As long as TT keep up the toon accuracy and attention to detail they've been hitting recently I can't imagine them missing a step.

OTOH iGear's latest Mini Warriors have, indeed, lost the plot. The proportions and kibble on Cogz and Duneraker are disappointing, but it's the colours where they've really shot themselves in the foot (either that or they are deliberately holding back proper-colour special editions, which I think would annoy people even more than the wonky colours already do). The less said about Powerglide, Wheelie, and Bumblebee/Cliffjumper (surely dead in the water now) the better.

 

^on that topic, do you have Gears/Swerve in hand OpT? I was looking at Gears and think we could probably do a part for him to bring those shoulders up for bot mode. I like Cogz, but he's my last miniwarrior. He might not stick around for long, depending on what minibots others release and how they compare. But til then, he does the job nice.

 

Yeah I do. General feeling of disappointment for all four of them  

From all the photos they looked pretty good, but in hand and seeing them from all angles they look like the worst of the line so far (I'm excluding Cosmos because he's so un-G1 it's almost like he wandered in from another line - and a lot of people seem to love him).

I just posted in the iGear thread but I'll say it here too, the shoulders are terrible. HUGE kibble with a second, lower, shoulder joint inside, and stubby forearm. If I was gonna mod either of those two new molds it would be the shoulders, but I'd want to use the kibble as the arm, if you see what I mean, rather than have that huge kibble shell sitting at the top of the arm.

They aren't as dreadful as I've probably made them sound, but they are a far cry from what they should have been.

 

The thing is. Even on places like BBTS it actually says "This is a preliminary listing and is subject to change"

That to me sounds an awful lot like "We don't have word officially... since they wont say.. but we have VERY GOOD WORD that this is true."

So yeah... until we actually hear or see something official from TT.... There is some worry...

See above. It even says right on the listing. "Preliminary listing, subject to change". So... yeah...

 

I always read that as having more to do with the price and/or adding more information regarding product detail and not that it's unofficial.

 

Isn't it refreshing to have faith and confidence in an official line for a change rather than the wonder of what they're inevitably going to screw up?

I'm not sure if I like that or the wonky knee joints less... At the old scale these things would be a lot easier to swallow, but at 'deluxe' scale it's pretty disappointing.

 

Words right out of my mouth!

I'm still not sure we'll see an MP Gears... I'm hoping I'll like him better in person. Glad I didn't get Duneraker though.  

Totally!  

 

Kibble... on Duneraker?

 

That is fine. You can think what you want of course. Usually BBTS will just put "Price is subject to change" when it's confirmed but not the price. NOT "This is a preliminary listing and subject to change" So.. yeah.

Anyways it's really not official.. until it's official. Until TT announces it.

 

You guys missed the part about MP20 being officially announced at SDCC?

 

Oh I get what you're saying, that TakaraTomy hasn't officially announced anything, but this isn't the first time we've heard about a new product from BBTS first before actually hearing from the company that's released it, and I'm not speaking just to MP17-19 either. There have been a few errors here and there (the "United Artfire" one being the only one that comes to mind recently), but how is their accuracy so far in these situations? Pretty good, I imagine, if most of us are sitting back and assuming these are happening based solely on these listings.

 

There is zero chance of Takara announcing MP-20 at an American convention.

 

I heard that there is going to be a TF Convention/expo in Beijing the coming months. would they be announcing MP-20 / 21 officially just like how they announced Lambor back in a convention in Singapore?

 

With the right colour Duneraker is my fave. True story.

 

You'll be very disappointed

Exactly

This is was more realistic, and most likely going to happen. Especially if this is where they're doing that reissue of Grimlock

 

I thought it was said that there was big news about US releases coming up at SDCC. TT doesn't make announcements for their products at US events.

 

Oh I know. I'm pretty sure it's probably (unofficially   ) confirmed at this point. I don't think BBTS would risk pissing off so many people in jumping the gun at this. So I think we can pretty much assume it's how it's going to be. (At least I'm really hoping no one jumped the gun on nothing more then shallow rumors.)

I was just saying on a technical point it's not official till it's official.  

 

It's great   I'm not suggesting TT's MPs are infallible, but MP Sideswipe is such a fantastic figure... all they need to do is follow that same design ethos for the other carbots and we're good  

It's funny, only a few years ago I thought TT were content to let the Masterpiece line trundle along with 'version 2's and one-off big name characters, while iGear were giving us what seemed like manna from heaven via their van bros, coneheads and Mini warriors.

Now here we are, TT has got their mojo back and iGear is floundering.

I guess they work as placeholders. Cogz is certainly the nearest thing to a Masterpiece G1 Gears we've ever seen, it's just that we now have a good idea just how much better TT could handle it if they tried. I sincerely hope there's some grand plan underway at TT, with the intention of getting out the Ark crew over the next 2 to 5 years. It's not such a pipe dream as it once was  

It's a poor state of affairs when G1 Beachcomber deals with kibble better!  

 

Agreed. Whatever Hasbro's announcement is, it won't generate the interest that Takara's next MP announcement will. Beijing sounds like a good call though.

 

Yeah, at this point I'm done with placeholders, though. If I think Takara will come out with an MP version, I'm passing.

Cogz... well, to be quite honest, Bumblebee and Cliffjumper I see happening. Any of the other Minibots, not so sure. So I don't feel bad about getting Cogz (yet... I STILL haven't gotten mine from iGear, mind you!). Ditto Hench, and I'd get an upzized Rager if they made one, too.

Of course, this line of thinking has made the decision to get Quakewave a bit difficult...