Via Autobase Aichi, we have a clear image showing Takara-Tomy’s AD-32 Stinger! This is presently the only planned Deluxe class Stinger – he’s a redecoed version of the new Camaro Bumblebee, so his robot mode is spot on even though he’s not a Pagani when he transforms. Check out the images and see what you think.
Lbsammills51
Just received my payment request on this guy from HLJ.
SpinalCord
Yes and yes.
Autovolt 127
He makes the mold better than Bumblebee ever did that's for sure.
It's kind of sad that's all of the Decepticons who got toys in this line.
slpypnda
YESS…. so few moulds… SO MANY REPAINTS!!!. And of the few molds designed… mostly junk. Shellformer,partsformer,jetformer , kiddie toys,lousy paint aps,smaller size, no lights and sounds… you name it.the worst line EVER
slpypnda
Indeed. Sad to see , lots of die hard fans are still willing to fork out their money to buy even the crappiest junk hasbro is releasing
Raiyuki
I'm fond of this mold and the deco looks great; it actually makes me care a bit less about not having a head retool. Anyway Hasbro would usually jump on the chance to do a redeco so it still makes no sense that they wouldn't release it. Also interesting that Hasbro supposedly now thinks Cons don't sell yet Japan, where there's a general belief that villains sell more poorly than heros, is still making this. On some level this would've made way more sense than TracksShot and I say this having gotten TracksShot because I like Hotshot and felt the mold suited him.
I have to disagree with that last part. The platinum editions and SDCC figures gave us no new characters that didn't get toys earlier in the AOE line. They were rehashes of characters who were already there. Even the one figure we thought was Stinger turned out to be a red Sideswipe.
I do agree that they seemed to want to promote both movie toys and Generations simultaneously (in contrast to what they did with DOTM where the Generations line seemed to have died at the time only to come back after DOTM's run ended) and the fact that they didn't want AOE to overstay (seeing as there were far less redecos mainline than usual; there were tons of exclusive redecos but we didn't get the usual tailend waves of near all repaints). However in some ways the line still feels incomplete due to the fact that technically there WERE cons but they didn't really get toys outside of One Steps and a Power Battler. They never covered the Two-Heads and we never got Generations versions of Steeljaw, Stinger (Hasbrowise), or Junkheap. It would've been enough for one last wave and all of them are army builders. It would've been enough for exactly one more wave.
SpinalCord
The analogies made sense to me… they offered a ton of Primes, and every character was offered in multiple classes (different sized fries), but the variety of the menu was very bland. So it's like going to McDonald’s and having a ton of choices for fries, chocolate shakes, cola, coffee, and cheeseburgers, but you have no salad, smoothies, pies, ice cream, McRib, fish filet, ect. Parents/kids are going to get a burger with fries and a coke reguardless of the size (same with Bumblebee and Optimus), so offering the most assortment with those characters and very little variety doesn’t make for a solid line…
Now I really want some Micky D’s
OVERCLOCKER
Overclocker
No pagini! riding bees coattails again! bites! Good thing you can get a better Stinger and more original alt mode from Radicons!!!
Raiju
Yeah, all those analogies you used make no sense to me. The gist I was getting at was basically that AOE's toy lines seemed smaller and focused more on simpler transformations. Whether or not they were successful is a whole other topic. The point is, HasTak ran AOE concurrently with Generations up until Combiner Wars (and now RID/TF Adventures) started to roll around, so I'm not surprised HasTak didn't seem to put 100% into AOE from that perspective.
AD-32 appears to be the last push for the AOE toys, outside of unknown figures like AD-18 and AD-19 (seriously, Takara, what the hell are these guys, already?).
SpinalCord
Stinger is beyond stupid, and Hasbro apparently agrees… not sure why fans are going nuts for an evil Cliffjumper with no personality.
ZapRowsdower
I don't know about your conclusions… for one, we haven't actually seen any sales numbers to back up the "right choice" comments you're putting down. Experience bias says that most parents didn't really pay attention to the various sizes/classes/differences between the toys. What REALLY happened is that they went into the store looking for "Bumblebee" and picked up whichever one happened to be stocked on the wrong peg. I'm left wondering how inaccurate their price conception was, considering how everything was generally stocked in the wrong spot with these toys (i.e. even employees had no idea what was what).
Finally, let me just say that when your sales are in a decline (which they arguably were before TF4), isn't it better to introduce menu variety rather than shrink it? What Hasbro did was introduce 10 sizes of french fries (i.e. BB) rather than add some McRib's or Fish sandwiches (i.e. Stinger and more Decepticons). Maybe the analogy is inappropriate here, but if food and toy sales are similar at all, Hasbro is doing it wrong. Customers want quick service and food, not a billion sizes of french fries.
Anyway, we'll see what the accountants cook up later in the earnings reports!
Yeah, wtf. I guess Bay decided CJ was better as a Decepticon named Stinger? Cause the whole "red BB" was supposed to be CJ…
st.ranger
What a shame, only tree cons from movie. So next we got only one, maybe.
Chaos Prime
Yea, that's an easy pass for me.
kaotika
hello cliffjumper
EMP Starscream
Did you actually buy two of the Breakout Battles?
Nice
Love the pics though.
Raiju
HasTak's just being more careful not to overload shelves with movie toys since they also want to move and promote their Generations toy lines, particularly with Combiner Wars. I think they made the right choice. I mean, between Hasbro and Takara, the mainline toys have the main AOE on-screen characters covered in various size/complexity points. AOE was a smaller, quicker line but I think most fans and casual toy buyers (parents/grandparents getting stuff for kids) will appreciate AOE not overstaying its welcome. Besides, the later SDCC and Platinum releases gave us many of the onscreen characters in all-in-one packages, which is convenient, IMHO.
SpinalCord
I was just thinking about this last night… this toyline was embarrassingly cheap in terms of the amount of characters. Compare it to the 2007 line and it gets blown out of the water with the amount of Decepticons and original characters it had
SoundBlaster7
Want!
Burnout00012
Unf