The Energon Pub

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:

steals_your_goats wrote:I think you guys are missing the point of Haslab. This is a way to get products out there that would never make it to regular retail. Omega and Scorponok would be regular retail releases like the other titans before them. So this isn't a "one or the other" type thing, it's an extra outlet for the more collector oriented market.

Well that's not strictly true in any event. Scorponok and Omega Supreme were already looked over once in a fan poll, for Trypticon. I tie these points together because even after releasing one name only from the poll, they have dismissed the rest of the list entirely. Be it HasTak or HasLab, their track record demonstrates it is and will always be one or the other.

You can't look at the results of the fan poll and say Hasbro looked over Omega Supreme and Scorponok for the release. To say that these two characters have been 'dismissed' is likewise ridiculous.

The only track record is Hasbro releasing one titan per year since Metroplex. If anything, the release of Predaking is evidence of the success of Devastator, and has no bearing on a release of Omega Supreme or Scorponok down the road.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Further proof of this being in their Other Collector orientated Line: The MP Collection. You don't get to choose who you want, you get to select from options they want to make. Which of course their home fanbase is the only region that gets even that level of input.

Hasbro and Takara coordinate to a large extent, but you can't take a Takara-driven as evidence of any Hasbro-driven decisions.

Totally agree about a Titan Class Unicron being good enough. Also, Tidal Wave would be amazing, but even for him I'd be happy enough with a Titan Class.

william-james88 wrote:

steals_your_goats wrote: Scorponok have cybertronian at modes.

There are scorpions on Cybertron?

I don't know I've never been there but you can't honestly tell me that Scorponok looks anything like an Earth scorpion apart from the same basic shape.

TheForgottenTaxi wrote:I'm kind of amazed at the lack of excitement I'm seeing on here. Who DOESN'T want an unrealistically excellent Unicron figure to finally exist?

Let's be serious -- this is going to happen, right? I find it hard to believe Hasbro has many things to do with Haslabs that are better than this. If you're not doing this, why have the platform at all? I bet it was the first thing on the board when they proposed Haslabs as a project.

And when it happens -- well when it happens I'm going to have to have a long conversation with my wife about my need for this 3' toy that we have no room for in our house.

I'm also amazed at the lack of excitement here, but I think you're also a bit optimistic.

I wouldn't say Transformers is necessarily second tier to Hasbro's licensed properties, like Star Wars and Marvel, but I highly, highly doubt Unicron was the 'first thing' on board. That's the point of this thread - to gauge interest! The Brand Team is legit curious if there's support for a project like this within the fan community. My understanding is that Transformers fans tend to have less expendable income than, say, Star Wars or Marvel fans, so support for or ability to fund a more-expensive-than-Titan project is genuine question.

I can see Marvel getting a shot at HasLab - perhaps a Marvel Legends scale Galactus, or one of those weird Chitauri world eaters from the Avengers movie. But based on the Sail Barge's success, I don't think it's going to be a one or the other situation if Unicron gets green lit for a HasLab campaign.

megatronus wrote:The only 'track record' is Hasbro releasing one titan per year since Metroplex. If anything, the release of Predaking is evidence of is the success of Devastator, and has no bearing on a likely release of Omega Supreme or Scorponok down the road.

I totally agree. This wont change the one titan per year consistency thing (which started with Devastator), this seems more to do more than what a titan class figure might limit. However, it does mean that they are not planning for Unicron as a titan class figure, right?

And I wonder if we really do need a bigger than Titan Class unciron. The main TF characters are available in enough varying scales that you can simply use smaller figures to interact with him, no?

steals_your_goats wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

steals_your_goats wrote: Scorponok have cybertronian at modes.

There are scorpions on Cybertron?

I don't know I've never been there but you can't honestly tell me that Scorponok looks anything like an Earth scorpion apart from the same basic shape.

For sure, I was merely playing. Arcee looks more like an earth woman than Scorponok looks like an earth scorpion

megatronus wrote: My understanding is that Transformers fans tend to have less expendable income than, say, Star Wars or Marvel fans, so support for or ability to fund a more-expensive-than-Titan project is genuine question.

All they have to do is rename it the Hasbro Fans Toys Lab or something like that for marketing clarity. Then droves of fans will have no problem overpaying for a huge figure that takes years to make and will have a goofy face and at least one really irritating QC problem, with one or both of those issues fixed by parts included with the next figure. They'll be praised and loved for it.

I think I started to describe something else at some point, hmm...

For real though, I think it's weird to feel a need to gauge interest for a project to be potentially put on a platform designed to gauge interest, just with actual dollars. I realize there's some R&D involved but maybe Transformers could get away with funding based on CAD designs since they're implicitly more complicated?

william-james88 wrote:

steals_your_goats wrote: Scorponok have cybertronian at modes.

There are scorpions on Cybertron?

They were the only natural enemy of Cybertron's bumblebee population, but nearly wiped out by the planet's ratbats.

Really, with the bots mostly having 2 arms, 2 legs, 2 eyes, a mouth, and five fingers on each hand, I think we left reason behind long before Arcee or Scorponok showed up...

william-james88 wrote:However, it does mean that they are not planning for Unicron as a titan class figure, right?

I don't think we can derive anything about Hasbro's plans from this - we're just speculating. For all we know, they may have been planning a Unicron anyway, but buzz about HasLab may push them to make it better. It's really all up in the air right now, and we're just trying to show them whether we would care about such a project, or not.

I would like to see a 30"-36" Unicron. I really don't understand the folks going on about exact scale - he's a planet, there's no way he would ever be in scale with anything. But showing his relative importance/dominance/scale by making him larger than the current 24" Titans is important, methinks.

ScottyP wrote:

megatronus wrote: My understanding is that Transformers fans tend to have less expendable income than, say, Star Wars or Marvel fans, so support for or ability to fund a more-expensive-than-Titan project is genuine question.

All they have to do is rename it the Hasbro Fans Toys Lab or something like that for marketing clarity. Then droves of fans will have no problem overpaying for a huge figure that takes years to make and will have a goofy face and at least one really irritating QC problem, with one or both of those issues fixed by parts included with the next figure. They'll be praised and loved for it.

I think I started to describe something else at some point, hmm...

I see what you did there... your snark has a special place in my heart.

ScottyP wrote:For real though, I think it's weird to feel a need to gauge interest for a project to be potentially put on a platform designed to gauge interest, just with actual dollars. I realize there's some R&D involved but maybe Transformers could get away with funding based on CAD designs since they're implicitly more complicated?

Make no mistake, the crowdfunding platform isn't designed to gauge interest, it's designed to get sh!t made. Outside of the R&D involved, I am confident getting a HasLab project up and running requires political capital on the part of the brand team, business buy in, and a high degree of confidence that X number of people will actually pay the asking price.

Considering the main case study the Transformers brand team has for the viability of domestically produced collector product is FunPub, I would also be cautious about putting this project forward until I had a relative idea of the likelihood of success.

Unless it's a 100 dollar Canadian Unicron, it's over priced

Galactic Prime wrote:Unless it's a 100 dollar Canadian Unicron, it's over priced

Why would it be over priced? It doesn't even exist yet! If they are charging a lot for it then it will be worth the money otherwise they wouldn't get a lot if takers. Thus, it's in hasbros best interests to do this right.

The thing is when it comes to Unicron's scale/size, a head or so higher than Fort Max would scale him appropriately with the City Bots. Beyond say 30" at the most, he is no longer a toy - he's cosplay.

megatronus wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:

steals_your_goats wrote:I think you guys are missing the point of Haslab. This is a way to get products out there that would never make it to regular retail. Omega and Scorponok would be regular retail releases like the other titans before them. So this isn't a "one or the other" type thing, it's an extra outlet for the more collector oriented market.

Well that's not strictly true in any event. Scorponok and Omega Supreme were already looked over once in a fan poll, for Trypticon. I tie these points together because even after releasing one name only from the poll, they have dismissed the rest of the list entirely. Be it HasTak or HasLab, their track record demonstrates it is and will always be one or the other.

You can't look at the results of the fan poll and say Hasbro looked over Omega Supreme and Scorponok for the release. To say that these two characters have been 'dismissed' is likewise ridiculous.

Based on what? Whatever the winning result of Trypticon was, there would naturally be a second, third etc place in the poll. A gauge of interest in these characters/toys. Moving on to Predaking from a new poll/list, would logically suggest only the one winning name (and corresponding votes) in the previous poll was valid. That the other votes that weren't for Trypticon were superfluous.

megatronus wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Further proof of this being in their Other Collector orientated Line: The MP Collection. You don't get to choose who you want, you get to select from options they want to make. Which of course their home fanbase is the only region that gets even that level of input.

Hasbro and Takara coordinate to a large extent, but you can't take a Takara-driven as evidence of any Hasbro-driven decisions.

Why not? Again, what I'm saying is based on what's been presented to us by the releases of Hasbro/Takara. Were the fanbases of US/UK/Europe/Australia et al polled on the list including MP Star Saber? Would the Western TF fanbase vote for the Takara series representation at all??

As has been explained to me, the flooding of Autobots over Decepticons in most TF lines, is a decision based on the trends of the Japanese market. I can only infer that joint decisions are agreed in these release schedules by Hasbro and Takara.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Beyond say 30" at the most, he is no longer a toy - he's cosplay.

I spent about 15 min this morning trying to figure out how to express that same thought.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:

megatronus wrote:You can't look at the results of the fan poll and say Hasbro looked over Omega Supreme and Scorponok for the release. To say that these two characters have been 'dismissed' is likewise ridiculous.

Based on what? Whatever the winning result of Trypticon was, there would naturally be a second, third etc place in the poll. A gauge of interest in these characters/toys. Moving on to Predaking from a new poll/list, would logically suggest only the one winning name (and corresponding votes) in the previous poll was valid. That the other votes that weren't for Trypticon were superfluous.

Based on the fact that we don't have complete information. You're making a weird assumption in claiming that because Scorponok and Omega Supreme haven't been made yet, that they won't be made. The decision to release Predaking as the PotP Titan has literally zero bearing, from our outsider, not-in-the-know view, of what Hasbro's planning in the War For Cybertron trilogy.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:

megatronus wrote:Hasbro and Takara coordinate to a large extent, but you can't take a Takara-driven line as evidence of any Hasbro-driven decisions.

Why not? Again, what I'm saying is based on what's been presented to us by the releases of Hasbro/Takara. Were the fanbases of US/UK/Europe/Australia et al polled on the list including MP Star Saber? Would the Western TF fanbase vote for the Takara series representation at all??

As has been explained to me, the flooding of Autobots over Decepticons in most TF lines, is a decision based on the trends of the Japanese market. I can only infer that joint decisions are agreed in these release schedules by Hasbro and Takara.

I have no idea what you're trying to tell me here. What I'm saying is that you can't use the Takara MP line as evidence of anything Hasbro is going to do. The evidence you marshal in your response only proves my point, no?

megatronus wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:

megatronus wrote:You can't look at the results of the fan poll and say Hasbro looked over Omega Supreme and Scorponok for the release. To say that these two characters have been 'dismissed' is likewise ridiculous.

Based on what? Whatever the winning result of Trypticon was, there would naturally be a second, third etc place in the poll. A gauge of interest in these characters/toys. Moving on to Predaking from a new poll/list, would logically suggest only the one winning name (and corresponding votes) in the previous poll was valid. That the other votes that weren't for Trypticon were superfluous.

Based on the fact that we don't have complete information. You're making a weird assumption in claiming that because Scorponok and Omega Supreme haven't been made yet, that they won't be made. The decision to release Predaking as the PotP Titan has literally zero bearing, from our outsider, not-in-the-know view, of what Hasbro's planning in the War For Cybertron trilogy.

That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying they had gauged more than enough interest to make them both from the poll result after Trypticon. Both Scorponok and Omega Supreme are different enough to be part of any line, more so than Predaking. Yet with the results in front of them, they made someone else. Their "One or the other" ethos, that was disputed previously. The accuracy of that statement was the point I was making. Whatever they are planning for a War For Cybertron trilogy is frankly irrelevant to the discounted runner up results of a poll from 2015.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:

megatronus wrote:Hasbro and Takara coordinate to a large extent, but you can't take a Takara-driven line as evidence of any Hasbro-driven decisions.

Why not? Again, what I'm saying is based on what's been presented to us by the releases of Hasbro/Takara. Were the fanbases of US/UK/Europe/Australia et al polled on the list including MP Star Saber? Would the Western TF fanbase vote for the Takara series representation at all??

As has been explained to me, the flooding of Autobots over Decepticons in most TF lines, is a decision based on the trends of the Japanese market. I can only infer that joint decisions are agreed in these release schedules by Hasbro and Takara.

I have no idea what you're trying to tell me here. What I'm saying is that you can't use the Takara MP line as evidence of anything Hasbro is going to do. What evidence you marshal in your response only proves my point, no?[/quote]

Well no, because I'm saying they are in on this together. In fact recent additions to the MP line feature virtually zero variation between the Hasbro and Takara MP releases.

megatronus wrote:

william-james88 wrote:However, it does mean that they are not planning for Unicron as a titan class figure, right?

I don't think we can derive anything about Hasbro's plans from this - we're just speculating. For all we know, they may have been planning a Unicron anyway, but buzz about HasLab may push them to make it better. It's really all up in the air right now, and we're just trying to show them whether we would care about such a project, or not.

I would like to see a 30"-36" Unicron. I really don't understand the folks going on about exact scale - he's a planet, there's no way he would ever be in scale with anything. But showing his relative importance/dominance/scale by making him larger than the current 24" Titans is important, methinks.

ScottyP wrote:

megatronus wrote: My understanding is that Transformers fans tend to have less expendable income than, say, Star Wars or Marvel fans, so support for or ability to fund a more-expensive-than-Titan project is genuine question.

All they have to do is rename it the Hasbro Fans Toys Lab or something like that for marketing clarity. Then droves of fans will have no problem overpaying for a huge figure that takes years to make and will have a goofy face and at least one really irritating QC problem, with one or both of those issues fixed by parts included with the next figure. They'll be praised and loved for it.

I think I started to describe something else at some point, hmm...

I see what you did there... your snark has a special place in my heart.

ScottyP wrote:For real though, I think it's weird to feel a need to gauge interest for a project to be potentially put on a platform designed to gauge interest, just with actual dollars. I realize there's some R&D involved but maybe Transformers could get away with funding based on CAD designs since they're implicitly more complicated?

Make no mistake, the crowdfunding platform isn't designed to gauge interest, it's designed to get sh!t made. Outside of the R&D involved, I am confident getting a HasLab project up and running requires political capital on the part of the brand team, business buy in, and a high degree of confidence that X number of people will actually pay the asking price.

Considering the main case study the Transformers brand team has for the viability of domestically produced collector product is FunPub, I would also be cautious about putting this project forward until I had a relative idea of the likelihood of success.

More or less, "Crowdfunding" has vecome a buzzword amongst manufacturing circles for "PreOrdering". In personal and charoty circles, the term still lives up to its self described definition, there's marginal difference between this and what Takara did with Grand Max. And before someone says "but I dont have to put money down on a Pre-Order, thats largely a retailer decision to make it more enticing. And not always the case in other circles and hobbies.

@AllNewSuperRobot given the turn around on trypticon it's been suspected that planning was done on all three choices with the winner moving on to the next stage. It would make no sense to get rid of work like that so all the better to keep them. Now, on to why predaking was picked for after that, bear in mind that people had asked for a titan class predaking since devy came out (the second titan class) so he was a thing probably before that fan vote, and since they couldn’t really do anything like make pred a titan master, the winner of the poll gave them someone else to give that treatment to (full tilt). As been said, predaking is perfect for this line as what says onyx prime better than a beast themed combiner

A Beast themed City Bot could have work just as well. Just saying.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:A Beast themed City Bot could have work just as well. Just saying.

But who do you do? Scorpinok? Fans will want him to match Fortress Maximus in scale and asthetic. Trust me, asthetic does matter, but only when its not right. That just leaves... Chela? Orcanoch? A Titan Class Tako Tank? I'm not sure who the more onscure character would be there.

Flashwave wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:A Beast themed City Bot could have work just as well. Just saying.

But who do you do? Scorpinok? Fans will want him to match Fortress Maximus in scale and asthetic. Trust me, asthetic does matter, but only when its not right. That just leaves... Chela? Orcanoch? A Titan Class Tako Tank? I'm not sure who the more onscure character would be there.

Absolutely Scorponok. He was the only City Bot to have three legitimate alt-modes. I've said this elsewhere but the City Bots should have been released as sets/pairs. So all the more reason Scorponok should have followed Trypticon over Predaking. Completing the City Bot line while at the same time remaining inkeeping with the beast themed aesthetic they sought to continue with the combiner.

As an aside and I've mentioned this elsewhere too, it would be nice if Hasbro/Takara would remember there are more than two Gestalts in Tranformers. They don't have to keep repeating Devastator and Predaking over and over again. Piranacon would also have matched up to a beast themed combiner and HasTak hasn't shown the Seacons any love at all in a long time. Likewise with Monstructor too, for that matter...

ScottyP wrote:

spiderbob007 wrote:I vote for the G1 Autobot Ark or the Decepticon Nemesis as play sets.

This would be fun too, Transformers on the whole have very little in the way of playsets! I really like the Ark from the SDCC Dinobot set a few years back, but since it's paperboard I'm afraid to mess with it too much. Even that in plastic form would be awesome.

I came here to say the same thing. I could go for some official Ark/Nemesis play sets/dioramas for my shelves.

The big question is considering HasLab seems to be aimed at collectors, would they scale it for standard deluxe and voyager figures or go Masterpiece scale. Or more importantly what would we want?


Considering this is a purely speculative piece, let's go whole hog bat **** crazy with a Transformers vs GI Joe crossover to scale with 3.75" Joes transforming USS Flagg. Hell let's make it Tidal Wave while we're at it! Actually I could see a few people being on board for transforming GI Joe vehicles.


On the subject of Unicron, I'd love to have a titan or larger class figure, but I find the current big boys a little to big to realistically display on my shelves. I also don't know if I could pull the trigger on a figure over $250.

But who's to say that $500 is the magic number. When I saw the HasLab news my mind started spinning on what or if they'd do any Transformers. I see this as more of a way to give collectors the toys that wouldn't normally sell or be feasible at retail. So it may be more of a wish list sort of thing where prices will drop or rise above the current $500 price point depending on what it would take to develop and produce these toys and still turn a profit. I mean as of right now Hasbro is saying it will take at least $2.5M before they'll move forward.

So we could theoretically shoot for smaller figures that may not ever get made and have a steady yet affordable line CHUG / MP figures for those who want them. If HasLab takes off they may start producing multiple toys across multiple lines at once. It's still all speculative until the Sail Barge gets funded and shipped.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:

Flashwave wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:A Beast themed City Bot could have work just as well. Just saying.

But who do you do? Scorpinok? Fans will want him to match Fortress Maximus in scale and asthetic. Trust me, asthetic does matter, but only when its not right. That just leaves... Chela? Orcanoch? A Titan Class Tako Tank? I'm not sure who the more onscure character would be there.

Absolutely Scorponok. He was the only City Bot to have three legitimate alt-modes. I've said this elsewhere but the City Bots should have been released as sets/pairs. So all the more reason Scorponok should have followed Trypticon over Predaking. Completing the City Bot line while at the same time remaining inkeeping with the beast themed aesthetic they sought to continue with the combiner.

As an aside and I've mentioned this elsewhere too, it would be nice if Hasbro/Takara would remember there are more than two Gestalts in Tranformers. They don't have to keep repeating Devastator and Predaking over and over again. Piranacon would also have matched up to a beast themed combiner and HasTak hasn't shown the Seacons any love at all in a long time. Likewise with Monstructor too, for that matter...

I vould be off base, but I feel likr Hasbro is intentionally switching back and forth between Combiners and Citybots to give the size class variety. Mayve I am alone, but I skipped the city bots save Trypticon, mostly for size and cost. But I got Devvy and I will get Pred even though they are the same sizecombined because I can break dmthrm down, and feel like I am almost getting more.

And we may be getting Monstructor. We have at least one head from ome of the zmonstructor guys. Abd I dont feel like your "two combiner" point is justified. We got Abominus in Prime, we got Superin, bruticus, nd Constructicons in Energon, and the Seacpns have been released in their G1 forms through TFCC and Reissues. We just havent gotten that many combiners over the years.

Wouldn't broadside be a better match for the gi joe uss flag? Or we really go crazy...high tide (as in the rescue bots character)

Although now we're getting predaking, we need their rival to enter the fray as a titan class...sky lynx who apart from being massively bigger than the combiner wars Voyager, separates into the two modes and can double as a playset.

I had green LED's put in my Amazon Unicron, thinking I would finally have one that was as "definitive" as it was going to get. Then it was stolen, and I haven't been able to replace him. If this comes to fruition, I sincerely hope that HasLab gives us a feasible amount of time to come up with the money, and offers a price much lower than the Barge. Us poor folk are fans, too. We'd like a chance. Extend the deadline, lower the price, and maybe even offer a payment plan of some sort like Sideshow's FlexPay. That will sell.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:

Flashwave wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:A Beast themed City Bot could have work just as well. Just saying.

But who do you do? Scorpinok? Fans will want him to match Fortress Maximus in scale and asthetic. Trust me, asthetic does matter, but only when its not right. That just leaves... Chela? Orcanoch? A Titan Class Tako Tank? I'm not sure who the more onscure character would be there.

Absolutely Scorponok. He was the only City Bot to have three legitimate alt-modes. I've said this elsewhere but the City Bots should have been released as sets/pairs. So all the more reason Scorponok should have followed Trypticon over Predaking. Completing the City Bot line while at the same time remaining inkeeping with the beast themed aesthetic they sought to continue with the combiner.

As an aside and I've mentioned this elsewhere too, it would be nice if Hasbro/Takara would remember there are more than two Gestalts in Tranformers. They don't have to keep repeating Devastator and Predaking over and over again. Piranacon would also have matched up to a beast themed combiner and HasTak hasn't shown the Seacons any love at all in a long time. Likewise with Monstructor too, for that matter...

Alternating between city bots and combiners is smart. It decreases collector fatigue for these huge robots, and gives parents justification to buy more and/or different product from year to year. That said, I wish Devastator was executed better.

City bot two packs would be crazy good for collectors... but an unmitigated disaster. Very few would put up the money for them until they clearance out. Metroplex and Fort Max were both liquidated, Trypticon was also regularly 30% or more off. Imagine the business reckoning if they actually sold 2 Titans together.

Devastator is the first and most iconic combiner, and it's not like we've gotten a huge number of (good) ones. Really just the Titan. Asking Hasbro to stop reverting to Devastator is like asking them to maybe shift the focus away from Optimus Prime --- never gonna happen.