One of the biggest "what ifs" in the history of Transformers is "What if Transtech was made?" I'm not saying I WANT Hasbro to return to the concept, I'm not saying I wanted it to be made, because those dead horses have been beaten into paste. What I am asking is, how different would things be now? Would Car Robots have been imported anyway but at a later time? Would the Unicron Trilogy even get made? What of the movies and "Transformers: Hero", which would later become Animated?
Nothing would have happened. It would have ran for a year, then the product would have been rebooted and it would be onto something else. It wouldn't be this astronomical thing that changed the course of history, just another toy line in the list
I'm thinking it would had been like BM was, two year show and toy line. Perhaps A/E/C could had never came over, like BW 2 and Neo stayed behind. I still think R.I.D would had came over. Perhaps characters like Cheetor would had still been a key player in current series. TT was a blend of G1 and BW characters, that could had been the trend with future series. I think when it came to toys, TT would had push Hasbro in alot of ways. I think TT would had a great impact on future toy line. Perhaps now the current figures could been even more detail and more movable.
I'm not sure if i would be the fan i am today.Granted i didn't get into Transformers during RiD but when they dubbed over RiD, They brought the Unicron Trilogy and i got into Transformers by the Unicron Trilogy, I think the Fanbase would be different. I dunno i don't think i would have cared for Transtech, it just sounded like a bad idea to continue BM, and giving BM new vehicle modes. Which ruined the Purpose of BM of bringing the Organic back to Cybertron.
Hard to say. One reason that the whole Unicron Trilogy occured was because of Hasbro and Takara's joint venture. That joint venture also stopped Takara from going totally bankrupt (though they were still bought out by Tomy years later). The cost of creating and producing your own toyline and animated program, as Takara learned, was quite costly, and CAR ROBOTS was not nearly as successful in Japan as Takara needed it to be. When Hasbro and Takara decided to create the Unicron Trilogy together, it allowed for the costs of production (both toyline AND animation) to be shared. As the quote from Hasbro back in the day states, Hasbro was "paying 70% of the bill and only getting 30% of what they wanted" ... showing that Takara was very much in the business of doing what they wanted first, and what Hasbro wanted second. Hence a lot of confusion, both with certain toys being colored differently in Armada (Tidal Wave being neon green and brown here, while gray and purple in Japan, as well as Thundercracker being a Starscream upgrade and not a new character like Hasbro wanted). Importing CAR ROBOTS here as ROBOTS IN DISGUISE brought a new sense of popularity to Transformers - the toyline sales increased dramatically over the failed Beast Machines toyline, and the show being on Fox Kids, the most popular kid programming block during the latter part of the 1990's and very early 2000's, were instrumental in Transformers success (and the re-emrgance of a comic by Dreamwave and other 3rd party licensees). Had Trans-Tech gone forward, who knows. The popularity we see today would probably still be here, but not nearly as profound as it was. I really credit Transformers with bringing back the "retro" popularity found in GI Joe, He-Man, and now Thundercats. I doubt any of those series would be where they are today if not for the success of Transformers, which again, all stems from ROBOTS IN DISGUISE and everything that happened because of that series. As we know, Takara still faced financial woes a few years back and "merged" with Tomy, though it was more Tomy taking over Takara out-right. Even now, business decisions are based on money ... Hasbro didn't re-issue Soundwave right away because Takara had to backwards engineer the figure and offered Hasbro the ability to release it as well if they split the price. Hasbro said no thanks. Fast forward a couple of years, and Hasbro releases the figure once Takara was done using the mold at a fraction of what they would have had to pay originally. The popularity of the movie and the demands Hasbro has put out for toys has kept Takara-Tomy flourishing. It'll be interesting what happens after the third movie is out and the toys go through their 8 waves of releases. Can Transformers survive without a blockbuster movie every 2 years? And can Takara-Tomy survive with less demand from Hasbro? Keep in mind the cost of plastics and shipping has greatly increased since 2000, and with new taxes looming for businesses on the horizon to help off-set a failing United States economy, this could be the last couple of years for a ton of Transformers merchandise. Food for thought
Thanks for the post KB, lots of useful info there. Incidentally, have Hasbro made TF toy sales figures available at any point?
Nothing more than investor quarter reports. The information I have is nothing I can prove ... just one of those "I heard it a long time ago from someone with more insight than I ever had" ... I don't know where Animated sits toy-sales wise ... but I do know that Movie 1 obviously eclipsed EVERY Transformers toyline before it, including G1. But it's hard to say at the end of the day if the Movie was more profitable than the explosion G1 had back in the early 80's due to inflation and so forth. I know of the Unicron Trilogy, Armada was tops, Cybertron was middle of the pack, and Energon was forgettable. I don't know where Animated stands, but it's a safe bet to assume it didn't perform as well as the suits had hoped. That could be anything from poor ratings (which can be the fault of many things, including increased production costs from utilizing Cartoon Network's studios as opposed to an independant foreign outlet and poor timeslots from the Cartoon Network side), the fact the toyline lagged behind the show for 6 months due to the overwhelming success of the movie, or because it just didn't catch on as hoped. The reason we can all assume that Animated had the "plug pulled" is because we have toys that never came out stateside, we have a pen-and-paper version of a third season that almost entered physical development, and the creators were actually upset that it was not renewed ... pyschologically speaking, usually they'd know that they weren't being green-lit for a continuation well in advance and have time to cope with the emotional part of it. So one assumes that the news was unexpected on top of disappointing. When you get past the "THIS TOY RULES/SUCKS" bit of this fandom, it's actually quite interesting to take a look at the mechanics behind your favorite franchises and see exactly how decisions are made. In the past it had to deal with "limitations due to Takara" ... couldn't release XYZ because Takara did first/different color here because Takara did it another color, etc. Now you see a lot more "influenced by the overwhelming movie popularity" decisions, like Optimus Prime's alt mode, Bumblebee being all movie-esque now (the black stripe in Animated was done to make him recognizable to the movie Bumblebee, crazy huh), etc.
Interesting stuff - pretty much confirms what I'd suspected about Animated as it seemed to fair poorly in the UK in particular, and the cancellation came at very short notice. This isn't all that surprising given that Hasbro UK make very little attempt to promote TF in general[1] and very few kids would actually get to see the cartoon[2]. The strong influence of the movie is no surprise either, given that movie toys flew off the shelves here, and around June/July 2009 they were the top-selling toys on these shores. [1] - TV commercials are virtually unheard of outside the 'peak' movie periods. [2] - it was only shown on a satellite/cable cartoon channel that was only available to subscribers to specific packages, at 8:30pm. Oops.
I am concerned about "The Hub". I don't know if it has the broad-reaching audience(s) that can really make Transformers televison shows boom in popularity again. Cartoon Network is at least part of "basic cable", which countless households have, but to have it on a "subscription" basis? That's rough for your publicity, which could result in poor toysales.
On the plus side, Prime seems to be getting a lot of press attention, where we've the recent toy reveals in the mainstream press of all places. I expect Prime will get a similar treatment to Animated over here, unfortunately, with a satellite channel starting to show it in August. The market reach will be the same as the Hub, which worries me.
For most Canadian residents, "Prime" comes on Teletoon, which is a basic cable channel, so it'll at least get some publicity up here. Anyways, I need to get this thread back on the rails. KB's posts have been incredibly insightful for me, but I get the feeling we need to mvoe back to where we were. When you think about it, the whole concept of "continuity families", might not have arose at all. Transtech would continue on from Beast Machines, and RID might not even come to exist, at least not in it's current "this reality" state. The concept of Armada or the Takara/Hasbro joint effort might've gone with the original idea of carrying on from the end of G1 (The Rebirth), and thusly stayed in G1 as well. If Hasbro continued with a similar aesthetic to Transtech, Armada could've been less brick and more slick. The rest of AEC could've included more Beast Wars and Transtech original characters (like "Obliticon"), and they might've stayed relevant up until the release of "Transformers: Hero", which we know as Animated. DJW might not even come onto the scene. The movies might not even get made until later, since Hasbro might go ahead with the G.I. Joe movie first to keep that brand relevant, while running Transformers Hero, which may be the first new continuity.
