For those of us who collect official also, it seems a low lying fruit to produce non-transforming heads and/or targetmaster bots.

Has anyone heard anything on this topic?

 

I've suggested this to 3P companies. Seems like a no brainer.

 

Seems like "enhancement kits" aren't as much on 3rd parties' radar anymore, though there was a bit of a surge of Combiner Wars stuff. Maybe they figure they can't make much profit on "a head", or are content to leave it to Shapeways dealers.

 

Eh I'm not really in the market for upgrades to things I have no reason of owning since overall better complete 3p figures are already / will be available to represent those characters instead.

I imagine every company besides like, perfect effect, who still love making hasbro upgrades are probably in the same boat. Most companies just aren't fussed with upgrades anymore, and more upgrades are made to further improve existing 3p stuff or for mps instead now cause that's where the market shifted.

 

I just assumed the profit would be way to low. Plus the thing about heads is that people want is DETAIL, while the bodies of toys can be redeco'd and retooled etc, most folks don't want the buy the same head in 5 diff colors.

 

Id like to see someone oversize some of the figures

 

Yeah, I'd pay big money for Rebirth heads for all the Headmasters, and I'd love good Targetmasters to go with Hot Rod, Kup, Triggerhappy, etc.

I can understand doing them singly might not be that profitable, but why not as a set?

 

been quite a bit of stuff on shapeways from different sellers, if you count that...

 

I'm with Lazy, the TR stuff doesn't interest me to begin with, so neither would upgrades to them.

 

In the same boat as not being interested in TR at all.

3P probably feel there is not much money to be made from the whole 20 people who want this.

It also boggles my effing mind that Hasbro would release a nice figure like Generations Brainstorm, and then downsize him to an ugly deluxe sized bot (Titan Returns); that is easy to use for retools and recolors.

And dear Darwin - enough with the CW Prowl recolors/"re-tools." Aren't you guys tired of buying the same ****ing figure 20x over?

$$$

 

Perhaps but you're buying unfinished goods that require painting afterwards. Not unrelated but not entirely the same either I guess.

 

That's kind of why I pre-qualified this by saying it's a question for those who are already collecting the TR line.

If you don't collect TR this question doesn't really apply.

 

CW was such a huge thing due to 3P combiners being so outside of peoples budget. The enhancements of those figures went so far compared to the total amount of money you'd actually be spending.

As for TR, I personally think a good amount of them are incredible outside of a few major downsides that ruin the entire figures without fixing them yourself. Just looking at the concept designs of the figures they had such grand plans for them, but in the end, they can't seem to come to a consistency of quality and while some figures have great attributes, others of the same class won't.

For the record, TR Galvatron with a little elbow grease has been one of my favorite figures in a long time.

Really glad they've been giving attention to more uncommon characters, too.

 

Actually it does because you were generally asking what the deal was with the lack of upgrades for standard hasbro toys by asking about TR stuff that simply happens to be the current line. Whether we're talking TR specifically or not is irrelevant since the same reasoning behind its specific lack of upgrades is applied to all lack of official toy upgrades across the board. So my response is highly applicable despite the fact I don't collect them since I clearly explained to you why the situation is what it is is.

Market shifted, 3ps make a lot of their own stuff now, companies got bigger and spend more money on their own original molds and the mp boom in general took over much more of the market. The days of official toys getting lots of upgrades already passed, what remains is a much much tinier market for that kind of thing that reflects the general interests of the market overall.

 

I know what I was asking and wasn't about the lack of upgrades. We have actually seen plenty for Combiner Wars. That's why I'm asking this.

Pretty much every CW combiner has received an upgrade for at least one source often more than one.
The CW Prime kits are just coming out and there's more coming for another source it seems.
We've seen at least two announcements for TR figures so I'm sure more are coming.
That's why I'm asking also.

I'm aware of where the focus is currently in third party products.
There are companies who specialize either exclusively or heavily on existing figure upgrades.

So if you're not interested in TR stuff, that's perfectly fine. It also means you're going to be less tuned into news on that topic.

I've guess I've answered my own question by citing what's coming. More TR upgrades will inevitable appear and possibly in the guise of what I was asking about.

Thanks!

 

So how would these upgrades work? Non-transforming heads mean they'll have no use in alt mode, unless if you want brand new torsos for the heads to fold into for transformation and at that point the cost would probably be so prohibitive that you might as well make a whole new figure.

 

Yea this is what I was hoping for.... rebirth head/target master sets! Make it happen!

 

Here's the thing, it generally takes development time for a third party to make something. Fort Max was easy, because they had Metroplex to work from. Hands & feet for combiners were also easy enough to do.

However, anything more complicated than that takes development time, then additional time waiting on the factory to make a product.

By the time anything was released, TR might be over & we might be on the next chapter of Hasbro designs.

With the advent of Shapeways, you can usually find the same sort of things there. Plus, the new material you can get for some things is practically as good as molded plastic. High definition acrylate.

 

Problem with official addons is they usually cost more than the figure they are upgrading. Can see how and why the market shifted away from that.

 

For targetmasters there's always the single pack arms microns repainted from the powercore combiners minicons, through those I've gotten haywire, fracas and firebolt