Shockwave wrote:JediTricks wrote: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...
Propaganda? It's a fairly common sense business model, don't throw money down the well and hope it comes back up, don't just blindly invest tons of money into making a product without knowing first if it'll sell thus returning that investment. I didn't say MP was
losing them money, I said that it's an expensive line and they feel (I should be clear that I meant they "may" feel that way, I haven't actually seen comment from them on the matter, I'm extrapolating based on past Hasbro answers and what I know from the folks who work there about how Hasbro line management goes) that if they released a very expensive whole set like this in the US, it'd be an expensive piece to market that way and the US audience would likely not be able to support it. Heck, just in retailer shelf real-estate the trailer makes it a much larger box and that's more expensive out of the gate since retailers are very concerned today with real estate value on the shelf. If Hasbro doesn't think they can at least see a return on their investment by selling it, why should they make this? Good wishes? It's a logical business choice, you don't throw $5000 of bait into the water not even on a line just hoping you'll scoop up enough fish to eat dinner.
As for "do it right or don't do it at all", that's unrealistic. Hasbro for the past decade has been operating the line pretty much the opposite of that, compromising in deco and sculpting and gimmicks often to meet the wave budget, hence the hardcore fan dilemma of whether to buy the Hasbro release or save up enough money to buy the likely-to-be-superior-in-every-way Takara release - Japanese audiences are much more niche, but will spend far more for the same mold if it's expressed properly where US audiences won't follow. Hasbro is selling a line of toys to 2 main markets: kids, who are usually the driving force behind a toy line; and collectors, who are loyal but few in number to carry the line by themselves, and largely won't spend what it takes to get a figure "done exactly right". And how would the market react if Hasbro decided not to release it at all? I don't see how it'd make them happier to have NO access to it.
With those 2 paragraphs in mind, it seems pretty likely that the US release of MP Rodimus will be Hasbro's compromise for the US market, that the full release of the MP set would cost well over $100 at retail which wouldn't look like a particularly good value to the US market, even to hardcore collectors. So the choice is to not release the set in the US at all, or to compromise by releasing the character without the camper shell yet still delivering Hot Rod/Rodimus the character as well as Hot Rod the vehicle mode, thus lowering the retail price to an area the market has been shown to support. It's not an ideal situation for collectors who live here, but it'll ensure that Hasbro doesn't tank the MP line in the US, souring retail partners to future MP releases, and risking retailers getting angry over a product that they paid plenty for and didn't sell (this soured Hasbro's relationship with Target in 2000 with multiple Star Wars 12" exclusives that tanked and had to be liquidated via donation, Target halted all Hasbro exclusives and significantly lowered ordering on all Hasbro brands until Hasbro gave greater assurances to Target about such things in the future, which took over a year to iron out).
Would you really put your money where your mouth is if they released a full set? Keep in mind, the full set may cost $100, and since that price will lower orders - from being a high-ticket item that will turn away more of the market, and from being a larger box that stores won't be able to sell other product in that space from - then the price goes UP from that. So in response Hasbro has to lower the number of planned figures to ensure they don't overproduce, and when they lower a run that puts more of the item budget strain on each individual unit, so again, the price goes UP. So let's say we're at $120 for Rodimus and his trailer. And it doesn't look like Rodimus is taller than MP Starscream, who was $60. Are you really going to pay double for that trailer? I can't justify that expense, I know that for a fact, and I think a lot of folks in the US who might have bought MP Rodimus at $60/$70 wouldn't go near $100, much less well over it.
138 Scourge wrote: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.
I do display them in vehicle mode from time to time, but having to choose between displaying Rodimus' Hot Rod mode or Camper mode, there's no competition. And as a base, you're totally right, Rodimus Prime's trailer is a snore. How many collectors here ended up getting the MP Optimus trailer? Not many, I'll bet. They weren't hot sellers at Botcon last year or at Comic-Con.
Shockwave wrote:I get this, but there's a difference here between MP Optimus and this. Optimus wasn't orginally designed with a trailer, Rodimus was and we're just not getting it. Simple as it may be, I'm objecting to this on a conceptual level. It's conceptually wrong for Hasbro to import half a toy just because "America's broke".
It has little to do with the current economic troubles, IMO this would have been the case at any time in the last 25 years. Look at Star Convoy, it didn't get a release here either, Hasbro felt the US market wouldn't support it.
Onslaught Six wrote: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.)
Banzai-Tron and Axer were originally part of transforming toys, even if they themselves didn't transform. I don't think Action Masters are the same thing as Death's Head, AMs are still Cybertronians.
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.
Well, it does take away from the specialness of being a Prime when there's a dozen of 'em in the medium at once.
Dominic wrote: 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.
But I'm putting every question in the opening post with a unique number so they could be voted upon, should anybody feel the urge to do so.
