I've wanted a non-transforming line in the vein of Marvel Legends so I was totally on board with this when announced but the execution was just botched. The figures are too small for starters, yet at the same time a character like Bumblebee is too big. If they were scaled with the WFC line it would have been great but they arent scaled to anything, not even itself. The plastic quality is a mixed bag. The accessories on some of the figures suck. They dont even have a port in the back to use with flight stands for dynamic poses. I got the Optimus, Megatron and Arcee and Arcee is easily the worst with her floppy joints that are too small for comfort.

Its like Hasbro gave this line to their C team to work out while they were on their lunch break.

 

The RED Transformers could also have been a line of hummingbird-shaped nerf blasters.

 

Energon was a really quality line, that sold well, and had a lot of figures than stand out really well even today. Great paint apps, cross line compatibility, army building potential, and given the gimmick laden bricks it followed really pushed Transformers back into the realm of great poses, varied alt modes, and any line that has Skorponok, Sharkticon, Slugslinger, Landmine, and quite possibly the greatest range of scout class figures surely can’t be considered anything of a low point? Combiners, combined weapons, homages, there’s a lot of popular things in the line and I have never heard anyone else view it with such negativity. I don’t care for RED simply because there’s better toys in its price range, and I like transforming my figures, but in a reality where Kiss Players exists Energon really has set a much higher standard in my opinion

 

Yo, same here. I was shocked to walk in one day to find three 6 box deep rows of Bees and Screamers. Suprisngly they were all gone within the week too, so I guess they do have a market somewhere. Sucks Walmart can't figure out to stock anything else that well.

 

BTW, didn't the Titanium line come after Energon? I'd take RED over those. They transformed and still mostly sucked.

 

All that would have done is reduced sales for everyone in the logistics chain (from the retailer all the way up to Hasbro). There would have been other fallout associated with it as well. It would not lead to more product in another line going out nor arriving. Products were pitched (Hasbro pitched to vendors, then vendors pitched to other stops in the logistics chain and/or the retailers, and then pitched to any remaining retailers) and then the products pitched were bought or skipped by retailers a long time ago. A single line going on hiatus wouldn't fix the current state of logistics. Everyone in the industry would have to scale back and that would result in lost revenue, layoffs, etc. and logistics would still be broken because, there would be less people involved at ever step along the way.

Walmart nor any other retailer has any control of when something arrives beyond whatever the purchase agreement stipulated as well as any logistics contracts stipulated, and the part of logistics that they own/operate (they do not own nor operate the airline/naval/shipping/etc. industries). No one can do anything about the ports being backed up nor logistics being overwhelmed. No one in logistics wants it to be like it currently is because, they all have mountains of money tied up in merchandise that they can't sell since it's stuck somewhere in the logistics chain.

Yes:

Some of the Energon basics released at retail in 2003 (most of the line was 2004).

The Titanium 3" Robot Masters (figurine) and the Titanium 6" Cybertron Heroes (transforming) lines released at retail in 2006.

The Attacktix line also released at retail in 2006.

 

The worst thing about the RED line is that it still hasn't even mentioned an Alpha Trion....Autobot X....Nightbird....or any other non-transforming character from the show. 

 

It’s not hurting you. It’s not taking money or store shelf space away from other transformers projects. If you don’t like it just ignore it.

Energon was awesome.

 

Fact:energon as a toyline was kickass and fun. Powerlinxing autobots was fun as hell. The cartoon sucked yes, but the toys were pretty great

 

Don't tell this guy about Gundam Universe and Robot Spirits or the 100 dollar revoltech transformers.

 

This is a parody thread, right?

 

I would gladly pick those up in a heartbeat. And also Pretender shells, especially the ones from Masterforce.

 

I can make that conclusion when I see multiple people on this lovely forum saying the nearly the same thing...

 

Correlation does not equate to causation. People conflating what they want to believe and trying to pass it off as a fact doesn't make it factual, that's an echo chamber. There is no reasoned judgement involved with jumping to conclusions, and the improper usage of the word conclusion is no different than when someone tries to pass off an ill thought out hypothesis as a theory.

There is absolutely no obejectivity involved with assuming something on the shelf/peg/etc. is the exact same product someone saw "x" days ago and, multiple people assuming the same thing doesn't change that. That's an entrenched zero sum game belief system with no factual data to back it up.

For clarity, I'm not trying to single you out, a lot of people are unfortunately still doing this. Having opinions and sharing opinions is fine but, opinions become something else entirdly once the decision is made to wilfully ignore their fallacy.

 

They could have marked the product in some unique way and then went back and saw it still there.

 

RED isn't for me, but I can see the appeal for others - the ones who prioritize a super-animation-accurate robot mode over everything else. By eliminating the need to engineer transformation, it's possible to have figures that look 100% like they stepped off the screen.

Since I'm not into show accuracy, much of the appeal of these are lost on me, but they look like they're great display pieces.

 

The toys were, absolutely. The anime ... not so much.

 

Got RED Starscream a few days ago, and it is a fun little figure. I like the coronation set and it's got some nice blast effects that I've gifted to ER Starscream.

 

I like how all of OPs arguments are 100% subjective tho

 

I haven't seen anyone say anything along those lines though. Even in that situation, those items would have to stay there for months at a time because retailers don't expect merchandise to instantly sell. Not even baby food/formula/diapers sell that fast (including when they are on sale during a population boom). That also wouldn't rule out returns (I'm not saying multiple cases were sold and then were returned, I'm saying what was and what was not can't be determined). Observation simply can't be trusted because, it's not a controlled experiment.

For the sake of argument, let's say the observation took place in a controlled experiment so precise that there was a 0% chance for margin of error and that in addition to the unique markings, all of the intake/sale dates for a location were known/disclosed). Let's say that:

Location 01 had the exact same merchandise sitting there for 4 days

Location 02 had the exact same merchandise sitting there for 7 days

Location 03 had the exact same merchandise sitting there for 0 days

Location 02 had the exact same merchandise sitting there for 60 days

All that would tell anyone is when that merchandise arrived, when it was stocked, how long merchandise sat on a shelf/peg/location, and if any of it sold at those specific stores. People reading that data would then start making assumptions based on their personal perception of what constitutes how quickly something should sell. The controlled experiment that the observations were made in would ultimately be useless because, the most important variables of all are still unknown:

No one has any idea if something is selling as projected but it was over-purchased at some point.

No one has any idea what the retailer in question has determined the projected selling speed should be. This isn't the 80s where nearly every person in the store would offer to buy the Transformers or Cabbage Patch Kids in your shopping cart for prices far above MSRP born out of the desperation that any Transformer or Cabbage Patch kid as a gift was better than none at all. It's extremely rare that anything has that type of supply vs demand issue.


Something else also needs to be pointed out, retail has been in 4th quarter for almost a month now and the purchase increases for that would have started several months ago. The current state of logistics will hinder the arrival of those orders (just like it did in 2020) but, this is the time of year when retail tries to make the supply greater than the demand. That can initially lead to the supply being substantially higher than the demand but, the demand skyrockets as the 4th quarter progresses which traditionally culminates in buying anything and everything on December 25th (in the US; every country has a cycle like this which is built around it's largest holiday).