We as consumers recieve our toys assembled and painted. But other lines like Gundam get theirs primarily in kits. Are there advantages of one above the other? Would it have anything to offer the hobby? Would it be practical? Could buying our Transformers in kits make them cheaper saving on paint apps and assembly? Or could we be open to other advantages? There are disadvantages of course, people would not have the time to invest. Also I'd be concerned that the toy might not feel so robust. Or that self assembly might hurt the toys engineering. I've been thinking about this for a couple of days now after picking up some kits. Any other thoughts?
bad idea, kits are easily broken and get loose articulations very fast when they are manipulate...and transformation is a lot of manipulations.. the gundams kits purpose is to be exposed, make somes poses, customing etc...but not for playing and regular movements
I'm not surprised by a negative reaction, Transformers are playthings, so they need to be robust. For a child its awesome that there is no assembly required. One thing I've noticed is the plastic is alot thinner on the sprues. I'd be thinking the same as regard the moving parts involved in the transformation. I had a small Wing Zero from Gundam Wing which had a very limited conversion and still looked like crap, inclusive of bits that refused to sit in well and falling off. There are the kits that are being produced of HOS Optimus which looks beautiful and the Galvatron kit from a while back. They look lovely, but primarily as display pieces, not for regular play. Me too man, I'm really bad. What about the old GI Joe vehicles that you used to have to put together, they were fun and rewarding. I'd be up for snap together large tfs like that. Made to be tough, but involved as well.
id love to see some TF model kits I have 1 gundam kit and I loved building it so id support it all the way
I was looking through a few pictures I found of them online last week, they helped put this notion in my head. The Metroplex and Tryticon look awesome, its a shame that later releases seem to have become alot more basic. Whether that was done to save money to stay at a price point or just to make more money. But they are fine examples, never held one, so I don't know how solid they are. Thats cool. Any type you'd prefer to see? Size, character, line? I'm not familiar with these. I'll see what I can find on google. I can't deny this. It depends on the degree of assembly though. I mentioned the GI Joe vehicles from years gone by and they were toys too, they're not 'kits', but a degree of assembly is required. Was there any reason to package these toys disassembled anyway I wonder, if only to save Hasbro on shipping.
I think it'd be an awesome subline, obviously aimed more towards collectors. It'd quite likely bring in a lot of new customizers to the community too, but as it is, there'd probably not be enough demand for such a thing. I'd love to get more universe stuff this way.
I want to say we hit up Hasbro with this sort of idea years ago and we were told basically that assembly isn't that much of a cost, more than it's things like marketing and design.
Just a guess, but from my experience in retail I'd bet the "some assembly required" thing spawned from retail space. If the product ships in peices then you can fit diffrent moldes into the same sized box. So you can display a few diffrent toys on the same shelf, and if you run out of one, you just slip something else in. I might also save on packaging costs if all the boxes are the same size.
i have a 1/144 gundam that can transformer into a plane but the transformation is pretty basic... i don't think TFs model kits are good idea because TF toys need to be robust. plus i hate painting and stickers.
I would prefer if the kits are used to make obscure characters, like Deceptitran, Dion, Orion Pax, G1 Wheelie, generic Autobots and Decepticons etc. They should also have screws included, to keep the joints areas anchored. Model kits shouldn't be used as a replacement to Transformers.
The only thing that might be a problem is replacing the metal pins with something a bit more kit friendly. I suppose it's not so bad if they're doing a new design because they can do it without pin joints, but if it was a kit that was essentially the parts of a TF already released then it wouldn't be as easy to come up with an alternative. I suppose KO makers do a fairly decent job of adapting toy designs to simplify joints. If the quality and fit of the pieces were better obviously.
I think that with a kit, the figures would be to flimsy, and there would be 10 times more after transformation... What might be nice though would be a kit that doesn't transform and is nicely detailed, like the Gundam ones now. Although I think the extra paint and such might start to add up after a while, and i know my quality of paint job would be terrible.
I'd love it to continue as is, but with accessory/weapon/head packs available to the slightly more advanced collectors, directly from the manufacturer.
I'd like it as a sub line, but usually those kits have very light plastic that could break during transformation
