Auto Bot wrote:If it were not for the story and characters, i think the toys will not take off, or attain such success. Looking back to the Microman and Diaclone lines (direct ancestors for TF toys), they were good, but only to a limited extent.
You know, I really agree with you on a kids perspective, because without characters to back up toys then the toys are nowhere near what they could be. Cybertron Prime is a very good toy, but without the characterization, it's really just a fire truck kind of robot thing.
On a collectors/grown up perspective though, I disagree. I never saw a single RID episode and caught Armada like a year after it was finished, and refused to watch Beast Wars until a couple years ago. In light of all of that I was still buying TFs from those lines. Granted, Megatron is Megatron is Megatron, and I cannot after 23 years or so distance the name from the character and my recollections of him, but Armada Megatron was purchased because I liked both modes, same with RID Megatron and BW Megatron. I didn't buy a BW Primal until recently because I didn't like the monkey mode and I didn't know who the character was. So maybe I'm with you 50% here, but what my point is supposed to be is that some toys would probably still sell based just on their appearance, while some do require character input to be appealing. Like the repaints/non-moive/series toys....unless you really like the toy, why bother with Cybertron Excellion? Hot Shot was in the show, was Excellion?