Hasbro Q&A round 14

[andersonh1]

And now another damned question (boy I'm full of it this month): The fan club mag has just reported that MP Rodimus will be released here. WITHOUT HIS TRAILER!!! WTH? That's my question: Seriously Hasbro WTH? Why does the 'Bro hate trailers!?

I'm pretty sure we can edit it so that it doesn't include the nerdrage, but I seriously want to bring to task for this.

I'm sure it's a cost issue. And if we were getting "Masterpiece Hot Rod", I'd be fine with it. But if it's Rodimus, the trailer should be included. And we're likely to be charged $70 for the thing, even without the trailer.

[Shockwave]

I wouldn't necessarily be "ok" with a MP Hot Rod, but I would tolerate it. And it's good to see that I'm not the only one who's peeved about this. I still say we should approach questioning this from the angle that "If Hasbro is so financially solvent then why do they have to release an obviously inferior product?".

[JediTricks]

We've got more questions!

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=641&p=18257#p18257

Dom:
- Are the drones in PCC vehicle/limbs instead of robot/limbs to accent the fact that the drones are not characters unto themselves?

Shockwave:
- Hasbro has stated that they are moving towards having a more centralized continuity with Prime and WFC and Generations. They've never had a problem with multiple continuities before, why the move towards centralizing it now?

Thanks for linking them to the proper thread and carrying over those questions. I'll add them now.

And another: I'm very pleased that Hasbro has released a figure of Straxus, a fairly obscure character from the original Marvel comics run. Are there any plans to release other comics only characters from that era? Perhaps Emirate Xaaron, or Death's Head or others?

I would bet that Death's Head would be a negatory, since Marvel owns that guy. Then again, since Hasbro's got the Marvel license at the moment, you never know. That would easily be the best character to get the Marvel TF treatment. But maybe like....

"While he's always been a Marvel character, Death's Head has always been closely associated with the TF franchise by a fair amount of fans. Is there any hope for a figure with visual callbacks to Death's Head, or maybe a Death's Head figure in the Marvel toyline?" Might not get anything but a "not our department" asking about other divisions of Hasbro, but what the hell.

Yay, I'm helping!

Death's Head was the only other one I could think of at that moment. Maybe Macabre, Scrounge, Traachon, Rack N Ruin... The list could on really.

This needs somewhat of a rewrite still, I don't think it's really "there". Death's Head isn't even a transforming robot. Taking their answer to ActionFigs into account over Circuit Breaker (see below), I don't know how much the Marvel character thing is an issue so much as it fitting the TF format. Here's that answer:
ActionFigs.com: This may be the biggest long shot of all long shot questions, but there are a few collectors who would give their special left arm for a Circuit Breaker figure, even if she's not in scale with the rest of the Transformers toys. As Hasbro now has the rights to produce Marvel toys, is there even a slim chance that she could possibly be made? Even if it was just a convention exclusive or something?
Hasbro: Unfortuantely there are not any plans to include Circuit Breaker within our product line at this time. While we certainly understand the history behind this character, there are a number of other characters that we would do before her.
I certainly don't have a problem asking if they are going to continue doing Marvel, and if there are characters from Marvel or Marvel UK TF comics that they cannot touch, but Death's Head doesn't turn into anything so they won't do him.

Asking if the Marvel team will do it won't work since that's a different department. Can't even get them to answer questions about crossovers, and those lines have the brand name in them!

And now another damned question (boy I'm full of it this month): The fan club mag has just reported that MP Rodimus will be released here. WITHOUT HIS TRAILER!!! WTH? That's my question: Seriously Hasbro WTH? Why does the 'Bro hate trailers!?

I'm pretty sure we can edit it so that it doesn't include the nerdrage, but I seriously want to bring to task for this.

I warned you guys! I'll add this.

Hasbro will likely answer Shock's question with something about costs.

"While he's always been a Marvel character, Death's Head has always been closely associated with the TF franchise by a fair amount of fans. Is there any hope for a figure with visual callbacks to Death's Head, or maybe a Death's Head figure in the Marvel toyline?" Might not get anything but a "not our department" asking about other divisions of Hasbro, but what the hell.

Actually, this is exactly the kind of question that Hasbro says they do not want. Of course, given how they answer questions that are written to spec.......

Yeah, I've given up right now on trying to play it exactly their way. I want to play it however they want, but they have to give us answers to match.

Except that in this case we're are specifically GOING to get an inferior toy to what will already be produced in Japan and we have a unique opportunity to take Hasbro to task on it BEFORE it happens. I think just to keep them from weaseling out of that by giving us some "cost cutting" crap, we should word it to imply that the move to not release MP Rodimus as is implies that Hasbro isn't surviving as a company. If they can't even direct import a toy that is being sold and produced by Takara in Japan to their markets, why should we believe that they're surviving?

Ok, I think I have the perfect exact way to word it:

"The upward trend in cost cutting measures by Hasbro recently indicates that the company may be struggling financially. The most recent case is especially indicative of this with the announcement that MP Rodimus would be released domestically but without the trailer that apparently Takara has the resources to release to it's markets. Is Hasbro doing so poorly that they cannot afford to import a complete toy to their markets or was there another reason for the decision to release only half of MP Rodimus in the US?"

And if we need to somehow back up the "upward trend" comment, I'm sure O86 has a listing of all of the removed gimmicks from the ROTF line and I'm sure we could also scour the previous Q&A threads for the number of times Hasbro has used "cost cutting" as an excuse for an answer. Plus, as JT describes it, the questions go through Hasbro's PR firm and then to Hasbro. And the PR firm isn't going to want a missing trailer to indicate financial problems so they're going to want to get
a better answer from Hasbro than that. Shockwave- Does not see how this could possibly go wrong.

You've got the wrong idea. Hasbro feels that the US audience won't be able to afford it if they include the trailer. The problem isn't Hasbro, the problem is the US economy and the weakened value of the dollar. I've written the question a little more "open".

The PR company that handles Q&A doesn't filter the answers, it's not what you think, they just handle logistics and cleanup.

Have they said it's cost-cutting, though? Remember, Hasbro are absolute 'jerks' about the whole Multiple Primes thing. They really, really don't like characters whose names end in Prime that don't start with Optimus. Remember Cybertron? All the leaders became Deconvified (the process of Deconvoying, or removing Convoy from one's name. ), and AniRodimus is getting neutered to Rodimus Minor. I'm sure if they could've gotten away with calling Sentinel something that wasn't Prime, they would have.

That's not a fair characterization about the Primes thing. They just felt there were too many at market around the same time and it was confusing. That's why we got Dildo Maximus originally.

[Shockwave]

You've got the wrong idea. Hasbro feels that the US audience won't be able to afford it if they include the trailer. The problem isn't Hasbro, the problem is the US economy and the weakened value of the dollar. I've written the question a little more "open".

The PR company that handles Q&A doesn't filter the answers, it's not what you think, they just handle logistics and cleanup.

Gods no! Not Circuit Breaker! Anything but Circuit Breaker. Besides, if fans want her, they can just buy a 7 of 9.

I'd really prefer if Hasbro would let us make our own decisions on what we can afford, rather than just saying "the economy". That's like having said "Y2K" back in 1999.

Oh ok, I must have misunderstood. Thanks for the clarification.

[JediTricks]

I'd really prefer if Hasbro would let us make our own decisions on what we can afford, rather than just saying "the economy". That's like having said "Y2K" back in 1999.

Hasbro does that to protect the line and the company, it's a standard business decision. If they went willy-nilly making expensive things that didn't have an audience to buy them thus ensuring a return on the manufacturing investment, it would be an expensive failure which would harm the business model, and it'd harm the line's reputation with retailers as well, and it'd slow down sales of products that were trying to get released after it.

[Shockwave]

Hasbro does that to protect the line and the company, it's a standard business decision. If they went willy-nilly making expensive things that didn't have an audience to buy them thus ensuring a return on the manufacturing investment, it would be an expensive failure which would harm the business model, and it'd harm the line's reputation with retailers as well, and it'd slow down sales of products that were trying to get released after it.

This is nothing more than a bureaucratic propaganda answer which annoys me to no end. I work for a bureaucracy and hear BS answers like this all the time and it's easily the single worst part of my job. I really don't want that bleeding over into my hobbies. Also, I'm assuming this information came from Hasbro in some way, so JT, I'm not blaming you for it and I hope you don't think I'm "Killing the messenger". If Hasbro really actually believes this and the MP line has been losing them so much money, then they should just quit importing it. Period. Either do it right or don't do it at all, but don't half ass it and then try to tell me it's for my own good. The bottom line here is they're screwing us and they know it and they need to be called out on it. I mean, let's seriously consider what they just said. If they really don't think they have that big of a market for MP Rodimus then how is screwing the market they do have out of the complete toy in ANY way good for the business model? You mean to tell me that Hasbro actually thinks it's good business to alienate the existing market for future toys? Really? Furthermore, I represent the target Market here. I would buy a complete MP Rodimus released domestically. I will specifically boycott it if they decide to proceed with their half assed release. I know I'm not alone in this opinion which means that they are alienating their target market and are pre emptively hurting sales well in advance of the release of the actual toy. They need to know this for that reason if no other.
/rant.
For the record, part of me cannot believe I just ranted that vehemently about a plastic toy.
Shockwave
-They're just toys... They're just toys... They're just toys...

[Onslaught Six]

I certainly don't have a problem asking if they are going to continue doing Marvel, and if there are characters from Marvel or Marvel UK TF comics that they cannot touch, but Death's Head doesn't turn into anything so they won't do him.

That didn't stop them from doing Banzai-Tron or Axer. (Granted, they're both repaints/remoulds of other toys, but you get the idea.)

That's not a fair characterization about the Primes thing. They just felt there were too many at market around the same time and it was confusing. That's why we got Dildo Maximus originally.

Isn't it? Because every time there's a non-Optimus Prime out there, they'll usually stop the buck at one other guy and then that's it--even though if there's another Prime flying around, that typically means that, in this continuity, there's a lot of them.

[Dominic]

Thanks for linking them to the proper thread and carrying over those questions. I'll add them now.

Uh, I actually did put them in this thread.


Dom

[138 Scourge]

I'm sure it's a cost issue. And if we were getting "Masterpiece Hot Rod", I'd be fine with it. But if it's Rodimus, the trailer should be included. And we're likely to be charged $70 for the thing, even without the trailer.

Yeah but...Classics Rodimus was "Rodimus", he didn't have his trailer.

And y'know, I really do like Rodimus Prime. Big fan of that guy, wish his time as leader had gone better for him. And I even dig the Space Winnebago design. But I'm really not that bothered by losing the trailer in this release. Because his trailer's just sort of...boring. G1 Prime's trailer had the neat stickers and robot thing and Roller, so there was that going for it. Powermaster Prime needs his trailer, the toy's not quite worthless without it, but it's nothing special, and Laser Prime's got that awesome base mode with all the cool weapons going for it. But I don't know how much I'd want to pay the extra money for a trailer that just splits down the middle and has the one cannon. Not that exciting.

Of course, it's pretty necessary for Rodimus Prime's vehicle mode, but since I don't display stuff in vehicle mode, I'm not worried about it overmuch.

[andersonh1]

Thanks for linking them to the proper thread and carrying over those questions. I'll add them now.

Uh, I actually did put them in this thread.


Dom

So did I, but I guess you missed it. Not a problem.