Oh come on, as much as I hate the fact that it appears Studio Series is suffering from budget cuts.... it's sadly understandable why this is happening. The economy fucking crashed. And even worse than it did at the end of 2008, after which fans had to endure "recession-formers" for several years. And it's even more obvious this time around that the budget cuts are last minute. Like DOTM Soundwave's poor laserbeak being virtually unpainted, TF1 Megatron not getting a remolded chest, and now poor blitzwing getting less paint apps than previously promised. Oh, and that's before getting into Earthrise, with shit like the Alicon toy clearly being redesigned late in development in order to simplify the transformation (and unfortunately ruin the toy in the process.).

This is capitalism in a nutshell, folks. I don't know what you all expected. Hasbro isn't in this business to be generous. They're in it to please their damn shareholders, like every other publicly traded corporation. And you think the "poor collectors" are suffering? Tell that to the Hasbro employees that will inevitably be laid off at the end of the fourth quarter, in order to make up the cost of pleasing the shareholders during an economic crash.

 

I will be quite pleased if it turns out this is a box mockup issue rather then finished, as we've seen several times before.

 

Not everyone has to get it, but that’s okay.  

 

His head won't actually be the wrong colour though, right? That would be amazingly lazy even by Hasbro's standards.

 

I planned to paint up this guy anyway so the white head doesn't bother me... but man does it look cheap.

Maybe they didn't want the figure to look too much like Starscream?

 

I don’t know diddly squat about vehicles. All fighter jets look the same to me. All trucks look the same. (Some have a flat front like G1 Optimus, some have an extended front like movie Optimus and that’s about all I can tell.) An SUV is an SUV whether it’s made by Ford or Jeep. My last three cars have all been the same despite being different makes and models.

So while I see a lot of you are disappointed that Blitzwing's alt mode is wrong, to me, they nailed making a fighter jet. Regardless, I’ll be adding this to my Starscream collection. See? I can’t even tell the difference between robots.

 

Why does he have a white head?

 

Well I'm stumped on his transformation and I was able to figure out topspin just from pics

 

Geez I hate to think about how the TF toys would end up looking in a few years as a result of the new recession.   They could end up making the FOC figures look like mini MPs in comparison. Worst case scenario I know but still.

 

There's a very easy way to fix Blitzwing's jet mode: RED Blitzwing. No alt mode, no problem!

 

I hope ToyHax is already working on a sticker sheet for this guy.

 

Probably not, since Toyhax has seemed to totally abandon movie-based sets as of late. Very disappointing.

As for Topspin, I still think there is some mistransforming going on. I feel like his hips can be pulled out and down to give him a better stance, but who knows - it definitely feels like there is room for improvement with him, especially given how good the original figure was.

 

Oh dear, more budget cuts.



He lost the blue paint on his arms. And it also looks like replaced t the darker grey paint apps with the same silver they're using elsewhere on the figure. Which makes his color scheme so much worse. Damn shame.

Buckle up, people: recessionformers 2.0 is officially here.

 

That's almost pathetic. That almost looks like an unfinished prototype.

And I'm not sure if the recession is a good excuse for this level of budget-cutting. The stuff that came out during and following the 2007-2009 recession is generally considered phenomenal. The 2007 toyline was groundbreaking for the time, and ROTF and 2010 toylines are still among the best toylines to this day. I recall the stuff from 2008 being pretty solid too (I never really got into Animated, but all those toys looked good from what I saw). DOTM fell a bit, but those figures still looked much better than this. And I'm not convinced DOTM's quality had much to do with the recession, because that was significantly after the recession ended. And we're not even very far into this recession yet. They shouldn't be hurt this bad yet. I suppose the landscape of toys has changed since last recession, but this still doesn't quite add up.

 

Not just the landscape of toys. The landscape of business on the whole has changed over the last decade. Shareholders demand more and more profit with every passing year. So yeah, they're starting the budget cuts really early this time around... especially since this economic crash is already WORSE than the last one, and shaping up to be comparable to the Great Depression.

Also, uh, turns out Topspin lost some paint apps too. Check the new thread people made for all the new stock photos.

 

Hasbro said they would start to cut costs before this year, let's keep the possible reasoning for that out and just discuss the toys, thanks

 

If we're going back to recessionformers at the inflated pricepoints we've had (which where mostly justified by the increased parts count and paint apps), then I think I'm out.

I'm not paying $20-$30 (and sometimes $50) for barely painted, simplified Transformers.

 

Well they’re definitely working on a set for roadbuster. One of their guys started a thread for it on their Facebook page to see what people wanted.

I’m really hoping he has all four guns.....

 

Why is his gas mask thing clear plastic? It’s the same plastic used in the cockpit section. Also the spiky thing on his back is now much shorter than the initial images which is inaccurate ( CGI render and the one shown in NYCC )