I liked question 15 because it was well-phrased and backed up with facts and confirmed information.

Oh, what I would have paid to see the Hasbro rep's face when hearing that question.  

 

Hasbro UK seem to be like the representatives from New York in the movie "1776"

 

Well at least the Alternators comic is something.

 

Geez, what did they do, get polititians from the US to run Hasbro UK? "I can't comment on that" and "My head's so far up my rump, I just don't know." Jeez, I don't think that there was one straight forward answer in there.

 

I'm guessing whoever said that didn't know what they were talking about: IIRC, Aaron Archer or another Hasbro rep confirmed at Botcon last year that their license for the Alts doesn't include 2D representations, i.e., they don't have permission from the car companies to use their products in a comic or television series.

about the only possibility i could see would be a Transformers:Evolutions mini series "based" on Alternators, but 'tweaked' enough to not infringe on the licenses, but even that seems unlikely, since they probably wouldn't want to piss off their licensers that way...

 

Alternators/Binaltech is pretty much a marketing-proof product. Without any comic or cartoon tie-in, how have Transformers traditionally fared in the marketplace?

No wonder BT has beed wiped from the Takara release schedule.

 

hasbro uk can't tell their arse from their elbow. they constantly mistreat the uk fanbase and then wonder why people import

 

what's boggled me is the lack of Print advertising for the lines: Car magazines, toy collector magazines, i mean, it's a line aimed squarely at the collector market, but with the exception of the Japanese Hobbyist magazines, it seems like they've just put it out there without a leg to stand on, marketing wise, beyond the Mazda promotion...

 

Agreed, you'd think if they were going to market something like this more towards the collectors and spend the high costs of getting legit licenses that they would work out more promotions like they did with Mazda.

I seriously doubt we'll see an Alternators comic... unless they went back and relicensed all of the cars with the agrement of 2D images involved... but that seems like it'd be more expensive and alot bigger hassle than it would be worth, because I don't think a comic book (which, lets face it, wouldn't be anywhere that people who already don't know about these things would be anywhere they could get it easily) would be very good advertisment. What would make more sense would be for them to use images of the transforming robot in a commercial or on thier websites... but Hasbro and Takara probably don't want to put out that kind of money... which is a shame.

 

Another point to consider is that car manufacturers would want to have a say in how "their" characters are being presented.

Here's a possible scene from an officially licensed Alternators comic:

Optimus Prime: "Oh no! Shockblast, Battle Ravage, Dead End, Swindle and Decepticharge are on the lose again and are stealing oil from a refinery! We must hurry up and save the humans they tied up inside! Autobots, transform and roll out!"
Meister: "Yeah, let's go! Zoom-Zoom!"
Grimlock: "Me Grimlock have to protect humans from evil Decepticons!"
Windcharger: "I will stay back at the base. You know how I hate to engage in combat."

...

 

Marketing is complicated by the fact of the licenses. I doubt Hasbro's marketing people know what to do with Alternators. Mazda will not dare allow their Shockblast figure to fight (and lose) to Dodge's Optimus Prime figure, in any fictional story. Ads in motor magazines, publications like Wizard and Toyfare, etc. should have been how this product is marketed. Plopping them down in a toy aisle with only fan hype can't be all they can do. Look at how fickle the fans are!