Current quality issues aside (loose limbs, etc.), as a G1'er I'm pretty happy with what Hasbro has been putting out for us.  

 

Any one know when the show starts ?, I missed it .

 

You are aware of the fact that the movies bring in the most money for Hasbro by far, right?
Without them we probably wouldn't even be getting all the G1 love we are seeing nowadays.

 

Ah yes, while Hasbro releases characters no one asked for like Krok, Quake, Topspin, Nautica, Fastlane, and Broadside, the third parties release the people fans care about, like Grimlock, Optimus, Bumblebee, The constructicons, Optimus, Grimlock, Devastator, Optimus, the individual compnents of Devestator, and who could forget the often forgotten character, Optimus Prime but blocky?

 

Yes. MP1 was actually an elaborate trap....

 

We got the xmen of transformers franchises, I'd rather have the avengers and have 0 doubts their pockets would be fuller.

 

And yet the third party companies rarely make anything for those other properties. Hmmmm.... I wonder why.

 

Oh WOW.

Dude, like, seriously. The G1 fanbase is spoiled compared to fans of other series. Beast Wars had it's 20th anniversary last year. What'd Hasbro do? ONE toy. The series I got into, Armada, turns 15 this year. What're we getting? A cruddy repaint of a stupid toy.

 

That was a one off and while great, because it doesn't match the scale of other lines is on the short list of my figures to part with. Hasbro still inexplicably has not made a great chug scale Optimus with trailer. I have the original classics Optimus with a third party trailer, and it took them until this year to make an acceptable bumblebee. Classics megaton is ok but he got replaced with the third party megaton a few years ago, and I use the hercules devastator, and did not even bother with hasbro version due to the scale. Where's a great shockwave? I'm still using the cybertron version as a stand in. Soundwave? Still using the iPod version from Japan. There is still a huge hole for core characters in the chug line. If you're a mp collector you're set on those figures, but you are missing out on the more fringe characters that the third party companies are working furiously to fill in.

 

And why were the beast wars toys the shelf warmers in the chug lines they were released in? I have great Cheetor ratrap and waspinator toys already. Go on eBay and buy them. I'm sorry third party companies won't be making armada toys anytime in the near future. Third party transformer companies exist because the demand is there.

 

G1 fans are now in their late 30s/early 40s and have serious disposable cash. Fans who started with Armada are in their early 20s and most are probably broke college students  

We didn't start getting collector-oriented G1-based toys until Binaltech/Alternators in 2003, which was 19 years after the launch in 1984. We actually didn't get a serious mass-market G1 nostalgia line until 2006, and the MP line only started seeing regular releases in 2011.

 

Hard to believe anyone has serious disposable cash with the way things are these days.

How is Transformers "ignoring its core product?" What does that even mean? Seriously, I want to know what lead to this observation.

More like the fanbase grew beyond the core product. When Third Parties were just starting, the first movie wasn't out yet, and Classics was the first dedicated G1 revamp line. This Parties originally existed to fill a niche the mainline couldn't at the time, and by the time the brand grew to encompass said niche, Third Parties were well established. Now it's a pretty stable system of HasTak appealing to the larger, more general audience, and 3Ps appealing to the more niche collector market.

 

OUCH!

Good point though.

 

Is that a picture of Takara\'s HQ?  I was expecting something more upscale

 

Anybody that thinks third-parties profit from their product as much as Hasbro profits from theirs is at best delusional, at worst, drooling stupid.

 

Not really, no.

What exactly is the "Core product?" Does he mean G1? Well that can't be true, because Transformers happily trucked along without slavishly retreading G1 for the most part, and up until recently even actual G1 retreads were pretty inspired and evolved quite a bit from G1. Does he mean the fanbase? Well that's not a product.

So, I don't see how you can agree with such an ill-defined statement.

 

I was expecting more paint.

 

I think he was pointing out the fact that 3rd party's have been eating Hasbro's lunch to a certain degree by tackling scores of G1 figures that Hasbro tend to be a little slow on making themselves.

That Survey we filled out like 2 or 3 years ago had a lot of focus on 3rd Party. And I'd like to think that a lot of our responses are what prompted Hasbro to release the current back to back Leader class Phase Sixer's. Other than a the occasional 3P add on's I don't generally entertain 3P. So here's to hopes that Hasbro continues to hear our remarks and bring us some Voyager/Leader class Dinobots other than Grimlock next.

 

You previously said G1 was completely ignored until Classics.

 

Ohhhh you got me!!!!