“Size isn’t everything”
Hasbro- lets keep making BIGGER Unicron’s forever

 

My point was more pointing out that taking "Astrotrain's core will be more complex than a Voyager by merit of its price point" as a given is nonsensical.

 

A Walmart in Harrisonville, MO. Check Brickseek for sales near you.

 

Astrotrain's transformation is more complex than the inner bots of other leaders because he doesn't have huge bulky armor. Just his weapons and extra train car.

 

Can't blame people for having sticker shock, space choo choo is short for a leader. So other figures are bigger than usual in smaller price points, I don't care, doesn't change the fact that space choo chop has a $50 MSRP. I want it but might not get it on first sight.

 

Must be a different Jetfire or a different Brickseek.
Siege Jetfire shows to be $79 everywhere.

EDIT: My mistake. I just changed the zip code and it does show $45.
Congratulations.

 

It'd be cool if we got a black and red Hasbro Select repaint as the GoBot Loco

 

I am very pleased with Astrotrain, he scales perfectly with Megatron and Co and has alot of play value. I see alot of possibilities with that train car / launch pad, also note that it has attachment points for combination with Omega Supreme. I'm sure the super robot mode backpack has more than 1 configuration and I am hoping that a 3P comes out with more train cars, some of which that can carry Micromaster, in addition to the tracks from noneff, along with Omega, you could make a pretty cool train setup.

 

you are not required to buy anything. by all means, never buy anything you aren't excited about. these are toys. it's not the same as big pharma jacking up the price on epipens. Hasbro charges exactly as much as they think a significant portion of their target audience will pay. not a penny more or less. they are doing this to get wealthy. if hasbro believed they could turn a profit doing so, they'd sell deluxes at 100 bucks a pop.

so I have a question. have you ever did some of your toys without seeing what the going rate is? if you noticed that your old MP Starscream was going for 300 bucks, would you say "well, I only paid 100 for it at retail, so I'll bump that a little and make a tiny profit"? No. That's not how anything works. When selling a luxury item, you can and honestly should extract every red cent your audience is willing to surrender to you, because you have no idea when that audience is going to abandon you. I get that everyone is mad that hasbro is greedy but what are you expecting from a multinational corporation? Literally everything they do, including Unicron, is in service of the almighty dollar.

 

Not to mention that breaking even/making minimal profit is not the way to allow growth in a company

 

Saying I’m out of my mind because we disagree? You do realize how shaky that ground is to stand on? Do you?

I would disagree with your specific example. As I mentioned in the post you quoted, Leader Classes in the past had more than just complicated transformations. You are correct in that complex transformations alone aren't (or, weren't, rather) present in every Leader figure. The Animated Leader figures were indicative of this. However, Leaders also typically had lights, sounds, and gimmicks such as spring loaded missiles as well. Leaders have lacked these features, on top of their old size and heft, for many years now.

So too, did Ultra Class figures in the Universe 2.0 line (be it new molds or reissues from Cybertron). They too had either spring-loaded missiles, electronics, or both.

Hasbro has steadily decreased quality for several years now. It began in 2012 with the Fall of Cybertron line: the plastic being remade from recycled materials (which felt cheap and flimsy). Then they shrunk the figures just a wee bit.

Then came the hollowed spaces. Why did they make figures hollow in the first place? They wanted to produce figures that were roughly the same height yet with less materials cost (look at CW Ultra Magnus for an accurate, if perverse, example of this). Then Hasbro shrunk the figure scale for War For Cybertron in order to stave off hollow figures. They played their collectors market like idiots over the last 7ish years.

Look at a Leader figure from ROTF/HFTD. Compared that to a Leader figure from DOTM. Compare that to a Leader from Generations/Thrilling 30. Compare that to a Leader from POTP. Then compare that to a Leader from Siege. If you don't see a gradual decrease in size, and a drastic up and down then up again in materials, you need your vision checked.

Prices of materials cost and labor will vary, sure, but unless this increase in cost is also reflected in a proportionate increase in the earnings of the consumers who purchase these figures, people aren't going to care.

This is what is often lost on us as Transformers collectors who are teens or adults. We do not make up the bulk of the market: children (and the parents of those children) do. The mom or dad or family member buying a toy on the shelf isn't going to rationalize this in 30 seconds. They're going to go "Hmmm. These figures are smaller than I remember. 50 bucks? Holy crap!" and potentially go elsewhere.

 

Probably. Although keep an eye out for WFC2, there may be some there. They should be revealed in about 20ish days.

 

I agree the sizes have changed drastically but the quality has gone up slightly not too many hollow figs

 

Oh man, I had just had the best repaint idea: release it in the Diaclone black and white colors but call it Guardian Infiltration Disguise Loco.

The idea being that in shuttle mode it's disguised as Space C

 

Me seeing there was 100+ new messages in this thread today, getting excited thinking we had reviews of the other Wave 4 figures then walking into this thread:


Oh & for those complaining about the size/dimensions? I think it’s a fair issue, but like with the Deluxes & other size classes, they’re not all the same standard size at this point.

I’d bet the budget for Transformers now isn’t set by individual figures BUT they have a budget for each size class & use it as they see fit.

So Ultra Magnus is pretty big/heavy for a Leader, while Shockwave is smaller/lighter, but altogether (along with Galaxy Prime) in total they makes up the budget for the Leader Class.

I’d also imagine there’s a pretty big Leader class figure like Ultra Magnus coming next that’ll balance Astrotrain out (we’re 99% sure this wave was originally Wave 1 of WfC Part II), like a truck version of Sentinel or Rodimus Prime.

 

Anyone got one to measure the wheel gauge? If he matches an existing model railroad scale, you'd have a zillion ready-made options for track and more cars.

 

I would have paid the same price or more for a smaller Predaking. The PotP version is too big for my liking and I'm not a big fan of the design. I'd much rather him use the CW style combiner ratchets.

 

Yesyesyes, a thousand times yes!!!!!!
Is so silly to use all that plastic to make an extra car that just turns into a big suitcase or a bunch of flat panels that just lay on the ground as a launch pad but they didn't think it was a good idea to use any of those panel pieces to cover up the rear of the shuttle!
I like the figure over all, but I "hates it forever" that they make that design choice!

 

Just by eyeball it looks bigger than HO and smaller than O.