This has probably been suggested before but would hasbro/takara making deluxe versions of combiner characters and releasing them as singles appeal to you?

This way they could reduce the likely hood of kids skipping them completely as they could buy them separately and collect them all.
They could design them to combine and be a normal deluxes that stand alone, giving us updated combiners and combiner characters.
This stops the risk of making big box sets like predaking that kids arent likely to get due to the cost.

Your ideas, hope this makes sense aswel

 

It WOULD appeal to me. And you. And alot of folks here.

It would NOT appeal to Hasbro, evidently.

 

Problem is they don't see that they can get a return on their investment for designing in the extra "combiner" feature, especially if they don't plan on having a whole assortment be just "arielbots" or whatever 9and they won't do that either."

I know it SEEMS like it'd be a no-cost-all-gain way to do it, but from the desig team perspective, it looks mighty different.

We probably WILL continue to see occasional non-combining coombiner-characters (like Silverbolt, Onslaught, and Dragstrip), but that's the most likely scenario unless they decide to do a hard-core "Combiners" play-pattern line again, and since only Myself and like 10 other dudes supported PCC, I can assure you they're not going to go there anytime soon.

 

Didn't Hasbro sort-of test the market for combiners with PCC, legends Devastator and reissues of Aerialbots and Combaticons for ROTF?

I know that's not like-for-like with the suggestion but I would assume they would be more willing to commit to the idea if PCC or Superion had sold more units.

But, yes, whatever gets me some CHUG Technobots is welcome.
(Trifle-coloured Mindwipe don't count.)

 

Maybe when they see how many people throw big heaping buckets of cash at TFClub for the not-Devastator, they'll get the message.

 

Designers would be happy enough.

Marketing might raise the following issues:

1) Price point...Combination = more production cost. How would they be priced in relation to standard Deluxes?

Hasbro have basically admitted they average out the cost of a Deluxe assortment: IE some cost more to make than others.


2)Assortment: Hasbro tend to push 4 characters per case at DX price point. Would the (more expensive?) combiner assortment case be limited to 4 characters, or more?

Would 4 characters for one gestalt be enough? Would they keep 4 characters per case, but split the individual components over multiple waves?

I too remember the old days when Hasbro would ship a case of 24 different Scramble City limbs in one box, and 6 leaders in another, and do so for a year.

But things have changed substantially, and Wal-Mart and their ilk basically demand a stready flow of new product almost year round.

 

When Hasbro's target market is kids and parents, this does not matter.

I've thought of lots of ways to make it more feasible for Hasbro's marketing, but I think the best 'next step' for them to take is do combining deluxes of the Aerialbots or Stunticons and have all 5 of them in a wave, like at the launch of "Classics 4.0" or 5.0 or whatever.

The extra investment of designing in the "combining" feature could hopefully be minimized by doing basically only 2 designs for 5 figures. The G1 Aerialbot and Stunticon limbs were virtually part-for-part remolds of each other, each group having 1 basic design for all 4 limb-bots. They could design 1 Car-Robot-Arm-Leg or Jet-Robot-Arm-Leg transformer and just remold parts like the head and car body to create 4 figures.

They don't need to "re-invent the wheel" 4 times for each limb, just remold each one, as Hasbro is doing more and more often. One of the great things about PCCs are the inventive and varied torso transformations, so they've got that pretty well figured out and can do it easily on a "scout", shouldn't be too hard to do for 1 more deluxe.

One issue remains is hands & feet... I think they could do it with a PCC-like minicon... a minicon bot could transform into a "gun" mode, but also a hand-mode in a very simplified version of CR Gigatron. And a foot should be easier than that.

The "collect" multiple figures deal to use a gimmick is evidently a deterrent to parents/kids, thus 1 reason no mention of the Wreck-Gar riding gimmick. So this combining feature could be played up on packaging or not even.

 

I dunno - some of the hottest toys out there right now are those dc universe figs where you collect like 6 or 7 of them to build a big guy. Maybe they could do something similar. Like - when you buy motormaster, you get a head and a sword, when you buy dragstrip you get a gun and a fist, etc. And when you get all 5, you can put it all together if you want.

It COULD be done. And if it ever happens I'll buy them. But I think I've got a better chance of winning a gold medal in women's gymnastics than ever seeing it outside of a third party company.

 

At this point,i would just like to have the teams.I don't care if they don't combine.I have Onslaught,now give me the rest of them.Hound=Swindle,Astrotrain(minus 3rd mode)=Blastoff. If they were to do them,i'd want to a have a combine that stood over everyone else.No G1 scale where the combines are the same size as a non-combiner.

 

Which barely sells to kids and Mattel has a hard time keeping retailers selling the line. Your confusing what sells to adult collectors, whom make up (estimating an average) 30% of the overall market for toys. With what kids will want to buy/have bought for them. Basically if it doesn't have supporting media (movie or TV series) it ain't gonna move, and retailers don't really want it. And it also severely limits what toy companies are going to throw at it in terms of development resources. Which means that for TF's, scramble type combiners and other sophisticated multi-changers are off the table. Unless Hasbro decides to really push them in the main media driven line again the modern combiners some are clamoring for are a pipe dream.

You should've given them a chance. They were an attempt to bring back combiners. Their lack of success killed combiners for now.

 

Maybe I'm just crazy but to get the characters I'd forgo the combiner gimmick if it meant that I could get the character in the deluxe size. I'd really like to have something like the Constructicons as Classics style deluxe figures that looked like the characters from the cartoon.

For the combined modes I kind of like what Mattel has planned for their Comic Con Voltron. It doesn't have the transforming lions, but it does stand 6" tall and it has a load of articulation. I'd gladly buy 6 deluxe Constructions and then a nice articulated Devestator that didn't fall apart later on because it would solve the problem of how to display them.

 

Also bear in mind the issues we've seen in the past couple years with Distribution. Hasbro will never do a full wave of one gestalt's limbs, they will mix up alt modes an factions for a diverse offering at retail.

So what happens when stores over order (again)? As is, back when they tried this with the Energon figures, I never saw ANYTHING past the first wave of limbs (which gave me half of two combiners, and no "combaticons"), and I know I wasn't the only one.

At this stage, I'm not at all adverse to seeing many of the great characters in the combiner teams given some attention as individuals and not just be "giant robot left arm"

 

I think the issue with superion was the design sucked aesthetically and physically. Legends devy actually did really well but that's legends class. Something that's a lower risk for hasbro then bigger classes. PCC was another idea that was just terrible and they should have noticed that on paper. Still, they make more good choices then bad. Exact opposite of mattel  

 

When you think about all of the pipe dreams, wish lists, and complaining that TF enthusiasts do over the lack of combiners (myself included), it really seems easier to just make your own.

 

I agree with the way waves don't seem to come out with even distribution all year long it could be really painful to collect all the robots to form a combiner. While some figures are easy to find there is always that wave where people are scrambling to find the figures.

Ouch and if people think scalpers are bad now imagine if one of the limbs was in a hard to find wave. Prices would go insanely high as people needed that last robot to complete the combiner.

 

Remember the way Menasor, Superion, etc. looked in the cartoon? Really they just looked like a giant central robot with four cars or four jets tacked onto the arms and legs.

What if Hasbro did something like that? The "limb" robots wouldn't have any arm or leg modes designed into them, nothing more than a connector peg on their undersides. The leader figure would be the only one with extra design built in, and for him it would only be extendable arms and legs and a combiner head. I wonder if that's been considered?

 

I would say a “classic” style combiner isn’t possible in the current market, but that doesn’t mean its impossible to get them, I think if Hasbro thought a little more creatively they could work around it.

A though I had back when energon was on the shelves was don’t market them as combiner teams, even in the fiction for them play up the “scramble style” aspect of them. Think dlx size as the core tf and basic limbs but the limbs while being full TF’s are drones, that can combine with any of the core tf’s, hell start off with each side only having one type of drone or even the same drone just with different paint jobs and its used as all 4 limbs for the dlx core bots on each side. So the toys can be sold in waves of mixed bots and cons and all of them can be repainted at least once.

Then as the story grows more get brought in and we can get all the classic combiner teams homage through out the show/toy line. It gets Hasbro a product it can sell in the way the retailers want and the fans get their classic combiners.

Just hope Hasbro can come up with something like that.