The Energon Pub

william-james88 wrote:I'm international too Burn, why do you never consider me as such?

You have access to Hasbro Pulse.

Burn wrote:

william-james88 wrote:I'm international too Burn, why do you never consider me as such?

You have access to Hasbro Pulse.

It's not local. So it ends up being the same exorbitant option as you ordering from Robotkingdom or something since shipping is international fedex and not worth it (plus no local currency option). The only case where its beneficial is indeed with Unicron since that is not accessible anywhere else.
But for everything else, Hasbro Pulse doesnt do any favours to me more than it does to you, hence why I still never resorted to them. I preordered those sdcc revealed exclusives (like Refraktor) from a local importer/collectable because it was the cheaper option than going through them.
It would probably be the same or cheaper for me to use a mail forwarding service than order from Pulse directly. And you can use a mail forwarding service too.

Burn wrote:

william-james88 wrote:I'm international too Burn, why do you never consider me as such?

You have access to Hasbro Pulse.

https://hasbropulse.com/

There ya go, friend

unicron1200 wrote:

Burn wrote:

william-james88 wrote:I'm international too Burn, why do you never consider me as such?

You have access to Hasbro Pulse.

https://hasbropulse.com/

There ya go, friend

Merely visiting a site and actually being able to buy from a site are two completely different levels of accessibility.

Sabrblade wrote:

unicron1200 wrote:

Burn wrote:

william-james88 wrote:I'm international too Burn, why do you never consider me as such?

You have access to Hasbro Pulse.

https://hasbropulse.com/

There ya go, friend

Merely visiting a site and actually being able to buy from a site are two completely different levels of accessibility.

I know, I was taking his words literally and giving the link to be a funny guy. I’m not that dumby

User897 wrote:Don't be ridiculous. It's not about you. The gimmick should not be used and the only way to show Hasbro is failure. To be honest, I haven't been "a part of the fandom" for a long time because of Hasbro's choices and lack of involvement with the distribution of their products that we do actually want. I don't "wish others not to have Unicron." That is just stupid. I want Hasbro to fail at this and try another method.

Probably safe to assume that they already tried to sell this to big retailers and failed. For instance, if Wal-Mart wanted 8,000 of them to sell in their stores this would not be a crowdfunding project.

Hasbro's collective of retail partners did not want these or at least did not think they could sell it at a palatable margin or they would be. Anything else just doesn't make much sense.

william-james88 wrote:

Burn wrote:

william-james88 wrote:I'm international too Burn, why do you never consider me as such?

You have access to Hasbro Pulse.

It's not local. So it ends up being the same exorbitant option as you ordering from Robotkingdom or something since shipping is international fedex and not worth it (plus no local currency option). The only case where its beneficial is indeed with Unicron since that is not accessible anywhere else.
But for everything else, Hasbro Pulse doesnt do any favours to me more than it does to you, hence why I still never resorted to them. I preordered those sdcc revealed exclusives (like Refraktor) from a local importer/collectable because it was the cheaper option than going through them.
It would probably be the same or cheaper for me to use a mail forwarding service than order from Pulse directly. And you can use a mail forwarding service too.

YOU.HAVE.THE.OPTION.
Don't sit there and try to put you and I in the same boat. We're not. You actually have the option to access Hasbro Pulse. The rest of the world DOES NOT.

Is it the same as other services? Maybe, probably, I don't know for certain, but my point is, YOU.HAVE.THE.OPTION.

Some of us are hoping to hell some of our local online retailers can some how get Unicron so we don't have to deal with customs and import charges etc, markups etc.

Sure would be nice to deal directly with the source, but some of us don't have that option.

It’s a pretty big chunk of the world to not include it seems nutty I gotta admit. I imagine it’s extremely frustrating.

What is the business/economic reason it’s not available in Australia anyways? Hasbro Pulse, the whole ball of wax. What the hell?

Stargrave wrote:What is the business/economic reason it’s not available in Australia anyways? Hasbro Pulse, the whole ball of wax. What the hell?

Couple of things.

Shipping - The cost of shipping from the US to Australia is ridiculously expensive.

Goods and Services Tax - When it was first introduced way back when, we could import stuff and if it was under $1000 we didn't have to pay GST on it. A couple of years back they removed that $1000 threshold completely so anything we import (for example when I buy from Hobbylink Japan) we have to pay an extra 10% in GST. (The silly part is, the retailer then has to remit that 10% to the Australian Government). Prior to it's introduction, Amazon US actually geo-blocked Australia, meaning we couldn't purchase from Amazon US, they stated it was to drive us to the newly established Amazon AU (which had very little stock compared to the US site). Eventually they unblocked us, surprisingly, once they worked out how to deal with the GST. eBay was in a similar situation on how to handle the changes to GST.

So I get that for Hasbro Pulse, dealing with international customers can be a headache, but that's what they have local branches for.

It's all good though, we have guys like Robotoyz and Toy Bot Importz who are filling in the hole Hasbro has left.

Burn wrote:

Stargrave wrote:What is the business/economic reason it’s not available in Australia anyways? Hasbro Pulse, the whole ball of wax. What the hell?

Couple of things.

Shipping - The cost of shipping from the US to Australia is ridiculously expensive.

Goods and Services Tax - When it was first introduced way back when, we could import stuff and if it was under $1000 we didn't have to pay GST on it. A couple of years back they removed that $1000 threshold completely so anything we import (for example when I buy from Hobbylink Japan) we have to pay an extra 10% in GST. (The silly part is, the retailer then has to remit that 10% to the Australian Government). Prior to it's introduction, Amazon US actually geo-blocked Australia, meaning we couldn't purchase from Amazon US, they stated it was to drive us to the newly established Amazon AU (which had very little stock compared to the US site). Eventually they unblocked us, surprisingly, once they worked out how to deal with the GST. eBay was in a similar situation on how to handle the changes to GST.

So I get that for Hasbro Pulse, dealing with international customers can be a headache, but that's what they have local branches for.

It's all good though, we have guys like Robotoyz and Toy Bot Importz who are filling in the hole Hasbro has left.

Sweet Christmas what an absolute nightmare. Well I’m glad you have local vendors but that’s still very limiting which I deem oppressive and extremely uncool!

Random: Know why getting a Transformer as a gift is the best? This is just me: Because when you don’t have to worry about buying the thing it can make even a sucky Transformer an awesome one. ahhhh, yes, money is a b-word sometimes.

I can't remember the last time I got one as a gift.

Mostly because family take the "he's got them all already" attitude.

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:I still posted it because there has been a fair mix of those who only think the price is bad, and those who think the price and size are not appropriate.

Unicorn needs to be bigger than a Titan. He needed the extra height, it wouldn't feel right for Unicron to finally get a new mold and still be big but shorter than the Titans.

Why? Unless you're one of those people that think Unicron should be big enough for Galvatron to fit in his fingertips
For him (and hopefully Scorponok) to all share the same height, gives validity to the Titan Class. A visual indicator to all Titan Class represents the "big boys". Those who the only scale that matters is that they are the biggest Bots of the line.

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:And then he also has a much harder alt mode to assume, and a much harder time because he has to work the 2 mode kibbles, whereas the other titans really don't have to contend with that.

What "complexity"? What "harder alt mode"? He Transforms into a Ball, through shell forming. Said shell is then tucked up in his calves and backpack. Every Unicron toy to date has been the same. If this was a screen accurate G1 Unicron toy we were discussing, who had no kibble, then complexity would be a valid descriptive to use. Let's not forget that the most complex City Bot of the set has been left til last, not just due to the lack of attention to Decepticons by Takara, but for those issues too?

To be fair we would have had scorpoknok a lot earlier, they've been sitting on the plans for him since the titan class fan poll, so I don't think they're as complex as you're hoping.

I still think that a perfect sphere alt mode for a titan class unicron, the robot mode would be far smaller with far more planet kibble then even this version. As I said, unicron doesn't have the advantage that Primus had, in being designed with the knowledge that the planet kibble would have no where to go

ZeroWolf wrote:To be fair we would have had scorponok a lot earlier, they've been sitting on the plans for him since the titan class fan poll, so I don't think they're as complex as you're hoping.

I still think that a perfect sphere alt mode for a titan class unicron, the robot mode would be far smaller with far more planet kibble then even this version. As I said, unicron doesn't have the advantage that Primus had, in being designed with the knowledge that the planet kibble would have no where to go

I'm not really talking about Scorponok being a particularly challenging Transformer himself, but he has three very distinct alt modes. Something that realistically, the other City Bots don't.

As far as Unicron goes, follow the transformation. Not the little fiddly bits, look at limb placement and how the chunks of his planet mode slide along etc Kibble isn't a certainty, if your designer is competent enough. There isn't a size that would work better than any other either.

Speaking of the transformation, we got ourselves an abridged video of the process!

https://io9.gizmodo.com/exclusive-watch-a-japanese-man-in-a-tuxedo-slowly-tran-1836967381

Scroll down a bit to see it. It's not the first image at the top of the article, but the one two paragraphs down.

Behold, Unicron! Thanks to fellow Seibertronian Sabrblade we've learned Gizmodo has posted a video of a fancifully dressed man in black, Transformer designer since 1984 Takashi Kunihiro, transforming an early production model of the turquoise titan himself.

Watch as the largest Transformer ever does just what it's namesake proposes and changes from a prickly planetoid of pain into the winged and clawed chaos god. Just click on the link above or the image below to be taken to the video. Enjoy the view and share your thoughts with the Seibertron crew in the forums, and as always stay tuned to Seibertron for the ultimate in Transformers news!

From the article:
"Just before San Diego Comic-Con, Hasbro’s HasLab—a crowdfunding platform it uses to bring its most elaborate toy creations to life—revealed a towering 27-inch tall Transformers Unicron toy. With over 50 points of articulation, transforming the world-destroying planet to a massive bot is an arduous task, as demonstrated in this exclusive video we’re revealing to fans today.
The dapper tuxedoed gentleman in the video who unboxes, assembles, and then transforms HasLab’s Unicron prototype from planet to robot mode is Takashi Kunihiro, who has been designing Transformers characters and toys for Takara Tomy since 1984."

I like that it can stay on the stand throughout the transformation.

this thing has so far to go

Much bigger than a basketball

I am so happy that I have backed this thing. It's even more impressive in person and I'm loving the fact that you can transform him while he remains on the stand too. They need to keep leaking more content every few days if they want to increase backers in time for the deadline. I still believe Hasbro will reach it's goal of 8000 backers, but to ensure it they should include an exclusive figure closely associated with Unicron from the '86 movie, similar to how Haslab included that heavily coveted Yakface figure. They should also leak preliminary packaging concept and box art to entice backers.

That photo of Takashi Kunihiro is just fantastic!!

Burn wrote:

william-james88 wrote: The only case where its beneficial is indeed with Unicron since that is not accessible anywhere else.
But for everything else, Hasbro Pulse doesnt do any favours to me more than it does to you, hence why I still never resorted to them. I preordered those sdcc revealed exclusives (like Refraktor) from a local importer/collectable because it was the cheaper option than going through them.
It would probably be the same or cheaper for me to use a mail forwarding service than order from Pulse directly. And you can use a mail forwarding service too.

YOU.HAVE.THE.OPTION.
Don't sit there and try to put you and I in the same boat. We're not. You actually have the option to access Hasbro Pulse. The rest of the world DOES NOT.

Is it the same as other services? Maybe, probably, I don't know for certain, but my point is, YOU.HAVE.THE.OPTION.

Some of us are hoping to hell some of our local online retailers can some how get Unicron so we don't have to deal with customs and import charges etc, markups etc.

Sure would be nice to deal directly with the source, but some of us don't have that option.

You are right, for sure. I mentioned Unicron, he is the one good thing Hasbro Pulse has done for Canadians. But he is very much the exception and at this point, I was hoping to show some solidarity, even if our situations arent identical.

All I was trying to say before you stepped in was that Hasbro has been stepping into the distribution directly with Pulse. It's mainly benefitted the US though, since the canadian option is still treated as an export and there is no option for other countries. But at least it's a starting point. I feel for you, of course, I don't want you to think I don't. I do wish we could have local/domestic versions of pulse, or associate programs with established local/domestic distributors to help us all.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Personally, as it is the 35th anniversary, I would have been happy with a G1 "reissue" style release of this guy:



Who wouldn't have need the sketchy practice of crowdfunding to begin with...

funny, I mentioned that this figure known as the Grail should be released in a very limited number for the 35th Anniversary of the movie to Ben and John at the Vince Dicola concert, if for nothing else to troll all of the people complaining about the WFC Unicron price and size.

Regimus Prime wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Personally, as it is the 35th anniversary, I would have been happy with a G1 "reissue" style release of this guy:



Who wouldn't have need the sketchy practice of crowdfunding to begin with...

funny, I mentioned that this figure known as the Grail should be released in a very limited number for the 35th Anniversary of the movie to Ben and John at the Vince Dicola concert, if for nothing else to troll all of the people complaining about the WFC Unicron price and size.

When I was a kid about the time before the 86 animated movie came out I heard a rumour of a sweepstakes for a chance to win a Unicron toy that was huge then it never happened years later I saw this prototype and thought that that was it and understood why it never happened

Ultra Markus wrote:When I was a kid about the time before the 86 animated movie came out I heard a rumour of a sweepstakes for a chance to win a Unicron toy that was huge then it never happened years later I saw this prototype and thought that that was it and understood why it never happened

Oh, the days of schoolyard rumors. Kids were vicious and cruel back then.