Okay distribution aside, I just think Hasbro/Takara should take a time out from Alts and develope some new cooler molds rather than repeatedly retooling everything already being made available.

You're obviously not viewing this from the business perspective.

Yes, people should try to think from Hasbro's perspective. If you had just spent a lot of money on licensing, design, and mold making on an Alternator, you might think that it's a good idea to reuse the mold. It just makes sense.

Why was tracks only available in one case?

Why was tracks only available in one case?

I think, and certainly some of our better toy sources could shed more light on this, but Tracks was caught in a pinch after Hasbro decided to make him blue instead of yellow, which they had already started production on, I believe. You'll see his number is 5, meaning he was supposed to come before Dead End, and in case assortments should've shipped something like: 1 Silverstreak, 2 Hounds, 1 Tracks; 1 Hound, 2 Tracks, 1 Dead End; 1 Tracks, 2 Dead End, 1 Meister ... if all had gone normally. But Hasbro appears to have scrapped the yellow design after some had already been produced and it caused changes in case assortments. It appears to have basically forced Tracks near the end of his distribution case assortments when he was finally released. And I believe retooling of cases that originally had Tracks in them is responsible for the RHD Silverstreaks that pop up every now and then ... I believe these to be from early yellow Tracks cases that were broken up and repacked.

By the way, I'm surprised that in nine total pages of speculation (between this thread and the one with the pics in the link) that NOBODY has even mentioned the fact that the Autobot logo on the liscense plate is PURPLE.  The last prototype/testshot with a purple Autobot logo was Trailbreaker/Swindle.  So it may still be a decepticon.

Nope.

 

The last one with a purple Autobot logo was Meister. Swindle had a red autobot logo because that part was reused from Hound.

 

And the only ever license plate change was Ravage, from "BTL RVG" to "RVG".

Sprry, but "Nope" to your "Nope". :tflaugh

 

I have in my collection a Swindle test shot with a (red) autobot logo on the front liscense plate, and a purple Autobot logo on the flip plate in the hood. The flip one is the one I was referring to, and it implies (to me anyway) that the initial plan was for a black Jeep, Autobot Trailbreaker, (initial prototypes were made from existing Hound parts and bare white parts, so the color is just a guess) which got changed to a yellow Jeep, Decepticon Swindle. Thus, they put purple paint in the machine that shoots the autobot logo on the hood to test the color against the yellow plastic, before re-programming the paint machine for the decepticon logo, incase the colors didn't work. (Again, this is all speculation. I think too much.) I'm not sure why they would need to do so on the liscense plate for "Swerve", if he is in fact intended to be a D-con, but it is enough to raise an eyebrow at.

 

And sorry Madhammer, but I'm not buying the "it looks purple because it's a test-shot, it's really supposed to be red." argument either. The whole damn car is red in the picture, so does that mean it's actually supposed to be orange, but looks red because it's a test shot? All of my other test shot alternators have perfectly fine paint colors on the plates, so I can't imagine why there would all of a sudden be a problem putting red in an autobot logo, instead of purple.

 

Just my 2 cents.

The entire online fandom consists of, maybe, about 10,000 people (and that's being very generous).  That many people would only pay the design costs, much less manufacturing, etc, assuming that every online fan bought every Alternator ... so, yeah, I'm guessing we're not a huge share of the Alternator's market either.  Maybe a bit more so than Energon.. but not much.

 

Simple math, guy. There just ain't enough of the 'die hard fans' to pull off much more than a small percentage. It doesn't make any sense to cater to us and alienate or disregard the remainder of their target audience.

 

Alternator Tracks was a hot seller because the toy was cool, not because there were 50,000 rabid G1 Tracks fans out there.

Why exactly do you think that EVERY die-hard G1 fan HAS to be a member of one or more Transformers message boards? I have 4 close freinds who are buying alternators on purely nostalgic value, all of which enjoy watching my G1 DVDs and fully remember the entire TF craze as kids. I'm the only one of us who even cares to log on to TF boards, let alone post on them. Does that mean that the $800+ my friends alone have spent on alternators doesn't count when it comes to figuring total "die hard fan" sales versus "transforming cars are neat" sales?

 

"Simple math, guy." Not all TFans are computer nerds like us. :tfgrin

 

They stil spend lots of money just like we do. They just don't come to the internet to brag about it and argue as to what Hasbro could do better like the rest of us do... :tflaugh

They stil spend lots of money just like we do. They just don't come to the internet to brag about it and argue as to what Hasbro could do better like the rest of us do... :tflaugh

Guy, we're nothing compared to casual purchases, seriously. It comes down to that. Alternators is a giant fan nod, really, but it cannot just nod to the fans and expect to make some money - period.

 

Like I said, unless there's 50 thousand 'die hard G1 fans' still out there buying every single Alternator... And by 'die hard', I mean 'only G1 stuff will do and I will not buy anything else regardless of what it is' , the argument is moot.

 

G1 fans had their voice, after all, and Dreamwave went out of business. At the end of the day, the 'fandom' just isn't large enough to make much difference compared to the total market.

They stil spend lots of money just like we do.  They just don't come to the internet to brag about it and argue as to what Hasbro could do better like the rest of us do...  :tflaugh

Guy, we're nothing compared to casual purchases, seriously. It comes down to that. Alternators is a giant fan nod, really, but it cannot just nod to the fans and expect to make some money - period.

 

Like I said, unless there's 50 thousand 'die hard G1 fans' still out there buying every single Alternator... And by 'die hard', I mean 'only G1 stuff will do and I will not buy anything else regardless of what it is' , the argument is moot.

 

G1 fans had their voice, after all, and Dreamwave went out of business. At the end of the day, the 'fandom' just isn't large enough to make much difference compared to the total market.

Here's a question then.

 

Assuming that Hasbro wants Alternators to sell (which is a pretty safe bet) and that they want to sell to more than the older fans, why the lack of advertising?

 

The Alt section of the official website is STILL only showing the first three and a 'coming soon'. There are no TV, radio, or (as far as I've seen) print ads. There are only toys on shelves that nobody aside from toy department regulars are going to see. Why go to all the trouble of making these expensive things and then not bother to market them?

Perhaps you missed the ENTIRE TRANSLATED JAPANESE story to the Binaltech line/ You know, the one where just about everyone from G1 is referenced and where the writer says it's supposd to take place between Scramble City and MAtrix Forever (TFTM). Definately not a continuation, but it's made to fit somewhere in between, so this is definately G1....

Perhaps you missed the ENTIRE TRANSFORMERS FRANCHISE over the past 20 years? Explain to me how Matrix Forever can already be done with Prowl yet to come out, Wheeljack and Grimlock in different bodies, etc? Or do we accept the movie's year changing again?

 

And, of course, we all know that the Japanese continuity is the exact same as all those identical American continuities, which is exactly the same as the contiunity in the UK comics. It's all one big 'canon', right?

 

Or, wait. No.

 

Binaltech is a new story, taking place now, borrowing some elements here and there, but it's not G1. It's an extension, a 'what if' story designed to sell some toys and be kinda cool. It was not now, and never was, a Bible from which all Alternator designs much follow. If it were, Ravage and Grimlock would not be what they are.

 

Oy.

Oh boy. Listen, I wasn't trying to argue with you because there is nothing really to argue about. The writer for the Binaltech story said it takes place between

Scramble City and Matrix forever, not me. He also said he left it open for the Matrix Forever to happen. Nevermind all the players from the translated story are from G1 from both the cartoon and the comics, it would stand to reason unless someone did a REALLY REALLY bad job at translating it.

 

I never said anything about canon, you did. If some people want to consider it canon or not, that's up to them, because that's what's been done with all the various iterations. That's not the question here, because there really isn't one. Binaltech, for better or worse is G1. Not Alternators, because I doubt Hasbro will ever give a story, so take it as you want.

 

I think you just want to read what you want. I haven't missed any of the past 20 years, your just missing most of the words in the posts.

Two problems.

 

1 the way the insignea's put on

 

2 Hasbro knows boundries and has yet to do more than 2 repaints per Alternator (and for the most part 2 models per series) molds