It's quaint that the most recent example you can think of is from fifteen years ago. The closest thing we've had for demand was Bakugan, and even that wasn't as hotly demanded as Monster High was, for example. Plus with online shopping options, no one's gonna fight over a toy these days like they used to. Tickle Me Elmo's the last time I can even remember fights breaking out over a toy: even the Leap Pad, hot as it is, didn't cause any riots to my knowledge. They do carry incentives: They're called video game sales.
Touche I still think it's a poor marketing not to do something. You'd think these stores would try anything to keep people from buying off the web.
Yeah the special Edition Videogames are a reasonable analogy. I think they could have little baggies with Minicons in that you get one if you spend $25.00 kind of thing. Oh and speaking of minicons the end of Kup's Rifle is more or less the same size as a Minicon post so you can put the Drill Minicon on the end of his Rifle as a Rifle grenade. Works with the purple one so I have no reason to think it wouldn't work with the orange one too.
These guys look pretty cool! I think this is gonna end up being a stupid question but will we see minicons in TF prime, like as in the actual show?
You might as It seems they do go on some kind of galactic jaunt of Transformers related planets in Season 2 and one of the Primes is a Minicon after all.
I seriously doubt it. These are Japanese exclusives of minicons the Japanese collectors hadn't seen before (outside of imports) since Takara didn't carry the PCC line plus Takara offers exclusive minicons all the time, including during both of the first two movie lines and both Classics lines. This is a Takara thing that has no bearing on Hasbro's plans for the Prime universe.
Aw man. Oh well, theyre still pretty cool though.. even if we dont ending up seein them in the tv show..
I think you have to see Minicons as the archetype of small transformers and I don't think it's at all unreasonable to say that there might be a small Transformer on the prime TV show - especially as the production team say they are going on a quest of various places in the galaxy. And some of the other archetypes have already been used such as makeshift who was a child of the 'shapeshifting' Prime family branch. I'm pretty much 100% certain we will get a beast Transformer or 2 as well - even if it's only Dinobots. Since Transformers : Prime follows the same continuity outline as the Books and games I would never be surprised if it used anything from them in the TV show. I think it might be a little less likely that Minicons of original design might be a major focus of the toyline again in 2012 - but they have a way of showing up from time to time so I'd not be to surprised if there's more minicons in the "Robots in Disguise" or "Transformers 2012" packaging - it's not like they fit that comfortably with the Movie or Classics Universe either but they still got released as such. Oh and I like Minicons a lot too. I hope i'm able to find some way I could get these Microns too they look like they would be useful to own.
I like minicons a lot too, but I don't think Takara releasing random minicon exclusives is in any way an indication that Prime will feature minicons of its own in the future, or that Takara is releasing these because one of the 13 original Primes in the Prime continuity is a minicon. Until stated otherwise regarding intent, these are just random exclusives (we never saw true minicons, or at least anything specifically referred to as a minicon, in the Movieverse despite Takara releasing minicon giveaways during the Movie and RotF lines) and reading anymore into it seems like a large jump in logic. Personally I'm fine with more minicons regardless of how they're released (the minicons on Generations-ish cards that were released in the past year, or the Dinobot-style dino minicons released in DotM packaging this year from Hasbro) and don't need them to be tied into any ongoing continuity as long as they're released, period. I still like the Waterlog minicon and wouldn't mind seeing Takara's take on that mold as well, since it's one of two PCC minicons they've yet to release their own version of.
(1) No I don't think any conclusion can be drawn from Takara using these as incentives either, and in all honesty I have no idea if Hasbro want to make some more new Mould Minicons or not - They do tend to alternate an interest between Legion/Legends and Minicons though so perhaps after a couple of wave of Prime Legions they might make Minicons - I don't think you can rule it out.. if only because, as I said they have a habit of just not going away.. if it's as UK candy toys, market 6 single pack figures, International market multi-packs, with PCCs or Takara incentives they just seem to hang about a long time after they first showed up as part of AEC. I do know there;s some designers who still adore the idea of Tiny Transformers too so as long as that remains the case I don't think they will vanish forever just yet - They seem to fill a useful product niche if nothing else. (2) No I don't think they probably were even especially aware of the Minicon as a Prime idea in the new continuity family either unless it happened to come up in conversation with one of the Job-swap Takara/Tomy employees when they are sent to Hasbro in America on exchange as sometimes happens. It might be worth keeping a look out for 5mm post and ports on TFPrime toys though in case that might be considered a "HINT". (3&3a) I don't really consider Minicons as Movie toys as such either - but I suppose they are not a million miles away from the likes of Frenzy or Alice, XBox-Bot, & The Kitchen Crew. I tend to think that if they do exist we either have not really seen them in an actual Movie or they might exist in that Universe but they are part of the diaspora that has as yet not found it's way to Earth after Optimus call- Human scale "Good guy" Transformer might have a place in the Bayverse I would think - they'd be able to find a use for such a thing in a future movie maybe... So though the idea of Armada style Powerlinking Minicons is a bit unlikely in the Movie Universe looking as them as an example of stand alone smaller Transformers means to me that they probably fit in perfectly fine really. So at first glance the Minicon Dinobots in DOTM packaging might seem a little odd - it's not totally insane. (4) I like Waterlog too I've only had Undertow for about a week and I like that he reminds me of Undersea Clone Troopers or Max Ray's Seabat Weapon System or even Slugslinger a bit. and it's handy that he share that neat trick of easily being mounted on something using either the post or the port - that makes PCC Minicons super flexible in terms of how you can use them in a way that many of the earlier ones are not. For the future perhaps they could expand the idea of them being a form of Targetmaster and mash together the idea of a Nebulan with a Minicon to get the same result but they'd both be Transformers and one of them wouldn't be a bloke in a mechsuit.. or they could have them as Drivers perhaps. I think it's to early to say how comfortably or otherwise the Minicon idea would fit into Prime in terms of media or Toyline.. and there's always other packaging types if they don't want to link it to Prime at this time. The "Robots in Disguise" packaging seems expressly designed so it can be used for things above and beyond Prime and arguable the same is true with the Transformers 2012 packaging too - they seem to have given themselves plenty of wiggle room. Only the Cyberverse toys and the preview toys really seem to focus on what they actually are in brand terms. For example look at the Transformers '2012' toy packaging the only thing that says Movie is the Blurb that says "Movie Trilogy" in a little speech bubble it's not something they emblazoned across the top of the box in big letters and that little speech balloon could easily be changed to something else in the future like "Fall of Cybertron" for example. We don't even know which of the two brand banners they would even use for random stuff RID or "Transformers 2012" (currently often referred to as Movie Trilogy).. i would be very curious to see which way they jump with regard to not just any potential future Minicons but also Generations like releases or perhaps certain store exclusives. Toyfair should be interesting for that reason - I look forward to finding that out. And I don't rule out Hasbro repainting some PCC's eventually so we might get some more Minicons that way if for not other reason than there's some moulds they have yet to repaint.
Not sure if people know that I am currently in Japan right now but I am. Just bought Prime Voyager Bulkhead at Yodobashi Camera and got Minicon Blowpipe.
Passssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They look lamer with the prime line then the ppc line!!! No one likes them!!!!! Why in the world people want repaint of them for 4o usd?????????/ huhhu can any one explan why!
Saying 'no one' likes PCC or Minicons is hardly something that can be easily substantiated Minicons are often "Adored" and PCC has it's own appreciation thread on the board - Undertow was especially Popular. You may have a perfectly valid point to say that you think they are not an easy fit with Prime toys - but as small stand alone Transformers they are perfectly fine - and heck they Transform into weapons too which I would say makes them the very definition of 'Useful' rather than 'useless'. As I mentioned earlier that drill shaped one can make a rifle grenade for Kup's gun - what's not to like about that ?
Agreed. These yahoos chiming in with their "witty" one-liners probably aren't even in Japan so how would these promotional giveaways even apply to them (that being the case, why should they even care?). They can't all be as cool as the exclusive battle blades that came with Toys'R'Us Striker Optimus. I for one like the minicons giveaway. The purple drillbot I got from Kid's Land here in Japan was neater than I thought (I look forward to sticking him on Kup's rifle once I get back to the US and the rest of my collection, or maybe give to a TF Prime Decepticon to reenact them mining for energon like on the show XD), and I'm going to try to track down the orange axebot from the Japanese Toys'R'Us next.
