And how would that at all affect his size?

That's basically saying if any characters in Japan were written differently than in the US, than clearly there's going to be some major problems getting the scale right.

 

It'd be easier to just mass retail release it.

 

I suppose the answer to this question would have to be in the vein of "what smaller characters/accessories might be done that couldn't work in retail, yet might work in a HasLab?"

Most things that are smaller/cheaper, it's safer to take the risk of doing them at retail. I'm willing to entertain the possibility of exceptions, but it seems to me that we have to hit a certain size/expense level before the risk of sending to retail isn't as viable.

 

Among Haslab releases, Victory Saber IS small! I wouldn't mind more Transformers in the same price range, another Japanese G1 character maybe!

 

Posted at the same time, lol.

 

I hope they wouldn't make any Optimus face a HasLab, since those should print money and be easy retail choices and would speak of a massive lack of confidence from Hasbro



But on the other hand I'm a sucker and would back them anyways

 

We got two figures in this project, one at leadership size (Star saber) and 1 at voyager (victory leo) and both combine to form a commander class size figure (Victory saber). So in my opinion, I'm guessing it has to be something higher then deluxe to be included in haslab, or it has to include a ton of accessories to make up for the size.

You know you want to!  

 

It's not necessarily lack of confidence, one of the factors that goes into a haslab is retail viability. If a God Ginrai/PMOP w/Apex Armor exceeded the price of regular price points then it's retail viability diminishes. Haslabs could be for items that Hasbro has complete faith in, but retailers don't want taking up space on their shelves.

 

Hmm..I wonder....

 

Short answer is "yes, anything is hypothetically possible" but realistically it's "probably not."

Unicron was likely the one end of the spectrum, a product that would *never* have worked at retail in any form and was far too risky to go to production.

Victory Saber was the other end, a product that probably *would* have fit at retail (as a Titan) but they weren't certain about the commercial viability for a Titan that traded size for complexity.

The former is something that'll never change. I don't think Unicron's success is going to incline them to run something like that at retail. And with Saber, it's more that they may have proven something they're already doing at other price points (size/engineering trade off) is viable for a Titan.

You can't really play the same trick with a Deluxe, Voyager, or Leader because you've already done it at retail and it appears to be working. So there's no need to HasLab something like that. Just put it at retail and balance it with less risky picks.

It's why I will keep pitching my idea for the next HasLab: Monstructor/Dinoking. You set up a project that allows fans to back one or both as they see fit, and the first (and potentially only) stretch goal is the shells get made for both.

This would allow Hasbro to test the waters with modern Pretenders while tackling two relatively obscure combiners with popular alts (dinos/monsters). And like Saber, the originals of both are relatively rare within the collector community outside Japan. Especially with their shells.

Since the inner robots are the same between the two (at least hypothetically) it makes it easier to set a backer goal because you can get the figures made and then paint as needed. And it would motivate people to buy two since they're different characters.

The real challenge would be making the shells, which is why that'd be the focus of the stretch. Get enough backers and the combiners you buy will come with the appropriate shells. This would increase the incentive to buy two as now you've got something that really sets them apart.

And that would also be the real reason to put them on HasLab. You're testing the market for Pretenders without shells, and then giving collectors a view in to what it'd look like if they did modern Pretenders.

 

27K... Cmmn Haslab, show that retro box set with flip up windows please.

 

27,370 now. It went down by 3.

 

I would really prefer new box art in line with all the commander/titans, especially if this is being made in line with legacy figures.

 

somebody's credit card didn't go through  

down to 27,369

 

I would prefer that they ditch the shells all together and just have them transform into the monsters/dinos. Pretenders always seemed like a cheap work around due to the limitations of that era.

Since this isn't a retail release why not have one side be retro and the other be modern. It's not like Hasbro needs to put product shots on the back since this will never get to retail.

 

I don't know what other Transformer Haslab besides having to do with Liokaiser, DinoKing, Monstructor and Grandus.

 

If they're going to lean into the "bringing Japanese G1 to the west" mission, they'd want to keep anime and toy accuracy in mind for future campaigns. And for Dinoking that means shells as they originally were depicted. In the show, the shells have their own animal-level intelligence and could be sent off to gather energy or destroy property while the inner robots fended off Autobot attackers, even as a combiner.

It was a cool way to make the Dinoforce - really a henchman-level threat - much more of a danger in the show.

Dinoforce leader Goryu usually rode on top of his shell like he was riding a horse!

 

could also do a slip cover where the slip cover is one art style and the box itself is the other

 

Speaking only for myself, this would put me off of supporting the project entirely. Either they update the concept as it originally was (Pretender shells and all), or I'm flatly not interested.

 

Yeah, but I'd like to know what plethora of post-87 characters he's talking about. I mean, yeah, TT hasn't exactly been a slouch on the exclusive front. But it's also been the equivalent of taking an armful of sand out of a sandpile and saying "here you go". Like I said, you could take a whack at post-88 and make a cartoon look entirely new.

Autobots:

Machine Wars Optimus Prime
Gunrunner
Rapido/Skram/Turbofire/Windbreaker
Landcross
Drench/Gobots
Deftwing
Ironfist
Spark
Full-Barrel & Overflow w/ Battlefield Headquarters

Decepticons:

Machine Wars Megatron
Roadgrabber
Afterburner/Windrazor/Eagle Eye/Terradive
Monstructor
Deluge/Jetstorm
Calcar
Fearswoop
Colossus
Metrotitan