently Lego isn't worried about it.

I think if you want to cultivate an imaginative style of play, you have to do something like back-of-the-box builds with no instructions. Maybe with a blurb as well: "Can you figure out how to build these models without instructions? Or better yet, build your own!" Turn it into a challenge.

[TeriXeri]

20 minutes ago, danth said:

Well, now they're making sets that say "Build with story, not instructions", so apparently Lego isn't worried about it.

I think if you want to cultivate an imaginative style of play, you have to do something like back-of-the-box builds with no instructions. Maybe with a blurb as well: "Can you figure out how to build these models without instructions? Or better yet, build your own!" Turn it into a challenge.

True, I'm certainly not against back of box alternates, or anything like it, in fact I loved it, I was mainly thinking how today's world it would work.

LEGO tries the whole "build your own" with the Classic theme (which still have some starter instructions), but the models are usually so small, can't really compare to sets.

Of course people can build something big (and very colorful) with all the pieces, 3 of the new 2022 sets have 1100, 1600 , 1700 pieces.

Mission sets look like an okay start point at least (apart from the whole app thing)

Edited May 7, 2022 by TeriXeri

[danth]

Just now, TeriXeri said:

True, I'm certainly not against back of box alternates, or anything like it, in fact I loved it, I was mainly thinking how today's world it would work.

Understood, I guess I was trying to offer a possible solution, you know, trick people into liking alt builds with no instructions. 😁

I have some doubt about the whole story where "LEGO desperately wanted to continue back of the box alt builds, but those pesky parents DEMANDED instructions for them, so LEGO had no choice but to remove them." Always sounded like a made up excuse to me.

[AndreMW]

Parents in the US actually sued Lego in the past for the lack of instructions.

[The Island Chronicles]

32 minutes ago, AndreMW said:

Parents in the US actually sued Lego in the past for the lack of instructions.

Yeah so Lego wouldn't do sets without instructions. 

[danth]

15 hours ago, AndreMW said:

Parents in the US actually sued Lego in the past for the lack of instructions.

Surely such a lawsuit would have made the news. Do you have any links to such news articles?

[jus1973]

16 hours ago, AndreMW said:

Parents in the US actually sued Lego in the past for the lack of instructions.

That, if true, and they were successful, is a sad indictment of the state of adults minds when it comes to toys that are designed to allow imaginations to work.  I doubt that would get much play in the UK or Europe.  It would be laughed out of any court.

Part of the fun I had as a child was figuring out how to make the back of the box alternate builds, or making a set that I didn’t have, from the bricks that I did.  Isn’t that part of the fun when you’re growing up with Lego, or was I the only one?

[Maple]

17 hours ago, AndreMW said:

Parents in the US actually sued Lego in the past for the lack of instructions.

I have tried to explain this to LEGO cultists before, they don't understand how insane the lawsuits in the USA are. People will sue over everything. Those mission sets don't have paper instructions of any kind so that's probably how LEGO gets around that. Use the app.

Target USA has 20% off a bunch of City sets this week.

[The Island Chronicles]

2 minutes ago, Maple said:

Target USA has 20% off a bunch of City sets this week.

No way! Are you serious?  I hope 60317 is one of them. 

[Maple]

1 minute ago, Poodabricks said:

No way! Are you serious?  I hope 60317 is one of them. 

Nope. The fire and police station are. Bank and school are not.

[The Island Chronicles]

1 minute ago, Maple said:

Nope. The fire and police station are. Bank and school are not.

Darn! I was hoping the bank would be one. I need the bank for my town. Maybe I can find it on eBay for cheaper. 

[Maple]

1 minute ago, Poodabricks said:

Darn! I was hoping the bank would be one. I need the bank for my town. Maybe I can find it on eBay for cheaper. 

Probably.

Here's the link to all the sets, Friends is also on sale and mixes well with City.

https://www.target.com/b/lego/-/N-56h5nZj48k8Zakkos?type=products

[Faefrost]

On 5/6/2022 at 10:30 AM, Maple said:

I don't think so. Pretty sure LEGO did this before the pandemic. NinjaGo would get released January in Europe and March in USA. I just figured it's so they can make more sets.

Much of it has to do with the complex logistics involved in manufacturing Lego. They tend to do Staggered Releases for the huge Mass MArket themes and lines with an offset between Europe and North America. There are a number of reasons for this. All involving logistics. But here's one of the big ones that we don't really think about. Europe and North America both have huge full service manufacturing plants. So outside of special run stuff like D2C etc, Most sets released on European Shelves are manufactured at the Euro factories and most sets sold in North America are made in the Mexico factory. Lego tool sets. The molds that they use to make Lego parts are extremely expensive. The tooling will cost between $100,000-$500,000 USD. To put this in perspective due to the extremely high precision needed from every Lego piece in all axis, plus the need for the highest quality ABS, Lego's tooling costs are the highest in the toy industry, and possibly the highest for any Injection Molded plastic manufacturer. Mattel's Barbie does not need to connect to every other Barbie ever made with 6 axis of precision. So the tooling is expensive. So While each factory has one or more toolsets of the most commonly needed elements, for stuff that is new, or is used less, or is very specialized, there may only be 1 set of tooling company wide. And this tool set is shared among the factory's. Because it is cheaper to move the tool for a few weeks use at a time than it is to ship millions of pieces. So the European and North America Factory's will be careful planning and scheduling, have production offsets. The factory's will not and pretty much cannot be making the same sets at the same time. So each is working on a slightly different schedule. And this results in some regional offsets for when product hits the street. Because unless dictated by a license contract for a Hard Date, such as stuff related to a movie, you don't really want or need finished product clogging your warehouse shelves waiting for the other side of the world to catch up. So one region may be getting new Ninjago this week while another gets City. It's all about the Logistics of keeping the factory's humming with maximum efficiency. 

[The Island Chronicles]

3 hours ago, Maple said:

Probably.

Here's the link to all the sets, Friends is also on sale and mixes well with City.

https://www.target.com/b/lego/-/N-56h5nZj48k8Zakkos?type=products

I could use that mobile unit though. Maybe that'll be my next buy. That car transporter too. 

Edited May 8, 2022 by Poodabricks

[danth]

4 hours ago, jus1973 said:

That, if true, and they were successful, is a sad indictment of the state of adults minds when it comes to toys that are designed to allow imaginations to work.  I doubt that would get much play in the UK or Europe.  It would be laughed out of any court.

 

3 hours ago, Maple said:

I have tried to explain this to LEGO cultists before, they don't understand how insane the lawsuits in the USA are. People will sue over everything.

Just want to remind everyone this is all urban legend until there is some evidence for it ever happening.