Well, I started with G1, and I love articulation as much as anybody. It's not the complexity at all. I don't care if something is easy as long as it's well proportioned and looks good, but most if not all of the one step changers from AOE look terrible in robot mode. You can have simplicity and a good lookin toy at the same time. The cyberjets, beast wars basics etc. If the AOE/RID one steps were more like that, it would be fine. I mean, AOE one step bumblebee, ugh...that's a robot?

Also, quality means quality....you mentioned power master prime. He might be a brick, but he's a well made high quality brick....I like Generations Jetfire a lot, but, as far as quality goes, given all of the hollowness and the lack of heft, he's almost just a facade of a robot. Compare that to, hmmm, Energon Galvatron...big, great plastic quality, solid.

 

-overstocking AoE junk figures (read: non-deluxe, -voyager, and -leader figures)
-low quality RID figures
-overusing molds for Combiner Wars

That's the way I see it. Hopefully 2016 looks a lot better with the newer molds being released.

 

Transformers are dying...

I mean they mostly rely on toys right now and when you have a store with little to nothing and the space is being given to Star Wars(An Overrated SciFi film) & WWE then thats bad. The only good thing is they are gettin creative with their Generations line but RiD is still focused on garbage that won't sell and they focus way to much on Autobots. Their media sucks too, not having a new cartoon on when kids can see it is stupid and comics, well unless your a comic fan the only way to get them is with the toys. Plus Hasbro relies way to much on the movies that everyone except people like me universally dislike and want Bay's head, so yeah this brand is slowly going to join the likes of G.I. Joe but I'll stay loyal till the end.

 

hahha..damn dude..

I went through all this and thats exactly what I came out with. Although personally I love the idea of getting a comic with the deluxes, I have always thought this was a poor idea...but thats just me.

 

The toys seem to be advertising the comic.

 

Not surprising. Cue Optimus Prime "augh" sequence from the Tru price match commercial.

 

well..Im not the twitter generation..I can tell you that.

I look at alot of this from a DAD point of view.

My kids will watch the RID show with me. But he has only wanted one or two toys from the line. Not since some of the really bad movie days have I seen SO MUCH damn brand new product just sitting on shelves everywhere..all kids of RID product..just..sitting.

From my perspective..CW moves..well..until the local collectors in the area get their fill..and then its stagnant product. Shame..I think CW is one of the best TF lines in alooong time too.

I keep my kids away from video games..but truth be told..the days of kids playing with chunks of plastic are dwindling. Im fairly active in my kids school..I coach ball..I KNOW these kids and this generation.
SO many parent use Video games as a babysitter, or dont grasp that its very controlling and think of it as harmless. its not..kids NEED toys..REAL toys for imagination and hand eye coordination..video games dont do the same thing.
When I go to lunch with my kids..the whole table talks MINECRAFT. Seriously. The whole...damn....table..of 15-20 kids.

This may sound stupid to some..but what Hasbro should do, is launch a "Hands ON" campaign of bombardment advertising across ALL time slots to get the word out "Hey..Give your kid a TOY..get them off the damn video game.." Bam..brand recognition..Then the debate comes up..people talk about it.

I can tell you this..EVERY parent I talk to, that has a kid 7 like my son, gets embarrassed as F%$# if people know "their" kid plays tons of video games. Noone wants to say it..its like a big secret..the kids dont give a shit..I ask em..

"Larry..you play alot of minecraft?"

-"Yup...I hurry and get my homework done and I play before dinner..then I hurry and eat..then I play til I go to bed.."

I think its not good for kids.

 

exactly. should be the other way around.

 

By kids, I mean my 10 year old brother and his host of friends, none of whom are the least bit interested in the toys(they like pokemon, minecraft, and terraria). This is in stark contrast to the ROTF era when my brother's Christmas list was pretty much exclusively Transformers. And by decline in quality, I mean: lack of paint apps, thinner plastic, smaller toys for more money and lack of usable articulation (CW Skydive can't even hold his own gun without his arm going all noodley).
As for the whole "G1 was simple" argument; I am a child of the G2-BW-RID-A/E/C generation and I don't really care for the older toys and neither do modern children accustomed to better engineering and interactivity in a toy. That, and while G1 toys were simple they were at least solidly built, detailed, and well-painted for the most part and, for the time they were designed, they were fairly impressive works of engineering, especially figures like G1 Sixshot and the combiners.

I showed my brother a RID toy recently and he said it "looked like it was for babies". I don't mean to come off like one of those fans who thinks Transformers is in its death throws, it's not, but sales are reflecting what kids and fans want and it's definitely not RID toys (which are the only ones on shelves locally) and it can't be CW because there is a bare spot at all of the local stores where the CW toys were supposed to be and 10-year-olds don't exactly shop online. Even if they were to shop online the scalper market has made purchasing Transformers incredibly difficult; look at Hasbro MP Starscream, the thing was online for all of a day and ended up popping up online for twice its retail price. Kids and fans actually have to be able to see a product to be able to purchase it, and if the product has such a small production line, how the hell are any but the richest of fans going to be able to get in on the market without constantly camping out on online toy stores, hoping that they'll get lucky enough to grab one?
Despite this decline in sales, Transformers is going to be alive and kicking for a long while, I just think we need to steer away from the cheap production that has plagued post Aaron Archer Transformers toys and get the line back in the hands of someone who is about more than the bottom line.

 

They said sales are UP for a non-movie year.

are you people all being willfully blind?

 

Perhaps they think the toy will advertise the comic, get kids hooked on the comics, then want more toys.




Yeah, typing that out does seem kinda bass ackwards.

 

I personally would like to see a comparison of this quarter to the same quarters going back the last several years.

 

Somehow the Transformers toys sales declining isn't all the surprising given the fact that the RID15 toy line is a bit unpopular, the Combiner Wars toy line has been mostly remolds, not to mention the stocking of the CW toy line has been a complete joke. I'm sure sales will pick up next year with Titans Return, given the toy line isn't 95% remolds and figures come out when they should.

 

Sales are down probably because they've pretty much priced their toys out of range for most kids. These are toys made for kids. And when they ask their parents for a TF toy, and the parents see the price for a hunk of plastic at these price points. Guess what their answer for a new toy would be.

 

This is actually, the first time in a long while, that i did not see the figures go on sale or clearance. I think the sales were down due to the left over AOE crap, the slowoving RID line, and the heromashers. But the CW line was flying off the shelves. I agree this is partly due to their distribution, it took my local stores 3-4 months just to get cw figs.

 

You're the one overlooking the actually important details:

What situation has it where a potentially inconsequential increase of sales of a questionable margin warrants overlooking the fact sales are down just over 33% anyway?

You do realize that the old period of $10 deluxes was purely artificial, right? General retailers like Target, Walmart, etc. took minor losses in selling those toys below MSRP by a few bucks as the difference could be negated by the sale of food in the same store. Due to inflation and rising costs of production AND product movement, they couldn't get away with the lower prices anymore. After all, prices haven't really changed everywhere such as TRU.

 

This isn't their first conference call. Do some digging.

because by all appearances this is what happens ANYWAY when they don't have a movie out?

 

Hasbro: sales are up!
Fandom: RARGLEGARBLE PROOF KIDS AND PARENTS ARE MORONS

---

Hasbro: Sales are down.
Fandom: RARGLEGARBLE PROOF HASBLOW ARE MORONS

Shine on you crazy diamonds!  

 

To be fair, no continuity has lasted for more than 3-5 years in the market. Except G1, but it's steady revamps and G1 releases packaged as "aligned".

And also Aligned as a general idea sucked, so it's good that they're letting the separate avenues do their own thing.

Parents don't even acknowledge repaints, they don't care unless they are collectors as well. I also saw a kid pick up the last lone FOC style Skywarp off the shelf the other day, demanding to have it. The shelves were clogged with RID stuff and he wanted a random repaint of a more established character, and the parents didn't even know he WAS a repaint. Kids get what they like, and parents placate their kids.

1. Absolutely agree, you always hedge your bets on the fast horse.

2. I made the comment back when those travesties were released that this was going to be a crash and burn of epic proportions, and I was right. However, I HAVE seen them make their way to clearance finally, so at least they aren't tying up pegs in there. What's REALLY tying up pegs in my area is older waves mysteriously coming back after they should have been purged. Knowing the patterns of the resellers in my area, I know why this is. They buy up whatever then can and try to flip for profit. What isn't moving is then exchanged for the new waves as they come in. Every reseller in my area has contacts with retailers or works for them in the first place, so they get to the waves before anyone.

As far as RID not moving, go look at the superhero toy aisle. Is it swimming with all the multiple Spider-Men? That's because kids don't feel the need to own the same character over and over. Having a green Spider-Man isn't the same as having a different Seeker, there's no appeal unless you're an OCD completionist, and they aren't the target demographic.

 

Actually, you know what the line needs? A Beast Wars revamp. Didn't BW bring back the franchise from oblivion? That's what I'm told. And the BW figs released in Generations/Universe all sold universally well, so it seems like a no brainer.


Which reminds me, I really need to snap a pic of those Rattrap figs that are still hanging on the peg at my local Walmart.