5 for 2023, Skyfire and the remaining 4 trains.

 

They got two covers in the UK!

 

There is only two things taking longer than bandit and that's the end of the world and the second coming of Jesus Christ, both have had many confirmed release dates yet have not come to pass 

 

Those MPG trainbots are hard to look at.

 

Have you gotten “the talk” lately? As in there better stop being new toys coming in here.

 

TT doesn’t just make MP’s though, and if I’m being honest, I don’t think MP is their primarily focus.

3P companies don’t do anything else other than MP figures. I just don’t think the comparison is fair.

If anything, FT should have finished Menasor/Superion years ago.

Hell, at this point, TT may be finishing their combiner (whatever you think about it is not the point) before FT. That is just sad.

 

You are certainly welcome to your opinion, however in the three short years I have been collecting MP scale bots, I have had my equal share of QC issues with FT as I have had with every other manufacturer.
As I have observed, there is nothing special about FTs processes that has elevated them above any other major manufacturer. Its about equal across the board. Even the KOs of their products have had about the same rate of issues as FT themselves.

For me it has really come down to aesthetic and cost. Both of which for me has spread across the spectrum. Sometimes FT is in my opinion superior in aesthetic but incredibly over priced. Case in point, RP-01 Soundwave. The KO of this has proven by most observations to be just as good as FTs. Some of the FT releases have had QC issues that the KO didn't. But for what you get at the price point that it is, a lot of people have chosen the KO over the "official". So there's that. Was it really worth it to get FT in this case? Thats debatable.

Then I had the moment of "which one should I get" when it came to Cyclonus. XTB had a better price, but FTs just looked better. So I went with FT. I had the same dilemma with Huffer. FTs was good, but the arms didn't feel right to me, plus the price again. So I went with BadCube because the aesthetic just fit better in my opinion. Thats the thing with aesthetic, its personal and changes with every person. But to blanket claim that FTs is worth waiting for over others, is a bit biased in its basest of claims. Its not true for everyone. There are times that FT just doesn't fit for many reasons, and one of those can be time.

Some of us are in our 50s. Time is precious when you get to this stage of life. So when it comes to collecting things, we want to get them in a timely manner. 5 years is not timely, which is the case with Menasor or at least the Stunticon team. So if you have another company that is putting out the same product (perhaps in a different aesthetic) and are able to complete it to general satisfaction in less time, then that is always going to be more valuable to some people. Time is precious so never underestimate the value of it.

 

From the end of Titans Return up until those premium BW recolors, they weren't doing their own superior decos of mainline toys either.

I'm looking at it from the perspective that there are 19 deluxe cars including Optimus. In the first five years, they had just over half (10) of them done. Seven years later, they've only done six more, leaving them three short. Plus only one minibot (but at least they did him twice I guess).

They've cut way back on redecos on MPs as well aside from Skids. No Detritus from Hound, no Hauler from Grapple, no Lifeline from Arcee, and don't hold your breath for a recolors of Trailbreaker. Half a dozen other easy recolors are still out there. If Tracks had been released in the last couple of years, we probably wouldn't have gotten Roadrage and definitely not Loudpedal. But even the worst mold up until Bumblebee 2.0 got plenty of reuse because of when it was released.

Anyway, point is waiting for any of the Scramble City combiners from Takara is Great Pumpkin level deluded.

 

I’m not arguing the fact that they’ve slowed down. I want everything TT MP, but I’ve come to realize that day will never happen. Their adherence to licensed vehicles has made it really hard (IMO) to finish a cast.

Im just saying that the comparison is not a fair one. For all intents and purposes, 3P has a way easier path to give us a complete cast. And they haven’t yet.

 

My wife used to tell me to buy another display case. I think that I have hit my limit though. She does not tell me to stop buying but I only get masterpiece and only about 1 a month because usually Fans Toys. Sometimes I save in stack so that I get less shipments.

I hope that Maurader gets released this year. I am not that positive since we have seen Swerve, Gears and Scourge that look finished. I would assume the 2 final jets would come out first sine we saw the combiner parts/ flight stands. I'm hoping we finish the combiners in 2024.

 

TT are bigger than every 3P manufacturer combined, have decades of experience making transforming robot toys and are working on the brand with Hasbro, one of the biggest toy companies in the world with more than a billion dollars in revenue. I’d be concerned if they couldn’t finish a combiner faster than a tiny 3P company.

 

Agreed. Before the TFCon reveal I was expecting we could get the Aerialbots (or at least one, dammit) before the end of 2023. Now however I feel their release schedule is more or less full for the rest of this year with Gears, Swerve, and Scourge

 

This is interesting to me. I wonder what's different about Skids that's resulted in three repaints. I was planning on picking up their trailbreaker in diaclone colors, since I'm happy with my FT Outrider - maybe I shouldn't hold my breath on what a few years ago would be a given repaint release.

 

Somebody at Takara likes Skids for some reason. It probably doesn't hurt that he was $90 instead of $150-$170 either.

 

Skids's reuse stems more from the cultural popularity of the Honda City. It was and still is a beloved vehicle in Japan.

It's commercials even featured the band "Madness" singing and dancing to add to the 80-ness.

 

The source I see still lists Kaen as TBD, and I see no reason to include it until we at least see him. The first 3 trains this year will apparently take until October. I did mention they could add something else before the end of the year after that which Kaen would fall under.

Besides what Swindlerfan already said MP Skids happened partly because of an anniversary celebration of the Honda City. It wouldn't surprise me if Honda contributed to Skids and repaints happening as part of the promotion.

 

I like that we’ve all been here so long now that people will occasionally just pop in to say “hey. How’s everyone doing? Still no Bandit, huh? That’s cool. Here’s some obscure hope or maybe an unoriginal thought on why it’s delayed. Wanna talk about anything else? Cool. I’m gonna check back in a few hours to see who responded just so I can get that dopamine hit.”

Ya know?


-A.S.

 

This is canon, as far as I'm concerned, given "The Secret of Omega Supreme" sets up the first rivalry and "The Key to Vector Sigma" sets up the second. Season 3's "The Ultimate Weapon" sort of sets up Bruticus vs. Defensor, and things get super messy and weirder in the "Five Faces of Darkness" but it portrays a Skylynx vs. Predaking rivalry.

The only caveat I'd add is that Devy also has a rivalry with the Dinobots, even before OS.

 

?

Sorry. New delay. Who dis?

 

You need that hit too right