New Transformers Power of the Primes Display Found at Wal-Mart

^That's a beautiful display, typical of Walmart

So you're supposed to attach the spare fists to the back of the feet like heels, but you're also supposed to attach them to the sides of Valcanicus to fill out his torso? Didn't really think this all the way through, did you Hasbro?

Going to have to keep an eye out for those displays. We've all been watching the pegs, but I guess it's the main aisle ways we should be watching.

Emerje

I kid earlier, but I'm just glad we're seeing new product at all. In years past I've seen entire toy aisles wiped out by Black Friday. Not so this year. There's till plenty of TLK, and some stores still have a glut of TR Wave 4 repack deluxes (ugh...) . Not that I wanted anything from wave 5 or 6 (except Ramhorn...) But I guess I can pretty much resign looking for them. May have to bite the bullet and purchase Ramhorn on BBTS (well the whole assortment) for $20, and just get whatever I can back by reselling the ones I already have.

I'm still going to hope for Monstructor in Wave 5-6...

o.supreme wrote:I kid earlier, but I'm just glad we're seeing new product at all. In years past I've seen entire toy aisles wiped out by Black Friday. Not so this year. There's till plenty of TLK, and some stores still have a glut of TR Wave 4 repack deluxes (ugh...) . Not that I wanted anything from wave 5 or 6 (except Ramhorn...) But I guess I can pretty much resign looking for them. May have to bite the bullet and purchase Ramhorn on BBTS (well the whole assortment) for $20, and just get whatever I can back by reselling the ones I already have.

Entertainment Earth is another option for Ramhorn if you only want Ramhorn. Just no clue how much longer he is going to take from there. Currently says Jan 2018.

Skritz wrote:I'm still going to hope for Monstructor in Wave 5-6...

You and me both. No reason to doubt at this point. Still may be some surprises. With CW Hasbro released several box sets (though in the US most were only available online...). For TR there were 2 box sets, bot sold exclusively through 2 different retailers (TRU & BBTS...).

Predaking next year will be odd...Normally I'd say for US residents you cojld probably get it in store at TRU, but depending on TRU's financial outlook it may be available only online at TRU.com and HTS.com... But I'm hoping for a couple of other box sets from PotP either late in 2018, or early in 2019.

o.supreme wrote:Hasbro did try to purchase TT recently,

That was just speculation on a possible purchase, there wasn't an insider source or anything official said.

I think steals_your_goats has the right idea. Takara Tomy usually doesn't do a lot of lines simultaneously and they seem to have a lot planned for next year. Besides the stuff he mentioned (Legends is probably going on break after Grand Maximus and Great Shot) there's also the theorized return of Unite Warriors (for the Dinobots, Terrorcons, and the G1 Fembots if they manage a full set) and who knows what other exclusives they have planned (maybe a premium PotP Optimus?). It isn't very surprising that they'd let Hasbro take the lead on these rather than develop new paint schemes. And in hindsight this actually does a lot to explain why so many of these figures are cartoon accurate (Orion Pax and blue Swoop) when Hasbro had been going for G1 toy accuracy for a while.

Also, if this isn't proof that higher quality paint also means a higher price I don't know what is.

Emerje

Emerje wrote:So you're supposed to attach the spare fists to the back of the feet like heels, but you're also supposed to attach them to the sides of Valcanicus to fill out his torso? Didn't really think this all the way through, did you Hasbro?

Why not both? First you attach the extra hands to the heels. Next you bend the legs upward like a pretzel and also attach them to the torso. Now you have Volcontortionisticus!

when you buy the Grimstone and Paddles retools of Sludge and Slag... you'l have the extra fists to go in all spots

Actually, I'm thinking they had to go with the combiner foot option for the extra hands for Inferno, since it looks like they are only giving him a new head and not any other retooling.

I thought his chest was retooled as well? If that's the only difference, will make for an easy G2 Hot Spot with a head swap. Anyone seen pictures of Inferno anywhere?

So here's Grimlock's enigma on Titans Return Nitro and Titans Return Cogman. Head doesn't turn!

Bronzewolf wrote:The newest Transformers you'll be, Power of the Primes has been slowly trickling it's way into mass retail stores. For quite a while now, the figures had only been seen at Target, but now we have proof that they're making their way to other big box stores! Our very own ScottyP sent a brand new sighting our direction, not of a figure, but of a new store display!
The display comes from a Wal-Mart in North Carolina, and features various stocking stuffer toys. Among them Lego Polybags, Nerf Darts, and POTP Legend Class Figures! With a price tag of $9.94, this is one of the first times these figures have been spotted at a non-Target store, and certainly the first time we've seen this display! This will hopefully make it easier for collectors and fans to fond the highly coveted figures! Check out the provided image of the display below!

Lol... "Display"

albnok wrote:

trheads.jpg

So here's Grimlock's enigma on Titans Return Nitro and Titans Return Cogman. Head doesn't turn!

Dude! Yeah! Never gonna find me a Cogman, though.

gothsaurus wrote:I thought his chest was retooled as well? If that's the only difference, will make for an easy G2 Hot Spot with a head swap. Anyone seen pictures of Inferno anywhere?

We really don't know. The only two pics we've seen are from around the time of the leak so it's hard to say if what we've seen is the final product or a mock up since it's likely the head sculpt already existed with the mold and it wouldn't have taken much to produce an unfinished Inferno to show off to buyers. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me to have a whole play feature that involves sticking an Enigma into the chest of combiners and then use a figure that doesn't have that feature as one of your few offerings. With the amount of retooling they put into the PM jets why wouldn't they try to improve Inferno, too? Really just a matter of altering the center of Defensor's chest, doesn't seem that complicated.

Emerje

Emerje wrote:

gothsaurus wrote:I thought his chest was retooled as well? If that's the only difference, will make for an easy G2 Hot Spot with a head swap. Anyone seen pictures of Inferno anywhere?

We really don't know. The only two pics we've seen are from around the time of the leak so it's hard to say if what we've seen is the final product or a mock up since it's likely the head sculpt already existed with the mold and it wouldn't have taken much to produce an unfinished Inferno to show off to buyers. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me to have a whole play feature that involves sticking an Enigma into the chest of combiners and then use a figure that doesn't have that feature as one of your few offerings. With the amount of retooling they put into the PM jets why wouldn't they try to improve Inferno, too? Really just a matter of altering the center of Defensor's chest, doesn't seem that complicated.

Emerje

I'm not sure we even saw any photos of the actual product or even a mockup. Rather, I though all we've seen so far were the box art and a portion of the instructions. What we do know is that they didn't retool the arms to be able to accept the combiner feet as bucklers, rather, they have you combine the feet with the regular Hot Spot guns to make bigger (and worse looking) guns. From the box art/instructions, the chest area of the combiner torso looked pretty much identical to Defensor.

As for modifying it to include the gimmick, that may actually be a bit difficult, depending on how deep it would need to sit. Remember that the area of the combiner torso where the matrix would go is formed from 2 different pars of Inferno, the ladder and the main body of the bot/fire truck. Not impossible, but not an easy change either.

Alas - no voyagers yet...

I'm guessing in this case, they will just expect kids to insert an enigma into the hands/feet... no retooling done to the mold. Just my gut feel.

This looks SOOOOOOO much better! Thats's a BEAUTIFUL fan mode. May have to try it myself when I get these guys.

I'm okay with this turn of events. It means I can buy the Prime Masters, the Legends Class, and the Leader Class figures for Power of the Primes from Hasbro, for significantly less money, and significantly sooner than Takara's versions will be available. I'm still going to TRY to hold off on getting the Dinobots until we know what Takara plans to do with them and other upcoming proper combiner teams, thought it's gonna be REALLY tough be patient. I want me some cartoon accurate blue eyes for the Dinobots and red helmets for Slag and Swoop, though! Please make it happen, TakaraQ!

All in all, Hasbro has done a very good job so far with the Power of the Primes in terms of design, sculpting, and deco choices. There's not much to improve on Takara's end, except for the damned stickers on the Voyager and Leader figures. We don't have a situation like with Titans Return where Takara needed to change almost all of the face sculpts because of art style and animation differences between The Transformers season 4 and the separate Headmasters anime. It makes sense for Takara to turn some of the PotP stuff into an "overseas" import line, especially if they can't cram the characters and gimmicks into their already unbelievably bloated G1 timeline and extended narrative. I suspect the majority of Deluxe class and Voyager class stuff will be in a revived Unite Warriors line, with deco changes.

Bronzewolf wrote:The newest Transformers you'll be, Power of the Primes has been slowly trickling it's way into mass retail stores. For quite a while now, the figures had only been seen at Target, but now we have proof that they're making their way to other big box stores! Our very own ScottyP sent a brand new sighting our direction, not of a figure, but of a new store display!
The display comes from a Wal-Mart in North Carolina, and features various stocking stuffer toys. Among them Lego Polybags, Nerf Darts, and POTP Legend Class Figures! With a price tag of $9.94, this is one of the first times these figures have been spotted at a non-Target store, and certainly the first time we've seen this display! This will hopefully make it easier for collectors and fans to fond the highly coveted figures! Check out the provided image of the display below!

If you go to brickseek.com and search the Walmart stock as "Transformers PW" instead of the individuals, you get headings for Legends, Deluxes, Voyager, and Leader. My store shows 24 of the Legends. If I try the individuals as Slash, etc., I get nada.

Dang! I was just at my local Wal-Mart this morning, but I didn't see anything like this in the main aisle of the toy section. I'm betting that since it's stocking stuffers, these will be in the Garden Center department along with all the Christmas decorations. That's where I found Hunt for the Decepticons figures years ago... no where near their toy department.

Bronzewolf wrote:...Check out the provided image of the display below!

What an unattractive display. Why does it look like a bargain bin?

Stuartmaximus wrote:So lemme get this straight! they're going all LG-43 with this?

well that's messed up!

I take it the days of Takara repaints are truly over

Takara breaks the mold for what might only be just this line and suddenly it's the end of The Transformers!

Despite popular belief the Hasbro versions are usually not under painted anymore with a few exceptions like Blur for example I don't think anyone can say that Hasbro Galvatron or Chromedome were underpainted.

Like a few others have said what is there to changed for POTP? Just a few minor details like Prime's hands (Which honestly is not a big deal at all, if you hate them so much just unscrew the hands off and put them in a bucket of blue paint and let them dry)

TF-fan kev777 wrote:I'm not sure we even saw any photos of the actual product or even a mockup.

Our first look at the figure was the blurry mass leak from a while back. That one was probably photoshopped like some of the other in the leak. It had a red a mostly red chest and white squares on the shoulders. This is our second look from October 16:



The picture was probably taken much earlier leaving plenty of room for changes on the final figure. How many times have we seen figures on the packaging that were absolutely nothing like the figure in the box? Remember this? The figure on the bottom is the one that came in the package rather than the one on the comic cover.

As for modifying it to include the gimmick, that may actually be a bit difficult, depending on how deep it would need to sit. Remember that the area of the combiner torso where the matrix would go is formed from 2 different pars of Inferno, the ladder and the main body of the bot/fire truck. Not impossible, but not an easy change either.

The spot in the center of his chest sticks out enough already that an Enigma or whatever could be plugged in there if it were modified right.

Of course I'm just speculating on possibilities, we'll likely have our answers by February at Toy Fair.

Emerje

OptimusPrimeval wrote:

Bronzewolf wrote:...Check out the provided image of the display below!

What an unattractive display. Why does it look like a bargain bin?

Tomae you think it might be a bargin bn.

DIsplays like this look like crap, but they are designed to make you look at them and dig through them. By digging, you are investing into something and are more likely to come out with something rather than just looking at a peg and walking by.

This isn't even the first time they've had those bins, they've become an annual thing for Walmart. I think last year they filled them with Legends or Titan Masters, 2015 was RID One-Step Changers, and 2014 was AOE One-Step Changers. Before that I don't remember, maybe nothing.

Emerje

Stopped by Walmart on the way home -- mine got in more TR revision waves, only. :/

steals_your_goats wrote:People are acting like this is the end of the world. The figures we got are not bad by any stretch of the imagination and there's honestly not much Takara could've changed. Stickers sure, blue fists for prime and black for jazz and windcharger's forehead but that's pretty much it. Was there this much outcry when Takara revealed their entire last knight line to be the same as Hasbros?

And I highly doubt Hasbro has any say over what Takara does. They are partners one doesn't own the other. I think the logical answer is Takara is over extended and saw this as a way to go "easy" for once. Between Masterpiece, Legends, POTP, TLK, the upcoming movie series and MTB they have a lot of stuff out or coming out. They probably just needed a financial breather.

You've a got a good head on your shoulders. When a company "might be" overextended. This means?????????????

o.supreme wrote:Hasbro did try to purchase TT recently, but that fell through.

NOT true. That was merely market speculation, but nothing concrete about it was announced at all. It was Mattel that fell through, and Hasbro tried to acquire Lionsgate while we're at it.

Those who are upset, I don't think are overreacting. No one has been acting out of turn, so the accusations are pretty empty. It's JUST a differing opinion.

And y'know, its completely legitimate. Ive been a long supporter of TakaraTomy, and they've set a certain standard. But right now, they're going far below said standard.

Im hearing lots of "what could they have even done different?" when that's not the point. It's always been standard practice for them to be different even if said differences are slight. Sometimes its just a different shade of plastic, or an added paint app here or there. So the fact that we're getting the next 2-3 years of Transformers with no optional differences is extremely disappointing. Which is my opinion, and not a "crazy" one if you ask me.

While this whole deal of course dispels any notion that the "higher price" was due to paint apps, doesn't this also prove that Takara does not consider the market outside japan as significant? Or more simply said, that they only look at the Japanese market?

I have often thought this but this is the best evidence I have so far.

As to why we are having this reaction now instead of when the same thing happened with movie toys, its pretty simple: Since 2007, Takara has not cared much about providing different paint apps than the Hasbro releases for those. Many movie toys from 2007 were just Hasbro toys with a stick on the packaging, which is what we got in TLK. Plus, the films are really just a western product while the original toys and a lot of the G1 fiction has roots in Japan.

Basically, there is more precedent for movie toys than for "Generations" toys.

shajaki wrote:So the fact that we're getting the next 2-3 years of Transformers with no optional differences is extremely disappointing.

I think you're extrapolating too much from this one turn of events, honestly. We don't know that Takara will simply "import" Hasbro's merchandise for all of their Transformers lines going forward. All we know is that it's happening for Takara's "Power of the Primes" line. We don't know what the plans are with Transformers Legends, or Unite Warriors, or really anything else at this point. We've yet to see any hint of the Dinobots, Terrorcons, or the Female Autobots, all of which Takara could shuffle into different sublines with different business objectives. Look at how they slid some Hasbro Generations Legends figures into their Transformers Adventure line, for example.

I don't think this is "2 to 3 years" of no Transformers options we're looking at, honestly. If this turns out to be a bad move for Takara, they'll adjust course. Look at what happened with the Fall of Cybertron toys for Hasbro. They went with cheaper plastic, simpler transformations, smaller figures, and hollowed out parts, to try and bring costs down. Consumers balked and they addressed most of those issues (within reason). Takara has proven over the years that it takes great pride in putting out the best product it can for its consumers and fans. It'll take a lot more to shake my faith in them than letting a G1 Optimus Prime with gray hands slip through the cracks.

There's always a chance of some of these getting DX releases with premium decos. I'd say it's probably VERY likely for Rodimus and Optimus.

Right, I feel like we shouldn't complain too much about PotP until we know how they plan on promoting these. If they're an offshoot of Legends like Unite Warriors is then yes, I think we have a little right to complain since it goes against a set expectation for the line. If they end up being something entirely different from Legends in its own universe then they can do whatever they want with it. Just because Hasbro made it part of Prime Wars doesn't mean Takara Tomy has to make it part of something that already exists. Wait and see.

Not making these part of Legends does make the most sense since they're very hard to shoehorn into the G1 timeline that Takara Tomy has been basing things on. How do you explain Orion Pax and Hot Rod side-by-side, multiple Matrices, Prime Masters, Enigmas and Rodimus Unicronus where Legends sit in the timeline? It doesn't need any more muddling and is better off being set outside that universe.

Actually I could see Rodimus Unicronus being added to the Legends universe since Unicron could show up there with Armada Thrust and Trickdiamond hovering around and Hot Rod being highly involved in the story right now.

Emerje

I finally managed to get some POTP figures this week, I have the first waves of Prime Masters and Deluxes. The Pretender shells are neat little things, I'd say I like Metalhawk the most, and it's great how Vector Prime's Prime Master form looks like a Cyber Planet Key.

For the Deluxes, Swoop and Dreadwind are the ones I like the most. Slug is a bit weird looking in both modes, I think they went a bit overboard with the G1 toy accuracy on this one, but I do like how he looks with a Prime Master and his Combiner hand-gun-thing on his chest, he looks particularly good with Vector and wielding Metalhawk's gun mode. As for Jazz, it sucks that the instructions don't tell you how the Combiner hand-gun-thing attaches to his chest, I had to look it up on TFWiki, and even then it feels like it's going to fall off at any moment.

Emerje wrote:

TF-fan kev777 wrote:I'm not sure we even saw any photos of the actual product or even a mockup.

Our first look at the figure was the blurry mass leak from a while back. That one was probably photoshopped like some of the other in the leak. It had a red a mostly red chest and white squares on the shoulders. This is our second look from October 16:



Emerje

I'm not sure what will Takara do to the Inferno mold, i think Fire Convoy (RID 2001 Optimus) looks well in the colors as well as the mold.

Albatross250 wrote:

Emerje wrote:

TF-fan kev777 wrote:I'm not sure we even saw any photos of the actual product or even a mockup.

Our first look at the figure was the blurry mass leak from a while back. That one was probably photoshopped like some of the other in the leak. It had a red a mostly red chest and white squares on the shoulders. This is our second look from October 16:
Emerje

I'm not sure what will Takara do to the Inferno mold, i think Fire Convoy (RID 2001 Optimus) looks well in the colors as well as the mold.

As of what takara has shown us so far they will either release it exactly like the Hasbro version or not release it at all.

The US will go down in history as being the very first country to get the Power of the Primes figures, but the second is none other than its big sister, Canada. And not to be outdone, Canada now becomes the very first country to have the Voyager figures. These sighitngs come to us from Cybertron.ca members anotheran and Matrix_Holder at Walmarts in the Toronto region. They were said to be near the pet food, away from the Transformers section. As you will see in the images below, these were heavily stocked, and they should be making their way across Canada soon. The prices were $12.97, $19.97, and $29.97 for the legends, deluxe and voyager classes respectively, confirming that there is no price increase mirroring the 30-100% increase what we saw with the Transformers: The Last Knight toyline.

Here is a rundown of the toys found and if anyone wants a rundown of all that has been revealed so far, please click here. Do note that the leader class figures, Rodimus and Optimus Prime, have yet to be found anywhere so please let us know if you find them. You can also post your findings in the sightings section and sightings forum.

Legends: Beachcomber, Dinobot Slash, Skrapnel, Windcharger

Deluxe: Autobot Jazz, Dinobot Slug, Dinobot Swoop, Dreadwind

Voyager: Grimlock, Starscream

Now THAT'S how it's done!!!!

NICE, Canada!

I decided the hunt won't be so fun the next several weeks....so I hit the Easy button with the hasbrotoyshop and pre-ordered both humanoid Prime Masters.They won't ship out til the 14th...and S&H was $6. But this way I don't have to fight the Xmas crowd.

I grabbed each deluxe, voyagers and 2 legends besides beachcomber whom is being shipped right now and I already had a shrapnel. Got the deluxes price matched for 13 canadian and voyagers for 20 Canadian via thr tru canada 30 % off sale. That display pic I took was from the Walmart in waterdown ontario Canada.

We return to YouTube toy vlogger Kevin Liu - who already brought us the majority of the video reviews for this line, in fact - and the Transformers Power of the Primes toyline from Hasbro, to take a look at another Leader class figure in the first waves - and the one which has had a bit more buzz than others, on average: Rodimus Prime.

The figure includes a smaller, deluxe-ish Hot Rod figure, which then interacts with the armor for the Evolution gimmick, including some partsforming for the arms; we also see this figure's Matrix and the compatibility with Prime Masters (and potentially Titan Masters, if so inclined). Check out the Chinese language review of this latest incarnation of everyone's favourite space winnebago below, and join the discussion in the Energon Pub!

I wonder how long we will have to wait in the UK.

somehow I see Pointblank being made out of that Hot Rod mold

also


didn't know the Insecticons could carry these

10:50 - i hope they're going to "fix" that hole... like putting his guns there or something.

Stuartmaximus wrote:somehow I see Pointblank being made out of that Hot Rod mold

also


didn't know the Insecticons could carry these

Ok looking. Figure. Didn't know insect icons figures could do that as well

Rodimus leader figure combined rodimus mode is ok hot rod looks better car and bot mode I skipped past articulation in video watching gijoe figure reviews oh look three differnt gijoe but they all move same nothing special same with transformers articulation reviews rodimus combined mode look like brick but better looking from other rodimus primes. Figures we had in past

So when the he'll are the leaders coming out?

Ironhidensh wrote:So when the he'll are the leaders coming out?

Soon. Remwmbwr we got these figures WAY early. If its anything to go by, Amazon isnt releaaing them until the 15th. Canada didnt roll them out until just now. Awe were it supposed to have anything until this week

Flashwave wrote:

Ironhidensh wrote:So when the he'll are the leaders coming out?

Soon. Remwmbwr we got these figures WAY early. If its anything to go by, Amazon isnt releaaing them until the 15th. Canada didnt roll them out until just now. Awe were it supposed to have anything until this week

Not really. The release time for power of the primes wave 1 was always beginning of December

It would have been cooler had they used the same wheels on RP trailer for Hot Rod as well IMHO.