The Energon Pub

DeathReviews wrote:

o.supreme wrote:

DeathReviews wrote:I might have been tempted - but these things are just so dang expensive. Why are these refurbished CW/PoTP retreads so horribly overpriced? The paint is good, but it's not THAT good...

Come now Death... , I know you reviewed at least ONE Unite Warriors set.... Although this is not branded as such, it is basically the same idea, Japanese Exclusivity however with the nice caveat that others are able to order them directly through Pulse and not have to pay import prices. It's not ideal, but it could be worse. $230-240 is hard to swallow, but I did pay near that price for some of the UW sets (so glad I'm not trying to get them NOW), and fans who purchased Predacus, or the TFCC Combiners ended up paying far more.

The Unite Warriors Baldigus set, I think it was. The Seacons will be almost $230 in total. The Baldigus set was about $170. Besides, I thought the whole point of bringing Takara and Hasbro under the same umbrella was to REDUCE the cost of these sets...

You're getting an extra Seacon for that money, for what it's worth.

william-james88 wrote:And if anyone wants an indication at how well Beast Wars could sell, look at the MPs. Dinobot and Megatron were crazy expensive and still sold out.

Heck, Megatron has a broken cod piece and he still sold out!

sol magnus wrote:

DeathReviews wrote:

o.supreme wrote:

DeathReviews wrote:I might have been tempted - but these things are just so dang expensive. Why are these refurbished CW/PoTP retreads so horribly overpriced? The paint is good, but it's not THAT good...

Come now Death... , I know you reviewed at least ONE Unite Warriors set.... Although this is not branded as such, it is basically the same idea, Japanese Exclusivity however with the nice caveat that others are able to order them directly through Pulse and not have to pay import prices. It's not ideal, but it could be worse. $230-240 is hard to swallow, but I did pay near that price for some of the UW sets (so glad I'm not trying to get them NOW), and fans who purchased Predacus, or the TFCC Combiners ended up paying far more.

The Unite Warriors Baldigus set, I think it was. The Seacons will be almost $230 in total. The Baldigus set was about $170. Besides, I thought the whole point of bringing Takara and Hasbro under the same umbrella was to REDUCE the cost of these sets...

You're getting an extra Seacon for that money, for what it's worth.

Excellent point! The Unite Warriors sets were 5 member teams, 1 Voyager and 4 Deluxes. Piranacon/King Poseidon has a total of 6 figures, 1 Voyager and 5 Deluxes. If we're going to use the Baldigus set as a point of reference (which is debatable), then this set is really only up-charging by $30 altogether, or $5 per figure.

Wolfman Jake wrote:

william-james88 wrote:And if anyone wants an indication at how well Beast Wars could sell, look at the MPs. Dinobot and Megatron were crazy expensive and still sold out.

Heck, Megatron has a broken cod piece and he still sold out!

As awesome as the Beast Wars Masterpiece figures are, that's not necessarily indicative of "how Beast Wars would sell" if they did a Generations style release today.


Full Disclosure: I had over 80 Beast Wars figures.

sol magnus wrote:

Wolfman Jake wrote:

william-james88 wrote:And if anyone wants an indication at how well Beast Wars could sell, look at the MPs. Dinobot and Megatron were crazy expensive and still sold out.

Heck, Megatron has a broken cod piece and he still sold out!

As awesome as the Beast Wars Masterpiece figures are, that's not necessarily indicative of "how Beast Wars would sell" if they did a Generations style release today.

Full Disclosure: I had over 80 Beast Wars figures.

At this point, its as good as anything else for assessing demand from collectors. Some Bumblebees have been terrible shelfwarmers, but it didnt stop Hasbro from releasing more of him or more G1 based characters.

The latest Beast War generations toy was leader Optimal Optimus, which was at the highest price point and he didnt sell worse than any of the other POTP toys.

The demand is there from collectors, and recent BW has done as well as any g1 based characters, dont see why getting more BW would hurt anyone, including Hasbro.

DeathReviews wrote: Besides, I thought the whole point of bringing Takara and Hasbro under the same umbrella was to REDUCE the cost of these sets...

Not really. It just means you dont need to import them yourself now, hasbro will do that for you and you can get them at Pulse while you shop for other retail figures. We saw that for the MPs. Basically, anything initiated by Takara will be a straight import from hasbro and you dont need to look elsewhere than Pulse. Price doesnt really have anything to do with it, as MP fans long realized

william-james88 wrote:

sol magnus wrote:

Wolfman Jake wrote:

william-james88 wrote:And if anyone wants an indication at how well Beast Wars could sell, look at the MPs. Dinobot and Megatron were crazy expensive and still sold out.

Heck, Megatron has a broken cod piece and he still sold out!

As awesome as the Beast Wars Masterpiece figures are, that's not necessarily indicative of "how Beast Wars would sell" if they did a Generations style release today.

Full Disclosure: I had over 80 Beast Wars figures.

At this point, its as good as anything else. Some Bumblebees have been terrible shelfwarmers, but it didnt stop Hasbro from releasing more of him.

The latest Beast War generations toy was leader Optimal Optimus, which was at the highest price point and he didnt sell worse than any of the other POTP toys.

The demand is there from collectors, and recent BW has done as well as any g1 based characters, dont see why getting more BW would hurt anyone, including Hasbro.

Truthfully, I don't disagree. For the people 8-10 years younger than me, that was their Transformers. I don't think people got any more mature than us old guys in the 90s.

But, there is a great difference between loving the show and the toys. I didn't really get into the show, but I saw how great the toys were, and in later years went on a rampage putting them on my shelf.

william-james88 wrote:The latest Beast War generations toy was leader Optimal Optimus, which was at the highest price point and he didn't sell worse than any of the other POTP toys.

The demand is there from collectors, and recent BW has done as well as any g1 based characters, dont see why getting more BW would hurt anyone, including Hasbro.

*I* personally don't think it would hurt, honestly I think it would be great for BW fans. In fact, there's a brand new Cheetor with Cyberverse, a Target Exclusive, but still very easy to find.

I still think Hasbro has reservations though. Even though Primal won the fan pole, his whole release strategy reeks of a lack of confidence by Hasbro IMHO . He was released way later than scheduled, at least in the U.S., and although I cannot quantify, I still wonder if his production run was far less than any other PotP Leader, especially considering I only saw him at retail ONCE. Primal (and the throne variant) are still available at BBTS, but for fans who don't like to shop online, I really wonder if everyone who wanted one, actually got one?

o.supreme wrote:

william-james88 wrote:The latest Beast War generations toy was leader Optimal Optimus, which was at the highest price point and he didn't sell worse than any of the other POTP toys.

The demand is there from collectors, and recent BW has done as well as any g1 based characters, dont see why getting more BW would hurt anyone, including Hasbro.

*I* personally don't think it would hurt, honestly I think it would be great for BW fans. In fact, there's a brand new Cheetor with Cyberverse, a Target Exclusive, but still very easy to find.

I still think Hasbro has reservations though. Even though Primal won the fan pole, his whole release strategy reeks of a lack of confidence by Hasbro IMHO . He was released way later than scheduled, at least in the U.S., and although I cannot quantify, I still wonder if his production run was far less than any other PotP Leader, especially considering I only saw him at retail ONCE. Primal (and the throne variant) are still available at BBTS, but for fans who don't like to shop online, I really wonder if everyone who wanted one, actually got one?

That figure was an instance where I liked the concept but not the execution, so I passed on it personally.

o.supreme wrote:

Wireless_Phantom wrote:I've got my pre-orders in. I'm glad I held out on my pre-ordering Zetar, as now I get free shipping for him as well!

I wanted to do the exact same thing. My only question is...will Pulse ship these out individually when released, or will they wait until the Seacons come out, then ship them all at once? Every time I go to Pulse, I get a chat window I have to immediately ignore, and now the one time I have a legit question, the chat window isn't coming up...

I was worried about that at first, but I figure shipping the figures separately wouldn't cost any more or less than together, so there's no real reason for them not to just ship him out. I guess we'll see though.

o.supreme wrote:My only question is...will Pulse ship these out individually when released, or will they wait until the Seacons come out, then ship them all at once? Every time I go to Pulse, I get a chat window I have to immediately ignore, and now the one time I have a legit question, the chat window isn't coming up...

I'm pretty sure Turtler and Gulf will ship out before Kraken and Lobclaw if that is what you are asking. Hasbro Pulse doesn't appear to have any type of pile of loot or stack abilities like BBTS and TF Source do.

But I'm wondering why this is important to you. Hasbro Pulse has free standard shipping at either $35 or $50. Not sure which, I tested it out with 1 SS Rampage and it charged for shipping, but 2 Rampages were free to ship.

So it shouldn't matter from a cost perspective whether they all ship at once, or separately. Even the latest 2 purchased together will be above the free shipping limit.

If instead you just want to receive them all at once, you are definitely out of luck with Pulse. There is no guarantee that Turtler and Gulf will ship together. Back when Pulse had the Siege wave 2 at the mistake pre-order price of $9.99, I ordered 1 each of Chromia, Ironhide and Prowl, and 2 Sixguns (Twelvegun?) all at the same time. They were each shipped separately, except the 2 Sixguns which shipped together. Hell, 3 of the packages all shipped within the same hour on the same day with the 4th one a day behind.

Emerje wrote:Oh yeah, I just remembered that Hasbro has Star Convoy delayed until November now. Takara Tomy Mall still has it listed for late September so i don't know why the delay from Hasbro.

Emerje

I got that email too, shame it's delayed, but it makes for a bit cheaper of a september, which is helpful with TFcon next month

TF-fan kev777 wrote:

o.supreme wrote:My only question is...will Pulse ship these out individually when released, or will they wait until the Seacons come out, then ship them all at once? Every time I go to Pulse, I get a chat window I have to immediately ignore, and now the one time I have a legit question, the chat window isn't coming up...

I'm pretty sure Turtler and Gulf will ship out before Kraken and Lobclaw if that is what you are asking. Hasbro Pulse doesn't appear to have any type of pile of loot or stack abilities like BBTS and TF Source do.

But I'm wondering why this is important to you. Hasbro Pulse has free standard shipping at either $35 or $50. Not sure which, I tested it out with 1 SS Rampage and it charged for shipping, but 2 Rampages were free to ship.

So it shouldn't matter from a cost perspective whether they all ship at once, or separately. Even the latest 2 purchased together will be above the free shipping limit.

If instead you just want to receive them all at once, you are definitely out of luck with Pulse. There is no guarantee that Turtler and Gulf will ship together. Back when Pulse had the Siege wave 2 at the mistake pre-order price of $9.99, I ordered 1 each of Chromia, Ironhide and Prowl, and 2 Sixguns (Twelvegun?) all at the same time. They were each shipped separately, except the 2 Sixguns which shipped together. Hell, 3 of the packages all shipped within the same hour on the same day with the 4th one a day behind.

That makes sense given my recent experiences with ordering from Hasbro Pulse. I preordered two each of Seawing and Nautilator, had them all in the same shopping cart, checked out and paid for them all at once. However, when checking my order page, I didn't see the right total at first. It was because it was automatically split up into two different orders, one with two Seawings and the other with two Nautilators. So, I guess Hasbro Pulse will ship each item individually, unless it is exactly the same item in multiple.

TF-fan kev777 wrote:But I'm wondering why this is important to you?

Because, like Wireless_Phantom, I want to place a single order for Zetar, Kraken & Lobclaw, which will qualify for free shipping. However Zetar is expected to ship next week, but this newest Seacons wave will not have a shipping date until after pre-orders are closed (I presume February 2020 or sometime after). I just dont want to wait 5+ months to get Zetar just because I pre-ordered him at the same time as the Seacons. I appreciate your example of items ordered at the same time with different shipping times/dates. But this is a unique circumstance of pre-ordering multiple items with different release dates. I do want them to ship as released, and not have to wait.It seems like this should be the case, but I just wanted to be sure.

o.supreme wrote:

TF-fan kev777 wrote:But I'm wondering why this is important to you?

Because, like Wireless_Phantom, I want to place a single order for Zetar, Kraken & Lobclaw, which will qualify for free shipping. However Zetar is expected to ship next week, but this newest Seacons wave will not have a shipping date until after pre-orders are closed (I presume February 2020 or sometime after). I just dont want to wait 5+ months to get Zetar just because I pre-ordered him at the same time as the Seacons. I appreciate your example of items ordered at the same time with different shipping times/dates. But this is a unique circumstance of pre-ordering multiple items with different release dates. I do want them to ship as released, and not have to wait.It seems like this should be the case, but I just wanted to be sure.

If you pre-order multiple items that have different release dates, they are individually shipped once each are available.

I pre-ordered a Marvel Legends War Machine, Rescue, and Power Gauntlet at the same time, and the Power Gauntlet had a release date 2 months later than the other 2. Rescue shipped out 3 days prior to War Machine, and then the Power Gauntlet 2 months later.

Ordering several things together doesn't mean they ship together, they just ship when each becomes available. and they will not ship out together if they were pre-orders

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:

o.supreme wrote:

TF-fan kev777 wrote:But I'm wondering why this is important to you?

Because, like Wireless_Phantom, I want to place a single order for Zetar, Kraken & Lobclaw, which will qualify for free shipping. However Zetar is expected to ship next week, but this newest Seacons wave will not have a shipping date until after pre-orders are closed (I presume February 2020 or sometime after). I just dont want to wait 5+ months to get Zetar just because I pre-ordered him at the same time as the Seacons. I appreciate your example of items ordered at the same time with different shipping times/dates. But this is a unique circumstance of pre-ordering multiple items with different release dates. I do want them to ship as released, and not have to wait.It seems like this should be the case, but I just wanted to be sure.

If you pre-order multiple items that have different release dates, they are individually shipped once each are available.

I pre-ordered a Marvel Legends War Machine, Rescue, and Power Gauntlet at the same time, and the Power Gauntlet had a release date 2 months later than the other 2. Rescue shipped out 3 days prior to War Machine, and then the Power Gauntlet 2 months later.

Ordering several things together doesn't mean they ship together, they just ship when each becomes available. and they will not ship out together if they were pre-orders

I can confirm this. I ordred Lancer and the Refractor SDCC set at the same time. I've had Lancer over a month and just got Refractor today.

Thanks to Ricochet, Lost Lightatron lives again! And he has a Targetmaster too!

Zetar and Nightbird are shipping from Pulse! FedEx says they're arriving today which is surprising since they were still a few states away in CT as of 4am. It's weird that Pulse doesn't combine shipping even if you order at the same time.

Emerje

Just got my shipping notice for Zetar as well. Should be in hand by end of day!

^I was just going to ask about this. I haven't received my notice yet...I'm glad I pre-ordered though, because it appears to be *sold out* as of the time the pre-order ended. I know other sites will have it in a few months, but after the Lancer fiasco, I'm trying not to delay if I can help it.

Also...No news on Cromar yet I take it? I assume it will be sold individually like Zetar, and not part of a set based on the shipping manifest we saw not too long ago, but still no pre-orders from what I've seen. Lastly, I find it odd that the first Powerdasher we are getting is based on the most recent Weaponizer. But oh well, at least we are getting them (at least hopefully I am...)....

o.supreme wrote:Also...No news on Cromar yet I take it? I assume it will be sold individually like Zetar, and not part of a set based on the shipping manifest we saw not too long ago, but still no pre-orders from what I've seen. Lastly, I find it odd that the first Powerdasher we are getting is based on the most recent Weaponizer. But oh well, at least we are getting them (at least hopefully I am...)....

My guess is that Cromar will be announced at NYCC next month and available for immediate order during the con, sort of how Grotesque was a couple years back. And like Grotesque back then and Lancer earlier this year, I would expect a limited number available immediately and then a bit of a wait for the full release.

If anyone is attending NYCC it looks like EE will have Hot shot available for sale at their booth. It looks like he'll also come with a exclusive Ribbon and Enamel pin just like how Lancer and Shockwave did if you bought them at their booth at SDCC.

https://www.entertainmentearth.com/news ... earth-nycc

Emerje wrote:It's weird that Pulse doesn't combine shipping even if you order at the same time.

Same here, two different shipments. Seems like a dumb move as it cost them, but as long as it doesn't cost me ...

Going miss that free shipping once my membership expires, but as of right now I can't justify it. But I did see some Star Wars set that was only available to premium members. I hope that doesn't become a trend with all their exclusives

carytheone wrote:

Emerje wrote:It's weird that Pulse doesn't combine shipping even if you order at the same time.

Same here, two different shipments. Seems like a dumb move as it cost them, but as long as it doesn't cost me ...

Going miss that free shipping once my membership expires, but as of right now I can't justify it. But I did see some Star Wars set that was only available to premium members. I hope that doesn't become a trend with all their exclusives

Yeah, really weird, I got 4 separate shipments when I ordered all the Siege wave 2 deluxes way back when they were up for $9.99 initially. They must have a pretty sweet deal with Fedex or something to justify the extra costs. Or they just pre-package every single item when it comes in so all they have to do is print a label and go.

I'll miss Premium as well, but also can't afford it. The wife has Amazon Prime already, so I'll only really need Pulse for their own exclusives and should be able to get up to the minimum for free shipping in most cases. But it has been nice not having to worry about it this year.

If they are smart, they should think of offering a discounted rate to extend for current Premium members right around January before the 1 year mark for those who got Premium automatically back in February. $50 is a no way for me, but $25 would get me thinking about it.

My Zetar and Nightbird won't be here til Monday, given I'm on the West Coast-ish.

carytheone wrote:

Emerje wrote:It's weird that Pulse doesn't combine shipping even if you order at the same time.

Same here, two different shipments. Seems like a dumb move as it cost them, but as long as it doesn't cost me ...

Going miss that free shipping once my membership expires, but as of right now I can't justify it. But I did see some Star Wars set that was only available to premium members. I hope that doesn't become a trend with all their exclusives

From my experience, the splitting the orders thing is only something they do for preorders. When I ordered Studio Series Shatter and Scrapmetal from them, they were in stock and I put them in the same cart, and they came in one shipment. I checked out the same way for my Zetar and Nightbird, and they were immediately split into separate A and B shipments with the same order number. My Seacon preorders show up the same way too on my account.

Also Cary, it's very likely the Premium-Only stuff you saw was because they gave the Premium members access to all the SDCC exclusives first before making it available to general users later, they keep sending emails that say so. They did that with the TF exclusives too, they're just readily available to everyone now. Those Star Wars things get that restriction removed today.

Jtprime17 wrote:If anyone is attending NYCC it looks like EE will have Hot shot available for sale at their booth. It looks like he'll also come with a exclusive Ribbon and Enamel pin just like how Lancer and Shockwave did if you bought them at their booth at SDCC.

https://www.entertainmentearth.com/news ... earth-nycc

Generations Selects Hot Shot At New York Comic-Con.png

So Hot Shot's coming out in October-ish then? Awesome!

Came home to a surprise