One of the most important purpose for a cartoon or animated series is the promote the its toy lines. And like any TV series, the ratings of the show is the most important deciding factor for the network to decide between renewal and cancellation of the show. So anybody has a good idea on how TFP is doing in terms of its toy business and the ratings?
TV ratings are good. That's why they are so excited in doing season 3. The toy line, so-so. But we have beast hunters to look forward to.
Hasbro hurt itself with the toys. They had a very slow and late release. Christmas may be a good time for them.
I don't know about other places, but in the past 2 months or so, no TFP DX figures have come in to any local stores where I live. Hopefully this means they are preparing for the holiday instead of pulling the toys out completely.
They waited a year to release any toys at all. The toys they released first were absurdly rare or not released at all in certain territories. They made a second line of already existing characters instead of just repackaging the first ones. Early waves were saturated with Bumblebee (a character that doesn't get very much screen time at all, or development) and Cliffjumper (a non-character that died within 4 minutes of the first episode). No territories beyond the US have received deluxes past Wave 1. Even though Hasbro commissioned the creation of the toys, certain ones have been deemed "Unfit" for non-Asian markets for vague reasons. Characters like Breakdown, Unicron and Airachnid were only released after they stopped appearing in the show. I imagine the toyline will go down in history as one of the most poorly selling in the Transformers brand.
I think that the toys are doing very well. They are quickly bought up in the many stores in my area whenever the latest wave comes out.
The toyline isn't doing that well. It's so bad that in a TRU I went to the Transformers were stuffed in a corner of the store, right next to the clearance section. There's been no new or good toys in any of the stores I've been to.
More than half the stores around me that sell these figures only have wave 1 figures on the pegs. I have found all the releases up through wave 5 but only after a bunch of hunting.
In my area it seems like you get two or three fresh cases until the bumblebee's clog the pegs and then they pick up again once the bee's trickle out and the stock dwindles down. A fresh case seems to disapear in days.
Bad Wikipedia told me First Edition Deluxe Class Wave 1: Bumblebee, Arcee, Starscream Wave 2: Cliffjumper Wave 3: Terrorcon Cliffjumper, Vehicon But it doesn't matter for me since FE didn't made it to Germany. I had to import my FE Arcee...
