Thanks for the pics!

 

3rd picture down from the top crane truck facing to the left

whats that fold out combiner port part for behind dr hooks right shoulder ?

 

I like Dr Crank, I wait for him to arrive. I ash they would design him so not all those screws show on one side.

 

Anyone know how tall Devastator is in inches? He looks huge!

 

~12.5"

 

Well the picture with MP starscream clenchs it, i have to have this figure for my MP shelf. If only Hasbro could make some thing like this.

 

Hasbro are idiots. They don't make things like this because they believe there's no market for it. Yet a whole bunch of fans just shelled out $600 on one figure. They have no right to call foul over this, they basically gave these companies the green light to do it when they said outright that they never would.


Besides, do you really want a G1 Devastator where the vehicles don't have robot modes...?  

 

*facepalm*

The absence of Combiners at retail have nothing to do with Hasbro's ability, but are entirely due to retail logistics.

It's not that they won't sell, it's that Hasbro doesn't want to sell them, if they can't get it right.

And the way that Wal-Mart/TRU/et al run their shows, it's almost guaranteed to never work out for them.


You see, Hasbro wants to be able to sell their product to kids. Retailers, on the other hand, want to see the product on the shelves refreshed every 3 months or so. So that's where we start to see a problem. It's not very often that you'll see a kid being allowed to buy 5-6 Transformers all at once. So the kid buys a couple, pines over the rest and is eager to complete the set. Finally gets to go buy more toys in six months or so and... whoops, long gone. Sad kid. Bad, bad, bad.

So, you spread out the releases instead... and seriously, what self-respecting kid knows to time his toy buying to specific release windows?

Giftsets are out of the question because: A) Hasbro is very hesitant to use its high-end price points unless it's going to be for a high-profile release, because big-ticket items need all the advertising they can get; and B) the retailers "encourage" manufacturers to include electronic gimmicks in higher-priced toys. And nobody wants a Combiner figure that's gimped because the core robot had to have a bulky light & sound pack in it; and finally C) the design requirements for Combiners are much higher than for a single figure, so it's simply not worth the effort for them to skirt around both A and B, and maintain their profit margins.

Combiners worked in G1 because the assortments were shipped year-long. Maybe even two years in some cases. So if you started collecting in January, you could be reasonably sure that you'd be able to finish the big guy up in December.

Nowadays, you wait that long, and it's off to eBay for you, and probably at significant mark-up, the way that this fandom works. That is not an acceptable distribution model.


Combiners are an absolute logistical nightmare for North American retail purposes.

TakaraTomy, on the other hand, might be technically able to pull the gig off, due to looser retailer constraints and a more favourable collector-based market in Japan. But Transformers aren't a massive draw over there, so TT rarely produces anything without Hasbro's financial support.

 

No, Hasbro does not have the ability. They have demonstrated this several times over the last decade. There is no reason at all that the ROTF Devastator couldn't have transforming components, even if they were very basic shell-formers to meet safety requirements at that size. Devs is still clogging some shelves here almost 3 years later. The Energon combiners were flawed and the PCC range was a good idea executed badly.

As far as the whole 'Walmart' arguement goes, it's bullshit. It's a cop-out reason. Hasbro is in charge of their own company, not Walmart. Hasbro controls the assortments and they sure as hell don't have a problem including at least one Bumblebee in every movie wave. Maybe 5 years ago they were at the mercy of retailers, but with the success of the movies the ball is surely in Hasbro's court.

The ROTF packaged Energon Combiner giftsets, despite their shortcomings as toys, aren't on the shelves anymore. They seemed to sell alright to me - no doubt with a little help from FP.

As far as complexity goes, that's not true either. The PCC line failed because of the automorph gimmick of the limbs - it made the gestalts unstable and the tolerances needed to be perfect since a spring was usually pushing against the connector port at all times. Having the smaller vehicles be transformed manually would have been less spectacular but more satisfying for kids overall. The Energon combiner port style was fine, it was the over complexity of the individual toys that makes them poor - the individual bot was designed first and the gestalt second. It may be harder to sell a gimped robot that serves a larger purpose, but again a giftset made up of 4 scouts and a deluxe is not out of the reach of most kids and parents, not when they're willing to buy a massive POS Optimus Prime in fishing pants that's not even close to screen accurate.

The arguement about bigger toys needing electronics is a moot one and another indicator of Hasbro's lack of ability - they need to learn that it is possible to use batteries other than AA's in this century. It's harder to replace smaller batteries, sure, but most kids probably couldn't give a shit if their Prime says 'I am Optimus Prime' after the 697th time. It says his name on the box, dumbasses. At the very least, they should look at moving to a AAA format like most other toy manufacturers have.


Meanwhile, TFC is producing a Devastator that is huge and stable, and they're doing it by making the limbs as uncomplicated as possible - they're big bricks and most of them do a poor job at paying homage to their G1 counterparts, but they seem to do their combining job very well. Personally I'm going with Maketoys due simply to the bots being a little more interesting and the Dev being more G1 accurate, but again the bots are kept relatively simple to serve the gestalt. Both releases do a fantastic job that I honestly don't think Hasbro could do even if they wanted to.

The obvious solution that has always been there is that Hasbro should be working with these guys - give them a little funding, share a little knowledge, take a percentage of the profits - while importantly letting them remain independent. Sell them online where these smaller-run products belong at a price that Walmart wouldn't agree with. A lot of fans who don't buy third party on principal would probably opt in if they were officially supported.

 

*facepalm*

Why do I even bother?


You go on believing that the company that just gave us a freakin' BLACK SHADOW update, an incredibly obscure Japanese-only character (outside of modern comics) is "too stupid" to realize that popular characters are popular.

Meanwhile, the rest of us with a proper sense of reality can sit back and accept that things are the way they are, and enjoy not having a hernia when our self-entitlement fantasies go unfulfilled.

 

It always seems to come back to this: xkcd: Connoisseur

 

Hasbro has the ability to make what ever they want. Just because it doesn't meet your personal tastes is not a sign of wrong doing. There is always a reason for things being made the way they are. Hasbro could have integrated bot modes in to movie devastator? Sure. However, the additional tooling cost would have driven the price up even higher.

Sorry your completely ass backwards here. It is walmart and the other retailers that have pushed Hasbro so hard to focus on movie line, specifically Prime and Bumblebee. It is retailers that want assortments that focus on main characters and not villains. The action figure market is a dying industry that has to have retailer support to survive

A short run exclusive is not evidence for or against any argument

Who said Pcc Failed? or that the new Optimus is even selling well? You points are all opinions and assumptions

Hasbro has attempted to use smaller sized batteries back in the days of Armada. They switched back due to complaints from parent who did not like having to buy the smaller sized batteries. Dude have you ever even been in a toy aisle? lights and sounds are like crack to little kids? Try me features are extremly popular and drive sales

A fantastic job of what exactly? Paying homage to classic characters? Yeah as I look at my classics shelf I can see how bad hasbro is at that. The combining gimmick? Both TFC and FP base their joints and connection points on Hasbro tech so respect goes where it's due

So you want 3rd party toys to cost even more?? official licensing would only increase the overall cost of the items itself and eliminate the choices we currently have from competing 3rd party products

 

Anyone have pictures or anything on stringing up the crane arm????

 

this?

 

BTW, you take really great pics! All of the colors are rich and vibrant, the poses you used were well thought out and executed, and overall you convey the figure- combined form and otherwise- very well!

 

thx   i just take photo's haha

 

I was originally not going to get any of these guys, but I'm a sucker for construction vehicle TransFormers, and I especially love Dr. Cranks crane! So if I get any of them, it will be this one! If I do get it, I will definitely string up his crane boom! I was wondering though, how did you string it?

 

This must be coming from someone who has never laid hands on a PCC combiner. They are extremely flawed. They fall to pieces if you stare at them the wrong way. At least one of the limbs in each set doesn't connect firmly enough for play. Might be ok for us collectors who keep these things on shelves, but the kiddies were more than a little frustrated with them. This is not my opinion, this is a fact from watching kids try to play with these things.

I give credit where credit's due. Cyclonus? Sideswipe/Sunstreaker? Great updates of classic characters. Most of the new 'Prime' line is astoundingly well engineered. ROTF Leader Prime is one of the greatest TF's of all time (albeit not the most kid-friendly TF ever...). But I'm not going to pretend that Classics Galvatron isn't an absolute POS. It is what it is.

Some people love certain things that others don't. I quite like Ultra Powerglide, others think he's too big or the wrong colour. No big deal to me. But blindly following a company and defending their every move doesn't get anyone anywhere. I personally don't feel the need to pretend some of the duds I've bought over the years are better than they are out of some misguided brand loyalty.

Maybe bright lights and sounds dazzle the kids in the US but it doesn't work that way here. Kids here ask to have the batteries removed pretty quickly if the lights/sounds interfere with the toys playability.

Anyway, it's my fault for derailing the thread. I should know better than to say a word against Hasbro on the TFW boards...

 

Where's that little dude from? He's about the perfect scale.

Can't imagine Hook letting a fleshy boss him around though.

 

i watched this video. so all the credit goes to him   i just posted some photo's. but i removed it for now. want a heavier hook for him

that little dude   is from the mechanical chain bases i have. painted it up so he's more visible