I mean you can keep telling yourself that if it helps.

Nope. So far Siege leaders are roughly Voyager sized core robots who get about a head or so taller depending on how they combine with their armor.

 

By Cybertron OP, that's referring to the 2005 Cybertron OP in the picture

 

Not sure what kind of economics you are using or by what country but minimum wage has gone up here, that effects the prices of other things, material costs even if they stay the same go up due to other uncontrollable factors, a cheeseburger once cost you only 58 cents, now it's a 1.19 minimum, everything goes up in price over time, that's not Hasbros fault, they have actually kept their prices low and reasonable for longer than expected, even so, the price is still more than reasonable considering what you get and all of the improvements etc.

 

I get that, but I think the term "improvements" is extremely debatable. My apologies for not making myself more clear, but what I am questioning is whether the extreme drop in things like size, materials, features etc. between what we got in Galaxy Force and what we are getting in Siege is in line with regular inflation, particularly with the drop in oil prices and the (presumed) lowering/flattening of production labour costs coming from moving to Vietnamese factories from China. I am skeptical of the line that profit margins between the cost of what is being produced and the price that it is being sold at are non-existent or razor-thin, and suspect that there has been a quiet increase in corporate profit-taking happening alongside regular inflation trends in an attempt to squeeze more out of consumers while needlessly lowering product budget to the absolute minimum necessary.

 

I challenge the assertion that there's been an "extreme" drop. Yes, the Leader class figures are _quite_ a bit shorter than they were on previous lines, but they (particularly Magnus) still involve a high parts counts and a fair mass of plastic; after all, Siege Ultra Magnus is a fair bit heavier than the last few years of Leader class figures.

(Shockwave is, legitimately, a bit spare for his price point, but I suspect that partially enables the assortment to cost out overall.)

(I'd make a case that the drop in quality between the the Transformers: Prime First Edition assortments and the "Robots in Disguise" assortments that followed them is far starker than the difference between, sey, WFC: Siege and Power of the Primes.)

In any case, since most folks have a pretty simplistic "bigger is better" bias built into their perception of relative value, I'm not going to spend a lot of effort arguing the point further, though it's also notable that labor costs across Asia continue to rise, so the move to production in Vietnam buys a little time rather than solving the problem.

Feel free to be conspiratorial, though; it's trendy.

 

I think it's interesting that Hasbro seems to be going back to the sizes TFs were back in 1986.

I can admit we've been spoiled for the longest time. And I am grateful for what was.
It will take some time, But I'll eventually get used to everything being shrunk down back to the way they were when they started out.

It'll will also be tough to get used to all these severe price hikes for mainline overly-saturated store fodder.

I still can't believe that I paid 90 dollars (80 plus tax) for 4 deluxe (*cough*SCOUT*cough*( sized figures from Walmart. yes, WALMART. crazy right?  

But like all of you, I'm still a sucker that can't refuse to buy stuff I see in the toy isle.  

 

Siege is a vast improvement over the CW, TR and POTP stuff, but even then, there was arguably much more plastic used in the UT stuff, and the plastic itself was a higher quality. Plus, you actually had things like screws, spring-ratcheting joints, etc, so I think we should agree to disagree on this.

Ah, there it is. You're right, we should trust the word of multinational corporations absolutely implicitly. What was I thinking?

 

...i find myself increasingly passing on hasbro figures beyond the deluxe price point in favor of third-party offerings: the value metric just isn't compelling in terms of build quality, design, and engineering...

 

IIRC Cybertron Op is a bit bigger than modern Leaders. I'm on me way out the door and not back till Friday: if nobody has found anything before then remind me and I'll get a snap of Cybertron Op with one of the recent leaders and Siege Magnus who has just arrived

 

If I may butt in here a bit, I think there's another factor: I think the action figure market itself is shrinking. Children under 5 or so still appreciate toys, but boys 6-10, once the bread and butter of the action figure industry, seem a lot less enthusiastic to have action figures. To them, having a physical totem of something that they may like is kind of quaint, maybe even childlike. It's all about screens: Smart phone to consoles to pcs and back again. That's where they spend their playtime.

 

And yet no cross sells, no digital content, no flagship game, ala Devastation. Not even exclusive TCG cards. Ideally they make the TCG online, and let you unlock exclusive cards with every purchase.

 

Yeah, the most they have is that Siege website where you punch in the UV light codes, sadly...

 

I don't mean to sound ungrateful, I'm loving the current releases. I do feel like different longl term strategic choices need to be made.

 

There’s always a TF cartoon on the air. The IDW comic is relaunching but had been going for 11 years before getting rebooted. There’s been many, many, many console and phone games. Plus 6 blockbuster movies. The CCG is barely getting off the ground. What more do fans want?

It’s a hyper competitive marketplace. There’s like 20 new Switch games coming out every week. Not to mention Fortnite and AAA games that require 40+ hours to complete.

I get that folks are disappointed with how the market and Hasbro strategies have changed over the years but let’s not frame our opinions without considering how immensely tough it’s to compete AND make money in the toy aisle.

 

I could see Hasbro retooling Sixgun into Wing Saber and having a new mold for weaponizer Leobreaker, that gets retooled into Nemesisbreaker or some other evil cat.

 

That would be cool

 

Missed out on Wing Saber as a toy. Would love to get an update for him.

 

Anyone know why their arent more pics of this yet?

 

Probably being smuggled to a reviewer as we speak.

P.s. Since leader class Truckbots are the creme de la crème of transformers for me I have started a poll thread here to discuss who we would collectively most like to see next from this new super mode friendly frame.
Hasbros next top Leader class Truckbot! (poll)

 

He's such a bad toy. I have him, love him, and want him updated, but he's just a brick. I'd really like to see him voyager sized (1-5 voyager weaponizers in parts 2 and 3 seems like a vaguely reasonable hope).