TF Views

JediTricks wrote:You have to be very specific then about your timeline when you say stuff like that. Sometimes Hasbro does produce product and warehouses it when it's dropped right before shipping, but after the near-meltdown in the early '00s, they eased off this.

What I mean is that all of the guys who haven't come out at mass release during the regular toyline before it was chopped off likely never made it to the mass production stage. I'm sure there's an exact word for when it was halted, but I don't know it because I'm not in the industry. It was definitely after tools were made, that's obvious, but we've no idea how close to production even Arcee and Ratchet made it--for example, I highly doubt they have a warehouse of carded Rodimus Minors sitting around...if only because I think if they *did* there'd be a far better chance of them moving it.

The issue isn't Hasbro's, it's the retail partners', so Hasbro is working to get those sorts of things worked out. It's not as easy as just releasing them.

It's a combination of the two, since *somebody* who was higher up on the food chain than the design team said, "Yeah, that Animated line, that's not going to finish. Yeah, we spent all that money making new tools for some of these unreleased figures--who cares, we have a huge multi-billion dollar movie coming out that we need to shove toys out for. We'll make it back."

My implication is that if Hasbro cared enough about making that money back, they'd have sold at least one more wave of the stuff between Animated's end and ROTF.

Bullspit! It's not like Minicons as weapons where they turn into robots, they go from bird to gun, no robot or character involved. They're TF accessories, you know it to be true.

The bird 'was' the robot, like Laserbeak. Are you implying Laserbeak isn't a character?

The idea might also be that released a half-assed toy like Prime's armour (minus Prime) would do more to add to the financial hit of tooling than recoup that loss.

The bird 'was' the robot, like Laserbeak. Are you implying Laserbeak isn't a character?

I have seen that line of thinking. Smaller toys, or characters without toys, are not "really" characters. (Scalpel from the movie is a legitimate character, but Ravage's puke drone is not.)

The Deployer tech-specs were dodgy enough that a case could be made either way. I would personally buy TF war-gear. But, most people would not.

Dom
-still wants dedicated Minicon fortifications and vehicles.

Not good. Dom and I both forgot to start a Round 10 thread, and questions are due on Monday morning.

Anybody want to take a stab at what we're going to do? I mean, we only need 2 questions, but we NEED 2 QUESTIONS!!! For this next round, we'll just keep using this thread.

Ah, crap.

What do we have unused from last time. I recall our "Hall of Fame" thread having some good question fodder.

Ah, hell, I need to study.......

Gotta get some Mt. Dew......

Dom
-did not think this was my job anymore......

Just off the top of my head:

1) A rumour was circulating that someone asked if there would be a new Wheeljack figure in the near future, and Hasbro replied no, because Drift--another white Autobot car--was being released soon. Is there any truth to this rumour? It's an understandable position, of course--we're just curious as to if this was ever stated before.

2) We've seen some characters in the Animated universe get re-imagined as Movie characters (Lockdown) and vice-versa (Blackout), but so far we haven't seen any crossover into the "G1" or "mainstream" Transformers style. Is this an avenue Hasbro would like to pursue? Is there an interest in creating "G1" or "Classics/Universe/Generations"-style versions of certain Movie characters (like Barricade, Bonecrusher, or Skids and Mudflap) or Animated characters (Lugnut, Oil Slick, Sentinel Prime)?

3) Are there any plans for more War For Cybertron figures? We've already seen images of Prime, Bumblebee, and Megatron, but will there be any more? Names do not have to be named, a simple yes or no will do.

4) We're really interested in what Transformers: Prime (the new cartoon) is going to be. Can we expect more information at Botcon? Is it still expected to debut in Fall 2010? What about the toyline?

5) Why the hell did my Mindwipe break? No, seriously, I want an answer to this. I'm really upset over it, because besides the breaking part, Mindwipe kicked ass.

Could O6's last question be phrased as being a request for a more reliable exchange system?

Dom

1) What is the purpose of the Transformers Hall of Fame?

Is this a "ask questions we know the answers to in order to see if Hasbro is being honest" thing?

We know why they are doing it, marketing research. But, yeah, I would like to see what they say.


Dom

Dominic wrote:Is this a "ask questions we know the answers to in order to see if Hasbro is being honest" thing?

We know why they are doing it, marketing research. But, yeah, I would like to see what they say.

I can see using the poll to see what characters are the most popular with fans for marketing reasons, but then it seems to me that a few hours browsing on the various fan websites would accomplish the same thing. So is there more to it? Is it simply another version of fan outreach like the Q and A submissions? Once this "Hall of Fame" is established, will it be used for promotional purposes? Will we see figures with "chosen by the fans" used to promote them? I just wonder what the long-term purpose beyond just the soliciting of fan opinion.

I actually don't know how reliable/unreliable Hasbro's exchange system is--I'm going to contact them about sending it back, so.