TF:P's main launch has made no sense

[JediTricks]

I was thinking about this while watching the season 2 marathon on The Hub yesterday: Hasbro's launch of the TF:P mainline has been utterly confusing. Here's some reasons...

Instead of a singular brand rollout, the deluxes have trickled in slowly but surely, replacing DOTM product, which often leads to stores mixing the 2 lines together when there's limited space or excess DOTM, despite the DOTM and TFP prices not matching up at all. The deluxes hit stores without support from Voyagers, Cyberverse Commanders, and a very slow mix-in of Cyberverse Legion. Cyberverse has still not released its playset/vehicles. In fact, the main new product hitting alongside TFP deluxes has been Bot Shots, which have no crossover appeal and are priced low enough to make the mainline look bad.

Deluxe wave 1 has included 2 mute characters, 1 dead character, and 1 character who has been in 2 episodes. This is not a compelling group of characters. Then they overpacked Bumblebee despite the mold being unliked and pegs being slammed with DOTM Bumblebee product still, and shortpacked the only bad guy making it impossible for kids to create play patterns. Pegwarmer TFP Bumblebee ships in every subsequent planned deluxe wave, wave 2 has Bumblebee 3 to a case while everybody else is 1 per case, wave 3 has BB at 1 per case but another figure in the case is the same mold and is 2 per case while the awesome Vehicon army-builder is shortpacked to 1 per case.

Paint apps on Deluxe have been lower than the pricepoint demands.

Legion has been very popular around here once it started hitting, coming in and selling through very quickly. The demand for the lower pricepoint is clearly significant, although I'd still argue that Legion is a poor ambassador to the brand due to being unsatisfying Transformers.

Commanders are now priced around $10 instead of $8, which makes them a very tough pill to swallow, especially with hollow figures like Bulkhead. Only 1 villain in the case, short-packed.

Voyagers have come out late and floated around their pricepoint before finally landing at $20 at Target. Both have light-up gimmicks with big try-me packages that show the customers AWFUL light gimmicks that don't look good at all tied into uninspired-gimmick weapons that seem unsatisfying. Neither crappy weapon actually seems to stay deployed on its own, Optimus' is especially bad as it looks like nothing but a bunch of ugly kibble tangled up on his forearm when not deployed. The figures look pretty small, neither has tempted me to buy even a little. The show's main villain is short-packed 1 per case.

The excellence of some of the First Editions is highly contrasted in the mediocrity of their mainline counterparts, especially Bumblebee and Optimus.

Overall, there just seems to be a slapdash feeling to the TF:P mainline's launch, like there was a change of brand management during the middle of design and they decided to change direction late in the game, and stumbled. Actually, it feels as much like big money sitting behind a brand management team that has no understanding of the brand, and is learning as they go.

[BWprowl]

Instead of a singular brand rollout, the deluxes have trickled in slowly but surely, replacing DOTM product, which often leads to stores mixing the 2 lines together when there's limited space or excess DOTM, despite the DOTM and TFP prices not matching up at all. The deluxes hit stores without support from Voyagers, Cyberverse Commanders, and a very slow mix-in of Cyberverse Legion. Cyberverse has still not released its playset/vehicles. In fact, the main new product hitting alongside TFP deluxes has been Bot Shots, which have no crossover appeal and are priced low enough to make the mainline look bad.

It’s worth noting that, in my area at least, the Cyberverse Legion toys started popping up before the rest of the Prime toys. Deluxes, Voyagers, and Bot Shots actually appeared at the ‘correct’ time after the street date/during the toy section reset, and Cyberverse Commanders first showed up at my Targets a couple weeks ago, though they aren’t yet sharing space with the mainline, they’re over on that promotional endcap thing with Star Wars, Marvel Universe and some other unrelated stuff, meaning you aren’t going to see them immediately unless you’re looking for them and know where to look. Keep in mind that this all pertains to the Targets in my area, as TRU has continued with their ‘put everything out whenever we feel like it’ approach to restocks/resets, and I’ve generally avoided Wal-Mart for toys lately, given how dismal their selection has become.

Kinda looking forward to more Cyberverse playsets, though I’ll primarily be using them with my Movie guys, I suppose.

Deluxe wave 1 has included 2 mute characters, 1 dead character, and 1 character who has been in 2 episodes. This is not a compelling group of characters. Then they overpacked Bumblebee despite the mold being unliked and pegs being slammed with DOTM Bumblebee product still, and shortpacked the only bad guy making it impossible for kids to create play patterns. Pegwarmer TFP Bumblebee ships in every subsequent planned deluxe wave, wave 2 has Bumblebee 3 to a case while everybody else is 1 per case, wave 3 has BB at 1 per case but another figure in the case is the same mold and is 2 per case while the awesome Vehicon army-builder is shortpacked to 1 per case.

The Bumblebee thing is interesting, in that Movie BBs still seemed to sell pretty well (they certainly didn’t shelfwarm or anything) despite Hasbro seemingly finding more and more ways to get him into cases, not unlike Pizza Hut discovering new crevices to stuff cheese into. Bumblebee was exposed well as a primary movie character, and kids dug him. Hell, I bought two versions of him in DOTM myself, because they were just new/interesting enough (NitroBee and DemonBee, the latter of which is notable for being a rehash of Bumblebee that I know a lot of adult fans/collectors actually expressed an interest in). But I think Hasbro overestimated the degree to which kids would associate the charming, radio-voiced BB from the movies with the bland, R2D2-speaking version from TFPrime, and now we’re seeing the swarming yellow aftereffects of that mistake.

As for the shortpacking, I touched on this in my reviews. It really is kind of baffling that Hasbro would shortpack Cyberverse Vehicon, an army-builder at a price-point that would make doing so easy. It also lends itself well to kids’ purchasing/play patterns: A kid could grab Bumblebee and a Vehicon for him to fight, but with less Vehicons on the shelf, that kid may grab Bumblbee, but might be less interested in Ratchet the grumpy old man or Arcee the girl character or Cliffjumper who they’ve never seen since they missed the first episode, and thus Bumblebee himself may be seen as a less satisfactory purchase choice, and that kid might leave without getting anything at all.

I’m wondering if Hasbro’s market research or whatever has exacerbated the old ‘Villains don’t sell well’ edict and that’s why we’re seeing more bad-guy-shortpacking now. It’s not just TF, they pulled this with GI Joe Renegades and that new, highly sought-after Storm Shadow: One per case in a single case assortment. Was it because Storm Shadow’s a villain? Because to me, a kickass ninja toy seems like an easy sell to kids, regardless of what side he’s on (of course, that logic requires that kids be buying GI Joe, and honestly, are they?).

Paint apps on Deluxe have been lower than the pricepoint demands.

Ratchet’s about average, as far as I can tell, but I’ll admit that Soundwave could stand to have more highlights and details on him. That they wasted a couple apps on his face when it could have been pulled off infinitely better with unpainted lightpiping hurts it even more.

Could be worse though: It could be the Takara TFPrime line with blank figures that have to be stickered, glued-on monocolor Mini-Con ports, and packed-in shoddy Mini-Cons that they expect you to clip off sprues, build, and sticker yourself.

Legion has been very popular around here once it started hitting, coming in and selling through very quickly. The demand for the lower pricepoint is clearly significant, although I'd still argue that Legion is a poor ambassador to the brand due to being unsatisfying Transformers.

I’ll disagree on this one: Smaller toys are perfect gateway figures, since they’re cheap enough as a ‘buy with your own money’ toy for kids. Little Timmy goes over to the toy section while his mom is doing her grocery shopping, and he sees something he can blow the allowance he just got on. Legion may lack the complexity of the larger toys, but they’re something a kid can easily buy for themselves and tote around with them, not to mention build up a large ‘collection’ of characters in that size range with relative ease. Then they can beg their parents to spend $20-40 on vehicles and playsets for those figures.

I’m just saying, I started my TF collection with Hubcap, and things kept going from there.

Commanders are now priced around $10 instead of $8, which makes them a very tough pill to swallow, especially with hollow figures like Bulkhead. Only 1 villain in the case, short-packed.

I don’t know about case ratios, but I thought the Commanders had two villains, Starscream and Megatron? Unless my local Targets crushed two waves together.

Voyagers have come out late and floated around their pricepoint before finally landing at $20 at Target. Both have light-up gimmicks with big try-me packages that show the customers AWFUL light gimmicks that don't look good at all tied into uninspired-gimmick weapons that seem unsatisfying. Neither crappy weapon actually seems to stay deployed on its own, Optimus' is especially bad as it looks like nothing but a bunch of ugly kibble tangled up on his forearm when not deployed. The figures look pretty small, neither has tempted me to buy even a little. The show's main villain is short-packed 1 per case.

The weapons not staying deployed does suck, especially after the Mechtech weapons on the DOTM Voyagers made a point of all being able to do this. Megatron’s is okay though, at least both weapons look like weapons. I can’t speak for Optimus as I haven’t really paid attention to him and I have no intention of picking him up.

Not only is Megatron short-packed, but remember that there’s also that revision case with nothing but Optimus! On the other hand, the last couple Targets I was at had piles of Megatron left over with little to no Optimuses on shelves, so what the hell do I know?

The excellence of some of the First Editions is highly contrasted in the mediocrity of their mainline counterparts, especially Bumblebee and Optimus.

In a fit of vaguely depressing irony, most casual customers are likely to miss the contrast, seeing the limited release FE got. Maybe Canadian customers will take more issue with it?

As a side note, the differences between the FE toys and their RiD counterparts reminds me heavily of the differences seen between the first Movie toys and some of their later ROTF versions.

Overall, there just seems to be a slapdash feeling to the TF:P mainline's launch, like there was a change of brand management during the middle of design and they decided to change direction late in the game, and stumbled. Actually, it feels as much like big money sitting behind a brand management team that has no understanding of the brand, and is learning as they go.

There definitely seems like there was some decision-change partway through, maybe brought on by the alleged initial lack of confidence in TFPrime’s abilities as the driving force as a mainline. Could be why they rebuilt the line to include more kid-appeal gimmicks (though the head reveals don’t bother me and at least the light-up weapons do the Mechtech thing where they don’t actually cut into or interfere with the core figure in any way), not to mention bringing in Bot Shots as a subsidiary thing to try and take a bite out of the burgeoning Bakugan market (because ferkin’ everything has to be a game with kids now. Even the goddamn Star Wars action figures had that crummy dice game worked into them). I guess we’ll have to see how they handle things from here, maybe they’ll switch gears again and try to get the relaunched Generations to pick up some slack if TFPrime really starts tanking. Regardless, everything’ll get completely reset *again* toy-wise when the TF4 line starts taking over in like a year-and-a-half or whatever.

[Shockwave]

Wow. Epic fail Hasbro. At this point, I think I'd rather collect Rescue Bots.

[Dominic]

Deluxe wave 1 has included 2 mute characters, 1 dead character, and 1 character who has been in 2 episodes. This is not a compelling group of characters.

Even assuming only one wave shipped at a time, and that the waves were logically spaced out, (neither of which is the case), this would have made sense if the toys and cartoon hit at the same time.

BB, Cliffjumper and whoever the other two character were would have made sense as a starter wave if the show was fresh in kids' minds.

DOTM Bumblebee product still, and shortpacked the only bad guy making it impossible for kids to create play patterns.

Agreed. This makes no sense.

There is nothing wrong with making sure that main characters are always available. But, Hasbro has consistently over-estimated the appeal of Bumbleturd for the sake of Bumbleturd for at least 3 years now. With a line like "Star Wars", it is possible to have a few main characters out an any time without clogging shelves because there are multiple characters that even casual collectors will want. So, after a wave with Luke, Hasbro can release a wave with Han or the princess or....

But, with TF, Hasbro pushes BB and only BB. If nothing else, there is incentive to avoid buying BB because there is likely to be a better one later.

Instead of a singular brand rollout, the deluxes have trickled in slowly but surely, replacing DOTM product, which often leads to stores mixing the 2 lines together when there's limited space or excess DOTM, despite the DOTM and TFP prices not matching up at all. The

The release of new figures is not even consistent. Walgreens is ahead of Target around here. Yes, Walgreens is beating Target.

Kids are likely to give up on finding new toys after a few months, (while they are watchng the show). Collectors know that new stuff is coming. But, rather than deal with stores, we can just go online. In the long term, this drives brick and mortar sales down, which means that stores order less product....and you can see where this is going.

and thus Bumblebee himself may be seen as a less satisfactory purchase choice, and that kid might leave without getting anything at all.

And, even a kid can only buy 1 BB, maybe 2 if the first one gets destroyed.

But, how many Vehicons are too many, especially when there are so few other characters to choose from? I army built a little as a kid with "GI Joe". But, there were enough individual characters that I really did not have a chance to. But, with smaller waves of toys, (and the peg-warming of the last few years), there would be plenty of time for even a frugal child to army build.

Assume that a kid goes to the shopping center ever week or two. And, assume that the kid is watchng the cartoon regularly. After picking up BB and a Vehicon, the kid comes back a few weeks later and buys Ratchet. Then, he buys another Vehicon or two. Maybe he picks up Arcee. But, after that, unless there is another wave of figures, the kid will need something to buy. And, even, then, Vehicons will always be an option because the kid will probably want one to fight each of his Autobots.

Could be worse though: It could be the Takara TFPrime line with blank figures that have to be stickered, glued-on monocolor Mini-Con ports, and packed-in shoddy Mini-Cons that they expect you to clip off sprues, build, and sticker yourself.

Apparently, Takara did market research that indicated kids actually like that kind of bull shit. I recall hating it as a kid But, I was all thumbs, so what did/do I know?


Dom
-Hasbro should have learned this in the 80s, when old episodes of the cartoon did not help sell toys made in 1987 or later.

[BWprowl]

There is nothing wrong with making sure that main characters are always available. But, Hasbro has consistently over-estimated the appeal of Bumbleturd for the sake of Bumbleturd for at least 3 years now. With a line like "Star Wars", it is possible to have a few main characters out an any time without clogging shelves because there are multiple characters that even casual collectors will want. So, after a wave with Luke, Hasbro can release a wave with Han or the princess or....

But, with TF, Hasbro pushes BB and only BB. If nothing else, there is incentive to avoid buying BB because there is likely to be a better one later.

Hasbro pushes Optimus Prime almost as much, actually, and he’s generally a more collector-favored character of that sort, particularly with regards to larger figures. Still, I agree that Hasbro might want to look into adding a few more, varied characters to act as the ‘faces’ of the line.

Kids are likely to give up on finding new toys after a few months, (while they are watchng the show). Collectors know that new stuff is coming. But, rather than deal with stores, we can just go online. In the long term, this drives brick and mortar sales down, which means that stores order less product....and you can see where this is going.

This whole thing really reminds me of the BM toyline, which also waited until after the first season for the toys to hit stores, which we all know did that line no favors. At least the TFPrime toys actually look like their show counterparts…

And, even a kid can only buy 1 BB, maybe 2 if the first one gets destroyed.

But, how many Vehicons are too many, especially when there are so few other characters to choose from? I army built a little as a kid with "GI Joe". But, there were enough individual characters that I really did not have a chance to. But, with smaller waves of toys, (and the peg-warming of the last few years), there would be plenty of time for even a frugal child to army build.

Assume that a kid goes to the shopping center ever week or two. And, assume that the kid is watchng the cartoon regularly. After picking up BB and a Vehicon, the kid comes back a few weeks later and buys Ratchet. Then, he buys another Vehicon or two. Maybe he picks up Arcee. But, after that, unless there is another wave of figures, the kid will need something to buy. And, even, then, Vehicons will always be an option because the kid will probably want one to fight each of his Autobots.

This was pretty much my point- Cyberverse Vehicons are cheap and duplicable, which lend very well to army-building by both kids and collectors. Unfortunately, Hasbro neglected the third piece of criteria for this sort of thing: making the figures available in decent quantities. Every less Vehicon on shelves due to short-packing is one less that a kid can buy with something else to fuel a Cyberverse purchasing habit. Man, if Hasbro had really been on the ball, considering the independently-molded nature of the TFPrime Cyberverse weapons, they could have had cases feature Vehicons with assorted weapon styles/colors, making rebuying the mold as an army-builder more appealing. Maybe refresh cases could feature Vehicons with tweaked rank/environment based paint jobs to further increase the viability of army-building, not unlike the alternate versions the Omnicon and Terrorcon army-builders saw in Energon (another advantage those guys had was that the army-builders had a whole SIZE CLASS to themselves. Making the most-sold price point of the time an army-builder: a stroke of genius on Hasbro’s part if you ask me).

A multipack of 3 or 4 Cyberverse Vehicons down the line might mitigate this somewhat, but goes against the purchasing pattern you describe, which I agree is the main issue here.

Apparently, Takara did market research that indicated kids actually like that kind of bull shit. I recall hating it as a kid But, I was all thumbs, so what did/do I know?

I get the appeal of plamo kits, I do. I build Gundams from time to time, yeah. But when I buy a Transformer, I want to get the thing out of the box and start messing with it right there, not take time and effort to build and sticker the damn thing. Then again, the culture of Japanese kids and what they like differs wildly from how things work over here, so yeah, what do we know?

Dom
-Hasbro should have learned this in the 80s, when old episodes of the cartoon did not help sell toys made in 1987 or later.

Or like I said, from Beast Machines, which went through this exact same thing with unfortunate results. Again, from what I understand, Hasbro just flat-out wasn’t sure until the last minute that they even wanted to try to have TFPrime carry the line. So yeah, they really should have had their shit together faster, but there’s at least *some* reasoning behind it.

Actually, didn’t Animated do the exact same thing? With the cartoon premiering, but the toys being delayed behind Movie product for like six months? Is Hasbro just over cartoons as advertising vehicles now, or something?

[Sparky Prime]

Deluxe wave 1 has included 2 mute characters, 1 dead character, and 1 character who has been in 2 episodes. This is not a compelling group of characters.

BB, Cliffjumper and whoever the other two character were would have made sense as a starter wave if the show was fresh in kids' minds.

Wheeljack and Soundwave. I'd had to agree with JediTricks here... It seems like a strange first wave when at least two of these characters have barely been in two episodes (and technically Cliffjumper was only in one before he was brought back as a zombie).

[Shockwave]

This whole thing is completely whackadoodle.

[138 Scourge]

Yeah, I've never understood the whole "Put out the toys after the show's been out a year" thing. They don't do that with the movie, right? The movie toys keep coming out a few weeks before the movies, and in large numbers. Then Animated and now Prime gets the same deal, where the shows are about a year ahead of the toys. Goofy.

Then again, I honestly have no idea if I'd have bought more or less Prime toys if they'd come out sooner. It took me a few episodes to decide that the show was not for me, so maybe if I'd seen the first couple episodes of Prime, and then seen, say, a Bulkhead toy, it'd have been on. I know I would've been more willing to buy a Knockout when I first saw him on the show. But then again, my distaste for the show's worn off some since I haven't seen it for months, so I'm more willing to appreciate the toys as just toys, and not as characters in a show I don't like.

Whatevs.

So, I'm the only one here that thinks the min-model kit mini-cons sounds like a fun thing? Because I could seriously get behind that. Give you more opportunity for customization and whatnot. Then again, I'm the guy that likes Kre-Os for being Transformers that take forever to build, so my views on that might be skewed.

[Shockwave]

So, I'm the only one here that thinks the min-model kit mini-cons sounds like a fun thing? Because I could seriously get behind that. Give you more opportunity for customization and whatnot. Then again, I'm the guy that likes Kre-Os for being Transformers that take forever to build, so my views on that might be skewed.

No. You're not the only one.

[JediTricks]

It’s worth noting that, in my area at least, the Cyberverse Legion toys started popping up before the rest of the Prime toys. Deluxes, Voyagers, and Bot Shots actually appeared at the ‘correct’ time after the street date/during the toy section reset, and Cyberverse Commanders first showed up at my Targets a couple weeks ago, though they aren’t yet sharing space with the mainline, they’re over on that promotional endcap thing with Star Wars, Marvel Universe and some other unrelated stuff, meaning you aren’t going to see them immediately unless you’re looking for them and know where to look. Keep in mind that this all pertains to the Targets in my area, as TRU has continued with their ‘put everything out whenever we feel like it’ approach to restocks/resets, and I’ve generally avoided Wal-Mart for toys lately, given how dismal their selection has become.

The first Legion Prime figures don't count as a launch because it's just Cliff and BB, I think, and they're in a transition case with DOTM cards and new cards in it from the same SKU.

My Target also had Commanders only on the endcaps, only the DVD packs, and they sold through very fast because they were on sale for $8 down from $10. My TRUs have just started getting Commanders, they put them both on regular pegs and on sidekicks, but the regular pegs have Commanders at $10 and separate regular pegs for Commanders w/ DVDs at $12 - classy, huh?

WM here has had 1 figure next to some very empty pegs, I don't remember at all what it was - not any pricepoint or character, though safe money says BB.

Kinda looking forward to more Cyberverse playsets, though I’ll primarily be using them with my Movie guys, I suppose.

Not sure if you know, but the DOTM Ark playset is on clearance at Targets right now.

The Bumblebee thing is interesting, in that Movie BBs still seemed to sell pretty well (they certainly didn’t shelfwarm or anything) despite Hasbro seemingly finding more and more ways to get him into cases

Around here, from day 1 on, the DOTM pegs have been clogged with BBs of every scale and variation imaginable.

I’m wondering if Hasbro’s market research or whatever has exacerbated the old ‘Villains don’t sell well’ edict and that’s why we’re seeing more bad-guy-shortpacking now. It’s not just TF, they pulled this with GI Joe Renegades and that new, highly sought-after Storm Shadow: One per case in a single case assortment. Was it because Storm Shadow’s a villain? Because to me, a kickass ninja toy seems like an easy sell to kids, regardless of what side he’s on (of course, that logic requires that kids be buying GI Joe, and honestly, are they?).

Almost certainly it's market research telling them kids don't want bad guys, just like the Japanese don't like bad guys and don't know what pickup trucks are. But they've taken it way too extreme, and the line is suffering badly for it.

Paint apps on Deluxe have been lower than the pricepoint demands.

Ratchet’s about average, as far as I can tell, but I’ll admit that Soundwave could stand to have more highlights and details on him. That they wasted a couple apps on his face when it could have been pulled off infinitely better with unpainted lightpiping hurts it even more.

Ratchet is missing a ton of detail, and he doesn't have the zig-zag on his vehicle mode! His siren lights are WHITE! 2 tiny red square and the rest is WHITE.

Could be worse though: It could be the Takara TFPrime line with blank figures that have to be stickered, glued-on monocolor Mini-Con ports, and packed-in shoddy Mini-Cons that they expect you to clip off sprues, build, and sticker yourself.

I didn't know that about the line being blank and having stickers, or that their minicons are build-yourself -- I can't say I'd mind too much right now though if it meant having minicons that were better than the ones in PCC.

Legion has been very popular around here once it started hitting, coming in and selling through very quickly. The demand for the lower pricepoint is clearly significant, although I'd still argue that Legion is a poor ambassador to the brand due to being unsatisfying Transformers.

I’ll disagree on this one: Smaller toys are perfect gateway figures, since they’re cheap enough as a ‘buy with your own money’ toy for kids. Little Timmy goes over to the toy section while his mom is doing her grocery shopping, and he sees something he can blow the allowance he just got on. Legion may lack the complexity of the larger toys, but they’re something a kid can easily buy for themselves and tote around with them, not to mention build up a large ‘collection’ of characters in that size range with relative ease. Then they can beg their parents to spend $20-40 on vehicles and playsets for those figures.

I’m just saying, I started my TF collection with Hubcap, and things kept going from there.

You misunderstand, I'm not badmouthing the pricepoint, far from it - the best-selling products in Beast Machines and RID were basics, that's why Armada put such a big focus on the basic pricepoint. I'm badmouthing the LEGION product itself - cheap, flimsy, under-detailed, poorly painted, and unsatisfying to transform or enjoy as a robot or a vehicle. Compare the basic figures from ANY era to Legion and Legion comes up short: G1 minibots, BW and BM basics, RID Spychanger 2-packs, Armada mini-con 3packs, Energon Omnicons, Cybertron Scout-class and mini-con 2-packs, Movie 1 Real Gear, ROTF Scout-class, even shoddy Animated Activators. Every single one of those basics is head and shoulders above the quality of product and value for Legion, Legion I think is a terrible ambassador for Transformers because it's taking advantage of the kid-friendly pricepoint with underwhelming, unsatisfying product that won't lead another generation of kids to start a collection off with a single figure. Cyberverse is closer, but now has priced itself out of basic territory and the product is already getting worse in design.

BTW, I can't tell you what figure started my original Transformers collection (although I guarantee it was a basic Go-Bot, then a Super Go-Bot, because they came out months ahead of TF and I was pretty into them), but I remember clearly my first returns to Transformers: first it was Machine Wars Starscream on clearance at Kaybee, then nothing for a while, then BW B'Boom - the very first and ONLY modern Transformer whose instructions I lost, left them in Jeremy Sung's minivan.

Commanders are now priced around $10 instead of $8, which makes them a very tough pill to swallow, especially with hollow figures like Bulkhead. Only 1 villain in the case, short-packed.

I don’t know about case ratios, but I thought the Commanders had two villains, Starscream and Megatron? Unless my local Targets crushed two waves together.

Oops, you're right, wave 1 is 2 villains and 1 hero, wave 1 revision 1 is the case with OP balancing out the wave 2 and 2. W1 is even-packed at 2 per case, W1R1 is 2 per case heroes and 1 per case villains. I forgot about Megatron in that wave altogether.

The weapons not staying deployed does suck, especially after the Mechtech weapons on the DOTM Voyagers made a point of all being able to do this. Megatron’s is okay though, at least both weapons look like weapons. I can’t speak for Optimus as I haven’t really paid attention to him and I have no intention of picking him up.

Megs' fusion cannon has a crossbow/scissors-type thing underneath that is what pops out and lights up, that's the gimmick, I think maybe the fusion cannon's muzzle might slide forward too but don't quote me on that. OP's is a geared ugly mess that turns into an underwhelming rifle he can't actually hold in his hands, it's pegged to his arms.

Not only is Megatron short-packed, but remember that there’s also that revision case with nothing but Optimus! On the other hand, the last couple Targets I was at had piles of Megatron left over with little to no Optimuses on shelves, so what the hell do I know?

I am not seeing a revision case with just OP right now, I'm seeing wave 1 which is even packed but so far hasn't shown much of its face, and w1r1 which is 3x OP, 1x Megs; with wave 2 being 2x OP and 1x Starscream and Bulkhead.

In a fit of vaguely depressing irony, most casual customers are likely to miss the contrast, seeing the limited release FE got. Maybe Canadian customers will take more issue with it?

As a side note, the differences between the FE toys and their RiD counterparts reminds me heavily of the differences seen between the first Movie toys and some of their later ROTF versions.

Except in reverse, since the movie 1 figures weren't as good as the ROTF versions? I can see that. It reminds me more of ROTF being great design and then DOTM being poorer design for deluxe, voyager, and leader. As for not seeing FE, the internet has ruined that for all fans, we all know what we're missing.

There definitely seems like there was some decision-change partway through, maybe brought on by the alleged initial lack of confidence in TFPrime’s abilities as the driving force as a mainline.

This I don't see, they are still using it as their mainline, and Generations picks up the slack a little later in the year with retailers who are currently treading water on it. I suppose it could be response though to retailers actively not ordering the FE product line because they didn't think their shelves could support both the FE SKU and the upcoming RID SKUs since they had little faith in Prime as a license. But it seems like a lot of the line changes came too early in development for that.

Could be why they rebuilt the line to include more kid-appeal gimmicks (though the head reveals don’t bother me and at least the light-up weapons do the Mechtech thing where they don’t actually cut into or interfere with the core figure in any way)

Perhaps true, but they said early on they were planning for figures to have interactivity with the lights from the Cyberverse vehicles, it's why Voyager OP and Megatron have so much clear plastic on them.

, not to mention bringing in Bot Shots as a subsidiary thing to try and take a bite out of the burgeoning Bakugan market (because ferkin’ everything has to be a game with kids now. Even the goddamn Star Wars action figures had that crummy dice game worked into them).

That is such a Hasbro move! Bakugan annually has huge clearance moves to get the next line in, they push out way more product than they sell, so naturally Hasbro makes a dumbed-down version with TF, to capture the over-saturated and constantly-failing action-game-piece-figure market? Then again, they also put out Star Wars Fighter Pods which are a direct response to the Squinkies lines, except at 3x the cost, and no Star Wars market showing any interest in the concept.

Wow. Epic fail Hasbro. At this point, I think I'd rather collect Rescue Bots.

HA! I totally forgot that line was still out there.

Deluxe wave 1 has included 2 mute characters, 1 dead character, and 1 character who has been in 2 episodes. This is not a compelling group of characters.

Even assuming only one wave shipped at a time, and that the waves were logically spaced out, (neither of which is the case), this would have made sense if the toys and cartoon hit at the same time.

BB, Cliffjumper and whoever the other two character were would have made sense as a starter wave if the show was fresh in kids' minds.

Cliffjumper I could give you by that thinking, he's in the first episode, but Soundwave and Wheeljack? They're not going to be kid favorites from the show no matter the launch timing, especially since Wheeljack didn't show up for months, and Soundwave doesn't really DO anything for a while.

There is nothing wrong with making sure that main characters are always available. But, Hasbro has consistently over-estimated the appeal of Bumbleturd for the sake of Bumbleturd for at least 3 years now. With a line like "Star Wars", it is possible to have a few main characters out an any time without clogging shelves because there are multiple characters that even casual collectors will want. So, after a wave with Luke, Hasbro can release a wave with Han or the princess or....

But, with TF, Hasbro pushes BB and only BB. If nothing else, there is incentive to avoid buying BB because there is likely to be a better one later.

Kids don't generally think that way, but BB has a very limited play pattern since he doesn't talk and thus doesn't emote, doesn't yell at enemies, he just shoots his blasters and occasionally rescues the annoying kid, both movie and prime. He was endearing in the first movie, but they wore him out in the second movie by taking him away from Sam for a lot of the film and giving him less heroics. After that it was a freefall.

Also, a side note, but I still think it's incredibly stupid that Bumblebee has no voicebox on TF:P yet his annoying sounds are entirely intelligible to EVERYBODY INCLUDING THE HUMANS but not the audience.

But, how many Vehicons are too many, especially when there are so few other characters to choose from? I army built a little as a kid with "GI Joe". But, there were enough individual characters that I really did not have a chance to. But, with smaller waves of toys, (and the peg-warming of the last few years), there would be plenty of time for even a frugal child to army build.

Look at the awesome Omnicons in TF:Energon for a great example of cheap available army builders. GI Joe:ARAH was a great line for building an army of individuals and buying vehicles for those individuals, but toy lines don't have that freedom anymore, the market is too competitive, budgets are too high, there are too many risks. But there's always going to be a need for troopers.

Apparently, Takara did market research that indicated kids actually like that kind of bull shit. I recall hating it as a kid But, I was all thumbs, so what did/do I know?

Japanese collecting markets are more fragmented than ours, they go way in for blind-pack and build-it-yourself gashopon (candy machine toys but the toys are higher quality and cost like $5 from a machine). I have a few Trek vessels from over there, during that time 3 different Japanese companies release high-quality Trek vessels as blind-pack build-yourself gashopon, that shit sells. Kotobukiya was able to blind-pack sell segments of a very high-end build-yourself Star Wars diorama (cut-away X-wing) that I think all told even if you got lucky and got each on the first try would set you back $175.

Hasbro pushes Optimus Prime almost as much, actually, and he’s generally a more collector-favored character of that sort, particularly with regards to larger figures. Still, I agree that Hasbro might want to look into adding a few more, varied characters to act as the ‘faces’ of the line.

I was thinking the same thing, and even with OP they eventually give the character a rest for a few waves. Not BB. Apparently 2007 was so scarring running out of Transformers with such high demand that we're still feeling the wrong-headed aftermath 5 years down the road: "gotta have BB for the kiddies!!!"

This whole thing really reminds me of the BM toyline, which also waited until after the first season for the toys to hit stores, which we all know did that line no favors. At least the TFPrime toys actually look like their show counterparts…

I had forgotten about that, it wasn't entirely after the first season though, was it? I think it hit midway through, and the designs weren't that accurate to the show so they were playing catch-up the whole way. I liked that first BM Primal figure and all the Vehicons, but they didn't look dick like the show.

Again, from what I understand, Hasbro just flat-out wasn’t sure until the last minute that they even wanted to try to have TFPrime carry the line.

Quite the opposite from what I've heard, they really wanted TF:P to work, they launched it early to build anticipation and get a flagship show out the door for their new network, and product design picked up after the movie with the intention that stores would get on board with TF:P despite being on the Hub network that was just starting out. They cycled through nearly the entire design team in a matter of a couple years though, which slowed design. My guess is Hasbro stretched itself too thin producing the show, buying a cable network, and launching a line on the back of 2 other entirely dissimilar lines.

Then again, I honestly have no idea if I'd have bought more or less Prime toys if they'd come out sooner. It took me a few episodes to decide that the show was not for me, so maybe if I'd seen the first couple episodes of Prime, and then seen, say, a Bulkhead toy, it'd have been on. I know I would've been more willing to buy a Knockout when I first saw him on the show. But then again, my distaste for the show's worn off some since I haven't seen it for months, so I'm more willing to appreciate the toys as just toys, and not as characters in a show I don't like.

I'm sorta in the same boat. I did that with Animated, but that toy line really caught me and by the time it did, the show was too far in to catch up, and now it's unavailable as a whole in any format.

So, I'm the only one here that thinks the min-model kit mini-cons sounds like a fun thing? Because I could seriously get behind that. Give you more opportunity for customization and whatnot. Then again, I'm the guy that likes Kre-Os for being Transformers that take forever to build, so my views on that might be skewed.

I don't know about customization unless they all have generic transformations, but the idea seems ok to me too.

I'm not down with Kre-o though, I want to dig it, but it's not enough of a Transformer for me - I'm really disappointed that GI Joe is suffering so badly that the planned Kre-o line wasn't launched at Toy Fair, that is more Kre-o's strengths I suspect.