Trends, Best Toys and Toy of the Show For The 2013 International New York Toy Fair

Best Toys For 2013

There were a handful  of  best toys 2013 displayed at the toy show. These are toys from Fisher-Price, Mattel, Hasbro, and other top toy companies. We can’t possibly cover them here in this blog post.

Click Here For A Full List Of The Best Toys 2013

Toy Fair 2013

This February, the city of New York hosted the 2013 International New York Toy Fair. It’s amazing and at the same time hard to believe that this was the 109th Toy Fair! The Toy Fair is like a central hub for the $80+ billion global toy industry. As you can imagine all of the big toy stores had representatives and people from all over the world attended. In fact, it was reported that people from over 110 different countries attended the 2013 Toy Fair. Everyone was searching for the next big toy. The Toy Fair showcased approximately 100,000 toys, games, and entertainment products. Toy experts have observed six major trends for 2013:

Generation App	This trend involves the connection between toys and the tech world (e.g., toys + smart devices, toys + apps)
Glowing Wild	Toys that glow in the dark bring a fantastic aspect to play.
Little Learners	These toys target younger learners and they help build cognitive and development skills and help transform kids into life-long learners
Many Ways to Play!	These toys engage kids on many levels, most often through dynamic and customizable play.
Save and Splurge	Consumers are willing to purchase toys offering high play value or toys with that wow-factor. Shoppers are always attracted to lower-priced, affordable toys.
Young Maestros	Musical toys will be hot this year, as there will be a wide variety of products allowing kids to sing and dance.

Toy Of The Show

There were many hot toys from a variety of categories, but everyone wants to know what was the Toy of the Show? Surprisingly, this year the top toy of the year didn’t come from one of the major toy companies but rather from a smaller toy company. While there was no clear winner, one of the standouts was Popar Toys Books. This product utilizes augmented reality to reinvent the traditional book category. Essentially, it creates an immersive 3D reading experience for readers. Now with Popar books, readers can literally see their books come magically to life before their very eyes. Popar Toys reinvent the way we interact and experience story books, adventures, and learning.

Top Interactive Toys

Some of the top interactive toys for 2013 include Master Moves Mickey (M3), Laughter Unleashed Elmo, Bounce Bounce Tigger, Talking Justin Bieber, Ding-e Ding-e Babies, and Fijit Friends Yippits. We speculate that Master Moves Mickey will be the top toy in this category.

Nerf Guns

Nerf does it again! This year Nerf will unleash the Nerf N-Strike Elite, Nerf Dart Tag SpeedSwarm, Nerf Vortex Lumitron, and Nerf Snapfire 8. These are some of the hottest Nerf guns for 2013. The Nerf N-Strike Elite series is scheduled to be released on 9.9.12. The Elite series should offer the best combination of performance and range.

Interactive Pets

Hasbro has many new interactive pets planned for release by Fall 2013. These include FurReal Friends Baby Butterscotch, FurReal Friends Bouncy, FurReal Friends GoGo My Walkin’ Pup Glitter Edition, FurReal Friends GoGo’s My Walkin’ Puppies, FurReal Friends Snuggimals, and FurReal Friends Walkin’ Snuggimals. The best FurReal Friend this year is by far Baby Butterscotch.

LEGO Sets

LEGO has brand new releases for LEGO Star Wars sets, LEGO City sets, LEGO Ninjago sets, LEGO Lord of the Rings sets, and LEGO Friends sets. LEGO Friends is a new line designed specifically for girls.

Boys Toys

Skylanders: Giants is the successor to last year’s Skylander’s: Spyro’s Adventure. This hybrid toy combined the best of action figures and videogames to create an unparalleled experience.

Wall Tracks was the best boys toy for 2011 and this year the company has a new version in the works. Wall Tracks is basically a set of race tracks that are wall mountable. It’s a new concept that kids really seem to love.

Several branded toys based on cartoons or TV shows will be hot for 2013. Some of these include the Transformers toys, Transformers Prime Maximus Prime, and Power Rangers Zords / Megazords.

Star Wars is always hot and there will be many new toys based on the franchise in 2013. Some of the standouts include: Star Wars Hasbro MTT Droid Carrier, Star Wars Fighter Pods, and Star Wars Jedi Force.

There will be a motorized web-slinging Spider-Man toy as well as The Bat vehicle from The Dark Knight.

Some cool cars for 2013 include NASCAR Bashers and Cars Micro Drifters.

Kids will go nuts over the new Vtech Switch and Go Dinos, Hexbug Warriors, Zip Back Bow, and Air Hogs Battle Tracker

Girls Toys

Some of the top girls toys include Zoobles Pitter Pets, Lalaloopsy Littles, and Barbie Photo Fashion Dolls. With the new Barbie, girls can take photos and they will appear on Barbie’s LCD screen.

Tech Toys

There is never a shortage of cool tech toys for kids and in 2013 that trend continues. Fisher Price will be releasing a kid friendly toy called Fisher-Price Kid Tough DVR, which will presumably allow kids to record and playback video. App Drive is a toy that works together with your smart device and basically it allows you to better control racing games.

Art Toys

Crayola has some interesting releases in 2013. One of its neat new creations include the Crayola Air Brush and the other cool one is the Crayola Digital Light Designer.

Kids Rides

Razor has some new rides planned for release in 2013 and these are the Razor Flash Rider 360 and Razor Pip Skate. The Razor Flash Rider 360 literally puts a 360-degree spin on the classic tricycle. The Original Big Wheel is a new take on the classic tricycle.

Kids Plush Toys

Every year there are an abundance of cute and adorable plush toys and this year is no exception. Some of the highlights in this category include Ready For School Elmo, Pillow Pets (2013), UglyDoll Ugly Buddies, and Boo – arguably the World’s Cutest Dog.

Playsets

Kids love their playsets and some of the top playsets for this year include Sesame Street Cookie Monster Come ‘n Play Kitchen Café, Easy Bake Ultimate Oven, and Mattel Servin’ Surprise Cook and Serve Kitchen and Table. Boys will enjoy the Imaginext Eagle Talon Castle. And girls will love the Disney Princess Songs Palace.

Girls Dolls

There are many girls dolls so many parents will be wondering how do they choose which one to get their daughter. Some of the top girls dolls include Monster High Ghouls Rule Dolls, Disney Pixar Brave Toys, La Dee Da Dolls, Winx Club Toys, and for the younger set – we have the Disney Lights and Lullaby Baby Princess Dolls.

Top 2013 Collectibles

There won’t be any shortages on collectibles this year. Some of the top collectibles include the Dark Knight Rises Movie Masters Figures and Superman The Movie: Movie Masters. There will be all-new Beyblade toys for 2013 and they will be called Beyblade Stealth Battlers, Beyblade Beywheelz, Beyblade Destroyer Dome. Surprisingly, TMNT figures will be released and there will also be a new toy from Ty called Ty Monstas. Bobble Bots Moshi Monsters and Monsuno will be other hot collectibles this year.

Singing Toys

Singing and dancing is a big category that promotes creativity and expression. Kidz Bop is one of the toys that will be one of the big singing toys of the year.

Puzzle Toys

Many people like puzzles. New for 2013 will be 3D Breakthrough Puzzles and Perplexus Twist. These are just two concrete examples of some of the great puzzle toys for the year.

Analysis

The vast majority of the toys this year seem to be playing it safe possibly due in part to the still relatively weak economy. But as we all know, the toy industry is not fully affected by the economy. One thing is for certain, through tough times or not, people still buy their children toys. Toys are essential for their psychological development and to promote healthy lifestyles. The good thing is that there is something for every budget. If you are tight on money, there are budget-friendly toys for your kids that will give you the best bang for the buck. And for those who don’t mind splurging, there is also something for you at the other end of the spectrum. Most of the toys on this list are follow-ups to similar toys that have appeared on the market. While there is some innovation in the toy industry this year, there is not enough because it is a business risk. If a company were to invest millions of dollars into research and development and the product failed miserably due to poor reception, then the company would lose money. And in this weak economy not many companies are willing to cope with too much risk. We’re sure that in a stronger economy, we may see even more risk and more innovation. But don’t get us wrong – the toys that we saw at the 2013 Toy Fair were in no way underwhelming. We saw some pretty amazing toys and some downright reinventions of old classic toys, such as the Razor Flash Rider 360. There were also some cool tech toys (e.g., Fisher Price Kid-Tough DVR, Crayola Digital Light Designer) and glow in the dark toys (Nerf blasters). Some of the interactive toys that caught are eyes include Master Moves Mickey, Bounce Bounce Tigger, Fijit Friends Yippits, Ding-e Ding-e Babies, FurReal Friends Butterscotch, FurReal Friends, FurReal Friends Bouncy, FurReal Friends GoGo My Walkin’ Pup Glitter Edition, and FurReal Friends Walkin’ Snuggimals.

That’s A Wrap

There were plenty of great toys at the 2013 New York Toy Fair. Which ones are you most excited about? These toys are perfect for birthdays, gifts, or Christmas presents. We hope you’ve enjoyed this exclusive early coverage of hottest toys of the year and the trends that have emerged in the toy industry.

Click Here For A Full list Of The Best Toys 2013

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