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First looks at Asian Market Transformers Generations exclusives


ExVee

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OK, please don't tell me that GI Joe, Star Wars and MLP figures don't come from China or else I'm gonna need more ibuprofen

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No, the increase to $14.99 is to prevent having to make the toys even smaller than they already are in the face of increasing production costs. Most people missed this detail, but Prime toys starting with wave 4 will also carry that $14.99 SRP. That sadly is where the price of today's Deluxe Transformer is going. If this weren't the case, I have no doubt the Prime "RID" toys today would be of comparable size and complexity to the First Edition toys that were designed more than a year prior when all the numbers and outlook were different.

 

Like I said before, I'd love to be proven wrong about the old Generations molds not being financially viable anymore, but I do not expect that on any realistic level.

 

No, the increase to $14.99 is to prevent having to make the toys even smaller than they already are in the face of increasing production costs. Most people missed this detail, but Prime toys starting with wave 4 will also carry that $14.99 SRP. That sadly is where the price of today's Deluxe Transformer is going. If this weren't the case, I have no doubt the Prime "RID" toys today would be of comparable size and complexity to the First Edition toys that were designed more than a year prior when all the numbers and outlook were different.

 

Like I said before, I'd love to be proven wrong about the old Generations molds not being financially viable anymore, but I do not expect that on any realistic level.

 

Most of the molds had already paid for themselves through previous figures, so that is not a cost option. What is a higher cost is creating new molds to be used.

 

 

The tooling investment is only a part of it, and from past indications not a huge part. See things like the tail-end Animated stuff, or the Generations Frumble mold, where the Japan-exclusive releases were considered enough to offset the mold costs and release by Hasbro was no longer needed or even worth special measures to have happen. Unless a new mold toy never makes it to retail anywhere, which is an incredibly rare happening in recent years, the molds can be assumed to pay for themselves in no time. What stacks up in the long term is amount of material required to make the toy, how efficiently that material is used, and the complexity: more complex toys means more labor to get them built, which is an increased cost. Over the many thousands of units that need to be produced to be able to sell a Deluxe at $12, you better believe these seeming "little" differences add up.

 

 

The tooling investment is only a part of it, and from past indications not a huge part. See things like the tail-end Animated stuff, or the Generations Frumble mold, where the Japan-exclusive releases were considered enough to offset the mold costs and release by Hasbro was no longer needed or even worth special measures to have happen. Unless a new mold toy never makes it to retail anywhere, which is an incredibly rare happening in recent years, the molds can be assumed to pay for themselves in no time. What stacks up in the long term is amount of material required to make the toy, how efficiently that material is used, and the complexity: more complex toys means more labor to get them built, which is an increased cost. Over the many thousands of units that need to be produced to be able to sell a Deluxe at $12, you better believe these seeming "little" differences add up.

 

The Mold is 15% of costs per $10,000 units. Plastic is still cheap. The Labor force in China is still cheap and has barely gone up recently. What Hasbro is going after is the shipping from China to the States along with tariffs and everything else while trying to keep a certain profit margin intact. Hence the unneeded rise in Price of Transformers. GI Joe has not gone up nor has Star Wars or MLP. Transformers is the only one that has gone up in the last 6 months.

 

Not even Target can justify their insane DOTM prices right now, It is definitely rare when Target is more expensive than Toys R Us. And this is just Crazy!

 

DOTM Thundercracker EYE POPPER

 

This is all my opinion below based off me studying things. I state nothing as fact.

 

Gasoline being tripple the prices compared to 2007. is the MAIN reason everything has gone up including TF toy prices. because EVERYTHING uses gasoline to get transported back & forth to their many destinations.

 

Hasbro & USA retail store are AFRAID OF EXCESSIVE SHELF/PEG WARMERS due to people not buying the way they use to due to the downward spiral economy/recession reasons. Hasbro's new Strategic plan is to end TF toy lines early to avoid shelf/peg warmers. because Hasbro needs to introduce a newer TF toy line every year. it's super hard to convince stores to carry a newer TF toy line,if their pegs/shelves are full of the previous/older TF toy lines.

 

rants about the TF toys sizes getting smaller is just non-sense. every TF size wave has a fluctuation height,width,deepness. 2012 Legends are still around 2 to 3 inches tall. 2012 basics/commanders are still around 3 to 4 inches tall. 2012 deluxes are still 5 to 6 inches tall. voyagers are still 5.5 to 6.5 inches tall. leaders are still 8 to 9 .5 inches tall. COMPLAINING ABOUT A 1/4 OR 1/2 OR 3/4 OF A INCH SMALLER IS PURE NON-SENSE,Because 10 out 10 times this slightly smaller TF toy still fits into it's fluctuation size class.

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What Hasbro is going after is the shipping from China to the States along with tariffs and everything else while trying to keep a certain profit margin intact. Hence the unneeded rise in Price of Transformers. GI Joe has not gone up nor has Star Wars or MLP. Transformers is the only one that has gone up in the last 6 months.

 

In MY Honest Opinion below.

 

Gasoline prices are tripple the prices since 2007. everything went up in price,due to everything using gasoline in order to travel to the destinations.

 

GI Joe, Star Wars and MLP figures use multi parts sharing <-----This helps them save tons of money. Perhaps this savings in parts sharing. helps them keep cost the same even when gaoline prices are tripple the prices since 2007.

 

What's multi parts sharing? examples: all the MY little Pony toys released in 2012 in various sizes,has one new mold in each size class they repaint 20+times & call it different pony persona names. all the G.I Joes & Star wars 3 inches+ figures do part sharing like using the same arms or legs or heads or torso's,or clever combinations of parts on different persona characters.

 

Newer mold TF toys got raised in prices because they don't do parts sharing in the over excessive amounts like GI Joe,Star Wars and MLP figures do.

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OK, please don't tell me that GI Joe, Star Wars and MLP figures don't come from China or else I'm gonna need more ibuprofen

 

I'm not going to, because they do come from China also.

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The tooling investment is only a part of it, and from past indications not a huge part. See things like the tail-end Animated stuff, or the Generations Frumble mold, where the Japan-exclusive releases were considered enough to offset the mold costs and release by Hasbro was no longer needed or even worth special measures to have happen. Unless a new mold toy never makes it to retail anywhere, which is an incredibly rare happening in recent years, the molds can be assumed to pay for themselves in no time. What stacks up in the long term is amount of material required to make the toy, how efficiently that material is used, and the complexity: more complex toys means more labor to get them built, which is an increased cost. Over the many thousands of units that need to be produced to be able to sell a Deluxe at $12, you better believe these seeming "little" differences add up.

 

The Mold is 15% of costs per $10,000 units. Plastic is still cheap. The Labor force in China is still cheap and has barely gone up recently. What Hasbro is going after is the shipping from China to the States along with tariffs and everything else while trying to keep a certain profit margin intact. Hence the unneeded rise in Price of Transformers. GI Joe has not gone up nor has Star Wars or MLP. Transformers is the only one that has gone up in the last 6 months.

 

Not even Target can justify their insane DOTM prices right now, It is definitely rare when Target is more expensive than Toys R Us. And this is just Crazy!

 

DOTM Thundercracker EYE POPPER

 

They may not have gone up the last 6 months but they sure have over the last 10 years while TF pricing had stayed the same for the most part. I'm pretty sure SW figures 10 years ago were around $5 and they're about $9 now? Same thing with GIJoe. They were sold in 2 packs for $8. Now they're sold individually for $8. Marvel Legends have gone up to. From $10 6 years ago to the $16 that they are now. Everything in the toy aisle is going up. Not just TF's.

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Anyone else ever wonder if we spend too much $$$$ on bits of plastic?

Whoa! What just happened? Think I blacked out for a minute there. What were we just talking about?

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The tooling investment is only a part of it, and from past indications not a huge part. See things like the tail-end Animated stuff, or the Generations Frumble mold, where the Japan-exclusive releases were considered enough to offset the mold costs and release by Hasbro was no longer needed or even worth special measures to have happen. Unless a new mold toy never makes it to retail anywhere, which is an incredibly rare happening in recent years, the molds can be assumed to pay for themselves in no time. What stacks up in the long term is amount of material required to make the toy, how efficiently that material is used, and the complexity: more complex toys means more labor to get them built, which is an increased cost. Over the many thousands of units that need to be produced to be able to sell a Deluxe at $12, you better believe these seeming "little" differences add up.

 

The Mold is 15% of costs per $10,000 units. Plastic is still cheap. The Labor force in China is still cheap and has barely gone up recently. What Hasbro is going after is the shipping from China to the States along with tariffs and everything else while trying to keep a certain profit margin intact. Hence the unneeded rise in Price of Transformers. GI Joe has not gone up nor has Star Wars or MLP. Transformers is the only one that has gone up in the last 6 months.

 

Not even Target can justify their insane DOTM prices right now, It is definitely rare when Target is more expensive than Toys R Us. And this is just Crazy!

 

DOTM Thundercracker EYE POPPER

 

They may not have gone up the last 6 months but they sure have over the last 10 years while TF pricing had stayed the same for the most part. I'm pretty sure SW figures 10 years ago were around $5 and they're about $9 now? Same thing with GIJoe. They were sold in 2 packs for $8. Now they're sold individually for $8. Marvel Legends have gone up to. From $10 6 years ago to the $16 that they are now. Everything in the toy aisle is going up. Not just TF's.

 

Everything has gone up in the last 10 years, but your missing the point about the last 6 months, Deluxe's have gone up by at least $4 and shrank at the same time. Where GI JOe, MLP, and Star Wars figures have not changed at all.

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Meaning you missed the point. Hasbro did everything possible for as long as they could to keep Transformers at a certain pricing, even while everything around them incrementally went up along with inflation, increasing material and transportation costs, and of course Wal-Mart's constant demands of, "make this cheaper for us." The change has NOT been just in the past six months. Deluxes were up to $12 in 2010, and stayed there in 2011. Wal-Mart priced DOTM Deluxes at $9.88, but given nobody else followed suit, that had to be them pushing those at a smaller margin. Not that it helped much. ...well, it helped me get a pile of Warpaths for $2 off when Generations were stocked on the wrong pegs, but that's probably getting off track. Transformers is playing catch up to where the other lines you name have already gone. You can't use the lack of their prices increasing at the same time to claim Transformers is undergoing unnatural or needless price hikes. Two price increases in one year hurts for sure, but it only ends up this way because they're holding back on resorting to that until there is no other option they can take. It's great while Transformers is kept one of the more competitively priced boy's action figure lines, but it's sure not great when that necessary increase hits all at once instead of a little at a time spread over YEARS like how most of the stuff works.

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Meaning you missed the point. Hasbro did everything possible for as long as they could to keep Transformers at a certain pricing, even while everything around them incrementally went up along with inflation, increasing material and transportation costs, and of course Wal-Mart's constant demands of, "make this cheaper for us." The change has NOT been just in the past six months. Deluxes were up to $12 in 2010, and stayed there in 2011. Wal-Mart priced DOTM Deluxes at $9.88, but given nobody else followed suit, that had to be them pushing those at a smaller margin. Not that it helped much. ...well, it helped me get a pile of Warpaths for $2 off when Generations were stocked on the wrong pegs, but that's probably getting off track. Transformers is playing catch up to where the other lines you name have already gone. You can't use the lack of their prices increasing at the same time to claim Transformers is undergoing unnatural or needless price hikes. Two price increases in one year hurts for sure, but it only ends up this way because they're holding back on resorting to that until there is no other option they can take. It's great while Transformers is kept one of the more competitively priced boy's action figure lines, but it's sure not great when that necessary increase hits all at once instead of a little at a time spread over YEARS like how most of the stuff works.

 

What part of 6 months do you not get? I am not talking about the last 10 years, I'm talking about the major price changes of the last 6 months

 

You want to talk about the last ten years fine, that is inflation discussion over with that easy. 10 year discussion is over

 

The 6 month has something else behind it. Especially when it was only Transformers that went up in price by $4 at the least

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Having just started collecting again in late 2007 I'm very aware of what the prices were/are doing. It used to be

simple.

Legends-$3

Scout-$5

Deluxe-$10

Voyager-$20

The price hikes in the past year are bigger than they used to be, but the frequency hasn't really increased

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