You know, come to think of it... being that it is 2016, why hasn't anyone figured out a way to make the color changing effect last longer than it does? We've pretty much been using the same stuff since the 80's and no one's figured out how to make it any better yet? I don't know what they do to make that color changing pant, but I'm sure there's gotta be a way to make it last more than a few years.
it might have to do with how successful the gimmick is, if it isn't a very successful gimmick, as in, selling well, they will not invest a lot of money into it. which is probably why we've only seen the gimmick once. while the minicon ports gimmick, was so successful, we still see it popping up here and there. but, the majority of g2 did not sell very well. so many of the gimmicks they tried there, have never popped up again. which is why we hardly see many of the original molds from g2 anymore. hot wheels can afford to do their gimmicks, because hot wheels don't have a whole lot of moving parts. and do not require a whole lot of funds to produce. thus there is very little risk involved in creating a new gimmick, or a mold around that gimmick. because they are only being sold for a few dollars. while in contrast, transformers is having a hard time keeping deluxe toys under 20 dollars. which is a little under twice the cost of a deluxe only a decade ago. also; fans tend to hate figures designed around gimmicks.
Maybe it's a bit too gimmicky to be accepted by older fans or the G2 color-changers didn't sell too well.
You make some good points but there are a few holes in your logic. Other toy companies still use that gimmick to this day. You could go to any toy store right now and find them. It's not just Hotwheels, they're just the most famous for doing it... plus they also sell like $20-40 play sets specifically for the color change gimmick. The cars themselves aren't that expensive but those play sets are. Plus Hotwheels may be small and have less parts but I'm pretty sure they're one of the few toys that is still made with metal rather than plastic. (The tracks are plastic but those little cars have metal parts.) The reason the G2 toys didn't sell very well is not because it's not a popular gimmick, it's because those toys really kind of suck. They're of characters no one really knows. The gimmick would sell a lot better if it was an Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Megatron, Starscream, ect. but the few who were made with that gimmick, weren't characters that kids recognized. They're rather buy the characters they've seen in the cartoons than some random nobodies. They look like knock offs rather than official figures. Also, people hate intrusive gimmicks. Gimmicks that limit a toy's articulation or transformation. Gimmicks that turn the toy into a brick... like the Mini-con gimmick you just mentioned. Any gimmick that doesn't hinder the toy in any way people tend to love. There are a lot of toy lines designed around gimmicks like the current Combiner Wars, and later this year they're bringing the Headmaster gimmick back. People love those things because they add to the play value of a toy rather than take away from it... though personally I don't like Headmasters because if you loose the head your toy is useless... but they're selling packs of just heads which solves that problem.
I can see a line of small guys, kind of like the RiD Minicons or Legions, that could work as color changers. They are small and most-often entirely plastic, and rarely have loads of paint apps. Something like a heat sensitive plastic or tampo that could act as 'active camo' or something would be pretty cool. It would be cool if science would allow us to turn paint transparent and back. You could have robots with temporary invisibility.
Oh yeah, it'd be a cool Gimmick for Shockwave too... because Longarm colors. Especially if they could also get his insignia to change from Autobot to Decepticon. And also they could probably make a much better Savage/Noble figure than the one we got if they had used this gimmick. Savage is almost entirely red while Noble is almost entirely blue. But because they were working with solid paint colors for the toy what we got was a pretty good Savage mode, but a crappy Noble mode. He had some blue were you couldn't see while he was Savage but there was a lot of red on him that shouldn't have been there. Of course this was technically a great opportunity for Hasbro to make some repaints but they weren't really making any at that time. The few they did make didn't really make sense because in the cartoon the drones are exact copies of the Generals. If you wanted a Jet Vehicon Drone it would make more sense to just buy multiple Jetstorms than to buy the actual Jet Vehicon Drone toy. And I'm not counting repaints that weren't released in the Beast Machines toy line. If you did count those than yeah there's a lot of them. But for just that toy line by itself, Hasbro didn't seem as repaint crazy as they are now. Anyway, the point being, I would of bought two of that mold if it meant I could get an accurately colored Noble figure, and a more accurate Savage. Savage did look the best of the two modes but he did have some blue showing just not as much as the red showing on Noble. The strangest part is the blue on the under side of the wings... wings which Noble doesn't even have. I always take them off when he's in that mode because they shouldn't be there and they just peg into his back. They're not attached in the packaging to make him fit. That's another thing they could probably improve on if they remade this guy today. Maybe in a larger size class. Articulate the wings enough so they can actually be folded away during transformation. If they did the color change gimmick, this would allow his color schemes in the show to work with transformation as well. Or they could just do a repaint like they always do so you have one figure which will end up being displayed always as Noble and a second figure that gets displayed only as Savage. It'd be interesting to see a red Noble or a blue Savage at least once but those won't be the modes anyone will leave them in.
Maybe people should stop perceiving it as a 'gimmick'. - but rather, as an application. Color changing parts / surface area could prove to be a very useful thing in Transformers engineering. For example: certain parts which should be red in robot mode, but blue in altmode in order to match the blue of the altmode exterior. So far, they either prioritize a color for one mode and it will stick out like a sore thumb in the other mode. In such cases - which happen more often than we think - having a paint or plastic which can adapt color to each transformation mode, would be very useful.
i can't think of a more intrusive gimmick, than the big giant water pumps from the old color changing figures. hot wheels and transformers are two totally different things. transformers requires tons and tons of research and development. a barbie figure with the same color changing thing, for example, doesn't. it's just the same doll with color changing hair. or shoes, or plastic. hasbro/takara, has to invest a lot of money into each new mold. which is why they typically use them a lot. while the masters/minicons are gimmicks, they are also some of the only few successful transformers gimmicks. i mean, you don't see the rotor force coming back anytime soon, do you? or how about the action masters? gimmicks that do not sell well, typically do not come back. gimmicks that do, like the headmasters, and combiners, do. hasbro has to make a profit.
I don't see what that has to do with anything. It's not any more expensive to produce a figure with color changing than it is to produce one without. The development of entirely new molds as apposed to a toy line that literally just produces the same doll year after year with different accessories doesn't make any difference when we're talking about something that already exists and doesn't cost any more money than regular paint or regular plastic. If there was a cost issue involved the production of said figures then you'd see color changing toys selling for a lot more than normal toys, but you don't, they sell for the same price. You're talking about something as simple as color changing paint as if it's the most expensive thing in the world. Granted, Hasbro has been cheeping out on paint applications anyway... but there's also plastic that does the same thing. They could just mold the toys in that plastic and again, it's not any more expensive to produce than the plastic they use right now. The fact that the G2 didn't sell well is the only valid money complaint you actually have except that's rendered mute when you look at other toy lines who are selling the gimmick. I'm sure Hasbro has the capability to not only look at their own sales but also the sales of other companies and as themselves, why are these color changing toys selling out but not ours? And then come to proper conclusion that there must be a different reason that has nothing to do with the gimmick. It's because they're crappy figures that no one recognizes. If they released those same molds without the gimmick they still would not sell. I can almost guarantee that if Hasbro were to release some of their existing toy molds with this gimmick, they would sell just as well if not better than their original releases. Oh and to the constant complaint about how well the gimmick holds up over time... That's a collector complaint... this isn't for collectors. And here's some other examples of materials used on Transformers that are just as bad if not worse... Chrome paint (Transmetals): Chips off and leaves a glittery mess. Rubber Plastic: Deteriorates after about ten years. Gold Plastic: Though I haven't personally experienced this issue, it tends to have problems. Translucent Plastic: Becomes brittle and is prone to breaking. Mainly only if stress barring hinges are made of the stuff but Hasbro keeps doing it. And some figures like Ghost Starscream or Invisible Mirage are made almost entirely out if this material. Why does Hasbro and Takara keep making this stuff? Oh yeah, because it's not made for collectors, it's made for kids. So why not add color changing to this list of horrible plastic and paint choices. I would also add Glow in the Dark plastic but I don't think they're even allowed to use that in the U.S. anymore. The stuff that makes it glow in the dark was found to be toxic.
