Personally I'm glad Hoist and Grapple saw a re-issue.. as well as Thundercracker and Skywarp.. without Hasbro we most likely not have these guys.. like ever.. Japan certainly hasn't bothered with them.

Aside from the "Collector's Edition 2001" line, that is.

Every G1 toy that was reissued by Hasbro was first reissued by Takara, whether it is a mass market product like TFC or some convention or store exclusive which includes Skywarp, Thundercracker, Hoist and others.

 

I'm also not sure if you were disagreeing with me, but you were actually reinforcing my argument. Hasbro overproduced the G1 reissues, even with the fact that the toys are unattractive to kids and not every TFan or 80s' kid would still be interested in buying toys. That's a pretty big mistake.

 

The first few waves did very well because the numbers was just right, and had some nice choices. Hasbro got boring when they just made every reissue Takara had already and all the Decepticons were Seekers. Boring. The fact that their prices were almost the same as Takara's and Takara's reissues are more accurate and faithful to the original was also one of the nails of the coffin.

Hasbro overproduced the G1 reissues, even with the fact that the toys are unattractive to kids and not every TFan or 80s' kid would still be interested in buying toys. That's a pretty big mistake.

I don't think Hasbro overproduced the G1 reissues. Most of the TRUs I frequent only ever seemed to get in one or two cases of each character - and I noticed that once a character sold out at a particular TRU it was almost never restocked. People just think they were overproduced because (aside from a couple of characters) no one bought what they did put on shevles.

 

The problem was that there simply weren't enough hard core G1 fans to make the line successful. And the nostalgia buyers were always going to be limited to just a few primary characters - I'd say the average 80's cartoon fan would really only remember key figures like Prime, Bumblebee, Jazz, Megatron, Starscream and Soundwave (which is why these characters will be seen in the movie).

 

Mirage could be legal issues. The last time the mold was used was the "Good Bye Convoy" giftset Takara released in 1986.

 

Guy Ligier apparently threatened legal action against Hasbro, could be that they decided to bury the mold altogether after that.

I doubt any current legal fears are responsible for the lack of Mirage rerelease, the Liger F1 team is long gone - and Guy Ligier is 75 years old, he probably wouldn't even realize if the toy was actually reissued (ironically, after he sold his F1 team in '92 he entered the "natural fertilizer business" - cornering the market for bullBlot in France :D ).

Hasbro somehow manages to figure out that there is strong demand for G1 reissues (duh), probably due to strong online sales of japanese reissues that had been going on for years prior.  Fandom is highly excited.  Hasbro starts reissuing obscenely overpriced G1 figures with altered weapons, crappy mis-sized low quality stickers, and decides to re-release less popular characters such as Hoist instead of...oh, say Sideswipe or Grimlock.  Fandom is disappointed.  Hasbro wonders why sales are not strong.  Typical corporate stupidity.

Another problem I see is that Hasbro foolishly overproduced the G1 reissues. If their target market is nostalgic young adults like they say in the ads, why in huge numbers? Kids won't buy this stuff.

:roll Despite the popular belief, most of the people that grew up watching the 80s Transformers dropped it after they hit high school.. if even that.. never to really return. The Re-Issue line in Japan continues on so well is because the Japanese culture is different from ours. Thats why they get the 'extras'.. like more attachtments with Prime and Megs and so forth. I believe if Hasbro could do all the things Japan does they would do it to.. but things are very different here.

 

I just get so tired of people ragging on Hasbro like that. :roll There's reasons people if you read between the lines. Personally I'm glad Hoist and Grapple saw a re-issue.. as well as Thundercracker and Skywarp.. without Hasbro we most likely not have these guys.. like ever.. Japan certainly hasn't bothered with them.

I was happy to get my hands on a Hoist too, but that one REALLY confused me. I've been picking up reissues from both sides of the pond, and the Japanese ones came with trading cards. . . but so did the Hoist I got from TRU. In Japanese no less, just like the ones that come with the Takara reissues. This was the only Hasbro one I got with a card. Can anybody elaborate on how the f*** that happened?

I am saddened to hear this, but I can't blame Hasbro. Everytime they resissued anything, you always saw the same posts on here: "Hasbro reissues suck!" "I'm buying takara" "Screw Hasbro, and thier crappy resissued" When you look at it from a business standpoint, all those markdowns at TRU make it not appear wise to keep the line going. I wouldn't worry so much about Wheeljack or Sunstreaker, as they haven't been reissued at all yet, so there's probably a chance we'll see them from Takara, but I am more pissed that this line folded before we got some of the earlier reissues from takara re-done by Hasbro, like Thrust and Ramjet

-D

I doubt any current legal fears are responsible for the lack of Mirage rerelease, the Liger F1 team is long gone - and Guy Ligier is 75 years old, he probably wouldn't even realize if the toy was actually reissued (ironically, after he sold his F1 team in '92 he entered the "natural fertilizer business" - cornering the market for bullBlot in France :D ).

Still, the RM toy's name was spelled "Rijie" instead of "Ligier", which is about the most creative liberty you can take with the Romaji spelling while still keeping the Katakana the same.

It's a shame they couldn't just post this news on their website. We have to ask them for it. Isn't that what their website is for? To post news and current status on their products? :tfmad

 

I'm hoping for marked down reissues if they do infact return. $29.99-$34.99 a figure is just too much. They should know better.

It's a shame they couldn't just post this news on their website. We have to ask them for it. Isn't that what their website is for? To post news and current status on their products?   :tfmad

 

Considering the current status of their site... maybe in a few weeks.

 

A a general rule, you never report BAD NEWS on your site. Only GOOD NEWS.

I'm pretty sure the death of this line can be easily reduced to one thing: Not marketing, or over-production, but PRICE. $35 is too much for a reissue Starscream, period. Shouldn't have been more than $15. $40 for Prime and Magnus was pseudo-reasonable, and they sold because of it. $25 is NOT a reasonable asking price for Hoist, ever, ever, ever. This point is easily proven, as well, by the fact that reissues are finally starting to sell again now than most are $8-10 apiece, otherwise known as the price they SHOULD have been to begin with. If Hasbro wants to ressurect this line and make it successful, all they have to do is price it in such a manner that the price-points are comparable to their "popular" line.

I'm pretty sure the death of this line can be easily reduced to one thing: Not marketing, or over-production, but PRICE. $35 is too much for a reissue Starscream, period. Shouldn't have been more than $15. $40 for Prime and Magnus was pseudo-reasonable, and they sold because of it. $25 is NOT a reasonable asking price for Hoist, ever, ever, ever. This point is easily proven, as well, by the fact that reissues are finally starting to sell again now than most are $8-10 apiece, otherwise known as the price they SHOULD have been to begin with. If Hasbro wants to ressurect this line and make it successful, all they have to do is price it in such a manner that the price-points are comparable to their "popular" line.

Sure they'd sell better if they were cheaper; however, Hasbro can't sell reissues at a price cheaper than they were originally (adjusted for inflation).

 

In current dollars the 1984 prices adjust to around $18-$20 for Autobot cars and $23-$25 for the Decepticon planes - and those adjusted 1984 prices come from a time when they were the main toyline produced in huge numbers. Volume helps amortize cost - there simply is never going to enough demand to increase sales volumes to the point that prices can be driven down to "comparable" levels.

Well first of all, the reissues were still more than that. I paid $25 for my Tracks, and he contains very little die-cast, and no paint, plus his missiles don't even work. It's not an expensive toy. Second, why can't they sell them cheaper than that? What difference would it make?