LEGO officially discontinues augmented reality VIDIYO theme

Last summer, the LEGO Group issued a statement on its poorly-received VIDIYO theme, noting that it would be temporarily put on hiatus to reevaluate the future of the lineup. Now six months later, the company is back putting the final nail in the coffin for the augmented reality-driven sets.

LEGO officially discontinues VIDIYO theme

As a quick recap on the LEGO VIDIYO timeline, the theme first launched back in 2021 with a series of music-focused creations that let builders make their own music videos with a focus on augmented reality. No more than six months after first hitting store shelves, the LEGO Group announced that it would be putting the series on hiatus in order to rethink its strategy going forward.

In those first few months, we saw two different waves of sets launch. In total, there were 13 different kits including playset-style creations and the BeatBox pods. The most novel aspect of the theme was its minifigures, and there were two waves of the characters released over the first half of 2021 – though the printed tiles resembling iconic album artworks were a nice touch too.

As for what the future holds for VIDIYO following today’s announcement, the LEGO Group will begin phasing out the discontinued creations come the end of the month. The sets themselves will be discontinued as of January 31, though the actual app will be sticking around for another two years.

If you missed out on picking up any of the LEGO VIDIYO sets in the first year of the theme, retailers like Amazon will likely be clearing out the kits with very steep discounts attached. Considering they were selling for as much as 50% off already last year, odds are we’ll see some real close-out pricing go live to liquidate stock of the discontinued sets.

Here’s the full statement from the LEGO Group:

In July 2021 we decided to pause the LEGO VIDIYO roll-out to review performance and test new ideas. Through the extensive quantitative and qualitative research we have undertaken in the previous months, we have gained an enormous amount of learnings in terms of the music & content creation space and what it would take to succeed with the play experience, our go-to-market strategy in 2023 and not least how to build a sustainable business based on the VIDIYO experience.

Based on these insights we have decided to discontinue the physical VIDIYO products from January 31st 2022 but will continue to support the app experience for another two years to serve those consumers who have bought the products.

We still see great potential in pursuing music as a passion point and we will take learnings from LEGO VIDIYO as we continue to explore future fluid play experiences.

gadgetnewsonline’ Take:

I hate to say that I saw this from a mile away, but the official demise of LEGO VIDIYO is neither unexpected nor disappointing. I am sure there will be fans of the theme who are sad to see it go, but this latest attempt at the toys to life genre wasn’t all that memorable to begin with. They were mediocre sets from inception through today’s end, and most builders won’t be sad to see them go.

The LEGO Group does close its statement on discontinuing VIDIYO by noting it will be learning from the theme’s lack of success to explore “future fluid play experience.” Whether that means the company will be done with trying to bake tech into its sets or we’ll see another quirky and unique attempt down the road remains to be seen. But hopefully whatever is next from the LEGO Group will have a better execution than the half-baked experience that was VIDIYO.

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