Seibertron.com Energon Pub Forums

Yeah true lol
Toysrus are scalpers
Except for mp starscream still $60 lol

Hasbro needs to start doing the toys from better quality plastic with better quality of detail.Remember the TF toys from first two movies. Way better plastic,way better quality of work and engineering . Toys like Human Alliance, Leader class OP, Starscream, Ironhide made me excited. The crap they putting on the shelf nowadays is hard even look at!

Kapiko Customs wrote:Hasbro needs to start doing the toys from better quality plastic with better quality of detail.Remember the TF toys from first two movies. Way better plastic,way better quality of work and engineering . Toys like Human Alliance, Leader class OP, Starscream, Ironhide made me excited. The crap they putting on the shelf nowadays is hard even look at!

I can do ya one better, remember the quality of the figures in the golden age of the Cyberton line, now that is a disparity, compare 'leader' magnus to cybertron o/p and you will have yourself a severe case of depression.

Hellscream9999 wrote:

Kapiko Customs wrote:Hasbro needs to start doing the toys from better quality plastic with better quality of detail.Remember the TF toys from first two movies. Way better plastic,way better quality of work and engineering . Toys like Human Alliance, Leader class OP, Starscream, Ironhide made me excited. The crap they putting on the shelf nowadays is hard even look at!

I can do ya one better, remember the quality of the figures in the golden age of the Cyberton line, now that is a disparity, compare 'leader' magnus to cybertron o/p and you will have yourself a severe case of depression.

^this...so much this. We had it even better before the movies took hold.

SkyWarpt wrote:

Hellscream9999 wrote:

Kapiko Customs wrote:Hasbro needs to start doing the toys from better quality plastic with better quality of detail.Remember the TF toys from first two movies. Way better plastic,way better quality of work and engineering . Toys like Human Alliance, Leader class OP, Starscream, Ironhide made me excited. The crap they putting on the shelf nowadays is hard even look at!

I can do ya one better, remember the quality of the figures in the golden age of the Cyberton line, now that is a disparity, compare 'leader' magnus to cybertron o/p and you will have yourself a severe case of depression.

^this...so much this. We had it even better before the movies took hold.

Yup, the great golden age of tf toys.

Maybe sales wouldn't be lower if they actually managed to get products into stores.

Optimum Supreme wrote:Maybe sales wouldn't be lower if they actually managed to get products into stores.

Yup, that is the problem they need to address now.

Hellscream9999 wrote:
Yup, the great golden age of tf toys.

And we only had to endure one Armada Sideswipe mold released like 10 times to get there!

cruizerdave wrote:

Hellscream9999 wrote:
Yup, the great golden age of tf toys.

And we only had to endure one Armada Sideswipe mold released like 10 times to get there!

Certainly more versions than we deserved; but on balance, I would say that it was worth it.

Yeah, in seriousness, there does seem to have been a dip in toy quality the last few years, especially in the larger size classes. I mean Generations Jetfire was a hollow beast, and felt like a knockoff. Compared with some of the stuff from the era you're talking about, it was a bit of a let down for sure.

cruizerdave wrote:Yeah, in seriousness, there does seem to have been a dip in toy quality the last few years, especially in the larger size classes. I mean Generations Jetfire was a hollow beast, and felt like a knockoff. Compared with some of the stuff from the era you're talking about, it was a bit of a let down for sure.

Tell me about it the plastic on ultra magnus was so flimsy, his leg mechanism broke - in both legs - on two separate figures. I felt like I could snap the side panels with my fingers, there is no way I'd pay that price for a 'leader' class figure of that quality and substance

Hellscream9999 wrote:

cruizerdave wrote:Yeah, in seriousness, there does seem to have been a dip in toy quality the last few years, especially in the larger size classes. I mean Generations Jetfire was a hollow beast, and felt like a knockoff. Compared with some of the stuff from the era you're talking about, it was a bit of a let down for sure.

Tell me about it the plastic on ultra magnus was so flimsy, his leg mechanism broke - in both legs - on two separate figures. I felt like I could snap the side panels with my fingers, there is no way I'd pay that price for a 'leader' class figure of that quality and substance

The hollow parts are kind of annoying. Especially in Jetfire plus the exposed non jointed fists. Wished it could have been done where you can fold them in and include some finger grip like UM.

As for the strength of the plastics.....I'm with you there kimosabe! But in my case, it took like almost 10 years before my Takara GodGinrai re-issue circa 2003 started to crumble for no reason.

Today, they break right off the bat.

For a brief period a few years ago Marvel 3.75" made by Hasbro had reasonable articulation characters that interested me and OK likeness.

Then they decided to up the price and lower the articulation not long after they vanished. - but it seems that was a choice on the part of Hasbro UK to not sell so many of the ones made for the US market in the UK. now I look at the Marvel brands now and maybe once a year something shows up if you are lucky. Prices have effectively doubled in that time.

So what do I see now with Transformers - I see them dropping key products - products that appeal in MUCH of the high profile advertising (I'm talking Motormaster & The Stunticons here) so Hasbro can't easily use a version of those adverts in the UK as the product in them isn't for sale.

Not unlike Marvel of a few years ago they "Decided" to not sell it and soon after we had brand collapse. just look at the sales Figures for toys related to Age of Extinction - no where near as good as Hasbro would have hoped on the back of a Billion Dollar+ movie.
And guess what they also "decided" not to sell the AOE mainline & Generations in the UK except in the TRU - who barely bothered to stock it.

Transformers Movie make a lot of Money too - so am I concerned - yes I am I'm worried that Retailers and Manufactures are not communicating well - I'm worried that no one seems to have a clue about toy brand maintenance these days - unless that brand is some Disney things or Lego.

Hasbro are either not caring or not admitting that RID is doing very very very poorly indeed by any standard - at least Transformers Animated was something people seemed to feel strongly about one way of the other - RID just seems to be greeted with indifference - RescueBots soldiers on with little support and still manages to do OK despite that.

Ultimately I don't really know where to lay the blame - but my gut feeling is it's a perfect storm of incompetence - of the sort that lead Mattel to effectively supersonic nose dive their entire Boys Toys division (bar Hotwheels) into the ground.

Titan's Returns Look OK - but maybe that is because it's comparatively better than some of the gosh awful garbage they've made since DOTM & Prime ended.

But I tell you what I have noticed a lot lately and that is a lot of people are raising their hands and saying things like "Remember ROTF - ah those were the good ol' days".

If Movie toys are the good ol' day and is becoming the consensus high water mark something is wrong with this brand toys should be getting worse than once made 6 Years ago !!!

Give a bit more of this AOE level of mediocrity the Good ol' days is likely going to be having G2 look like a high point too.

But then I'm being unreasonable here : as I want someone to have some sort of plan that doesn't involve toys getting worse & more expensive at the same time.

That the whole Transformers brand in a non-movie year in the UK has not suffered complete collapse is some sort of minor miracle.

But then despite their legendary ineptitude even Hasbro UK can't be blamed for not selling some of the products central to their entire Combiner Wars advertising push - as it was Hasbro INC who stopped them from selling that product as they didn't want to pay to have European packaging made (despite it being perfectly legal to sell the similar Canadian version with an extra address sticker stuck on the box).

The UK is saturated with flippin' Protectobots good luck finding anything else. the RID got mostly clearanced and replaced by Star Wars toys many of the main retailers of the brand have reduced their online offering from 30+ to less than 5 items (i.e ASDA).

Then the really bizarre distribution isn't just Transformers my local asda cleared a lot of toys - right I thought I bet they gets Star Wars stuff in - nope they decided that they bizarrely are going to stock all the Jurassic World things they can lay a paw on and then even more bizarrely mark the Force Awakens Lego as end of line before the Movie is even out.

So yes Distribution is pretty f'ed up but I can't blame Hasbro for all of that - but when I did make some inquiries to ASDA they actually told me the reason they don't have any Transformers is they can't actually get the orders filled when they requested them and they were not able to restock what they previously had either. In short they wanted to stock them again and couldn't get them, that I 'can' blame Hasbro UK for.

RAR wrote:Said lots of stuff

From what I hear, talking to many, many employee's and manager's from target and wal-mart about re-stocking figures, they seem to view all tf's as one brand, unlike lego which treats all it's line's and subline's as individual line's - so if they run out of, say, bionicle, they can call up and ask for an assortment of bionicle, and bam, a case of bionicle shows up - whereas when they run out of, say, cw figures, they don't do anything since all tf's are treated like a single entity, they won't ask for a restock until the total product is below ~50%. Which means that the shelfwarming easy-crap bricks and shampoo bottles, and any other crap people don't want actually are hurting the brand.

Further proof that target doesn't distinguish figures is that all deluxes, voyagers, and leader figures share product codes, so the site may say they have starscream at your location, when in actuality, it could be a bunch of armada megatrons - the store has a bunch of 'leader' figs, which then gets represented as them having every leader figure in stock.

So what this all boils down to is: hasbro has to iron out the kinks in their distribution pipeline. The distribution problems are unacceptable, unforgivable, and hurting business and the brand itself; I see no other major brand suffering from poor stock like transformers.

Hellscream9999 wrote:

RAR wrote:Said lots of stuff

From what I hear, talking to many, many employee's and manager's from target and wal-mart about re-stocking figures, they seem to view all tf's as one brand, unlike lego which treats all it's line's and subline's as individual line's ... transformers.

That makes a lot of sense. I see plenty of RID stuff on the shelf along with about 10 of the Leader Class Megatrons, and nothing else from CW.

Hmm I always thought 3 Step Changers AOE Power Attackers and Titan Heroes 12" Figures were more trouble than they were worth.
If they are blocking the stocking of toys that actually sell better then that is just depressing.

RAR wrote:Hmm I always thought 3 Step Changers AOE Power Attackers and Titan Heroes 12" Figures were more trouble than they were worth.
If they are blocking the stocking of toys that actually sell better then that is just depressing.

They can if there is a large excess of them; but I think many retailers have realized that the shampoo bottles are a guaranteed loss of profits, as many have cut way down on the amount they stock.

Guess what Hasbro's most profitable product line is? Those Titan thingies. They cost them pennies. The supply chain could be arranged to where they sold the large ones to you for $1 upon release and they'd probably still be a money maker.

They aren't going anywhere with those margins, for the Transformers line or others that have them (Marvel, etc).

Full disclosure: my source is hearsay from people that should know. I have no empirical evidence to support this statement if pressed on it

ScottyP wrote:Guess what Hasbro's most profitable product line is? Those Titan thingies. They cost them pennies. The supply chain could be arranged to where they sold the large ones to you for $1 upon release and they'd probably still be a money maker.

They aren't going anywhere with those margins, for the Transformers line or others that have them (Marvel, etc).

Full disclosure: my source is hearsay from people that should know. I have no empirical evidence to support this statement if pressed on it

I don't doubt it. They cost nothing to engineer, they use cheap plastic, simplistic paint applications and they can charge $10 to $20 for them. They're bought up by the thousands by clueless Grandmas who just see an Optimus Prime that's big for $15. The kids get these things, when they were hoping for the $30 Optimus Prime that was smaller. They get depressed, and then give up on toys altogether and start playing with footballs, video games and pornography.

cruizerdave wrote:The kids get these things, when they were hoping for the $30 Optimus Prime that was smaller. They get depressed, and then give up on toys altogether and start playing with footballs, video games and pornography.

I think that's just called "puberty".

ScottyP wrote:

cruizerdave wrote:The kids get these things, when they were hoping for the $30 Optimus Prime that was smaller. They get depressed, and then give up on toys altogether and start playing with footballs, video games and pornography.

I think that's just called "puberty".

I wouldn't blame them, those things are insulting

ScottyP wrote:

cruizerdave wrote:The kids get these things, when they were hoping for the $30 Optimus Prime that was smaller. They get depressed, and then give up on toys altogether and start playing with footballs, video games and pornography.

I think that's just called "puberty".

You just blew my mind.

I remember going into puberty about the time Action Masters were released. Could substandard Transformers figures be the key trigger for puberty in American males?

cruizerdave wrote:

ScottyP wrote:

cruizerdave wrote:The kids get these things, when they were hoping for the $30 Optimus Prime that was smaller. They get depressed, and then give up on toys altogether and start playing with footballs, video games and pornography.

I think that's just called "puberty".

You just blew my mind.

I remember going into puberty about the time Action Masters were released. Could substandard Transformers figures be the key trigger for puberty in American males?

Probably, I remember armada was loitering around about that time for me