G1 had metal,paint,chrome,and was a nice price of about 10$(deluxe)
Then they went to plastic,paint,and chrome. Beast Wars though, started using the plastic colored molds with paint aps with little chrome. Now lets skip to armada, NO chrome and very little paint aps. Skipping to classics, they were nice, but had No chrome, were very small, and had a few more dollars tacted on. ROTF has almost no paint aps on there figures,making a kick-ass figure bland, my point is plastic and materials isn't as handy as it used to, prices go up and up, making us pay more and more with lesser quality. Not all characters have this problem like universe Inferno and Cyclonus, the point is the dallor is begining to be worth less and less, so how much are you willing to spend on a deluxe?

 

If the dollar is being worth less and less, wouldn't tfs be a better and better deal if their price stays roughly equivalent? A deluxe nowadays is like 14 dollars, and is substantially larger than the original Autobot cars in most cases. Corrected for inflation (using the CPI from 1984 and 2008, respectively), a deluxe SHOULD cost 20.09 right now.

Furthermore, are you implying that paint, chrome, and metal are inherently representative of "quality"? Because today's tfs often have more paint decos than the average G1 figure, which relied heavily on stickers. Also, metal parts raise the cost, as metal casting is more difficult and expensive, and doesn't always work out due to its weight and cost (case in point: Titanium). And chrome? Chrome is a personal choice: some people like it, some people find it gaudy and don't like that it scratches or flakes. Look at Henkei Galvatron.

Plastic and materials are just as handy as they used to be, although as oil prices have gone up, so has the cost of plastic. I think every generation of transformers has had its own production issues, especially due to the increased complexity of designs, but the irony here is that in complaining that you want tfs for the absolute minimum price, you encourage a system where low costs must be maintained, leading to a sacrifice in quality.

 

I personally think 13 dollars/pounds whatever is too much for a deluxe. This is mainly due to the quality of the 'modern' figures.

It's strange when in a lot of stores you often see the voyagers go on clearance to a price about the same as the deluxes next to them on the shelves.

But I digress.

To me, quality is in materials and quality control. Something Hasbro has been well known for skimping on. I like chrome as much as the next guy, but make it appropriate. Some of the henkeis are almost OTT but the classics look drab and cheap by comparison, IMO anyway.

Generally, if prices and quality stay the same or better but NO worse, then we should be ok for the future. I think some of the new engineering and designs though, really make some figures worth their price tag.

 

I think we've been spoiled by some kick-ass toys in the recent years, and now everyone expects everything to be a Masterpiece at Scout prices.

 

I think in the future toys will be reasonably fine at a reasonable price, and people will make sweeping general statements about toy trends and quality that sound like they might be true, but are quite inaccurate when subjected to scrutiny.

 

This. It seems that every other field except Transformers has made major improvements in quality. Mind you, I still do like MasterPiece. Fans keep on demanding the highest quality money can buy. What's going to happen when Hasbro can't meet their Fan's expectations when it comes to the toys?

 

Bull. Shit. Hell, look at GI Joe. They're still using some of the same molds from 25 years ago as mainline releases.

 

When Hasbro can't meet fan expectations, then only children will buy transformers. The end result will be surprisingly unimpressive.

Transformers HAVE made improvements in quality. The increase in detail on a figure, articulation, features, etc. all represent an increase in complexity and an increased risk of manufacturing issues. Without an accompanying increase in "quality" (by which I asssume you mean manufacturing precision and accuracy), you'd have transformers today that make the worst knockoffs look good.

 

But thats what I mean, if you sacrifice one thing you have a new problem but fix the old one. if a deluxe had amazing henki quality (excluding the chrome issues) they would cost a shit load in the U.S./UK so if they scimped out on quality to miantane price they'd cause another problem.

 

Is this what you're talking about? Because my Henkei toys are the same quality as my Classics toys. I think the only reason Henkeis cost so much are due to import prices, the low Dollar to Yen conversion rate, and how much Henkei Deluxes cost in Japan, not the quality. The plastic feels the same to me and the QC is fine on both ends.

 

I can't believe someone still thinks Henkei are better quality. Have these people never read a review of Henkei Thundercracker?

 

It'll improve, as it has for the past 25+ years.

BTW, the thread title makes it seem like you're asking someone from the future to tell you.

 

I think the articulation has improved a lot over years in almost all cases. As far as detail goes, I think wave 1 g1 (or diaclone if you want) was more about the vehicle mode looking like a real scale model of a production vehicle, with the alt mode being secondary. Now there is more of a balance, except that in most cases, the vehicles are completely made up when compared to wave 1 g1.
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