When someone says that Hasbro is shady and that third party costs are in the designing, then I know someone really has no clue at all of what they're talking about.

Third party is expensive because of their overhead. They are a small operation and molds are EXPENSIVE to make. You can only get so many presses out of a mold before you replace them, which limits the production numbers that 3rd party put out. Hasbro gets away with it by being very large and pressing a ton of figures destined for retail. They get back what they put into the molds because hundreds of thousands of units will sell, or at least that's the idea.

Unless 3rd party companies were rolled into Hasbro, high costs are unavoidable.

How exactly is Hasbro shady anyways...? They seem to be fine by the looks of it.

 

They're about as close as a multi-million dollar corporation can get to being saints. Hell, they have their own children's hospital.

If this has anything to do with quality control issues, then you are horribly incorrect. Yes, there was a period with increased QC issues, but it was unavoidable. HasTak had just moved most of their factory operations to Taiwan. Whenever there's a new factory, there will always be an initial increase in faulty products, as the workers get used to the type of products they're making.

 

Honestly Gryph, you are right. I do not know that much on the subject. I base most of my opinions mainly on the information other fans have provided me with.

So, yes. Fans at some point and time have been told "Well y'see, the reason our third party products are at this current rate is due to... We uh...had...expensive designers? Yes! Expensive designers! And, the cost of shipping is crazy! And, And, And!!! -insert excuse here-."

But obviousy, I don't know a single thing about the operation of each and singloe company Gryph, nor have I ever claimed to. Part of the reason I post around here, is to gain a bit of understanding of why things now are the way they are.

But, obviously I have said the wrong things, and have managed to offend you. I apologize to you Gryph it is my impatience, and irritation that has clouded my judgement and has caused me to say such brash phrasings and words.

This being said, I'm a simple man. That just wants to play with transforming cars and trucks, without all this nonsense added ontop of it. I understand how people can love the third party products, they are still transforming robots (or Add-on kits).

Guess, it just comes down to "I don't know" I really don't... Is it so hard for a company you say is one of the greatest toy companies in the world, do something so simple? Or do we have to wait?

 

Because it's often times NOT that simple. It's all about timing, marketing, development and engineering. Unless you want toys that don't look anything like the Prime line, there will indeed be a wait so that the design and engineering elements can come together. There's also the aspect of market timing. Releasing a new line right now isn't something Hasbro wants to do. There seems to be only two lines of Transformers out at any given time right now...Movie and Classics, and it seems that come 2012 it will be Prime and Classics. Hasbro does not appear to want to over-saturate the shelves with Transformers product...a smart move considering how DOTM seems to be moving slowly now.

As for Prime, I believe the reasoning is that because the show didn't have a lot of time at the start to finish up an entire season, they do 5 episodes, then release them, then do another 5 and release them. That's why there are the breaks...it's the animators actually doing the show.