This is something that most collectors in the US would never really have to deal with (lucky guys--!), but something that would be more for the international fans.

 

I recently found more ROTF figures released here in the Philippines, a couple of which have been known (and likely available) for some time. The red Rampage, and Deluxe Evac were new on the shelves, and even more noticably, Skystalker, which I was looking for just as much as TFA Arcee (still no luck with that one either).

 

I was pretty excited. Skystalker being as well liked as he is, and looking VERY good in person... until I turned the pack around to read his bio there, only to find out that it was a multilingual pack. The only line in English was something along the lines of, "Skystalker swoops down to grab Scattoshot from the air," or something like that. I checked the other new arrivals, and Rampage and Evac were in their standard packaging. From the looks of things, the other Scouts there were a mixed bag of packaging versions. Sonar, Divebomb and the older Scouts were standard, Brakedown was multilingual, and he was standard in earlier shipping batches.

 

Now I don't collect MISB, but I retain as much of the package as possible, especially the bios, since they provide the character to go with the toy. I ultimately could not get Skystalker because I didn't have the money, but even if I had, the presence of a multilingual pack with very little overall info is probably enough to make me hesitate buying him, excellent as the toy itself is.

We were getting multilingual packages a while back, but now domesticly everything is in english.

 

You can honestly say that we do need that in America, but for the majority, english is the standard which pisses Latin people off, and makes Asians cranky.

 

Concerning the overseas packaging. I can understand it being annoying, but it's cost effective when distributing on a world wide scale I'm sure.

I won't deny the financial practicality of it, that's for sure. But it's sad when all you get for a bio is a single sentence, followed by stock pics showing robot and alt modes with the only labeling for them is "2 in 1". :P I would have been happy to see something like "Robot Mode - Drone Mode", or whatever the alt mode's label is supposed to be.

 

I'm not too picky when it comes to buying my figures, and I'll likely pick up Skystalker come payday, but if I suddenly see a standard pack of him later on, there will be much gnashing of teeth, yes.

Packaging for the international market is pretty bad these days. The G.I. Joe 25th anniversary figures had a generic card for all of the figures. Back in the '80s, each country got it's own style of packaging in the language for its market. Since Hasbro won't do that these days, then all country's should get the standard US market packaging, as a kind of default packaging.

wait, i dont get what your saying

overseas Hasbro sends out a package with 3 different languages printed on the package at the same time.

-it's cheaper then specifying for each individual country

The Variable, found other figures wth the single text print(similar to the US packaging) and another in the mass release 'trilingual'

 

he'd prefer the single text as he saves the back cards.

 

As I said I understand the need for multilingual packages. It would be a good Idea though if they made more variants specified for general regions.

I don't care for packaging at all (ours is trilingual). I never read bios.