It's a free advertising draw. "Hey Carl. Look at this. I know you collect naked anime girl statutes or whatever, but remember that old Transformers show? They're releasing a giant transforming planet thing from that old movie."

It costs almost nothing, drums up interest, and a non-US e-tailer gets to plaster a cool toy on it's website. There's no "relationship collateral" to lose when the site is up front about the possibility of it not making it. Also, most of these e-tailers are offering Unicron to its consumers that would otherwise not be able to get the thing without an even more ridiculous markup PLUS the added stability of being able to pre-order without killing their grandmothers for the insurance money to pay for it or whatever it is people do when they can't pay for a $600 boondoggle up front.

 

I've wondered this myself. I didn't realize the barge got anything extra added until I checked its old listing on the pulse website. Surely Unicron is going to get a few extra things too, right?

 

I would be shoxked if BBTS didn't set these up as individual orders and let Hasbro take the shipping cost. They can always edit the shipping info for cancellations and make it stock for themselves.

 

There isn't a lot of history to base anything on. The sail barge was the first. It stands to reason there will be other bonus things included, like the premium making-of booklet and perhaps a figure (my hopes are for a Galvatron or the Sweeps!).

 

HEY!  That\'s not fair.  Austrailia is getting the better deal.  LOL

 

Yeah they’re a business dude. They get their shit sent on to them on pallets especially when it’s one company to another and one warehouse to another like how they do it.

I know this because I’m a vendor. We don’t charge deliveries by weight. It’s flat rate

 

I mentioned before that a free Hasbro Pulse subscription would be great in addition to an exclusive Unicron coin. The aforementioned would certainly get people off the fence and speed up backing.

If this follows the Barge, it'll have a "Behind the Workbench" booklet detailing the making of the project. I trust that there will be some exclusive mini figures. Galvatron with a Matrix necklace and Rodimus would be good for this.

 

Lithonian ship, Junkion ship, Quintesson ship. Scaled to size.

 

There's a preorder up with Mighty Ape in New Zealand now too. Glad we get the opportunity now to order locally as shipping cost would be insane I imagine

 

The ships would be wonderful and wholly unique. They have never been done before in any form.

 

Not really.  

The higher prepaid price requirement ("crowdfund") is self-fulfilling prophecy here. They've artificially kept down orders. If a non-refundable deposit was done, it'd likely clear the 8k hurdle. Fine print states they reserve the right refund by X date (maybe Sept 30, 2019) if enough orders are not created. The PR fallout would be the same, be it failed "crowdfund", or a refund deposit. But the lower price would make it far less likely.

If the deposit was for $200, I'd don't see many people agreeing to lose that amount. It'd actually work to Hasbro's favor, sort of like rebate and gift cards that are never used by consumer. They'd keep the non-refundable deposit, and sell it for $575 when production is done.

The whole "crowdfund" method just strikes me as less profitable for them, and harms consumers in several ways. The Hasbro PR takes a small hit as well, something that could have been avoided. Sort of lose-lose all around. The secondary market sellers walk away winners in this scenario.

Anyway, 22 or so days to go. We'll see what happens.

 

Scaled to size may be a bit on the tiny side. I mean, didn't they fly the Quint ship into his eye?

And if there's any ship, it should be this one:

 

Hmmm....

Hasbro wants 8000 backers.
Hasbro NA?
Not Takara, maybe not even Hasbro Asia.
Interesting.
Too bad HasbroPulse isn't giving us any clarification on the magical 8k number.  

 

There's an easy answer to this, people have a hard time understanding much less accepting reality.

But again, people believe the Earth is flat too.

Edit: Really, I just hope that one guy who wanted this to fail simply because he doesn't want one is never disappointed in life.

 

Hasbro has set the mark at 8000. There are many companies/resellers helping get to that mark around the globe and allowing consumers to buy from the places Hasbro NA can't sell to. While Hasbro and TT have many synergies they are not the same company. We know TT has invested a lot in the development, as has Hasbro. As for the magic number of 8000 that is global. Haslabs, TT, China, now EBGames in Australia plus the plethora of online resellers helping fans soure this all add into the same magic number.

 

@griffin-of-oz, Thank you very much for your efforts teeing this up with Hasbro Australia!

I've been silently following this thread since day one, waiting for such exciting news.

I'm off to my nearest Zing/EB Games store today to place my pre-order!

Sincerely, thank you for being the ambassador Australian TF fans need!

~L~

 

I will say that the only ongoing awkwardly handled move by Hasbro, because it's all Hasbro, is that while these international extensions of the crowdfund are good for folks, they probably should have worked out these deals beforehand so that international folks had the same window as the initial campaign.

Folks have complained about two months being tight, imagine the Kiwi who had written off all hope finding out today that he now has 23 days to pull together whatever $575+ US.

 

Or the ones who gave up on day one and don't know

 

No, I think you missed my point here. Hasbro NA wants to 8k aka $4.5M, and non-NA sales may not count in their mind.

Yep, just under $900 NZD. Ouch!