yep, with all those ileagal copies of SWIII out there that poor man only made 50million in one night...those evil evil jerks!!! No, seriously, i could care less...it's always been and always will be, like it or not, right or wrong.

Because, in case you haven't noticed, this is the ONLY form of publicity that Alternators EVER get.  Hasbro spends $0 on marketing these damn things, and people like Jaguartron are doing them a HUGE favor by buying their protos and test-shots, period.

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Methinks displaying them at ToyFair and OTFCC/BotCon and having them featured in ToyFare surpasses the "$0" mark...

There is also the fact that the Metals Transform Car line came out with bootleg Alternators. And their quality isn't as bad as the common bootleg. I am sure that has something to do with it. But that isn't to say the company who made those used a prototype for their mold, the probably just bought one from the store.

There is also the fact that the Metals Transform Car line came out with bootleg Alternators. And their quality isn't as bad as the common bootleg. I am sure that has something to do with it. But that isn't to say the company who made those used a prototype for their mold, the probably just bought one from the store.

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exactly it wouldnt make sense to use a proto/test shot as these often have flaws on them including holes/connectors that dont line up properly.  If bootleggers are reverse engineering them they would wait a few months for a production example.

 

more on ebay too http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...ssPageName=WDVW

Since it has the "Not For Sale" I wonder if, also, Hasbro is removing them because they are not meant to be sold. They could legally be "sold" if the auction was for something else, and if you won you got the proto. Of course everyone would buy it for the proto but still.

Because, in case you haven't noticed, this is the ONLY form of publicity that Alternators EVER get.  Hasbro spends $0 on marketing these damn things, and people like Jaguartron are doing them a HUGE favor by buying their protos and test-shots, period.

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Methinks displaying them at ToyFair and OTFCC/BotCon and having them featured in ToyFare surpasses the "$0" mark...

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I don't recall seeing a lot of unpainted protos on display there though.  This is a good testing ground for that, actually... for instance, they get the liscense for Scion, and are undecided as to who to make it.  So they make a head sculpt that could be 3 or 4 different charachters, "misplace" a few unpainted protos intentionally molded in an ambiguous plastic color, and sit back and read the boards for some free market research on the best use for the mold... speculation, sure, but it would make sense to me if I were in Hasbro's marketing department.  Especially after the "Decepticharge" fiasco.  :roll

I just picked up a "not for sale" Wallflowers EP that in theory is sent out to radio stations and Music stores....

 

I think this is a much more fair comparison than the "millions of pirated CD's and movies" argument.

However - i also own the new Wallflowers Album, very nice by the way....

 

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In fact i also purchased a SWE3 Dvd too.... but i have paid lucas to watch the film twice already... and i fully intend to buy the remixed All-Jar-jar-All-the-time version he puts out on DVD later this year too, so i doubt he is crying too hard

 

Hunter

It would be nice if the US had some sort of toy magazine (like Hyper Hobby in Japan) so we could see the prototypes there. Unfortunately, the prototypes shown in that magazine have never shown up on ebay I don't think. Especially the blue/gray Car Robot protos for Convoy and God Magnus. Man those were sweet looking.

Does one pay to have their products featured in Toyfare?  If so, does one get a rebate when Toyfare makes claims such as "Prowl's coming out in May!"  Also, the few Alts that were shown at Toyfair 2005 were transformed with minimal effort and were clearly not the main focus of Hasbro's booth.  They were just halfway there. 

 

Hasbro has a television program supporting their main line, along with a few advertisements, a lot of merchendising (shoes, shirts, gift-wrap, etc), and (until recently) a line of comics.  I stand by my previous assessment of $0 applied to the advertisement of Alts.