Sabrblade wrote:ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:Sabrblade wrote:ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:Sabrblade, it occurs to me that those incidences were prior to brand unification, which may have changed their strategy a bit.
From what we've seen of both the last few Legends releases and the likes of Star Convoy, Takara seems to be able to still do their own projects without Hasbro's involvement that in turn aren't subject to the terms and/or limitations of the brand unification,
with the only effect said unification appears to have on these is their being sold on Hasbro Pulse, beginning with Star Convoy.
Well, that was kind of my point. I was thinking that the fact that these will be sold to the USA as well might have changed up their marketing strategy.
That would only matter if Takara had to conform to Hasbro's more rigid size class-based packaging requirements.
You've completely lost me on your logic there. Care to
explain why having direct access to the USA market couldn't prompt a shift in marketing strategy by itself? Like, the way I see it, new direct access to a market is plenty of reason for a company to mix up its marketing strategy because now it has a new prospective customer base to woo.
Sabrblade wrote:ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:But now another thought has occurred to me. The teams that Takara teased and advertised all together? Were sold as giftsets. If the Seacons are being sold singly...
Yeah. that's another curiosity that makes this very strange for Takara. If they're planning to make the whole team, there really doesn't seem to be any reason for them to not do it as another giftset. It's weird.
What about cost? It's easier to lay in money for them one at a time, especially since between the Seacons having an extra full-size member and the additional weapons for Turtler the giftset would be a costlier one than normal.
...Thinking about it, Star Convoy and Armada Optimus could also be factors - perhaps the Seacons are being worked on one at a time for now because of the resources currently allocated to the development of those two.
ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:Sabrblade wrote:Just look at how much mass that Turtler has; all that retooling had to have been done well beyond the range of Hasbro's typical budget for a Voyager class figure.
Oh, definitely, but then it
is an exclusive. Some of the new parts doubtless existed on the mold already, but certainly not things like the big sword and gun. And the shield has probably been made fancier.
Indeed. Further evidence that Takara made all these extensive retool changes without Hasbro's input, like when they made all new figures for Groove and Blast Off, or when they did their own unique retooling for their Technobots on top of the established pretooling that each of those molds had already had.[/quote]
Actually, with the Technobots Takara outright retooled different molds for three of them. Lightspeed was retooled from the Wheeljack version of the Breakdown mold instead of being a Streetwise redeco, Nosecone was retooled from Rook instead of Brawl, and Strafe was retooled from Shuttle!Blast Off.