It's a plane (or whatever) and a robot and it combines with other robots (of my choosing, no less if they are indeed done Scramble City style).
It's perfect for kids. They collect things just like we do. The most popular things over the past couple decades have been things like Pokémon and Bakugan, all of which are collectible (gotta catch em' all and all that) and are supposedly made better by owning more of them because of their gimmicks.
If kids do catch on to the TF combiners, they'll probably be all over them. And of course, there's the rather large (and growing) market of 'grown up kids' in their 20's and 30's (like most of those who hang out on sites like this) who are currently driving nearly the entire market for popular culture. The biggest films and franchises are all 'geek' things now. Marvel/Avengers, Transformers (obviously), Batman/Superman/DC, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
If these don't sell to the kids, we'll buy em'. The same happened with Bruticus (all versions of it). If it had done poorly, Has/Tak wouldn't be doing these, and if the market for it didn't exist in sufficient numbers, the 3rd parties wouldn't be doing them either. Has/Tak are paying attention to what's going on in the market, including the adult collectors' market so they'll sell a ton of these to adult collectors, some of them to actual children, and if it catches on with kids they'll sell a ton more to actual children.
Besides that, I don't see what else they could do with this line. They've covered nearly every major character in the franchise from G1 and many characters since (Beast Wars etc.) so doing the combiners (finally) is not only expected and understandable, but some would argue long overdue. They just had to figure out a way to make them fit the current price points and (hopefully) look/function up to the standards of the collectors. Whether or not they've accomplished that last part is a matter of opinion. I like them OK, but I do see issues with them, but I will still most likely be buying them just to see them for myself and mess with different configurations and (mis)transformations to see if I can't work out some decent looking combined modes. And naturally the 3rd parties will jump on the boat to make add-on kits/additional/replacement team members to make them look 'more G1'.
I don't think the Generations line is in any trouble. If anything, I think it's going to thrive in the coming months/years at the rate they're going. Nearly every reveal so far has been for something that's been highly anticipated by the collector market (Arcee, Combiners, Chromia, a new Megatron that isn't a 'Nerf' gun, 'G1' looking minibots and Insecticons, a real Headmaster etc.).
I think Has/Tak are making excellent decisions with this line and are giving the fans things they've been asking for for a very long time and I believe that it will pay off. There are plenty of adult collectors who won't pay 3rd party prices or won't buy them based on principle but will shell out the $ to own these toys and there are some, like myself, who do buy tons of 3rd party stuff but will still buy these just to see what they're about and because many of the new offerings actually meet or exceed our expectations from anyone (including 3rd parties).
But I guess we'll just have to give it a year or two and see. If Has/Tak don't run out of characters and gimmicks to resurrect (which shouldn't be a problem) or existing characters they've already done that could use a 'refresh' or update (like Prime, Megatron, Skyfire/Jetfire etc.) (again, they shouldn't) and they just kill the line entirely and stick to doing 'show' figures and 'movie' figures then I guess we'll know that these decisions were in error, but until then it's full speed ahead and gimme those toys
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