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For better or for worse?


Shadowpanther

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:agree 1 million% with Taaron here.

 

I have AM Bulkhead, and as soon as I had him out of box I had to give him some paint aps PDQ. Stickers for windows and tail lights. Major ail

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Meh, Cyberverse was just an excuse for Hasbro to make Scouts smaller, and have Legends fit into a wider line, thus getting promoted more, and increasing the desire to collect. While Legends in the Transformers: Cybertron toyline was an attempt to make characters to match the show scale of Supreme Starscream and Metroplex, Cyberverse is just hasbro cutting costs by replacing scouts with the smaller Cyberverse commander figures that are more cost effective to produce because of the lack of articulation, and much much cheaper plastics used.

 

I love watching Rescuebots with my son, the greatest feeling in the world! Still hoping I can find the Boulder, and Blades figures for him.

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I think Cyberverse has been an incredible line. Price could be a couple of bucks better, but looking across at the Star Wars and Marvel Universe tells me that it's just par for the course. And those figures don't even transform, so IMO we get the better end of the deal. Legion figures are no big deal seeing TF's have been doing similar scale figures since g1. I don't even know what the point of hating on them is though. If you don't like them, why does their mere presence seem to offend people? I have NO idea.

 

People gotta let the Bay hatred go already. There was no problem with the designs, and the figures were just fine. The ONLY problems that came there were all Hasbro. Overproducing earlier waves in the lines led to timing issues in getting the later waves to the market. Hasbro could just as easily cap the amount of units produced for each wave and transfer orders after that to the next. Retailers probably would never know the difference so long as they have product on the shelf to sell. Either that, or hard cap the number of orders taken on each wave to guarantee they all see release before going back later and doing encore releases of the most popular figures. Seems simple enough!

 

Hasbro(or corporations in general) makes things out to be like everything has to be done a certain way...the hard way. And to justify so many executive level positions, they have to create even more red tape to their processes which means less rational thinking and planning. Corporate constipation, my favorite term! That is what has plagued Hasbro and the retailers that sell their goods and has been getting progressively worse for years.

 

 

 

 

 

Quality and size issues vs. price. Again, Transformers have held out longer than most in making some changes that others have been making for years. Nobody should act surprised or insulted now when we've had it so much better than collectors of other franchises for so much longer. Still, aside from minor size fluctuations, I still don't see the big issue. The figures are still great. I'm enjoying the hell out of the Prime line with the exception of the pace of releases. They are certainly doing one thing...leaving them wanting more! I DO!

 

As for that quality. ANYONE who has gotten some 3rd party figures should know full well how incredibly difficult it is to produce quality product without stress and breakage. Hasbro in comparison has done just fine. Sure, I've had some weak parts break over the years and an issue here and there, but it's gonna happen. By and large the majority of Hasbro figures I've bought have had no quality issues at all. The few that did, I replaced and are now fine. Age issues will be another topic for another time. I haven't gone through some of my TF bins in over 10 years, so who knows what I might find when I do.

 

3rd party figures have been great, but wow are they a minefield! Gotta tip toe ever so gently.

 

 

 

 

Retailers, retailers, RETAILERS! People don't know how much they really do suck nowadays. Retailers IMO are becoming grossly incompetent in the day to day operations in stores everywhere. My favorite term again, CORPORATE CONSTIPATION! Everything is being done the hard way, common sense thrown out the window, through a shredder, and steamrolled into the parking lot. Look at store executive positions and the turnover rates, store managers who were promoted up through the company starting from the bottom have a 7% failure rate, but bachelor degree graduates who mostly never worked a retail job before and comes in as an executive has an 80% failure rate! Yet, that degree is now a requirement. Someday, that degree will be required just to run a register! Probably for the same wage too. So with all of this, it's easy to see how minor things like a few insignificant toy lines can keep getting overlooked and not properly managed. No section in most big retailers are tended to by regular personnel anymore. There are no employees with any greater knowledge to help in particular areas anymore. That idea has gone the way of the dinosaur and it's killing them.

 

 

At the end of the day there is plenty to be dissatisfied about. Hasbro has their share to do with that as far as TF's go, but there is plenty to go around. It's just not an ideal time for anyone or anything right now. Hang on, because there is no light at the end of this tunnel! It's gonna be a loooong dark ride!

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I personally love cyberverse and normally pick one up with spare change at the end of the week if I find one I need or want.

 

Plus, they go great with my Brave Maximus. They're the perfect scale to go with him. G1 minibots, spychangers, micromasters, minicons, cyberverse. They're all great for using on displays with base bots

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Snipped the stuff I don't quite take issue with.

 

1.) Cyberverse. I know, I know. You're incredibly biased against toys smaller than Voyager class, but you can at least do some research on what you're ranting about.

 

Cyberverse didn't come onto the scene during DOTM, it's been an evolving idea since 2005/2006's Legends of Cybertron line up. (2000/2003, if you consider the Heroes of Cybertron & WST lines to be a precursor.)

It was initially intended to tie into the show and have a proper scale with figures like Leader class Starscream, and the gigantic Metroplex, who made the show cast seem absolutely tiny. Obviously it was popular enough to continue on and evolve into including playsets. They're a great line for fans who want playsets and don't have the display space for the full sized figures.

I honestly have no idea how you can call it a 4 & Under/Toddler line, as they're obviously not due to the whole fact that they're not Rescue Bots. Cyberverse is filled with a thing called choking hazards for toddlers.

 

2.)Rescue Bots. You might not like the show, but for the target audience, it's very well done. Have you tried to actually sit through any of the episodes? As for wanting to get rid of something that actually works as a children TV series, you'd rather replace it with Kre-O (which would work as a Internet Series at best, which it practically is, currently) or Generations, a series that would be mightily complained upon if it wasn't an uber-adult series? We have Prime to fill that 'role', be happy with it.

 

If you don't like Rescue Bots after giving it a try, that's fine. But let the kids have their own Transformers series. (as for the toys, I bought both GoBots, and Rescue Bots. I seriously see no difference in articulation.)

 

Basically, "kiddie" or "toddler" are just his terms for things that he doesn't like. I've never quite figured out what "adult sculpts", as he always says is a feature of the stuff he likes, is supposed to mean.

 

And I think Cyberverse is excellent. Compact, inexpensive representations of the characters - you may prefer the larger versions, but I can't see why anyone would be offended by the smaller stuff. Since I have limited space, I appreciate being able to display a whole line on a single bookshelf.

 

Rescue Bots is excellent. I actually think it might be a better little kid show than Prime is for its demographic. And I own RB Prime. It's a cute toy, great for diverting my 2 year old cousin from the more breakable stuff. As an introductory series to get the kids started young, I think its great. But some people just don't accept that TFs are mainly for kids.

 

And that's the thing - kids are still a viable target for TFs in the US, and the bulk of sales. In Japan the kids don't really care so its largely just collectors keeping the franchise afloat (plus the partnership with Hasbro). I think Hasbro would like to keep kids buying the toys, so the fun stuff aimed squarely at the kids remains the majority, and rightly so. ShadowPanther may wish that Hasbro focused mainly on collectors, but that's simply not an option. If Hasbro were to shift their focus to us, TFs would most likely die off.

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I heard, they pulled the plug on GiJoe, because they HAVE to re-work the movie because of 3 things.

 

1. The script SUCKED, so they want to do it better.

2. They killed off Duke, because the actor, who is too young for the part of Duke in the first place, went all Magic Mike and could not film, so they arn't killing him now.

3. They want to re-vamp it in 3D. Which is a stupid idea because 3D is not going over well (John Carter), it cost too damn much and if it's just for 4 minutes of action, it is SOOOOOO not worth it!

 

There's MILLIONS of bucks at stake, and MILLIONS already LOST since they started promoting the movie, and the toy line, only to have it put off until next year. The ROCK, has to get paid. You think he and Bruce are going to sit there and not get their money? NO.

 

Call me Joe. BARF!

 

Point here in this Joe rant, Hasbro re-invents the TF's, just about every year. It's not a bad thing just because they have not quite hit the stride of the original series when it first appeared, and could not be kept on the shelves for a Xmas. Most are way out there, like the bay-formers, and I for one am not a huge fan, own a handfull and I'm GLAD because I'm trying to buy a HOUSE and all that money wasted would have sunk it for me.

 

Eventually, they will re-boot the TF movies, and hopefully step BACK to 1984's Search for Energy theme, with classic Transformers we can recognize from the source material. OR, they can hand it over to Stiller, who can turn it into a not funny parody, where Megatron is a hair dryer, and Prime is a beat up old dump truck, searching for his lost load...

 

Some of what they do we'll like (Classics and Masterpiece!) most, because it's not G1, or it simply doesn't make sense to a fanboy like us - we won't.

 

4AM rant ends.

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I heard, they pulled the plug on GiJoe, because they HAVE to re-work the movie because of 3 things.

 

1. The script SUCKED, so they want to do it better.

2. They killed off Duke, because the actor, who is too young for the part of Duke in the first place, went all Magic Mike and could not film, so they arn't killing him now.

3. They want to re-vamp it in 3D. Which is a stupid idea because 3D is not going over well (John Carter), it cost too damn much and if it's just for 4 minutes of action, it is SOOOOOO not worth it!

 

There's MILLIONS of bucks at stake, and MILLIONS already LOST since they started promoting the movie, and the toy line, only to have it put off until next year. The ROCK, has to get paid. You think he and Bruce are going to sit there and not get their money? NO.

 

Call me Joe. BARF!

 

Point here in this Joe rant, Hasbro re-invents the TF's, just about every year. It's not a bad thing just because they have not quite hit the stride of the original series when it first appeared, and could not be kept on the shelves for a Xmas. Most are way out there, like the bay-formers, and I for one am not a huge fan, own a handfull and I'm GLAD because I'm trying to buy a HOUSE and all that money wasted would have sunk it for me.

 

Eventually, they will re-boot the TF movies, and hopefully step BACK to 1984's Search for Energy theme, with classic Transformers we can recognize from the source material. OR, they can hand it over to Stiller, who can turn it into a not funny parody, where Megatron is a hair dryer, and Prime is a beat up old dump truck, searching for his lost load...

 

Some of what they do we'll like (Classics and Masterpiece!) most, because it's not G1, or it simply doesn't make sense to a fanboy like us - we won't.

 

4AM rant ends.

1) that's why the first live-action movie was delayed

2) that's why the original animated movie was delayed, because of the backlash from killing Optimus Prime in 1986's Transformers: The Movie they had a last minute re-write of G.I.Joe: The Movie that explained Duke survived. Tatum's Duke was never going to get killed off, he's signed and sealed for a three picture deal

3) this is the sole reason why the new movie was delayed, as dumb as it is.

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Humm... to reply to the first post. Yes DOTM was kinda a epic failure toy wise, but this was because of poor distribution and predicted sales. They have actually have been doing MUCH BETTER with the prime toy line.

 

With the movies in general, I think they actually saved the transformers franchise by bringing all these new idea's to the table. Besides you cant honestly tell me that ROTF was a very very good toy line, especially when compared to the first movie. The figures as a general rule had very non-obtrusive gimmicks, brought a plethora of new characters, and managed to up the complexity and detail of figures at a smaller scale.

 

As far as prime is concerned, I find it to be a complete success and I hope that they can keep up the magic. Their only mistake here was releasing First Edition before the mass retail figures. But as far as figure sales go, the shelfs around me seem to constantly be empty shy for a stray cliffjumper, wheeljack, or bb.

 

 

Now... the Rescue bot line. I would like to make a few interesting points here. When I was a kid "target age group for RB" the only things that mattered to me concerning transformers was that they 1. they transformed and was easy to transform, looked like the character, and most importantly would not break when I hit them together simulating "epic battles". From what I can tell the rescue bot toys fit into all 3 of those categorys, plus the show is pretty entertaining.

 

 

Regardless of such... I think the biggest thing on hasbro's plate is to find a venue to get all these wonderful things out. Since brick and mortar stores dont want to carry everything hasbro has to offer, then they really should look into some online shops. Which I am glad to see Amazon getting alot of love, bbts as well.

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My only quip to that is Prime goofed up just like Animated goofed up: They didn't concurrently release figures with the show's release.

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Blitz is completely right there. I've actually witnissed the exact opposite with a specific toyline

Back when I lived in the UK, I worked in a TRU. I remember beyblade toys being released six months before the series, and not a single one being sold

 

Once the series was introduced though, bam! Sales of the things went through the roof.

 

Hasbro have done this, but in the opposite direction, and that is bound to be a line killer

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