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Primeultimus wrote:

GuyIncognito wrote:

Primeultimus wrote:
When they show up at retail outlets other then discount stores or Toys R Us let us continue the conversation.

Well they're available through retailers now; that's the point. Why don't TRU and discount stores count as "retail" in your definition?

Because they are specialty retail. They do not carry the same items as Target , Walmart and Kmart usually do. They are Retail and do carry certain cancelled or so thought cancelled items like the First Edition , GDO , Power Core Combiner and Reveal The Shield Lines as well as Skyquake from the Prime Line.

TRU does so count as mass retail. It's part of the "Big Four" that contains it, Walmart, Target, and Kmart (KB Toys used to be in this as well, making them the "Big Five"). Discount stores are part of the "Market Six" branch, but TRU is a main retailer.

As for the things you mentioned that TRU carries that other retailers don't, Power Core Combiners and Reveal the Shield were both mass retail lines found in plenty of Targets, Walmarts, and Kmarts; Prime Skyquake was just a late arrival and only found at TRU becaue TRU still had Prime RID toys for sale at a time when other retailers had emptied their Prime RID stock and were already deep in Prime BH toys; and both the Prime First Edition and Generations GDO toys were exclusive to TRU, meaning they were never going to come to mass retail since no other store would take them. They weren't canceled if they came to the store they were meant to come to.

And TRU having exclusives is no different from Target or Walmart having exclusives of their own.

Got mine preordered as soon as I got the email from BBTS. As bad as retail distribution has been the last couple years and with the impending movie stuff that will be taking over I feel like its cheaper and easier for me to save time and gas and fore go brick and mortar hunting. The last 2 waves of deluxes and many of the voyagers I have had to get online as I never saw them locally, likewise with most of the later Prime and Beast Hunters waves. I never saw the Legends Megs and Starscream at retail here and as soon as the Optimus and Bumblebee hit shelves they were clearanced out withing a few weeks. Pile of Loot has been alife saver for my collection

Due to some poor Internet timing, I didn't get these until today, so naturally the singles have already gone up a price increment or two.

Oh well, I got Tailgate and Cosmos, since I don't need an Insecticon and I'm going with MakeToys for their Swerve option.

Goodbye iGear Cosmos.

After coming back to the page a few times, I was able to get Cosmos pre-ordered. Due to the size reductions and quality problems, I usually don't get anything larger than a Voyager these days. But c'mon, this is Cosmos man! Woulda been cool if he was larger, but that's okay.

GuyIncognito wrote:Yup. He had hard evidence from rock-solid sources that these figures were cancelled.

i remember one of the pieces of evidence. the walmart shelf layout. i didnt fully understand... its not like those are set in stone OR that that will be the layout in even a months time. ive seen those layouts a bunch of times.

but anyways, i preordered all four. just as a precaution. and someone made a good point about these coming out near the release of TF4... if the shelves are suffocated with movie figures these could still be hard to find.