The movie toys are being found now it seems. I haven't seen any myself, but I suspect that I just might long before June 2nd. Why do you think so? My Toys R Us manager said that only Star Wars could command a mass outbreak of shoppers at events such as their midnight madness sales which often generated $1,000 per customer sales tickets. Hasbro owns Transformers. Marvel owns Spider-Man and Lucas, Star Wars. Hasbro might just as well want to maximize the money they make - and though the Spidey movie is great, maybe the toy sales (and the toys look really good, too) aren't nearly as high as Hasbro hoped right now. Plus they just bought out George Lucas' Hasbro shares for a few $million. What do you think?
Well, first I want to say that if the Spiderman toys didn't sell to expectations, which I don't know if they did, then it might have something to do with sculps that were smaller and generally worse then version of those figures already available. Now, the TF movie toys are a little different then star wars toys. The thing is, I think we fans often overrestimate how many of us there are. I do think there are a lot but probably not compared to SW fans, I believe. Now, we, the fans, are the ones that are there on the launch day. These toys however are going to sell in majority to kids after or around the movie comes out. Therefore, I think that a specific launch day for TF toys just isn't that big of a deal (to most people). This is all my thoughts though, I don't know for sure.
They haven't rescinded it: http://www.hasbro.com/transformers/default.cfm?page=News/Item&newsid=77AD22D3-D56F-E112-46F42ACE7A0FBC30
Actually, I forgot about something to do with Spider-Man 3 toys. I went to Wal-Mart really late the other night (some time after midnight I think) and they were stocking the toys. They got in a heck of a lot of new cases of Spidey stuff. So maybe those items are moving fast and they just get replenished fast because it's the hot item?
Simply put, any store putting the Movie toys out early is doing so against instructions. In the minimum-wage world of modern retail, that's not uncommon, but Hasbro has been known to send reps to visit stores and make sure correct release dates are being honored.
The only reason we're seeing movie toys (and by "we" I mean "other lucky bastards who aren't me") is because some stores are ignoring the street date on the boxes and stocking them early.
Yes, thank you illiterate or extremely apathetic stockworkers across the nation. Keep perpetuating that retail worker stereotype
The Spiderman launch was overhyped. They had TV commercials and all and did I see anyone waiting at Target or TRU on launch date? Aside from the scalper looking for Target exclusives... no one. It's possible that they might have realized that Spiderman and Transformers aren't going to get they same turn out as say Star Wars.