The Energon Pub

Looking at the different waves of g1 reissues over the past decade or so with the takara white bookstyle box reissues, Hasbro commemorative, and encore series.. Many fans are still wondering why we haven't gotten some of the most obvious and wanted choices.. The case for this rant, being - Grimlock, Thrust, and Ramjet.. Does anyone know what the problem is? I take it Has/tak wants to pick reissues that would have the highest chance to sell to the older g1 collectors market out their.. Well, hello?? lol I mean we have a KO of grimlock, so saying the mold isn't usable is BS even if it requirs doing it reverse engineering.. And ehobby got thrust/ramjet way back before the reissue buying craze really got fired up online to what it is now adays.. So there prices and even finding them are way too high and rare.. But ehobby had them, so again the molds seem to be usable.. Whats the problem?? We get g1 dirge from hasbro mid 2000's, then all of encore after that until now and not a single g1 reissue thrust/ramjet OBVIOUS easy sells to the collectors market.. Even worse g1 Grimlock still gets zero reissue love besides KO makers.. Its not like its these rare TF choices that only very hardcore fans know about or care about like from the ending days of g1.. But rather main TFs that the general fans out there know about and would love to get.. What does it take for Hasbro/Takara to do the obvious and cash in huge with the g1 reissue collectors market and thus making there fans VERY, VERY, HAPPY.. Just a rant, thanks for reading..

According to some of our local experts, the collector's market, especially G1 ain't all that big to warrant a huge investment to recreate the molds.

fenrir72 wrote:According to some of our local experts, the collector's market, especially G1 ain't all that big to warrant a huge investment to recreate the molds.

Its true, although we probably would like to think otherwise, collector's make up a very tiny portion of Hasbro's sales. Maybe a slightly larger percentage of Takara's sales are adult collector's as they reissue G1 items far more often.

I think keeping that in mind, we are quite lucky that we have as many reissues available as we do.

Kid's will always be the main focus, which is for the best I think.

Japan's adult collectors market is another matter alright. Are you willing to buy a re-issued CMS Mugen Calibur whatchamacalit aka Roadbuster at a US$ 200 price range? I think not, but still companies like CMS make and sell stuff like this and still make a decent profit. Are we willing to buy a figure at that range? Heck MP-Convoy + Trailer already costs an arm and a leg.

So unless the adult collectors market in the good old US of A evolves to at least at otaku levels then maybe, just maybe Takara might release more new molds for the nostalgic collector market and the bottom line reasons (of course!).

Correct me if I am wrong but to emphasize the point, Ratchet and Ironhide were like holy grails when released as convention exclusives in Japan (around 2000-2001)but became shelf warmers as Encore.

The market is indeed fickle( and the cardboard faces didn't help much either)not to mention our world wide recession.

fenrir72 wrote:Japan's adult collectors market is another matter alright. Are you willing to buy a re-issued CMS Mugen Calibur whatchamacalit aka Roadbuster at a US$ 200 price range? I think not, but still companies like CMS make and sell stuff like this and still make a decent profit. Are we willing to buy a figure at that range? Heck MP-Convoy + Trailer already costs an arm and a leg.

So unless the adult collectors market in the good old US of A evolves to at least at otaku levels then maybe, just maybe Takara might release more new molds for the nostalgic collector market and the bottom line reasons (of course!).

Correct me if I am wrong but to emphasize the point, Ratchet and Ironhide were like holy grails when released as convention exclusives in Japan (around 2000-2001)but became shelf warmers as Encore.

The market is indeed fickle( and the cardboard faces didn't help much either)not to mention our world wide recession.

You are very right. In Japan there's a very solid divide between toys for kids (Super Sentai, Ultraman, Pokemon etc.) and toys for adults (Macross, Figma, Gunpla and so on). Transformers sit somewhere very awkwardly on both sides. It probably doesn't help that for Japanese fans the franchise hasn't had any Japanese input since perhaps the Unicron Trilogy, so my suspicion is that Transformers is somehow seen as less "legitimate" than home-grown products.

The upshot of this is that collectors items such as Alternity and Masterpiece tend to sell very well in Japan while everything else is a bit of a crapshoot.

As for G1 Reissues, Optimus, Soundwave, Starscream, Trailbreaker the Combaticons and all the tapes sold incredibly well, Omega Supreme, Megatron, Jazz and Metroplex sold modestly well and Hoist, Skids, Sky Lynx, Skywarp and Thundercracker collected dust on shelves for the longest time. The Skywarp/Thundercracker pack actually got discounted which is unbelievably rare in mainstream Japanese stores.

fenrir72 wrote:Correct me if I am wrong but to emphasize the point, Ratchet and Ironhide were like holy grails when released as convention exclusives in Japan (around 2000-2001)but became shelf warmers as Encore.

The market is indeed fickle( and the cardboard faces didn't help much either)not to mention our world wide recession.

True, but scarcity always drives sales, the encores were widely available while convention exclusives are rare by design.

some of the encore releases really puzzled me, the cassettes and skylynx, omega and metroplex were all great, but soundwave? again? A lot of the releases were double dips from either hasbro or takara's last run of reissues. I was hoping we would get encore Trypticon.

Takara's book style reissue run is still the best run in my opinion, a wide variety of molds, great packaging for MISB collectors etc etc.

Diem wrote: The Skywarp/Thundercracker pack actually got discounted which is unbelievably rare in mainstream Japanese stores.

thats a shame, that set was awesome, I would love to see an encore 3 pack with the coneheads, would buy that in a second!

Sid Burn wrote:
some of the encore releases really puzzled me, the cassettes and skylynx, omega and metroplex were all great, but soundwave? again? A lot of the releases were double dips from either hasbro or takara's last run of reissues. I was hoping we would get encore Trypticon.

Takara's book style reissue run is still the best run in my opinion, a wide variety of molds, great packaging for MISB collectors etc etc.

Truth be told, Soundwave's mold is still extant, HasTak have the mold to hand, and he's a figure that's always sure to sell well. He's pretty much a no-brainer. It's sad that he'd be released over someone who we haven't seen re-released before (ie. most of 1987 onwards) but I can totally understand why HasTak did it.

I agree with you so hard about the Bookbox series. The packaging and the range were great and it was nice to see a kind of best-of approach (ie. Hot Rod having both his regular guns and his Targetmaster, and metal toes; the Insecticons with their Energon cubes etc.)

I was upset when that series ended without any real closure.

The book series? Man! That was light years the best of all re-issues! If I have any complaints it's the white colors, maybe Takara would have used the nostalgic "grid" design and it would have been perfect.

What was great with the TFC(with the exception of "Bugs Bunny" Meister) were Convoy,Megatron, the Insectrons,mini-bots and Starscream. The extra goodies in them made them worth buying again and again. My only regret was not getting Convoy(for the axe) and Starscream for the Megatron gun and Convoy fist.

Honorable mention though for Galvatron(movie semi accurate colors and the gold metal Matrix)and Starconvoy .........though not a book series(how to implement the book package format would be a logistics/design nightmare)

Diem and Stormrider are the best source/witness to how them TF toys sell in the Land of the Rising Sun. To deviate a bit, heck some anime statues by Daiki Kougyo (a Takara subsidiary)such that of Kanu Unchuo http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... K:MEWAX:IT

on the secondary market cost nearly US$300.00! (It's initial release already had her at around US$ 100.00 +.) Almost like that of a MIB Scorponok! Heck makes me wonder why Takara won't release an Encore Scorponok which would probably cost less and sell more......but then again how can Scorponok compete against Kanu right?