Hasbro reported its second quarter results this week. While Hasbro’s quarterly profit was nearly 8x higher than last year, the toy manufacturer announced that it will be raising the price of its action figures on September 1st to counter increased manufacturing and shipping costs. According to Bloomberg, the increase will be in the “mid-single-digit.”

Hasbro Inc., the maker of Monopoly and Transformers, fell 1.7 percent in New York trading after the toymaker said it will raise prices for a second time this year to counter higher costs to make action figures.

Second-quarter profit jumped almost eightfold following costs a year earlier to end part of a contract with “Star Wars” director George Lucas, Hasbro said today. The world’s second-largest toymaker said a “mid-single-digit” price increase on a percentage basis will go into effect Sept. 1.

I take the  “mid-single-digit” increase to be about 5%, which would mean a $0.35 increase for a $7 action figure or a $1 increase for a $20 toy like a Voyager class Transformer.

As promised, Hasbro has posted their Star Wars release guide. The guide includes a schedule listing all of the toys that will be released this fall, including those that will be available on July 26th. Needless to say, you’ll want to print this out and bring it along to “Midnight Madness”.

Hasbro has also posted a Clone Wars handbook which contains character profiles and pictures of many of the new toys. While we’ve seen many of the toys in the book, there are a few new pictures of things like the blue AAT.

If you want a sneek peek of some of the upcoming Star Wars toys, Bantha Skull has posted the entire Clone Wars catalog on their website. The catalog shows a number of the new 3-3/4″ toys as well as toys from the Galactic Heroes, Mighty Muggs and Transformers lines. Click on the pictures below for the entire catalog. 

Transfan2 of the TFW2005 boards found the first wave of the Transformers Animated Activators at a Toys R Us store in Cincinatti, Ohio. The Activators line is oriented towards younger kids. The toys feature a spring loaded transformation and include firing weapons and battle blades.

Along with Bumblebee, wave 1 includes Bulkhead and Starscream.

High gas prices keeping you from going out to look for the latest wave of Transformers Animated figures? Well, you’re in luck. HasbroToyShop.com has preorders up for Jazz, Oilslick, Snarl and Soundwave.

Jazz
Oilslick
Snarl
Soundwave

Unfortunately, it does not look like HasbroToyShop.com will be shipping these toys until September. If you can’t wait, you can order a case from Entertainment Earth or hit your local Target next week, during their sale.

The third wave of Hasbro’s Indiana Jones action figures is hitting stores now. Diddly of the Yakface forums found the Grail Knight, Indiana Jones with submachine gun, and Young Indy from this wave at his local Walmart store.

Wave three also includes Dr. Henry Jones (Sean Connery), Dr. Elsa Schneider and Colonel Vogel from the Last Crusade.