Animated IS NOT on the verge of cancellation in the UK

and they are cancelling Animated. Sorry, I'm just not a fan of the designs for the show.

Man, sorry UK fans. That's got to suck hard. Hopefully the show continues for awhile in the states so you can at least import some of the figures (and from what some of you say it's actually cheaper for you?).



God you're a laugh and a half. I love how people just start jumping to baseless conclusions about things without any facts what-so-ever.

Aww, that must suck for you guys in the UK. I really wish season 3 would come out soon.....

Galaxy Force was one of the best lines since the RiD toys but thankfully the tv show had a better plot. Armada sold a packet when it first came out because everyone felt 'yay were getting vehicles again like RiD' sadly we got given crap and energon didnt make up for it but still Energon sold much better than Animated. Galaxy Force was a sucess and im disapointed we didnt get a series 2 of Galaxy Force. Cybertron would have been a huge sucess as well if only Hasbro didnt fuck it up and give all the characters stupid voices like making Scattershot a Red Neck inbread hillbilly and by making the Giant Planet.....the Planet Scotland..... or by making vector prime an old English gent or by making EVERY beast character sound like they have the flu and gruff in every sentance...

Honestly Hasbro ruined Galaxy Force when they turned it into Cybertron so im not suprised that when Hasbro do a cartoon show of Transformers on there own that its rubbish and fails to sell at all. Is this awful show even been given to the Japanese Market yet? have they said they even want this crap considering it sells like a bucket of already eaten chicken

Yeh, i can believe that Lego is still going strong, and you're right on the money with the popularity of Wii/DS/consoles among UK kids. Clearly there are going to be many reasons for that lack of general popularity of toys (compared to what those of us old buggers remember as the popularity of toys), but I suspect toy marketing is more "faddish" than it ever was.

There appears to be a distinct trend of kids' toylines which are based around movies now, and really only last until the next movie and the next set of products hit - there are not so much toylines, more oversaturations of event-based toys. For example, witness the great variety of Spidey toys (or merch) which then end up on clearance - it looks for all the world like throwing shit at the wall in order to get as wide a demographic of wallets opened as possible, within an artificially accelerated timeframe; that's not a toyline.

Clearly, that selling model must experience a more quickly profitable but less sustainable peak than that of a toyline which was spun out of an ongoing cartoon series on national TV - especially within a wider range of things competing to be childrens' toys/entertainment.

That itself has to be symptomatic of the immediacy of everyday life, there's also the prevalence of videogames & DVDs in the childrens' market (and the myriad reasons for that), issues of where and when parents spend their money, the notion that children "grow up" faster now... it's probably no great surprise toys are not bought in the same way as there were in the 80s!

Anyway, I'm wittering, and may be talking total crap for all I know... it's late and I have no cast-iron facts and figures to hand. At least Lego does seem to plow on regardless of trends. Tho of course, there's so much themed Lego now... not like when I were a lad...

So much epic FUD in this thread...

Folks, calm down. I’m very sceptical about this news anyway. Even if this is accurate (which I doubt it is, at least not 100%), it might not be as bad as all that.

In the bigger retailers, especial the Big Boys that are offering discounts, Animated is flying of the shelves. My local Toys R Us, Tesco, Asda etc are all selling Animated by the bucket load at the moment. If they are buying them wholesale at a discounted price then they will still be a making profit on them, so will order more. They will not cancel a profitable line. Even before the current run of discounts the line seemed to be doing fairly well in the big shops. Think about it, apart from Voyager Bulkhead there hasn’t been any major shelf-warming, has there? We’re certainly belting through the line. We aren’t even that far behind the Americans this time (compared to past lines like RiD and Energon at least).

However, in my local Indy toyshop (Dominoes Toys in Leicester) I’ve noticed a different story. They’ve barely sold an Animated figure since they got them in at the start of the summer (a couple of Bumblebees and Starscreams, max), most likely due to the near-constant sales in the bigger shops. From what Red Leader says this situation is true for a lot of Indy toy shops, so I can easily see that if a lot of them start cancelling their orders for Animated for this reason Hasbro may well think it’s not worth dealing them anymore. But if as Red Leader says Hasbro were treating them like vermin anyway what does it matter to Hasbro if they do stop buying Transformers? This could just be Hasbro ceasing to sell Transformers to independent toy shops because they refuse to buy more. Although that would be a terrible blow to the High Street, if the big shops are still buying up Transformers Animated why would Hasbro UK pull the plug on the line nationwide because a market they were, at best, indifferent to has closed off? We know from Red Leader that all the recent big chain Animated sales are due to Hasbro’s overstock cock-up, not due to poor sales. As long as the big stores like TRU are buying and selling we should be alright, unless of course the Indy market is a lot bigger and more important that Hasbro seems to think and they have ended up shooting themselves in the foot.

Also, don’t forget that Hasbro UK Reps are famous for not knowing their arses from their elbows (I’ve dealt with one in the past and his attitude was basically “Don’t ask me, I just sell the bloody things”). If they told Red Leader’s supplier that they are cancelling the line they could have meant *anything* from “we aren’t selling to you anymore” to “I am a small purple Nigerian walrus”. They are that crap.

Annnnyway, please don’t get over-excited about this yet. At present we know that the line *might* become unavailable to the small shops who still want to order them. On the bright side we know at the very least Argos is committed to selling the line until Christmas due to it being in the catalogue and they will have to get new stock in as they sell it (new stock most likely meaning the new waves). Even if the worst case scenario happens and Hasbro UK stop sending Animated to the big chains like TRU and Tesco those shops that still want to sell Transformers will most likely order stock in from related/parent companies abroad (like they sometimes do with some store exclusives) if they still see the line as profitable – and this close to Christmas if Transformers are still selling I can’t see the likes of TRU wanting to run out of them. Toys R Us obviously thinks the line is profitable or else they wouldn't have ordered that UK exclusive Ratchet/Bumblebee 2-pack.

We can all see that, yet again, the feckless idiots over at Hasbro UK have cocked up. But this is no Beast Machines or Energon (yet). Transformers are widely available for a change and nothing from Animated/Universe has been skipped yet (so far). Wait to see what happens before panicking and buying imports. All we can do for now is wait for any further news and keep buying domestic Transformers (whilst we still can!).


(Bloody hell, I can’t believe I’ve actually written all that in defence of the UK Transformers market – I must be ill )

...

I SERIOUSLY hope this is a sarcasm post.

Rest in peace, Pickles. We'll never forget.
2002 - 2009

How exactly is the voice acting in any way Hasbro's fault? They didn't dub the cartoon. You, sir, are full of crap.

"On their own"? Animated is a joint effort by Hasbro, Takara, Cartoon Network, and Studio I.G. But by all means, fail harder.

Since Animated is simply Transformers making a bad Teen Titans impersonation, I'm shocked it lasted that long.