I was told that "The DVD edition" MP1 Prime has inferior plastic parts that are easier to crack and less metal parts. Is this true? Does anyone here who has both can give me a good answer?

Thanks a bunch!

 

Not inferior in that way, as far as I've ever heard from anyone, but he does have shortened smokestacks and the possibly undesirable blue gun.

His colors are also a little more cartoony and he has no chrome

 

No, those things are not true.

He does have shorter smokestacks though

 

I think he does have less metal (bumper) and the crappy grey plastic. Ive had both Hasbro ones and remember liking the battle damaged one more than the other.

 

I've heard it both ways. I've seen plenty of the MP-01 mold with broken knees, both versions. I've seen stress marks and cracks on both. As for less metal, I don't believe that's true. I've had MP-01 and the DVD edition and they were pretty much the same in terms of construction, only the colors were different.

Personally, I preferred the coloring of the DVD version, but there was something so classic about MP-01. It was gritty and dirty and looked fantastic. MP-10 ruined him for me, though. I'd take MP-10 any day.

 

Depending on whom you ask, all Hasbro toys are inferior to their Takara counterparts.

 

I've owned several of both. The DVD version has no chrome and the paint is terrible. Like chalky and you can easily scrape it with your fingernail. The 20th has chrome and better, darker paint. It also has some light battle damage. The paint is about the same as Takara's minus the battle damage and also has shorter stacks.

 

Without making a dismissive joke out of it, you have to acknowledge that while it's not true all the time, it's true a disproportionately large percentage of the time.

 

"Inferior" is a very subjective term.

 

Yeah, yeah, okay. This is the 'participation trophy' culture we unfortunately now all live in, where everyone is a winner even if they put in less effort.

Let's leave out terms like "inferior" and "superior," so everyone can continue to feel like they are special and everything is equal and no one's feelings ever get hurt. Is it okay to point out that more often than not (not EVERY time, but more often than not), Takara cuts fewer corners than Hasbro? Whether it's something like more or better placed paint apps, something as serious as the occasional improved engineering, or something as simple as the painted rims that almost all figures need, and which Hasbro USED to give us, but now seldom does?

Of course there are examples of Hasbro doing something that is clearly better than Takara's release. Generations Wheeljack leaps instantly to mind. But those cases are few and far between, while examples of the other way around are more than plentiful.

 

Just for clarity's sake, let me say that I do think there are many cases where the end result is a push -- where both versions attempt different things and are good in their own way. For example, I do not consider either Titans Return Chromedome or Legends Chromedome to be intrinsically better than the other.

But when cases occur where one version gets extra love and the other gets shortchanged, it's wildly disingenuous to pretend not to be aware which side it is that more often puts in the extra effort and which side typically cuts the corners.

 

The main differences are in paint tone, a few paint apps, the chrome on the bumper/grill, and of course, the short smoke stacks.
However, the stacks are easily replaced if you can still find the long ones on ebay, etc.

Pics taken from Seibertron:

 

Here's the thing: functionally the Hasbro and Takara releases are identical (barring extra molded differences). They're made in the same factories with the same QA using the same mold. Yes, there are personal preferences in regards to paint aps (and how Hasbro saves money by using less of them), but that is still subjective. Example: A TF fan likes that X takara toy has more paint, but he don't like it at 300% of the price ($10 Chromedome from Walmart vs $40 Takara Chromedome from BBTS).

It really is subjective, so these threads saying one is "better" are stupid.

 

Yup. How many Classics toys did Takara mess up with pointless random chrome? Chrome on a cheetah? Really?

On topic, it sounds like the DVD release was a lateral move. No chrome is an improvement IMO, but worse paint negates that. Of course, my 20th Prime had chipped paint right out of the box, so it's hard to imagine the DVD edition being even worse than that.

But I'm of the opinion that MP01 is among the most overrated toys in the entire history of TFs. Sold mine with no regrets whatsoever.

 

Have we ever heard anything about which partner pays more into the initial development? For all we know, it may well be that Hasbro pays for the lion's share of the initial design for most lines other than MP, and Takara just has to engineer their own modifications. It easier/cheaper to improve on an existing design than to create a brand new one.

There may well be a reason why Takara's versions of the Generations and RiD/Prime/etc. toys come out months after Hasbro's - they might be letting Hasbro foot the bill for the initial development. On a couple occasions when the reverse was true, Hasbro's gone the extra mile - the Hasbro release of MP10 has much better colors, Hasbro's MP Rodimus had a brand new Targetmaster (though eliminating the trailer was a negative).

It's also worth noting that when Takara is footing the bill for their own "standard line" figures, the engineering is occasionally less stellar than the ones co-developed with Hasbro. While I love the novelty of Optimus Exprime from the TF Go line, the design is a far cry from the solidness of most mainline Optimus figures, and even considering the triple-changer element, it falls short in comparison to the Generations triples.

This is, of course, all speculation/thought experiment. But if Hasbro is footing most of the bill for the designs, I'm not sure that Takara should be praised so highly for spending a little extra.

 

Price has nothing to do with it. Nothing. The question is whether something is better, not whether you or I can afford it.

BETTER.

Take price completely out of the equation. Imagine both versions of every toy are available to you on the shelves of your local toy shop, side-by-side at the exact same price, and with no differences in packaging or labeling. Which one would you pick? How many times out of a hundred would it be a tie? Take those cases out of the equation. Then... How many times, at the same price and with no extra effort in attaining it, would you chose the Takara? And how many times the Hasbro?

Why do people keep trying to do end runs around the point? It's irrelevant if Takara has some unfair advantage in being able to produce better versions of the same figure. We aren't talking about fair. We're talking about the end result.

And you can bring up weird outliers, but don't present them like they aren't the exceptions rather than the norm. Over the past 10 years, how many figures has Takara botched with weird chrome or more lackluster deco? More than a few. No one is denying that. But try comparing that to the number of times they HAVEN'T botched a figure, while Hasbro has cut bigtime corners on their version. Because that number is astronomical in comparison.

 

Well, shit, if we're not justifying Takara's ungainly paint operations, what chance do they have? 9 times out of ten, Takara shoves this ridiculous dedication to cartoon accuracy to a 30 year old, poorly animated cartoon into a modern toy that doesn't look at all like said cartoon and it sucks.

The only defense I can give them is that they exist in a poor, tiny, collectors market that scoops only that ridiculous style of figure up and leaves anything else even mildly deritive to be chucked into a landfill, because, I dunno, Japan is 30 years in the past? I couldn't really say.

Here's the instances I can think look absolutely better off the top of my head: United Jazz, Henkei Smokescreen, and Henkei Sunstreaker.
Everything else lies somewhere in the realm of "Gaudy" to "Personal preference"
I did buy the UW Technobots and UW Devastator due to their engineering improvements but only the Constructicons are an example I can think of where the differences are negligible enough to be generally objectively superior with the new tooling

My collection consists mostly of Hasbro figures. I could afford the Takara versions if I wanted, but I vastly prefer Hasbro's version almost 95% of the time.

What I'm really sick of this elitist attitude that "Price doesn't matter" - some people cannot afford to have Takara versions and there are a lot of fans who have this ridiculous, uppity attitude towards people who DARE like domestic offerings more.

 

Hey, fair enough. I'm not saying price doesn't matter to be elitist. I'm no more rich than anyone else here and probably less than most.

But you're wrong to lump everything into a G1 memorabilia basket. Look at the movie molds. Like for example the nearly universally loved RotF Leader Optimus. Any non-Asia Exclusive version Hasbro has ever released of that mold looks like a sad, ugly joke next to its Takara equivalent release. Absolutely still a great toy. But the decos are not even close. This is a case where I own both, and while the Hasbro Battle Hooks battle damaged version is a great junker toy that I can let my nephews crash around with impunity, the Takara Buster version is an absolute showpiece. The missing paint all over the body and head/face of the Hasbro version, not to mention their increasing (at the time) reliance on the ugliest unpainted grey plastic ever, put it in an entirely lower class. And the entire toy lines for the past two movies are filled to the brim with more examples of the same: A couple examples where Hasbro comes closer to movie-accuracy vs. dozens and dozens of examples where the Takara version destroys the Hasbro.

They came closer for TFP (except for FE Bulkhead), they come closer (but still not close enough) for RID '15.

But if you want to say waxy candlestick unpainted grey is better than silver paint and that bare plastic rims the same color as the tires are better than painted rims, we can stop discussing this right now.

 

So be it, then. If I wanted my toys to look not like toys, I'd customize them myself.