I e-mailed FT this week, asking when the remaining members of FT-30 and 31 would be released. Said i was ok with a rough estimate, and that i would like to complete my sets very much.
No answer yet.

 

Well, that citybot turns into a fairly simple base mode. Having the combiner parts turn into a trailer (or something similar, which I'm assuming was the plan with Superion's combiner bits) while also being toon accurate and stable in combined mode is a much more complex feat. Zeta just uses straight partsforming with no transformation. DX9 sacrificed the alt mode by making the trailer suuuuuper long so there'd be fewer folding panels. XTB is just a monster to transform and isn't that stable.

That's why I think FT should just ditch the idea of having the combiner parts become a trailer, and instead have them form a simple base mode. Hopefully the fact that they are delaying so long means they went back to the drawing board and scrapped the idea of a super complex trailer transformation. Maybe they saw all the negative backlash to the XTB trailer transformation and were like "You know...we don't really need to go that route".

I emailed FT back in June about whether or not they'd be reissuing Cesium, and they literally emailed me back today just to tell me that they are closed for Chinese New Year and that I should contact them again after it's over. So I wouldn't expect and answer back from them anytime soon.

 

I wasn't actually expecting an answer from them soon. One can dream, though. I

 

Ooh, good to know. Slag is the only Dinobots left that I need. Curious to see what they reply with (after CNY in of course).

 

Too much time. Why does the company not have a website? I think they once had something like that ?!

 

Probably because they don't want an onslaught of "When!?!?!?!"s from their adoring but all too anxious fans.

 

A company that is skirting legality probably should not have an official internet presence.

 

Eh, they're really not skirting it as much as some would like to believe. They don't make direct KOs of existing Hasbro/Takara merchandise. They make figures look a lot like Hasbro/Takara IP.

 

FT had a website back around 2015. The last time I remember something actually happening on it someone found pics uploaded and stored on the site that I believe were not intended to go public yet. They still technically have a Facebook page, but the last post was in 2017 announcing this Aerialbot set.

While FT wasn't the best with communication they used to be pretty good compared to other 3P companies. I believe they got fed up dealing with some elements of the people on the internet and drew back their accessibility.

 

Just a reminder from different conversations, rumors and the like (and no, I am not mentioning the constant "they had design problems"rumors which does not make much sense), but my feeling for some time has been that the problem with the combiners has been mainly a business problem related to estimated manufacturing numbers and ROI.

 

So they bring out other figures to compensate for that, I think.

 

Not necessarily (money flow does not work for industry as people think it work, it's not really something like - let's get a bunch of money then we can do this, in particular because there are usually dozens of products being designed/manufactured at any one time).

Seems to me that part of the problem is related to the original Chinese POs which were open for all bots at the time of the revelation (thus requiring at least a fixed and somewhat huge number of products to fulfill those pre-agreed numbers) and the fact that several people have not wait for the completion and ended up selling their bots (the fact that you can still find several Smokey in China and internationally does seem to point to an outcome of this).

Any batch of FT costs a lot of money, Their usual modus operandi seems to manufacture and sell EVERYTHING they manufacture (so if there are problem with selling, it's for the stores, not them). If they are not convinced they will sell the whole combiners anymore, it's surely a business risk to manufacture anything (even the other Aerialbots - in this case, it may be that they are withholding the fourth one to somewhat test the waters when they think is appropriate).

Another thing that impact this is their recent and currently release schedule. It seems to me that the last members of the combiners need to be released together with an reissue of some or all of the other members, and their recent and currently release schedule does not look like it fit this need.

 

So we have to wait until at least next year?

 

Probably summer 2023 if not then they might go back to the drawing board on the released figures to make it all work. More issues probably came to light the longer they QC’d the prototypes.

 

This seems like a very likely scenario actually. At what point does FT say that a resdesign of the Areialbots and Stunticons will benefit all future combiners instead of pushing out a product that will buckle under its own weight. I know people love the heft of the combiners, but I’m not confident in the arm/shoulder connection right now. FT will really have to develop a new connector/ratchet or something.

 

I don't know. I still think a Bandit release this year is possible. It's not unheard of for a company to release all the combiner bots before doing all the reissues of the last one. Wasn't XTB Flipout only released for the second time recently? I also don't think they're worried about their combiner bots not selling. People are trying to complete a set and at least at the stores I go to online, most of them aren't available and that's with some of them getting a second release. I'm hoping they fit Bandit into the summer (@Dpuff basically said it's happening  ) and then the rest of Ethereaon next year, and maybe showing off one or both this year to show us they care about our sanity. At least a little bit  .

 

According to dalianjj, Bandit is coming with the combiner skeleton. They will not be separated. FT IS NOT going to release Bandit without releasing the whole thing. It makes no business sense. The final release will be expensive and FT wants to make sure you buy FT's combiner. I am positive we will get news sometime this year but that doesn't mean it makes anyone happy.

 

I've been on and off emailing them for a replacement sword for Roadking since June, they supposedly sent it twice (without tracking) but never delivered, so i actually doubt they did. Now they sent one to showz which will forward it

But, to get to the point, they always replied fairly soon to emails. I slipped one question in about the status of menasor and all i got was radio silence on that.

 

I suspect he's still here, under a different name, laying low. He knows he'll get flooded once he shows his head here

 

I'm 100% certain FT had to have a fully assembled and functional prototypes of both the completed Menasor and Superior combiners... before releasing the first body bots... RoadKing and Maverick.

There are more likely other issues going on behind the scenes... like the designer left, someone stole all the CAD files, raw material costs rapidly increased which caused design changes, etc. For any company to sink the time and money to releasing 3/5ths and 4/5ths of a combiner set... and then say... Whoopsie! We didn't work out all the details... or this thing is too heavy, too big, can not articulate properly due to poor engineering, etc is a stretch too far in any circumstance.