Absolutely!

 

wot?

No money lost? lmao

Right, so let's break down how this would actually work in practice.

The finished Bug Bites are likely already in shipping containers en route to the relevant parties across the world, not just the US.
All those shipments need to be recalled and redirected to the US. Hasbro now has to set up a whole temporary manufacturing operation, likely involving renting a workspace and getting in the equipment needed to execute this operation. They need to hire people to do the reassembly as well, and they're not going to work for free, or for the much lower wages of those in the factories abroad, are they?

At the same time the factory in Vietnam has to fire up the Cliffjumper moulds again to cast some new white CJ heads and cannons, paint them, then ship those parts over the to states to the Temporary Mercenary Cliffjumper Production Site.

Once the new parts arrive it's time for the US workers to remove BB from the packaging, very carefully remove the Bug Bite heads, which remember are glued together rather than held together with a screw like in the before times, then properly repackage the now Mercenary Cliffjumpers.
Oh, and also they need to print new instructions to go along with it.

Now the adjusted product needs to be shipped back out, will it make it in time for the original release date after all that? Hmm, this doesn't sound like it wouldn't cost anything...

Oh wait, there's another issue; all those people who have pre-ordered Selects Bug Bite are no longer going to receive Bug Bite. Well now, this is a bit of a pickle isn't it?
So Hasbro and the various retailers across the globe who were carrying Bug Bite now have to notify their customers that Selects Bug Bite has been abruptly replaced with Brazilian Cliffjumper, and Bug Bite could possibly happen if Hasbro get the OK from VW, so do you want to keep your preorders even though it's now for a character that you specifically did not preorder? Hey, a few people might be OK with it, but I'd wager a whole lot more people would be like "what the in the goddamn hell are Hasbro playing at?!" and want a refund.​

And now we have Beetle Bug Bite up in the air, or potentially not happening at all because it turns out that VW have licensed the Beetle for Bumblebee toys and Bumblebee toys only. I hope you're happy with yourself, Rated X, you've just been fired from the Transformer brand team for this colossal screw up.

But what's this? I, grindcore138, the handsome maverick, the Golden God, have been proven right, this was an exceedingly foolish endeavour that was not worth the risk. I regain my job at Hasbro that was stolen away from me by a naive and reckless individual, and bring about a new golden age of Transformers. My approach to giving equal attention to all generations of the franchise is a smashing success, I am praised for my radical but rational approach to curating the Transformers toylines. The fandom is at last united. I find the budget to give the fans two Commander class figures per line, the first two? Star Sabre and Torca. The fandom rejoices.

 

LOL.

 

All I have to say on the matter is................Fahrvergnügen!

 

Best option? Do a white Bee with a Cliff head, but make it exclusive to Argentina...

 

...because they're not?

I'm going to keep warning people, if you're mad about integrated accessories now you should probably just log off until at least Kingdom has finished.

 

I like the irony of a company that was caught cheating emissions standards being concerned about the allegiance of fictional characters.

 

At least make the shield look like something. I don't mind integrated accessories. I wish it wasn't so much of the car, but I can live with it. The shield having no transformation to it other than folding a handle out isn't how ya do it though.

 

You're saying this to a BW fan, though. Like...this guy is literally one of my favorite figures. Ever.



And it's not like this is just Hasbro, Takara has a hand in these designs as well. Including this dude...




Also, people paid $170 for this guy...



Like, it's fine to not be a fan of the integrated accessories....but it's not partsforming. The Modulators are parts forming. Hell, the Siege Leaders are parts forming.

 

At least the wolf (..is that K-9? Or at least K-9's mold?) inverts the shield so its aesthetically different from a front-on view. MP Hound is overpriced and that shield thing's ugly too, but did he ever have that canopy in the show? For any significant time, at least?

 

K-9 was the german shepherd, same mold as Wolfang though. And Hound had the canopy in one episode

 

But do you see what you're doing? You're pivoting away from "this is partsforming" and just saying "I don't like this."

The latter is subjectively fine, but the former is objectively inaccurate. You can dislike the idea of integrated accessories or think certain examples are a poor execution. But people who like to bottle it up as "partsforming" do so because they want to pretend they're objectively correct to not like it instead of just having a subjective preference.

Because "partsforming" is considered a dirty word in the fandom (despite recent Modular figures proving they can be done right). If I can describe a toy I don't like using a "dirty word" then it means no one can challenge me. Because in my mind I've stated a "fact."

We saw pushback on this during Titans when people wanted to write off headmasters as partsformers because they were mad the altmodes didn't have a place to fold the head without taking it off and slipping it in to the cockpit. They were laughed at.

 

You do not use a sword to bludgeon people, you use a hammer or a club. All Bludgeon needs is a change in weaponry, swords are overrated anyway.

 

Dude are you serious ? Where did you get this "in a matter of days" ? Tigertrack, Rotorstorm, Hubcap and Centurion preorders went up over a month ago (before Exhaust and Greasepit) and are still nowhere to be seen outside of a few production samples from Chinese reviewers with hook ups. There is no proof that the runs have even been made yet. Youre looking at photoshopped renders and possibly an early test sample every Tuesday. So basically youre just saying you are happy with Bugbite not being a bug. I would respect that more than you trying to shut me down for making a positive request on here that Hasbro might actually read.

 

Can I just state for the record that the "VW Bug" was registered, and sold, as the "VW Beetle." Yet, despite this, the most prominent character with that alt-mode was named "Bumblebee." And in all of his iterations since...not once has Bumblebee actually turned in to an insect...let alone a bee.

Also, it's really really funny that out of the entire universe of Transformers....we've decided in this specific instance that a name is tied directly to his alt mode but all the examples of guys not named after their alt mode (and in fact are named after things they clearly do not turn in to) are fine because it's more because of their character.

(Additionally, going by the standards suddenly dictating what Bugbite should turn in to...the most accurate "Bludgeon" to date was PotP Bludgeon...who turned in to a giant club)

 

Well its your time not mine. Im in my early 40s so Im not into talking with memes like if this was twitter or something. I just type whats on my mind. Obviously it caught your attention. Hopefully it catches someone from Hasbro's attention too.

 

I think this gets to the point though: if you can't do him "right" why bother doing him when you have plenty of other low-hanging fruit available for Selects? Especially when they just released this mold in Selects as Hubcap? (<--this makes me suspect this may have been a late change when VW didn't allow them to do a "proper" Bugbite)

Just off the top of my head - if you want to stay within Merceneries:
Detritus from Siege Hound

If you wanted to stick with the Gobots reference:
Crasher from Siege Mirage

If they had to use the Cliffjumper mold:
(as I mentioned yesterday) a new character repaint of one of the other South American G1 Cliffjumper repaints
Tap-out

If they had to do a deluxe:
you've got all the easy Diaclone repaints:
Spinout (to go with Tigertrack), Lift Ticket, Blue Bluestreak, Red Mirage, Blue or yellow Trailbreaker, minimal remold for Cordon...

or undone straight repaints like Grand Cog, Communication Officer Cog or the unreleased G2 Mirage... I'm sure I'm not thinking of all the possibilities...

If you could expand out to Voyager you've got:
Artfire and any number of Seeker repaints just waiting to be done.
or Siege Springer as Drift...

just seems super odd that with ALL those available possibilities (and likely many more) this is what they decided to do.

 

And what basis is that ?
A simple "no" leaves you in the same category as me...an opinion. My opinion is yes and I took the time to explain why I believe so. Just saying...

 

"I don't like this version so nobody should have any version..." is incredibly on-brand for this fandom. Especially when uttered in a thread full of people clearly excited for and eager to buy this figure.

Especially when the early Kingdom leaks have lead to many of those same people telling BW fans "Well you'd better buy all of this or else there won't be more from that universe."

Hell, I didn't even know who Bugbite was until his name came up in leaks...so this isn't my thing. But I can tell there are people very excited for this and I'm glad to see them enjoying the toyline they're a fan of.

 

I think your taking my opinion way too strongly: what I was trying to get across, noted in the wrap up, is it just seems really weird done this way, strategically, from Hasbro’s side - Especially with Hubcap having just been released in Selects from the same mold - I don’t really care that much one way or the other beyond the curiosity of how this ended up happening. The quotes around “right” in your quoted post were supposed to explain that “right” is obviously whatever they’re going to do, and they can do whatever they want.

I do think it’s notable given how much effort Hasbro has been putting into releasing things “correctly” the last few years, all the effort they’ve put into remolds (like ER Smokescreen getting the ground effect bumper, Greasepit getting new parts, getting most/all of teams out...), which is why I suspect it was probably a late change.

...but aside from 1-2 contrarians, would ANYBODY not be more excited if it was the VW mold??? Would anybody but a couple super fans be any more/less excited for any of the seemingly obvious choices listed?