It's not really because of CG that the characters are limited, it's the complexity of the CG that limits the characters.

I mean, take Cybertron for example.



That was CG and they easily managed to have 39 unique molds that weren't repaints or size changes.

 

That's why Hasbro needs to pad the line with more non show characters.

As of now we have Hotshot and Deadend which aren't even new molds, just remolds. Ironhide and Rumble are a good start on new mold non show characters (at the moment) but Hasbro really needs to start having some more variety (and characters)in their waves.

Of course it'd be nice to get all of the show characters in the line as well, I'm looking at you Breakdown and jet Vehicon.

 

I said it time and time again. Hasbro's decision to use second rate writers and mishandling the Prime toy line starting with the First Edition stuff is really what doomed this toy line. It probably won't die, but we have Hasbro (and the economy, to be fair) to blame for this state of being. A little better engineering...and god forbid, scrapping the head reveal gimmicks on the deluxe and weapon gimmicks on the voyagers, would go a long way to giving the line a wider appeal.

But that's what they did. They DID push Prime. That's the point of the First Edition stuff. However, it was the retailers in this case that wanted more DOTM...that's what I think the reason is that First Editions became TRU exclusives. No one was willing to allocate shelf space for a "filler line" of a main line that would be coming out in a few months.

 

US retailers choose which toylines they want to carry, and if there is a movie toyline out they will want that in copious amounts at the expensive of everything else. Retail chose to stock endless supplies of DOTM at the expense of everything else.

 

It is a little odd that there doesn't seem to be much future announced for the Prime, but maybe Hasbro's trying to go more slowly with rolling out characters than usual. After all, Prime (and Generations) needs to carry the franchise for about another year and a half still before the next movie.

But how many of them got toys, though? Animated didn't get a bunch of main characters out (Constructicons, Omega Supreme, Slipstream, Ramjet, etc), let alone many of the guest stars and cameos. Prime is currently on track to have all of the main characters out in the US except Breakdown and possibly "Silas Breakdown" (and Breakdown does have a Cyberverse toy), with Jet Vehicon and Unicron the only minor characters missing.

Until Cartoon Network inevitably dumps the series in a godawful time slot, like they did with Armada, Energon and Cybertron.

 

What I see Hasbro doing is pushing Prime deluxe figures to the back burner to give more space for all of the FOC deluxes that are coming out between now and Q1 2013. They're taking a bit of a gamble on releasing so many video game figures (even though a LOT are repaints) and they're no doubt trying to prevent a repeat of what happened with the last wave of DOTM deluxes.

Also retailers aren't giving the TF section as much space as it had for DOTM.   give the GI Joe space in the toy isle to FOC, they won't need it for a while.

 

Most retailers didn't even have a GI Joe space and the ones that did only had a peg or two at the most  

 

As a subscriber of the theory that the reasons season 2's been sparse with new characters because Hasbro mandated the toyline be givn a chance to catch up to the show (which it seemingly has)...maybe they haven't revealed wave 7 and beyond because it's going to be chock full of spoilers?

 

Wasn't part of the reason that the tail end of DotM got cancelled because retailers didn't want it anymore?

 

I'm still waiting for the stores to stock Soundwave. He's the only figure from the Prime line that i want

 

They DO air it on Cartoon Network over here, but I don't even know at what hours.

Incidentally, the toyline seems to be doing rather well over here, I'm expecting deluxe wave 4 to show up soon (I really really want Dead End)

This and all the asia (semi) exclusive stuff we've been seeing makes me think Hasbro is going strong on other markets where they can sell stuff for higher prices while still doing rather well.

 

Maybe they realized the toy line sucks and instead of pursueing a suckative direction for the sake of consistency, they will do something else.

 

Also, Hasbro, if you have to get rid of the mainline, replace it with Cyberverse sets of varying size and complexity plz

 

Part of the problem as mentioned is that their cast is stupid small. Blah blah CGI Blah blah doesn't hold water when we haven't had a new character model since the Insecticons nearing the end of a second season of 40 episodes. Other CGI shows, even if less complex, manage to have a lot more characters in 1/8 the time frame. Green Lantern has a low budget, but manages to have a good 30+ unique characters by 12 episodes. Clone Wars has a ton of money, but probably has elevendy billion characters and backgrounds jumbled around. Prime is seriously lacking even with complexity.

Hell they aren't even willing to make toys on the on show characters. The states aren't getting Breakdown, Unicron, or the Jet Vehicon. It is very likely an Insecticon mold will go the same way.

Now the RID line really has nowhere to go. We have two more new molds on the way. The new powerizers are no where to be found, with only two more molds shown for that too.

 

The difference in substance of the DOTM line and Prime line is striking, and thats considering even how much smaller scale the DOTM line was than the ROTF one. The line launched in January, it is now nearing the end of August, and we are barely on wave 4 (I have yet to see wave 3 at retail) for deluxes and 2 for voyagers. Its rare that I ever see anything other than deluxe wave 1. When such little product and such little variety of product is available over such a long period of time, then that's a problem.

 

Didn't Animated's toys had this same problem? I mean with the distrubution and all?

 

Nowhere near as bad. When figures might have first gotten released, but almost all figures were readily available upon release. The one's I can think of that got picked first were Soundwave, Blurr, Waspinator, and Swindle, but you could still find them.

 

Every character has three CGI models. That's probably equivalent at least to two characters on another show. Prime's models are amazingly complex.

 

Three? Like, robot, alt. mode, and then something inbetween? Seems to be a LOT of work considering Beast Wars is vastly inferior in CGI technology to Prime, and yet they managed to have a much larger cast and frankly aside from the protohumans I don't see THAT much difference between the look of Prime and Beast Wars (although that MAY be because 99% of the time they're just standing around in a generic earthy brown landscape with little foliage). Then again, the majority of characters in Beast Wars also went through one or two complete reformatting procedures when they became Transmetal I's and II's that in some cases were significantly different from their previous bodies (I.E. Megatron, and even his RUBBER DUCK TOY got two models when it got a Transmetal upgrade!).

Also, if so much work has to go into model design for one character, then that means Cliffjumper really WAS a waste since the only time two of his three models ever got used was Darkness Rising pt. 1. Same goes for Airachnid, who rarely used that helicopter form.

 

Its expensive , too expensive for them to bring out 12 new characters a season... but I refuse to believe they couldnt give us 5 or 6 new ones a year. Heck , convert Prime's character model into a Motormaster, just change a few things like the head and chest, that wouldnt be as expensive as a new character model. Or giving Bumblebee a new head and darker colors and making his model into Wildrider.

Heck have Wheeljack and Bulkhead pop in a video for Miko of cybertron wars of the wreckers... make it a normal animated clip show with Seaspray and the other dead bots and cons missions... that way its a lot cheaper and it makes it look like you are watching their video with them.

They can do lots of stuff.. but i think they are just milking it. and all this while I still love TFP. I hope it gets a 4th season..