Wow. Lots of hate in this thread. Not a shred of wonder about what the toy designing process is like. Everything here are just assumptions that Hasbro CAN do it perfectly, but doesn't.

Fans frequently have directly opposing views with each other on how they want their little plastic robots so how could Hasbro do anything that pleases that?

That's typical PR lingo.

 

Given how the G2 box sets wound up at Ross/Marshalls/other closeout stores, I'm guessing they didn't do as well as anticipated.

I don't know if it would have been "better" to do Defensor and say "NEVER BEFORE AVAILABLE" or stick to the possibility of nostalgia for "the one from the 90s", tbh.

 

They should have put out the box sets in October so they could get noticed by kids in time to bug mom and dad about wanting it for Christmas.

 

They weren't available at other physical retail outlets. Who knows how well they did. For all we know, they were always intended for those stores.

 

I find that explanation doubtful, but the fact that they weren't otherwise available at physical retail is an important point. If the G2 sets had been more widely available at brick-and-mortar, they might well have done better.

That said, I imagine that the reason the G2 sets were online-exclusive (at first) had more to do with the lack of brick-and-mortar outlets willing to stock them.

Until Ross/Marshalls/etc snatched them up to sell them at a discount, of course. But I still feel confident that this was done because they didn't sell well to start with. Not because Hasbro always intended these toys to show up there.

 

How well they sold at retail and how well they sold directly from Hasbro are important differences. They "sold well" for Hasbro because they made it to some form of market. That's their part of it, done. Their money was made. We can only assume they "sold well" for retail because they disappeared almost immediately. I find it hard to believe that either way is an obstacle other than their willingness to produce the sets.

 

I still don't understand why they always dodge the questions/ ask questions we've known before.

 

Because there are a lot of things Hasbro straight up cannot / will not answer. It's always been that way with PR, there are things they simply cannot talk about for a variety of reasons (licensing / marketing / still going through the approvals process).

So when you know this, and you sit down to ask the questions, do you ask the questions you know from experience you'll never get an answer to, or do you go slightly more safe so that you can glean some interesting information and report back a more interesting conversation than "sorry, no comment right now", "cannot comment on our future plans", "care bears forever!"

 

While I don't disagree about the distinction between sales at retail and sales from Hasbro, this seems to ignore the fact that sales from Hasbro to Ross/Marshalls/etc. were a considerable amount of time after the toys were first made available to retail (whether brick-and-mortar or online) outlets. That suggests to me that they didn't sell well before then.

That's really how Ross/Marshalls/etc work. They order stock that producers are keen to get rid of because they couldn't get rid of it through their normal outlets.

 

Not true in this case. Hasbro assumed we needed 4 different TR Optimus Primes at once. When in reality I didn't want any of them.

 

next time you can ask them about a retail store just for Hasbro stuff like lego does. that would solve a few problems

my area has stopped generations in most of the major toy shops to put in the last knight and more rid. I have never seen a complete wave of marvel legends since the avengers.

the stickers are not something that bothers me except when its on things like broadside where mine was completely messed up due to the fold, or on grimlock where they are unnecessary

 

Voyager, G2, PMOP, and Magnus Prime.

 

1) Voyager TR Optimus Prime (Blitzwing Pre-tool)
2) Leader Class Power Master Optimus Prime
3) Voyager Class Lazer Prime from the TRU Set (Blitzwing Pre-tool........again)
4) Leader Class Power Master Optimus Prime from the BBTS set. (Takara's Version)
And oh yeah....
5) Skate Board Optimus.

 

Being fair, three of those were exclusives. Only two were general release, in different size classes, and as two very distinct versions. PMOP in particular had been in demand for a while.

 

My point was that I didn't want any of these Primes but even if you skipped the 2 retail ones Hasbro still found a way of making get one by purchasing any of the 2 TR exclusive sets. That G2 Prime was the only figure that I didn't want in that TRU exclusive set. Which I spent 2 months trying to sell as a result.

 

This was not an interview. This was:

TF Brand Guys: Everything perfect. Nothing t see here.
TFW: Aww shucks. You guys are awesome and I agree with everything you just didn't say.

QUOTE="Tony_Bacala, post: 15036067, member: 1"]Was able to chat with Ben and John at Hascon last week. Was a crazy busy week here and the audio on my recording was wacked so needed time to do it right and salvage this thing.

These guys are really good at interview kung fu, they can pivot and redirect with the best of them. Hopefully there are some nuggets in there for everyone though!

TFW2005 Interview with John Warden and Ben Montano - Transformers News - TFW2005[/QUOTE]

 

Because they're under non-disclosure agreements. They tell us too much and they'll lose their jobs. Or worse.

That's what a brand team interview looks like. They can't tell us what they're sworn to secrecy to under NDA.

You're comparing "we" to "you" there.

No company should release products based on what just one person wants or doesn't want. The fact that you didn't want them means nothing in regards to the popularity of their contents of their new products.