Absolutely we should. There are five Diaclone variants of that basic Honda City. I'd wager we'll see at least three of them.

Me too, friend, me too...  

Yes, that's a good-looking Skids.

Hmm. Are they both general retail releases in March? If they are... I think the chances of a third release are pretty slim. Sadly.

 

No announcement on the SS repaint just yet, but right now its just Bee in march. Could we really be waiting till April for the first new mold of the year?

 

I'd be okay with no new MP until April  

 

For once I'll agree with that phrase, I just finished my Diaclone Collection (Might throw in MP18S tho) and the next release I might get
Are either KFCs Buster and Hydra or Fanshobby Power Baser, so a little break is welcome  

 

All of our "insider" speculated seems to have dried up months ago.

It's as if the AKOM Hot Rod just took the wind out of everyone's sails.

As for Skids, I'd very much prefer a more toy-like appearance than the ugly Season 2 fatbot Floro Dery lineart, but I know better than to expect it. That's what the line is now. If it's too ugly, like Inferno, I'll pass. If it looks acceptable, like Sunstreaker, I'll get it.

 

Just over 6 days till we see more Sunstreaker or Hot Rod.

 

Well... that does sound slow, but counting "seasons" instead of years, and including the MPMs as I now think we must, we're right on schedule and might even set a record for new molds. Movie Bumblebee, Movie Prime and Sunstreaker make three, Nightstalker makes four if you want to count him, and then presuming Barricade and Dinobot both make it out before the end of April, that's six. The previous three "seasons" only gave us four new molds apiece.

 

Nightstalker? Oh yea, the kitty cassette  

I know we're all expecting an MPM Barricade at some point.

I completely forgot about the upcoming 4 pack of Cassettes.

 

You should put red Sunstreaker on the chart.

 

No, we don't need to and won't see anymore about them. MPM-4 got the last spotlight in last month's magazine, maybe Movie Best of line will be featured in this month's one. If we're lucky we'll get something about the MP line, more than just a brief mention of the MP-21 reissue. If we don't get anything in the magazine something could be revealed a couple of weeks later at a toy show, online, any number of ways.

September has usually been pretty good for reveals, and we're long overdue one, so let's wait and see. I wouldn't be surprised to see a spread on Dinobot in the next magazine.

 

I'm really hoping for a reveal this month. Sunstreaker is getting close, and it's rare they don't have something next waiting in the wings.

I had been hopeful that they would do the MPM's outside of the normal MP production schedule since a lot of Masterpiece collectors weren't getting them, but alas.

 

MPMs aren't that bad because they seem more Hasbro's thing them Takara's. It's all the reissues lately that have me scratching my head. We used to get one of two a year especially doing the "dead months"(May-August). Now we are getting them in the more prime months. We had the ones' with Megatron(April) and 10-B(Nov) for this year and 2018 starts off with 3(Jan/Mar). They are still spending production time whether it's a new mold or not it just seems lately they have been more content to do that, considering they have even gone lean on the repaints. It's starting to feel like we are getting served a sandwich with too much bread and too little meat.

 

I feel like the repaints had a lot to do with Megatron and then getting the repaints in before a the MPMs started to come out. It was kinda crap, but hopefully it'll get back on track now.

I have to admit I'm a little surprised to have not seen a couple of repaints like a black Ironhide yet. I mean, Artfire was only a few months after Inferno. I feel like Ratchet may have been an inexpensive enough rework that he made enough money to not have to do another?

 

Yeah, I figured we a tleast could see some of the repaints we havent got like Black Ironhide or Deepcover. I could see them waiting now on Black Rodimus or a Megatron repaint. Makes you wonder if the reason we haven't seen the plus Prime or Starscream is because they plan on introducing new ones in the near future. I could totally see them redoing Starscream since he's such a popular character, also netting us a new TC and SW. They can simply do like they did before if the want, and wait 3 or 4 years after the new Starscream releases for the coneheads. While news of a Blaster and Trailbreaker/Hoist were exciting, it's going to be a bit of a downer if we are waiting till May or June for them.

 

I really hope they don't do new Seekers. At very least for a long while. 6+ of them is more than enough.

 

It would make me happy just to see a new TTMall or Cybertron Satellite exclusive, though with only three months to Christmas it's already a bit late to be announcing such things. Prime opportunity to get a black Hot Rod or a blue Bumblebee out there, with those molds on the assembly line around now.

 

So is this why Bee is the cheapest carbot? And I'm guessing that all future minibots will be 80$+ or even more because of the parts count right? That's one of the reasons why I'm upset that sunstreaker costs so much.

 

Well, it may be that they may not have made as much money per unit with 'Bee. Parts count, and then storage and shipping are big costs for toys. Minibots would win a little on storage and shipping, at least.

The thing with Sunstreaker is that the price of these things had to go up because the line has been going for over a decade. Inflation is a thing. Then add that Takara needed to have the super-charger transform into the body to make Sunny look like a regular model, and yeah, of course he's pricier.

You either have a great Sunstreaker that costs more, or one hat basically just ignores all the benchmarks of the Masterpiece line just to be made into a genericized vehicle mode.

 

Is Sunstreaker's price going to be the standard for the remaining carbots in the line going forward? They could've made the supercharger a piece that plugs in but I'm not sure how good it would look or what it would've done to the price. Same with the taillights.

 

This is a an oft repeated reason, but we don't actually know that any of this is the reason for the price. Unless you work for Takara, you are just speculating like the rest of us. My own personal opinion is that Takra knows the line sells well and is taking advantage by jacking up the prices. I for one, think some of the prices of the recent releases have been absurd and now even more am picking and choosing pieces