Wut !? I can't recall that.

My Generations Wheeljack or my Generations 2011 Thundercracker don't feel any sturdier than CW Skydive.

 

The fact that HasTak has never sued any of these companies should give some indication of their attitude towards 3rd parties.

People only sue other people if it hurts their bottom line.

 

I don't think quality has gone downhill, but I do miss the designs of the '06-'09 era. Universe Sideswipe, Red Alert and Sunstreaker were some of my favorite CHUG designs ever.

 

This one.

The numbers are there now.

http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers-toy-discussion/1074657-chug-through-years-6.html

I know you still disagree with it.

 

It's amazing, it's like (well at least 90% of the people here) have learned to respect everyone's opinions on the matter. These used to be such personal slugfests.

It's great and refreshing.

My opinion, no 3rd party doesn't come close.

I buy official over 3rd for the most part, but my collecting desire has waned over the past year (mainly due to space). What CHUG characters I've gotten via 3rd party are probably it like City Commander, the FP Headmasters, etc.

I don't know why everyone keeps saying 3rd party quality is automatically worse though. Maybe bc I buy more official stuff, but Hastak stuff has given me much more issues than 3rd party stuff has.

Choices are always great.

 

I feel the designs have gone down as well. I love the RTS/United era. I felt Skids and Trailcutter was when I felt the quality in design went down.

 

Well, yeah.. that particular CW mold is simplistic. The Hasbro CW release does indeed fall short. The Takara version however makes a decent budget Generations Wheeljack. I don't have it, but I would appreciate it because it evokes
what the MP Wheeljack evokes, albeit in 'low resolution' so to say.

I used to have the 2010/2011 Generations Wheeljack ; I really liked it, but it never gave me a wow-factor feeling and the altmode was severely off. To this day, I don't regret having sold it. Same with the Universe Lambo mold. Had it, liked it, but sold it no regrets.







But again, I really urge people to do a headcount for each year of mainline Generations and then assess that entire year line up.

2010 - 2012 Generations were definetely narrow lines ; a few standout new molds, padded with repainted movie and foc molds ; even entire absence of bigger size classes and little to no cohesion in terms of aesthetics or play pattern.

2013 - 2014 Thrilling 30's; less (obvious) padding but more hollow as well and lack of wrist swivels. IDW influence does a somewhat decent job to make it a bit more cohesive in terms of feel and look.

2015 CW is where Generations mainline really starts to become broad ; many characters and a really good cohesion of aesthetics and play pattern, albeit... to some extent at the cost of having to deal with repaints/retools.

But then again.... in past Generations lines, many figures were indeed loose interpretations/loose homages to start with. And although, the 2006 - 2009 molds might have had more parts and possibly more points of articulation, that didn't result into better poseability overal. In short, they were less efficient.

Now with TR you get a broad cohesive line up as well ( all size classes represented and play patterns accross all of them with matching scaling & aesthetics to boot ), but with more effort to have a higher percentage of dedicated character molds ( true to origin altmodes in most cases OR at least strongly G1 evocative in either mode ), maintaining a decent size and more efficient articulation on top of it.


So you could say in a 1 vs 1 comparison, the CW or TR figure might have a few minor shortcomings such as some semi hollow parts but as a whole mainline, I think they are better for the brand.

It's really all about the bigger picture of things. Not so much the individual single figure.

 

I only bought Mirage. Never seen WJ. Would love to have him since his alt mode looks so good.

I kept both versions of Mirage and will do the same with WJ.

 

Just impatient children want everithing and want it now. Adults learn to be patient and wait. But feel free to buy 'em all now like the world gonna end tomorrow. You'll see them cast aside the moment the official ones come out. You know, like lolwaves, not inferni and the like...

 

You're so biased and or blind...it's pretty much hilarious to read your posts. Just because Takara hasn't made them yet, doesn't mean they won't. Patience and common sense would like a word with you.

 

If I was the only TF MP collector in the world, TT would be in big trouble as of late in terms of their share in the TF arena.

....but I'm not so I don't think 3P will ever replace TT.

 

I remember when there wasn't a such a thing as MP collectors at all, and 3P was only making CHUG figures.

Then Takara upped the MP game with the MP carbots and Soundwave, suddenly it became a real line and people starting buying them up. Then after that, 3P started making MP scaled toys.

Basically there wouldn't be a 3P MP market without Takara's official one, and the 3Ps were always meant to be a compliment to the official releases, but not a replacement.

 

Well put. I for one am rather happy that there is a plethora of choices for the characters we want.

Even though, I've chosen 3P over TT for the last handful of figures, that's not to say I don't appreciate TT. Let us not forget there are still quite a few G1/G2 figures to go... TT could get back in the race before it's over.

 

Yes, this. I doubt takara will get back in the game but I'm not counting them out yet.

 

Honestly would be great if TT announced their line up a year in advance. It'll kill 3P in no time. Nobody but a few dozen of the hardcore would seriously contemplate buying their products. Actually threads like this wouldn't exist if TT let us in on their plans. 3P companies would go broke. It really does show that TT doesn't give the slightest fuck about 3P. I hope the latest slew of 3P announcement has woken up the sleeping giant.

 

What I don't get is, why are you so adamant on 3P getting killed off?

Just let people buy what they want to. As this thread shows, it clearly has no bearing on you at all.

Also, I disagree. 3P would just switch it's focus. A lot of 3P is stuff that isn't available anywhere, like the DJD, or other artists renditions of characters like Studio Ox. Much of 3P is just a character that has been reinterpreted to fit their vision.

-----------

As for me, I buy whatever looks good. I mainly collect Movie figures, but switched to some KOs when they were upsized to match my current scale (Human Alliance.) As for 3P, same thing. I buy whatever looks good or cool to me. If it's something movie based and fits the scale I'm after, I'll get it, simply because it's not made available by Hasbro. If it's not movie based but still looks good, I'll get it, like Generation Toy's Gravity Builder. It has no real place in my collection, but it looks great.

I also got into Combiner Wars, so those are great offerings from Hasbro, but I think their Devastator leaves something to be desired. Not only in quality, but in size. I feel it should be much smaller, but he was a cool bot that I enjoyed until Gravity Builder came along.

I'm not usually one for replacing figures when something new or better comes out, like the 3P MP to actual HasTak MP, but it occasionally happens like with Gravity Builder. However, Maketoys Giant fits the bill more with the other Combiner Wars figures, so I've used that instead.

I guess the point is, for me, is that if what I wanted aesthetically and scale wise was available from Hasbro, I'd go to them first. Being a collector of Human Alliance, the AoE line was terrible. But KOs have been made for Drift, Crosshairs, Hound and Lockdown that work great for my collection. Gravity Builder just fits the "rule of cool" for me. Giant fits the whole CW aesthetic.

I don't feel like every single 3P has to go on a certain shelf, it can just be a "cool looking shelf."

 

No, that would just cause 3P companies to shift their focus. The brand roster is too wide for Takara and Hasbro to cover everything simultaneously.

 

More like trying to win a court case against IP theft in China is hard.

 

Yes, a franchise that blew through 400 mostly unique toys in 6 years the first time around should totally drag its feet for over a decade redoing the first 25 or so.

 

lol, this is great.