Wow. Way to just invalidate the work of the people who create things for various lines that they probably are actually proud of. Top shelf, bro. Seriously, you're making it sound like you can't take pride in your work unless it's made for a very specific, small audience. Like somehow a mass retail toy has less 'artistic merit' than an MP. That is some elitist, hipster-style, 'it's mainstream, so it sucks' bullcrap, man. If I was on the team who created parts of the Animated line, or Generations Waspinator, or, hell, Rescue Bots, I would be friggin' ecstatic about what I'd played a part in creating.
I'm sure the people who made ROTF Prime or HFTD Starscream don't consider the new stuff to be as good. If any of those designers are even still working for Hasbro.
This year we got Scoop in the Generations line. SCOOP. I never thought ANY of the 2nd wave Targetmasters would get updated at all, and am still in awe over it. Oh yeah, and they are doing a Generations update of a limited reissue of a DIACLONE TOY. How does that not cater to collectors?
Guess I'll just have to post this every single time someone obviously posts without reading past the subject title.
I'm trying to understand where you're coming from. Are you wanting Hasbro designers to build and release Masterpiece figures? Not a collaboration between Takara and Hasbro?
But those aren't specifically 'for collectors' as your initial post was talking about, either. Really, I can't tell what this statement is trying to defend, because there's going to be different members of the design team working on different toys all the time, and every member's probably got some favorites that they've worked on, some objects of pride, regardless of what line they were a part of. So I am really not following where the heck you've been going with this.
I guess my next question is why? Genuinely curious of what the advantages you think there would be for Hasbro designing one as opposed to Takara. If Hasbro did design a Masterpiece line, it would more than likely still be the same type of release as what we're getting now. It wasn't until 2011-2012 with MP-10 that we saw more than one MP figure released a year.
Well those two are the closest things Hasbro has made to an MP figure. If they had a hand in a real MP figure I would've used those designers as an example. If you read the first post it wouldn't be that hard.
Okay. I see what you are saying. To the best of my knowledge there has never been an attempt by Hasbro to make a Transformer with the help of Takara.
I'm curious what you'd want from such a line. More 84-86 guys, like the Masterpieces? Just high-end versions of whatever line is currently running (like the movie bots, currently?) Like what the Human Alliance figures were to the ROTF/DOTM lines. Hasbro uses Takara's engineers, too. A "Hasbro designed Transformer" would almost certainly be engineered by Takara,with the main exception being non-core line stff like the non-transforming statues or other gimmicky sub-lines. Apparently the head Hasbro design team guy wanted to do the 84 toy line-up again for the 30th anniversary releases, so I guess they're not above considering doing new versions of those for collectors. But I think the problem lies in what you consider collector quality vs. what Hasbro does. I mean, Hasbro/Kenner's history of releasing collector's toys are stilltoys. All their Star Wars/G.I. Joe collectors figures aren't on the same level of polish as some higher end collector's lines,like, say, what NECA releases, or Japanese companies like Medicom or Bandai. As for the "ages 5+" thing, well, Hasbro isn't going to release a retail TF that can't be handled by a 5 year old. Stores wouldn't take them in otherwise. I believe he may have phrased it wrong, it should be more like "there has never been an attempt by Hasbro to make a Transformer without the help of Takara" Which is not completely true, there's a handful of things, like G2 giant tank Megatron, and the Marvel or star wars transformers. But the vast majority of the line is engineered by Takara. Why doesn't the AoE line look as polished, then? Well, simply put, budgets. Hasbro has both it's designers and the Takara engineers work within the budget that's decided. To keep things within the same price for years at a time, cuts are made, as inflation makes it harder and harder to keep prices down to what they deem acceptable.
I get what you're saying, but I think what you suggested (high end figures of whatever they really want) would be acceptable, and very well taken by the fans. If Takara has to take part in every single TF, then I was mislead by the recent video which basically showed only Hasbro employees as being the designers.
Hasbro and Takara work jointly together on Transformers. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong or provide more details, but Hasbro typically provides the overall design of the figure while Takara handles the engineering portion of said figure, basically turning Hasbro's design into a plastic play thing. This isn't always the case for every figure though ...
This may be a more thorough explanation of how Takara and Hasbro work: Autobots Assembled: How Transformers Come to Life It's possible the whole set-up has changed for AoE. But I doubt it. In fact, I believe MP designer Shogo Hasui was mentioned as being moved away from the MPline in order to work on a standard release line again, but I may be getting that mixed up.
Yeah thats what I heard when everyone was going nuts and hating on the movies for stealing their engineer. I just assumed Hasbro had done it all on their own for now and he saw how bad the toys look and went to go help.