GIMMIE!!! NOW!!!! Love it. Agreed the painted silver would've looked better, but this is nice. My poor Skids is now hipless and trapped in his vehicle mode (G1 Accurate!!!) so I have a perfect reason to own the mold again. Just hope I can get my hands on him
JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:One question: do his hip joints look misassembled to you guys?
Yes, I an see the vents that are blocking his legs from moving against his pelvic
megatronus wrote:LordTwann wrote:megatronus wrote:T-Macksimus wrote:I give the figure itself a solid A+ and I give Hasbro a heart-felt F-U.
I'm not sure why you blame Hasbro for this - they want you to buy the figure just as much as you do. Fault with poor distribution likely falls on the brick & mortar retailers.
I could be wrong in what I'm about to say because I don't know everything. Just a preface, and I will gladly be corrected if/when I'm wrong.
I get why the primary problem with the figure distribution is with retailers. However, Hasbro does operate their own storefront in Hasbrotoyshop.com. If it's simply a problem with retailers not ordering the figures I don't get why Hasbro isn't selling the figures on their own site. Also it stands to reason that if hasbro is sitting on a backlog of figures why can't online retailers like BBTS and others get stock in? From an outsider position the most logical conclusion is that hasbro vastly underproduced the figures. Again there may be things I don't understand about retail business and distribution, and there may be information I don't have, but there again Hasbro is being pretty tight lipped about it.
Just because Hasbro operates their own dinky site doesn't mean they would overproduce figures just to sell on said site. If Hasbro operates like a traditional producer of goods, and I suspect they do, chances are they're going to take the hard orders from retailers/distributors, reconcile those with Hasbro's internal forecasts, and then produce a certain number of figures based on those numbers. BBTS may order a large quantity, but I would wager that their order pales in comparison to TRU, Target, etc. Orders are probably solicited up to 6 months in advance of product hitting shelves.
Obviously, the predicted number of figures needed doesn't always jive with the reality - sometimes Hasbro will overproduce based on predicted demand, and sometime they underproduce. And it sucks because a lot of the predicted demand likely comes, as I've speculated, from retailers' orders, which are in turn based on historical trends and seasonality. One of the reasons I personally think the Waspinator/Goldfire/Skids/Dreadwing wave was underproduced is due to it releasing after the New Year, when toy sales are historically down; retailers probably didn't order as many as they could have. And it's hard to say that Hasbro should have known 6 months in advance that this wave would be as popular as it was.
I'm sure I sound like a Hasbro apologist. I'm not trying to be, and Hasbro certainly shoulders some responsibility, but statements along the lines of "Y U HATE US HAZBRO!!!" annoy the hell out of me. The world is more complicated than people like to think.
LordTwann wrote:Just calling it like I see it, and the best I can tell from the information presented me, Hasbro really screwed the pooch. Who knows maybe it'll be like Blaster was last year and we'll see tons of them hit stores in August, but Hasbro sure isn't talking.
First you say Hasbro is tight-lipped and now you say information was presented to you... what information?
LordTwann wrote:On a side note this all just supports what I've been saying for a while now. Hasbro should adopt a subscription model for the generations line (and possibly the masterpiece line as well) like the Masters of the Universe toys. You subscribe for a year and get all the released figures, then there are a number produced beyond that which people can pick up in stores or online. That way the collectors never miss a figure.
That actually sounds like a great idea.
First off, Megatronus
for being an honset realist. Just want you to know that its appreciated you putting your neck out.
As to the last part: The subscripoion idea is great until A) you realize that the TF Club is doing one that so many people lambast, and 2) the Generations line isn't soley a collectors's market, at least not in the way that "Scourge" was, or Circuit or being back the Big Convoy mold. Sure, Crosscut's a niche character, but Armada Starscream is as much being marketed to kids who like fast looking jets as he is to his Armada fans. Half the current Generations line is comic book characters anyway, dudes that IDW is promoting. Just because Skids and Swerve and Tailgate are 1986 characters, their being protrayedin comics that children and young adults are reading RIGHT NOW. That makes them mainstream characters. And while I would love a guarenteed way to get these toys, especially Crosscut who I now have a Botcon Tracks and a repainted motorcycle minicon waiting for him, Hasbro is not gonna undersell their clients, the big box stores, on mainstream toys. And I don't know this for sure, but I'd bet someone else's money that the HTS site is Hasbro's internal liquidation. Things go up for sale after the stores get their orders, and may show up earlier than the sotres because of distribuion times, bu the stock is limited and not wasting space in a Hasbro warehouse. And the limited excess is Hasbro getting around not underselling a clientelle.
What is being rpoposed by LordTwann would and could certainly work, and maybe even work better than the Club program (although again, they're releasing figures ((Excess replacement stock)) that are also being sold through THEIR store, so arguably its the same system just not being supported by good logistics.) just not with this pool of characters within the Generations line.
The good news: All the pegs in the stores around me are empty, so the new Generations wave will go up almost immediately, so now its just a matter of time mking sure it gets out, and that I get to my Crosscut before someone else does.
Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2014 4:43 pm
Sort of. While it's a nice repaint and I'm not saying it's a waste, I won't be buying it because the character is of no consequence to me. I am impressed by the shade of silver plastic they used though, it looks a little nicer than a lot of past silver toys. Nice head mold too. 
