BWprowl wrote:Dom, you're crazy, and wrong. The First Edition Prime toys came out. I saw them at Toys R Us. I bought friggin' Starscream for crying out loud! The Voyagers were a pain in the ass to find outside of Canada, yes, but they still came out. Whoever told you First Edition was canceled was lying to you, and you should hit them.
First Edition wave 1 deluxe toys were released in VERY small numbers, but were then not picked up wider; wave 1 Voyager, the "entertainment pack", and wave 2 deluxe were canceled. So Dom is crazy, but not wrong.
Yeah, I suppose keeping Generations/RTS going, bringing out stuff like Thundercracker, Jazz, Tracks/Wheeljack, and so forth did nothing for the 'dedicated' market, and that was just this year. And now they're bringing back Generations, with a bunch of new WfC/FoC molds, and giving people a Prime line. Hasbro's been doing fine. Also, I liked the DOTM line, it appealed to me greatly, and it sold pretty well around here (just going off what I saw); I don't see where you'd get the idea that no one wanted it. I will admit to wondering where that last wave with Wheeljack, Deluxe and HA Soundwave, and the Leadfoot/Twin Twist two-pack got to, though.
Tracks and Jazz were late 2010.
DOTM didn't sell well in any other area I've heard of, and that's backed up by weak sales reports (and more importantly, the high retailer sales that didn't turn over, which harms the brand's future with those retailers), numerous shifted releases, repeated deep discounts, and even 2-for-1 carded sales (where Hasbro pulls back deluxe product and tapes it on a backer to another deluxe product).
You doin' okay, JT? You seem a little on edge here.
I'm annoyed with Hasbro's mediocrity regarding this brand over the last year. I'm also a little annoyed at this fanbase's ability to wet up Hasbro's ass with smooches.
You would be beyond surprised. There is a *very* vocal subset of people these days who seem to exclusively be 'fans' of the third-party stuff. Hell, just try and look up general TF news on some places, they're choked with yacking about it. These people'll drool over grayscale photos of somewhat accurate construction robots with giant obvious fists strapped to their backs, and happily pay $100 a pop for each one of them so long as they're 'third-party' productions, but as soon as Hasbro comes out offering something like this at retail it's all "B'aaaw these things look like garbage! Stupid Hasblow's going to screw it up! They're just trying to drive FansProject out of business since they're so much better at this than they are!!".
Be fair now, Hasbro has a long string of fuckups getting product to market over the last decade that lives up to its promise. In fact, I'd say the most recent images of Bruticus confirm that fear quite well, Blast Off and Vortex aren't bringing the same thunder as the other pictures, Onslaught doesn't look that great either. It's not bad, but it's certainly not TFC Hercules either, the Combaticons they are doing look good but definitely not the greatness fans are looking for.
BWprowl wrote:From what I understand, the six ‘First Edition’ molds (Optimus, Bulkhead, Bumblebee, Cliffjumper, Arcee, and Starscream) were created while Prime’s first season was airing, but before Hasbro was certain there would be a line based around the show, the idea being that they could be released in Generations or something if they decided not to do a full line. Well, once the show proved to be a success, they started to design a full, new line around it, this RiD Revealers thing, complete with its own line-wide gimmicks (clear weapons, etc) and so forth. Well, Hasbro still had these six molds that didn’t ‘fit’ with that line, apparently, and indeed all those main characters were getting new molds that did fit in with the RiD line, but Hasbro didn’t want to let the molds go completely to waste, so they put them out in TRU ahead of the actual Prime/RiD Revealers line as ‘First Edition’, a sort of teaser for the actual line since they already had the molds ready to go, but couldn’t use them anywhere else. So yeah.
They were planning a full line from the beginning, but I think they ended up downgrading it once The Hub didn't pick up the viewership they were looking for. The First Edition products all seem to be more expensive designs while the later products are cheaper to produce. They also went through brand management and staff changes during the line's development. The light-up bodies and clear weapons were intended from the beginning.
I don’t see how the brand’s being ‘mismanaged’. The DOTM line performed well, from what I understand, Prime is a hit as a TV show (and it won an Emmy, not too shabby-wait, I don’t even like the show, why am I defending it?!), they continued to sneak new Generations product out each time we thought the line was over for realsies, and they’re gonna have three different lines on shelves later this year (Prime/RiD/Revealers, whatever the latest incarnation of Generations is called, and that Movie Trilogy thing). Transformers is still going strong! Am I the only one who still enjoys the hobby and is excited about where it’s going?
TF:P a "hit"? The biggest ratings the show has enjoyed was 221,000 households at a timeslot when other cablers in the same demographic are in the millions. I think the total number was just shy of 400,000 pairs of eyes across all the demographics.
Daytime Emmy awards aren't really anything.
Right now, retailers are cold to TF:P and are gun-shy about the movie SKU, and have not been on board with the Generations SKU in some time now. So Hasbro has their work cut out for them to get retailers on board. I want to be excited by the hobby, but I'm not seeing things through the rose-tinted glasses you're wearing, I'm seeing a brand circling the drain.
Sparky Prime wrote:On the subject of the Prime 'First Editions'... Hasbro released a
statement that they may still get released, or more distribution I guess is the case.
I had that news up too!
Anyway, at this point "we're trying to look at other avenues" means "fuck you, product is dead". Look at the Animated Voyagers, or Rumble - they tried so hard that they went home early and took a nap, it'd seem.
BWprowl wrote:Multiple lines alone isn’t really what’s been crippling distribution lately (when they started, I had no trouble finding TF 2010, Generations, and PCC in stores next to each other). The trouble starts in when stores over-order on all the lines for the first couple waves, then become content to sit on that stock through a whole season, instead of having to order refresher waves with new toys in them, which is why so many tail-enders have been missed in the last couple years. Hasbro needs to figure out a way to circumvent this, either by infusing more variety into case assortments, or creating some incentive for stores to order later waves. Or by who cares, they’re just toys, as long as they’re on shelves with the brand name then kids, parents, and stores aren’t going to give a crap which specific toys they are. We’re the only ones who really care if they all make it into stores or not.
Retailers don't over-order for no reason, they are hyped into it by Hasbro who promises support and market excitement that they have to develop. The movies are often where retailers take that and run it too far, but look at PCC, that is all on Hasbro's shoulders.
Except that they weren’t sure if they even wanted to put out toys for the show. From what I heard (and admittedly this is all rumors) Hasbro specifically did not want the Prime toyline launched at the same time as the show, since they wanted to promote the Hub as just a TV channel first, and having brand-new, show-matching toys on shelves just as the network was launching would have gotten even more groups riled up about a ‘whole network of toy commercials’. It was a business decision, like any other, just one that swung a bit differently than we’re used to.
At Comic-Con and Botcon, they talked about scrambling to catch up. The network needed keystone programming and it was faster to get out the show than the product line. I have never heard them claim anything about trying to avoid the pretense of not being a half-hour commercial. I spent a lot of time at the cons talking to brand folks about these sorts of things.
What can I say, I like rewarding Hasbro for their good behavior instead of frothing at the mouth on the internet where they aren’t seeing how angry I am.
What was the last 3 figures you bought? I cannot even remember at this point, it's been so long. Look at DvD's page, there's barely been a new review in months and almost none of them are positive anymore. DOTM has 3 strongly recommends out of the entire line, while he reviewed 4 as "avoid". The only product that I've seen come out of the brand lately is Kre-O. I cannot reward them with my cash when there's nothing to buy for months on end, and then the little that trickles out is too often risking mediocrity.
By the way, has Hasbro ever given us a straight answer as to why they’ve been so averse to proper Combiner Teams? Why did they decide to finally make one now? I kinda wish I was going to BotCon now, I’d ask them these questions.
Mainly it's supporting multiple SKUs, you can't sell a Mega and 4 Deluxe limbs when there aren't other Megas to hold that retailer shelf real-estate for 2 seasons, and box sets are a tougher sell. Also, it's hard to carry the individual figures forward in later waves, there's a perception that the value of each figure is somehow LOWER simply for being part of a combiner team, and therefore it won't hold up on its own at later release.
They haven't been terribly adverse from what I've seen, PCC was an entire expression on the concept, Energon did a series of combiner teams, the 2nd movie had a big combiner (and Arcee was supposed to be a combiner before the concept got pulled late). It's just the realizations that are flawed, there's often a new Hasbro take on combiners.
Dom wrote:Hasbro was trying to open up a media wing independent of marketing toys?
Long since! That's WHY there's a Transformers movie franchise, why GI Joe got movies, now we have Battleship as a movie, and more. Hasbro made half a billion last year on their media wing. Unfortunately, Hasbro has moved a lot of power over towards the media aspect of things. Hell, that's ALL that Archer does now for the brand at this point, they've been pulling brand experts out of the toy brands they were working on and putting them into media development for a few years now - Star Wars and GI Joe just got a big sting there.
BWprowl wrote:Whattaya think the odds of this thing getting repainted later on are? Dude, Urban Ruination! G2 Bruticus! It makes me far too excited.
Suuuuper unlikely. It's 5 deluxes, that's a whole wave right there, it's a lot harder to push a whole wave of repaints that aren't carry-forward. The only way I can see them doing a repaint concept like that without a boxed set (and that's unlikely on its own for cost reasons) is if they get MASSIVE support from the casual consumer market for these figures as individuals and can release them 1 or 2 at a time, but that's very unlikely since they're designed from the game rather than a more familiar media.
BWprowl wrote:Good call of Hasbro to pick the gestalt with the most potential repaints to do first, I guess.
Wow, you are SUUUPER generous with Hasbro on this. They picked him because he's in the game.
Gomess wrote:Much as I like the fact Hasbro is doing gestalts properly again, Prowl's comment about Bruticus being the most overdone G1 combiner just reminds me how much I'd rather see a realistic take on the Aerialbots (with different transformations for each!), or a truly gruesome set of Terrorcons. Ah well. Start with a low risk, I guess.
Again, they started with the one with media support. But I'd also like to see Aerialbots taken to the next level. Not sure about the Terrorcons idea, I can't picture that. I'd also like to see the Stunticons with more of a Decepticon take to each figure, there aren't enough road-vehicle Decepticons and it'd be nice to have some that LOOK like bad guys instead of generic guys.
Shockwave wrote:I just hope they produce a gift set option where you can get the whole thing together without hunting. Otherwise I have no faith that all five would be on the same shelf at the same time (and given their past record on this, even in the same city at the same time). It could be Energon all over again.
5-figure deluxe pack? They haven't done anything like that in a while.
As for case breakdowns, current Deluxe cases are 8 per case, so at 5 figures, it's likely going to be 3 carry-forwards from previous waves. The Combaticons case probably will be the 5 figures plus you get 1x Junkyard, 1x Wheeljack, and 1x Kup - that sort of thing, whatever was in the past 2 or 3 waves that didn't get broad enough distribution before (which is to say, everything, due to limited manufacturing speed - can only make so many in so much time).
With the "too many of the same color/same alt-mode at the same time", don't blame the retailers, blame the casual consumers fueling the line who are like "Little Johnny, I just bought you the green guy last week!" or "Didn't I buy you the jet plane guy recently?" Such are the risks producing a line based around characters whose alt modes are so important to marketing.