Almighty Unicron wrote:What is up with these "simplified" designs? I don't get the long term strategy they're going for here. Same price, but bigger and yet shittier? I dunno, I can't fathom if I'd want that as a kid. I, personally, am sick of when hasbro starts to bloat a line with multiple iterations of the same character that look similar- if you're going to put out multiple versions of a character's toy at least have it be a new mold (like the difference between RID and BH optimus prime, or like when Primal became a Transmetal).
They presented it as "returning to the fun", it was a very good spin strategy, but what I think is really going on is that they ran out of product designs for the end of the year, with Prime ending and the new movie coming out, there was a gap, perhaps a canceled line in the middle, and they just upsized some Cyberverse figures to fill that gap.
I talked to a kid while I was shooting those new items, he was spot on in the age group, like 9 or 10 I think, and he was very into the brand, immediately recognized they were upsized Legion figures, but also felt interested in getting them anyway.
The Voyager Optimus and Predaking from the Cyb Commanders are REALLY big though, there's no denying that they're substantial in size.
TM wrote:1- 2013/2014 Beast Hunters toys news: I LOVE & WILL BE BUYING THE UP SIZED LEGION SIZED TERRORCONS THAT ARE NOW DELUXE SIZED. Hopefully Hasbro releases all Five,So buyers can form a huge BH Abonimus. Releasing just 2 deluxe sized Terrorcons would be cruel/odd/weird/un-wise. I noticed the Deluxe Terrorcons twinstrike & Windrazor now have REVERSE combiner ports. They have the holes instead of the pegs. It's possible Hasbro Redesigned the Deluxe Hun-gurr to give it more poseabilty,Perhaps the redesign gave Hungurr reverse combiner ports where he now has pegs instead of holes ports.
Bad news for you, they confirmed at the panel that they will not be combining, the characters' texts on the slides bolstered that, one refuses and the other is a turncoat.
I like the Newer BH Voyager for Predaking,love the translucent orange wings.
Of all the upsized figures, that one got the most attention when they put it in the booth, but oddly it was more fans than kids who were into it.
Double Dealer seems like a odd repaint choice,I would have done Flywheels or Overlord using this Blitzwing mold.
Yeah, I didn't love the reveal of Doubledealer, that was a really odd moment, they played up the reveal on these very slowly and then said the name on him and the room went NUTS, then they revealed the slide of the Blitzwing repaint and the room quieted quickly to a WTF hush.
AU wrote:The terrorcon deluxes don't have their combiner pegs. They can't combine into a big abominus. That would literally be the only reason to bite on these, and hasbro shot themselves in the foot.
Super true.
Sparky wrote:The new Generations Beast Wars figures are a nice surprise. Rhinox looks amazing. Great update for the character, no longer a shellformer and so much more show accurate than the original deluxe figure was. And it's nice that it'll be a Voyager class, he needed to be a bit bigger than a deluxe. Waspinator... I like the robot mode, but the beast mode looks a little off to me because it sort of looks like a hunchback wasp. Still, overall it looks like a nice update as well.
Yeah, if I had more time and patience I would have spent more time shooting him. I'd have had to sit crosslegged on the floor to do so though, because for some reason all the Legends and Legion figures were on a shelf 6' off the ground and all the bigger stuff was lower down, the biggest stuff being on the bottom with lots of shadows over them and underlit flooring to make sure they were hard to see.
Rhinox was great in person. Waspi was very good in beast mode in person, robot mode had broken I think and been glued together with a big ball of wax that added a huge gap in his chest, but it looked good overall, I'm buying.
Not really feeling Arcee as Transmutate, but it is a cool looking paint job.
Arcee is lanky, that was the only connection I could imagine there. It works for me at first blush and then doesn't upon study.
Legends Cosmos and Swerve looks great. Some other pretty nice looking figures based on the IDW designs as well.
Yeah, they blew my mind with those figures, they look tremendous and got HUGE applause at the panel.
Shock wrote:Did we really need a separate thread for this? We could just as easily put our thoughts/opinions in the actual Botcon 2013 thread (which uhh... we were kind of doing anyway making this thread redundant).
I see what you mean, but... eh, the other thread was talking about the Timelines stuff originally, it isn't outrageous to keep this out of that since this is more mainline discussion.
Anyway, I like the Shockwave set, I like the Generations figures, but I'm vexed as to why there's a new legends class Cosmos when we've already had one in that scale (back when it was Universe 2.0). Is this just a reissue of that or is it possibly deluxe and not legends?
Which Shockwave set? Cosmos Legends 2013 is way different from the tiny $5 2009 Legends figure, this is more like a CYB Commander figure, twice as articulated, more detailed and full.
BWp wrote:Anyway, can I just...? The revelation of this upscaled Legends nonsense has kind of gotten to me. I've been one of Hasbro's most vocal supporters, even through these more...trying times of the franchise. And then they go and pull this shit. New molds or remolds or even just repaints to finish out the line? Naw, we'll just upscale Legends to massively simplified models that have no business being sold at the Deluxe MSRP and sell them that way! But at least we might get a huge, cool, Abominus out of the deal, right? Lol, nope, we're removing the Combiner functionality, just because! And some of the articulation! Goddamn, they couldn't even be assed to fill in the hollow areas on Twinstrike's necks when they did this shit! Moving Commander-class guys up to Voyagers is even more ridiculous. They want $22 for that shit? Really?
I mean, this is actually something knockoff companies do. This is literally the business practice of knockoff companies. Except knockoff companies don't charge you *full price* for the damn things, just $4 at Big Lots. $12 for a blown-up Legends that can't combine and has less joints? Fuck that, and fuck you too, Hasbro. I've gotten progressively madder as I've had to type all this out; I'm so mad now I can't see straight.
The panel room audience was nearly buying Hasbro's "more focus on fun" argument when they revealed what the figures were, so it's clear that there is a mindset for that which people are willing to agree with. I don't like them, but for $13 a pop apparently some people think kids will love them, not just Hasbro, but regular TF fans. BTW, some TF fans in the audience had babies and little, little kids, very surprising age range on that.
As for the commanders up to Voyagers, when you see how big they are you'll understand why $22 is justified. Tons of light praise came through the booth when they put out that voyager Predaking, that thing is nearly as big as the $50 ultimate figure. Also, this isn't stereolithography, tooling isn't being traced, there are changes to accommodate things, so they're probably going back to the CAD file work and spitting that out at a larger scale. My concern is that these will sell and the brand will permanently shift focus to less parts, less design, less need for paint and assembly people - they said that's not the case, but that's "now" thinking.
These are way different from those knockoffs, those are simply stereolithography or similar techniques which trace the original part or mold in a larger size physically. Hasbro is almost surely going with the actual CAD designs and reworking them to work as new tools.
Comics either boring, or bad, or both?
I'm really liking the comics right now, sorry to hear you aren't.