[stormbrew]

This is kind of off-topic, but still kind of relevant I think.

I think the 'killer' for Lego is going to eventually be 3d printers. A subscription service for lego sounds cool and all, but I'd rather be printing exactly the pieces I want (or going to a local vendor using a fancier 3d printer to make them). I kind of see this toy angle being the first probably breakthrough for it once the tech gets good enough.

I've long had a theory that Lego is vulnerable to 3d printers in exactly the same way as Polaroid was to digital cameras. Polaroid also seemed on top of the world for a while, but they clung to their model too long and it was too late.

[Gracana]

Sure you can print interlocking bricks with a 3D printer, but there are some problems to solve if you want to even approach the quality of legos. The lego interlocking bump mechanism alone is a precision interface which requires tight tolerances and a controlled surface finish, both of which are currently impossible to match with 3D printing technology. The outside dimensions of the parts are quite important as well, particularly the vertical dimension: deviations run-to-run and-part-to-part will give you trouble with accumulating height offset errors in stacks of bricks. Where bricks should match up, they may not.

[stormbrew]

You may note I did not say it's possible now, but it would be absurd to think that it won't at some point in the future. You could have said the same about early digital cameras, which produced incredibly shitty pictures compared to even a polaroid. And that even when polaroid began to get utterly destroyed by digital cameras they still weren't really up to snuff, other factors overrode their low quality.

And if Lego wants to survive it when it does come, imo they should be thinking about this now.

[malkia]

And my kid can spot the difference between LEGO and some other brands, even if the pieces are compatible - it's something about the texture, the coloring, and how they stick together that makes LEGO unique.

Recently he got some cheap "no-name" chinese produced "lego-clone" - just a tractor and a character to drive it. It was so bad, the pieces were not sticking together properly. The character's head kept falling off, and the hair piece too.

But eventually he used some real lego "replacement" pieces and did it.

We must have like 10,000+ pieces now... If only there was a sorting LEGO machine!

[arb99]

It is a kids toy. They see it in a kids toy shop and want to buy it. There are already non lego bricks but every kid knows they're not as good, never work properly.

Plus no matter how great 3d printers become, the bricks would still need designing, and making sure they have the exact fit on each other like lego bricks always do.

lego won't be killed off by 3d printing.

[primitivesuave]

Laser sintering can supposedly achieve the resolution of the Lego molds, but the technology is very expensive and much slower than Lego's injection molding process. Chances are we won't see this in the hands of consumers for another 5 - 10 years, but I totally agree with you that it will eventually happen.