Already knew the secret and just waited for you to do the heavy lifting mx-01 archon . The secret aka business common sense.

Given how limited money is these days, especially these DAYS, how to keep your bottom line in the black after years of bleeding red with Disney Star Wars, I'd be conservative too and focus on the line that truly delivers (in Star Wars, original trilogy/prequels into their Black Series).In Tf, like it or not, it is G1. Example is in the eating as the past few iterations of the mainline are all G1/G1 inspired. Cyberverse being an exception (which still draws from G1)

 

If I can say anything positive about Hasbro, it's that they usually never do things with malice or shit on fans intentionally. Sure, they ignore anything not G1 or Movie, but at the very least, they don't do it out of spite, just ignorance. Unlike a current "happiest place on earth" who destroyed a cultural phenomenon in less than a decade and hires people with sheer contempt for that icon.

 

But how long can that goal truly last though? G1 may be profitable for them now but what's gonna happen when even that falls out of flavor,and people are going to be wanting something else? You can only milk a certain popular thing for so long before it eventually runs dry. Hasbro will have nothing to gain by only sticking to G1 for the rest of the brand's longevity because popular as both G1 and the movies are at the moment,they're not going to be enough to keep the brand afloat.

Sooner or later Hasbro's going to need to start out more attention and love towards their other fanbases in the brand if they want to both keep the franchise alive,and keep the goodwill towards it's other TF fans such as Animated which a lot of people are still wanting to see it's S4 be made at least in comic form. Funny enough about the Marvel and DC comparison is that even then both companies know to when give us something different from time to time to keep relevant.

 

Thing is with animated its main demographic (Kids) is probably nowadays Just getting into Boards like these and what not. That what always happens because now we are seeing love for the unicron trilogy because its Target demographic is old enough to tell others of their love of The unicron trilogy. Animated will get that in a fairly short amount of time, I presume. Same with Prime and Cyberverse eventually aswell

 

They'll adapt when they need to adapt. They don't run the margins so thin that one wrong miscalculation will immediately sink them or anything (unlike with 3P companies).

 

@Fafnir72 To answer your question a while back, yes, the toyline did sell well. But there's a catch: the toyline was late getting to shelves because stores didn't want to order any; they wanted more merchandise related to the first Bayverse film. Basically, Hasbro shot themselves in the foot by releasing TF1 summer of 2007, then releasing the pilot for Animated in its shadow that same year in December.

But instead of factoring in the delay, Hasbro just decided to push Animated to the side altogether, in favor of reaping massive, easy reward from the new movies. I don't think it's a coincidence that Revenge of the Fallen was released the same year Animated was cancelled.

And @kaijuguy19 I'm pretty sure the horrendous failure of The Last Knight was just the nail in the coffin; Age of Extinction already showed a dramatic drop in quality across the board, and people were very much losing interest in the Bayverse. Couple that with the team behind Prime giving Hasbro the finger, resulting in another massive financial failure, and you've got yourself a recipe for ruin.

 

So opposing product lines from the same manufacturer. I have concerns of having too much TF too. I hope Hb does not dilute the line too much or there might be a similar "crash" the way the original did back in 1991.

 

He's producing a cartoon with animators in my home state of Tassie? I must know more!

 

i found the post I was looking for

 

This is very much true. There was very little about Animated that wasn't just "stylized" geewun with a few original characters thrown in.
And they're doing that right now with Cyberverse. Wondering why they won't do another season of Animated is like going to a hamburger joint where the only non-alcoholic beverage they ever serve is coke and wondering why they don't serve pepsi.
Dude, you're getting pepsi. It's just got another name. When are they gonna have some lemonade or iced tea?

 

So money. And Prime had been a dead weight.

Iirc, I also read an investor report from Takara a few (2 to 3) years back citing a very rosy picture where they were really focused on reducing "inventory" or something (it was translated from Japanese) and maximizing profits. TF isn't their only products btw, so this might also be related to the brand unification etc etc.

Thanks!

 

Dave is working on three shows that he can't talk about right now
+
Cheetor potentially getting a Netflix WFC figure
=
Yes...​

 

Man, it has really been your year... (Speculation wise)

 

I think this post is more than a little reaching and embellishing. The "lowest grossing of the last five incarnations" includes three movies, and it's not like Animated was that much higher. Animated had the benefit of 1) coming right on the heels of the first live action film, which massively increased the value of the brand, and 2) being on a known network. Obviously the show had production problems down the line and the toyline wasn't a massive success, but the post seems to have a vendetta.

 

Not my post, just @Pravus Prime showing the numbers.

 

Actually, being released right after the Movie had the opposite effect on Animated; Hasbro struggled to get stores to carry Animated toys when they were ready, because retailers kept demanding more Movie-related merchandise.

 

And the stylistic divide is likely what contributed most to Animated's less than stellar sales. The movies were insanely popular and far-reaching compared to any cartoon, and Animated could not be more different from the movies if it tried.

Prime, by contrast, was specifically designed to cash-in on the likeness of the movies, hence the kinda-sorta-ish movie aesthetic and movie-style designs for Optimus, Megatron and Bumblebee. It was the series that had more favours done for it, whereas TFA had a massive handicap.

 

And it's worth noting that's probably partly to do with the movie being DELAYED. After all, Classics exists because they needed to fill a hole in the schedule when the movie slipped from late 2006 to mid-2007.