Yippee, Hasbro def knows how to milk the filthy rich in the mainland...

 

It just doesn't add up to me. Why is Hasbro so intent on making China the primary market for Transformers? They worked with the Chinese government itself for AOE, now they're letting Hong Kong and China get first grabs on a lot of hot ticket items.

What am I missing?

In any case, it'd be nice for every country/continent to have their own official Transformers convention. Maybe the fan-run cons, like Roll Out Roll Call and TFCon, can just get licenses from Hasbro to give their exclusives official names (example: a toy meant to be Erector can be called Erector, not Shafter). In the case of TFCon USA, maybe Hasbro could trade off every other year with them, so HasbroCon one year, TFCon the next.

 

Probably that China has a population approaching 1.5 BILLION people.

 

That's pretty awesome they got Cullen for this.

 

While it is cool that they are going despite the fact I don't think the IDW comics are released in China, apparently whoever wrote that press release doesn't know anything about the comics.

 

China has replaced the US as the biggest economy and the market for Transformer items there is /huge/.

 

We do have IDW comics here in China, but only the TPBs. we have megatron origin to the end of dark cybertron, all translated into Chinese. There will be more in the future. And you can always buy the latest issues online. Not a problem.

 

There are more & more Chinese Transformers collectors,hence this is what is happening.

 

How big is he to the Chinese though, when original G1 aired over there, would they have even heard his voice?

 

To be honest,i don't think so.

 

-1. Chinese economy is still smaller than the US. By quite a bit in fact.

The box office market though is bigger there. Lots of movies that bomb here are overall still a success because of China.

 

Do you think Hasbro skipped the Transformers toys panel at SDCC because they want to empower the Cybertron Con in China ?

 

bigger market yeah, but that's where their ideas and IP are stolen yeah?

oh well..  

 

You know I just had this thought. If they are actually saving their TF panel for Cybertron Con that would make a lot of sense why they aren't doing it at SDCC this year.

 

Transformers is not just popular in the US - it is a huge franchise in Asia. There's a reason we have whole shopping malls with store upon store side by side selling the licensed figures here. The toys sell well especially in places like Hong Kong and China - both Hasbro and Takara Tomy (and even the 3P stuff). I had someone snatch the last TW Powermaster Prime off the shelf before I could grab it for a look a few weeks back in one store...
I can't speak for the mainland but Hong Kong DEFINITELY know who Peter Cullen is. The movies and TV shows are released in English (movies have Chinese subtitles underneath). The tv shows do get translations but many HK people like their kids to watch the English language tracks to strengthen their english literacy.
I know there were several HK based fans (myself included) who were terribly disappointed Bay didn't bring Cullen and Welker out here for the premiere of AoE. Optimus Prime is an absolute icon on this side of the planet. Just drive around HK and look at the number of cars with Autobot and Decepticon logos on them here.  

I'm going up to Shanghai for this and can't wait... If anyone else is going let me know in PM and maybe we can meet up!
I just hope I can find out how to get tickets to meet Peter Cullen as the website has NOTHING about it at the moment and this will probably be my only chance...

 

I would think at least with the Mainland having the Chinese VAs or at least the singing Soundwave guy would be more of a big deal.

 

Yeah, I can see Hasbro going to the SDCC with toys only because they signed the exclusives before they planned the Cybertron Con

 

I don't see any information on a 'How to create your own Masterpiece KOs.' seminar.

 

To my knowledge they never had G1, but they have the live action movies which have Cullen so that's probably why.

China eats these movies up hence why there is such a push to appeal to them.