I would do many disgusting things for Deluxe price point minicassettes Slamdance, Core Overkill, and Core Steeljaw.

 

Don’t also forget about Slugfest! He also needs an update and is Overkills partner!

 

I mean, all of them need updates(and re-dos, ESPECIALLY Ravage). I was just listing the ones I'd like to see the most, at the preferred price points. Slugfest is up there, too.

 

To both your points, you can still be upset with Hasbro. Two price hikes in less than a year? Hard to believe that’s purely inflation. There is some dank-ass weed being smoked up in Rhode Island if that’s their rationale.

It’s greed

 

I think you underestimate just how crippling the economic policy of the last year or so has been, and how bad things are going to get due to their continuation and projected exacerbation due to conflict in Europe. Personally, I think the first price change was meant to ease people into the price they actually needed to raise everything to. Remember how Metroplex leaked with the current price before we knew about the second price hike?

 

Gang-molding? You know how model kits come on sprues that you need to clip the parts from? That’s how all Transformers come out of the mold. Parts being gang-molded means they come from the same sprue. In Blaster’s case, Eject appears to be on the same sprue as his tapedoor window. So Rewind’s color is going to depend on what they do with Twincast’s window.

 

Deluxe pricepoint 2 packs of combining minicassettes? Sign me up or give me some preorder links!

Sure, I want a new Squawkbox and Slamdance (even though I have Dr. Wu's version of the first and I'll order the second as soon as a link goes live), but lets not stop there. Why not Dile/Dairu and Zaur/Zauru for Legout, and their easy redecos, Uriad and Uruaz? And Decibel, formed from Graphy and Noise, who could easily be redecoed into new Decepticon characters? Heck, a well-planned Noise could easily be Overkill and similarly Graphy might be (p)retool material for Squawktalk?

They're smol dinosaur buddies that combine! Kids would love them, collectors want them! If you don't have the regular wave slots, stick 'em in Selects 2-packs/4-packs or into Target's Buzzworthy or a new Walmart "Soundwars" line. I want to armybuild with with Soundwave's and Blaster's tiny buddies!

Edit: I'm not forgetting Ramhorn, Steeljaw, Stinger!, Botch!, or Slugfest. But if the beancounter priests of the Almighty $$Budget$$ could see the holy profit to be reaped from minicassettes, hopefully the less redecoed minibuddies could get new figures too.

 

In general, the transparent pieces on each figure match between the figure itself and it's accessories. Prime's windows, Arcee's windshield, Bulkhead's windows.

 

So toy molds are really damn expensive. In order to minimize manufacturing costs, toys are typically designed to use as few molds as possible. So molds are usually organized by the color of plastic they're casted in. Take Blaster for example:


Blaster has 4 plastic colors: red (upper body), black (feet, joints, gun), grey (legs, Eject's joints), and translucent blue (casette door, Eject's limbs). So when Blaster inevitably gets redecoed into Twincast, every single red part will have to be blue. But in order to get Twincast's gun, leg speakers, and hands to be the red that it is in the cartoon, either all the black parts will have to be recast into red, which might include the joints, thighs, and boombox handle, or Hasbro could opt for keeping them molded in black and painting them red. So when it comes to making the tape door red, by consequence we would end up with a red Eject, or we can have Rewind at the expense of an inaccurate black door for Twincast, which could be painted red. It'll eventually come down to what Hasbro wants to prioritize.

 

Rewind could just be painted black.

 

Or they could have done Rosanna

 

Underestimate? Are you kidding me? We are Americans speaking to one another in 2022, yes?

At the end of the day, Hasbro is an international mega corporation. If they choose to continually raise prices, I will choose to continually limit my purchases. As should every collector. Vote with thyne wallet. Hasbro is more than welcome to play their small violin in the process

The fact is that many consumers, especially casual fans and parents, will be less and less on board with higher price hikes. I’m already aghast at $25 deluxes and almost $200 titans

 

On the topic of the blue plastic, all of the deluxes feature the blue weapons, but none of them feature blue plastic. It’s probably that all of the blue weapons are gang molded together, and it makes me wonder if Eject isn’t molded on his own as well.

That said, I haven’t opened the Blaster I got today.

 

What? Two deluxes so far feature the blue weapons, and they both feature plenty of blue plastic... Arcee’s windshield, and pretty much Skids’ entire vehicle shell...

 

I tire of their poor decisions on mold layout.

 

Nah. I'll pay what value a toy holds to me. Studio Series gave us a fucking awesome Hot Rod and I'd have paid well over Voyager price for it if I had to. If they make an Armada Sideways that good I'd pay Titan Class prices for it.

That said, most retail TFs don't vary nearly that much in personal percieved value due to either the quality or the character resemblance. I ain't ever paying 50 bucks for that Prime Arcee, for example.

 

Characters and continuities I like, I'm still planning to collect. The other stuff is off the table, even as impulse buys. Even a hypothetical 50% off Cybertron Metroplex deal on Cyber Monday or something will probably be a pass.

I already have more figures than I have space to display them, so the prices aren't what the limiting factor is for me.

 

Yeah, exactly. Hasbro wouldn't start selling figures for a lot more unless they absolutely needed to because it's common sense that when you raise prices you lose customers. They wouldn't take that risk unless they absolutely needed to in order to make the figures. I think we need to recognize that the fact that the prices were able to stay relatively stable for around a decade was absolutely a luxury, and now it's catching up to us. Are the price hikes bad for us? Of course. Are they because Hasbro is a mustache twirling cartoon villain who just wants to squeeze more blood out of the fanbase? That's absurd, of course not. The world is pretty much in free fall right now, I think a bit of a price hike on plastic action figures is more than understandable.

 

If you say so, but it was the opposite for me. I was able to pick up Runabout without a lot of hassle, but I never saw ANY Earthrise wave three toys on an actual store shelf

 

I'm always curious what toys or adult collectibles people consider better dollar for dollar value than Transformers considering the complexity, detail and character depth transfans get. I feel lucky my fandom is so well catered to. Compare a $25 SS Bumblebee deluxe to a $15 War For Cybertron video game deluxe from years ago. The SS ones are sturdier, thicker and have denser accessories. When hasbro charges more I feel like they try to deliver the value. (Except ER Arcee)