T-Macksimus wrote:Metrosuplex wrote:Mindmaster wrote:The rest of them... urgh, Hasbro's pulling a Microsoft and shooting themselves in the foot with those simplified Deluxes and Voyagers.
This is actually a natural move on Hasbro's part. Have you seen the Iron Man 3 figures? They're simplified - no elbow or knee joints.
I look at it as Hasbro reducing production costs in order to keep the toy prices where they are and/or lowering costs overall to improve corporate profitability.
When you think about it, this simplification of Deluxes (from Legions) is the optimal solution (versus replacing TF's with Kreon's or Bot-shot non-transforming figures).
Furthermore, I'd be interested to see how the intended audience (children) react to these new deluxes. For some reason, I predict a positive reaction - when I was a kid, posability wasn't the priority (and just look at the G1 figures' posability!).
If you're from the same age range as me then posability wasn't an issue because we had 5 points of articulation on our classic Star Wars figures and we were happy as pigs in slop! We didn't know any better. The pinnacle of posability was the original 12" 1960's G.I. Joe figures and those were a rarity by the time our generation started messing with TF's and while Micro-Man figures were great for flexibility, they were not very common in all areas and they were rather fragile and certainly not suitable for any kid under 10 years of age if you wanted them to last more than 30 seconds.
While I admire your optimism and can certainly see a certain logic behind Hasbro's move, I think they are not properly gauging the reaction of the kids. Their strategy is only going to win over the 7 and under crowd. Any kid older than that is going to say "Screw this!" and lose interest in the first minute. It's still the ADD generation, the generation that HAS to have something "over the top" to hold their attention for more than 5 minutes and doesn't give 2 shits that mom and dad can't afford it. Whatever Habro's reason for making this move, I'm not buying that it's for any desire to get back to basics or that it is strictly a cost issue either and I certainly don't harbor any illusions that they are going to drop their prices back to what they were a few years ago. No, we are going to get less product...again... and get the price raised on us... again!
I have to agree with what you said that 30 years ago, "we didn't know any better." But it's 30 years later and we sure as hell do know better now and those simplified deluxes are not better. Especially since the retail price is going to be the same as deluxes that have more articulation. Perhaps at $9.99. As for simpler transformation, isn't that why the Transformers Rescue Bots line was introduced?
We, the hardcore fans, the ones that fork over huge amounts of money at Botcon and SDCC and the like are the ones that Hasbro/Takara need to remember. We have been waiting for 30 years for Springer, Blitzwing, and Sandstorm to finally be Triplechangers again and with more articulation. We want more articulation of our old favorites for the money. Otherwise they might as well re-issue more re-issues.
And we love our combiners! Hasbro/Takara finally listened to us hardcore, diehard fans and made a combiner. Unfortunately they didn't listen very well and thus made our beloved Terrorcons in Cyberverse size. Then they heard us again, "How cool would these new Terror/Predacons be if they were deluxe size." And unfortunately once again, Hasbro/Takara didn't listen very well and decided to just upscale the same Cyberverse figures into Deluxe size without all that great articulation. Are we going to have to wait another 30 years for Hasbro/Takara to finally get this right? I really hope not. Thank goodness for 3rd Party companies, right?
But honestly, I will probably buy the Terror/Predacons of the simplified Deluxe line, despite the much needed multiple points of articulation. It'll be cool to have an Abominous in Deluxe size, even with the lack of multiple points of articulation. And yes, I do believe all five of these guys can join together just like their Cyberverse Legion counterparts, once the other three are released in simplified Deluxe size. However, I do foresee the simplified deluxe of Bumblebee (ugh, another one) and Smokescreen being peg warmers. Thus, in time, the pegs will be full of them only, keeping the stores from ordering the next waves that will most likely contain the remaining Terror/Predacons needed to combine to form Abominous. In which case I say, thank goodness for
www.hasbrotoyshop.com.