Why is it that whenever people have a lack of interest in what hasbro is putting out Hasbro is doing something wrong?? The movie lines have proven to be the most successful figures for hasbro in recent years. The front pages of various tfwebsites is in no way representative of sales for hasbro. Just because you are not buying right now doesn't mean that the rest of us aren't. I have every DOTM deluxe released this year. I like them. Is DOTM winding down? Yes But, very soon, Transformers Prime will launch and the front pages will be littered with sightings, and early reviews. Also keep in mind that the nature of 3rd party toys creates more news then your standard toy release. 3rd party toys start their hype very early, some at the concept stage and constantly release updates pics and updates. Hasbro doesn't release pics till the figure is done and on its way to stores. So naturally there is more news
Didn't we just have this thread last week? The website is in the business of breaking news related to Transformers. Hasbro has been hush-hush about figures over the past year. And "Third Party" companies are popping up all over the damn place. Is it a take-over? No. What does news reporting have to do with sales? If anything, Hasbro has done a good job of NOT dropping the ball, as we used to see prototypes and test-shots months before a toy was ready for release. Now we see a toy when Hasbro's prepared to show us. And half the "Third Party" news is pictures anyway, not prototypes, not test shots. Pictures. Some of them aren't even designs, just images taken from Dreamwave. All this "we're going to make, this, this, this, and this" and nothing ever comes of it. Have you seen anything of Warbot "Broadside" and "Wreck-Gar" in the past two years? I haven't.
First point- I'm not a fan of the movie designs. When all is said and done, I'll own 5 DotM figures. However, despite how crowded this site is with third party news, I think Hasbro and co would say: DotM earned 1.115 BILLION interantionally Also that Transformers are a huge earner including Really, just because there's more frequent news from third party companies only means that they drip feed us more than Hasbro does. They'll show us every stage of the development of a toy, while Hasbro shows us only the finished product.
Because most of the figures are just re-done versions of characters already in toy form, and Hasbro decided for some reason to hold back the toys of all the new characters to avoid "spoilers". I'm just happy Shockwave came out early in the line, because he is made of winsauce, and so is the Megatron. No repaints to talk about? Well, not now there aren't, but just a few months ago we had a whole SLEW of them! Generations Thundercracker ALONE was a hotly debated figure, and subject to one of the biggest April Fools pranks I've ever seen. "Oh look, look at all the money we've made off the movies! The success of the movies has made so much money that the Transformers brand will be able to live on for years to come! Did you like the old-school homages we gave you with figures like ROTF Bludgeon and all the fanwank we provided with RtS and Generations, provided that the retailers suck at stocking them at the right time but we can't control that, sorry. We do have a retool of Thunderwing as the Japanese character "Black Shadow" coming up, so we hope you like him as well. Plus, have you seen how much work we've put into the upcoming Prime line? Yeah, we're sorry that we almost pulled an Animated and the toys came out too late while the show wasn't on the air, but since movie style is our big seller, we need to focus on that right now, but we'll send out some "First Edition" Prime figures in November to let you guys have a taste of what's to come. We'll have all our DOTM line revealed by December, promise, and in March of next year we'll be turning the dial up to 11 for Prime as that line gets kicked off." Hasbro is doing AMAZING by the collector community. They did not need to do Generations or RtS, filling them up with figures that represent characters kids probably don't know like Darkmount (who is STRAXUS, a semi-obscure character from the early Marvel Comics that no kid today would know about). But they do some things for the fandom that are good. RtS, Generations, hell, even Cyberverse Guzzle (who is about as obscure a character as you can get, the ONLY reason he's even known semi-commonly these days is because of his role in LSoTW), they are signs that Hasbro is doing anything BUT dropping the ball.
Totally this!!! We all know Hasbro is winding down witht he movie stuff and keeping a tight lid on new products. They have a ton of crap coming out. Just watch Prime, see all them characters? All of them will be toys. This is nothing more than the lull we see during every movie. Hasbro will comendeer ownership of the TF vessel in 2012.
As the generations of fans grow older, our pockets are getting thicker as well, so we do have the moola love for everyone!
I dont think Hasbro is dropping the ball, I think the Generations line of 2010-11 was one of their best, even though distribution was terrible. The 3rd party targets the 17 and older crowd, thats not really Hasbros main target group.
I think Hasbro has dropped the ball on certain things, which unlicensed groups have been capitalizing on since 2008, but it's not enough to put them in any type of danger as a corporation. They know what they're doing, whether we agree with their business practices or not. If they didn't, they'd be a defunct toy company that we'd be referring to in the past tense.
What's to complain about? Nobody dropped the ball. 3rd Party Companies are filling a niche and marketing to a select audience while Hasbro and Takara Tomy are making toys for the masses. Everyone wins! The way I see it... Hasbro, Takara Tomy and 3rd Party Companies are all spoiling us with a lot of new and cool toys that a variety of people can enjoy collecting. Not one collector is the same and it's a great thing to have a wide selection of products to choose from. Personally, I think it's a great time to be a Transformers Fan and/or Collector and I appreciate all the effort put forth by Hasbro, Takara Tomy and 3rd Party Companies in making our hobby fun, exciting and most importantly... Still relevant in so many ways even after 2 decades and nearing it's 3rd. Sit back... Relax... Enjoy the hobby... Buy what you like! At the end of the day, it's still all about the toys and the joy they bring us.
this would depend on what the actual outcome would be. the aftermath. maybe a few years after the movie. the value of these 3rd party products would either go up or down depending on how many greedy little parasites come out and how fans perceive this. market saturation is never a good thing, especially for collecting. i vote that these would go down after half a decade because: - unofficial - durability (test of time) - fans are not united when it comes to which is cool to collect/display
I've been calling it the golden age for some time now. I've been collecting hardcore since 95 and I know how it gets. Those dark days between BM and RID. The long dry spells as the attempted to drag out a one year movie line to two...been through that twice now. And I am sure there are others. I can not tell you when there was so much to buy because there never was. When Hasbro gave us figures you had a nice go at a series while the series ran. just a mere few years ago, 3rd party groups (as we know them today) did not exists. My first 3rd party item was the Unicron.com BW pack and after that nothing. Today we have .... Hasbro - Movie, Classics, Prime TakaraTomy - MP's and Encore 3rd party - Is in a boom right now so we have a metric tonne of stuff coming from them. This is the first time ever that a collector has so many option. Some would argue too many? (I wouldnt but some would) We are in a Golden age and in a few years when the darkness returns and people look back on today they will all realise what we have now and that it is good. The dark days may never return due to what 3rd parties are giving us. But it is too soon to say where all this 3rd party stuff is going and for how we will have to bask in it. You really think the 3rd party stuff will die out once the movie hype is all dead and gone? That would mean shows like Prime and what ever follows will fail to bring in new fans. If that happens what we are witnessing is the death of TFs alla G1's end ( And yes it was a TF death because nothing new came out between G1 and Bw and thats 10 years. Toys with no media equal no sales.) IMHO new fans will come along as logn as the franchise exists. Every new fan will eventually find G1. You may hate bricks so you won;t buy 80's G1 but who will really be able to resist the Classics series? I can't see something like Hercules ever dropping below original retail price and to be honest once it sells out, I can't see it ever dropping under $1000.
not die out but saturate. implode. right now they are catering to the ones that we wish tak/bro. when that runs out?
