The Energon Pub

Weird question: Did Hasbro release any numbers on how well beast-transformers sell in comparison with vehicle-transformers?

It is hard to see when a toyline only contains beasts, or only cars and planes... but with Kingdom and Legacy we actually have a nice dataset to see how big the market appetite for beast-transformers is.

Sculyblast wrote:Weird question: Did Hasbro release any numbers on how well beast-transformers sell in comparison with vehicle-transformers?

It is hard to see when a toyline only contains beasts, or only cars and planes... but with Kingdom and Legacy we actually have a nice dataset to see how big the market appetite for beast-transformers is.

No one releases sales numbers like that, that's not how this works. In streams they'll talk in generalities like "the non-G1 were ordered as much as the G1," but without giving any specific sources or explaining what that means. We can only speculate.

AcademyofDrX wrote:

Sculyblast wrote:Weird question: Did Hasbro release any numbers on how well beast-transformers sell in comparison with vehicle-transformers?

It is hard to see when a toyline only contains beasts, or only cars and planes... but with Kingdom and Legacy we actually have a nice dataset to see how big the market appetite for beast-transformers is.

No one releases sales numbers like that, that's not how this works. In streams they'll talk in generalities like "the non-G1 were ordered as much as the G1," but without giving any specific sources or explaining what that means. We can only speculate.

And it certainly doesn't help that the distribution of the main Legacy line (in the US, at least) has been completely slipshod from the start, with Walmart over-ordering Wave 1 and skipping certain later waves entirely, while Target also got too much Wave 1 and very little of certain other waves that Walmart skipped over. Galvatron and Blitzwing are chronic shelf-warmers, and so too is Jhiaxus.

In specific regards to the beast toys, the Deluxe wave with Tarantulas seemed to only ever turn up at Best Buy of all places, the Voyager wave with Inferno and Armada Starscream took forever to show up in any stores, well after Legacy Evolution started showing up, and even with a package refresh in Legacy Evolution, Transmetal II Megatron didn't even make it to brick-and-mortar stores at all.

Anyone complaining about beast toys in Legacy existing have nothing to complain about, since none of them are taking up any shelf or peg space in stores because of how downright scarce they have been when compared to everything else in the line. If anything's taking up space, it's Skids, Galvatron, and Jhiaxus who just won't go away.

Sabrblade wrote:

AcademyofDrX wrote:

Sculyblast wrote:Weird question: Did Hasbro release any numbers on how well beast-transformers sell in comparison with vehicle-transformers?

It is hard to see when a toyline only contains beasts, or only cars and planes... but with Kingdom and Legacy we actually have a nice dataset to see how big the market appetite for beast-transformers is.

No one releases sales numbers like that, that's not how this works. In streams they'll talk in generalities like "the non-G1 were ordered as much as the G1," but without giving any specific sources or explaining what that means. We can only speculate.

And it certainly doesn't help that the distribution of the main Legacy line (in the US, at least) has been completely slipshod from the start, with Walmart over-ordering Wave 1 and skipping certain later waves entirely, while Target also got too much Wave 1 and very little of certain other waves that Walmart skipped over. Galvatron and Blitzwing are chronic shelf-warmers, and so too is Jhiaxus.

In specific regards to the beast toys, the Deluxe wave with Tarantulas seemed to only ever turn up at Best Buy of all places, the Voyager wave with Inferno and Armada Starscream took forever to show up in any stores, well after Legacy Evolution started showing up, and even with a package refresh in Legacy Evolution, Transmetal II Megatron didn't even make it to brick-and-mortar stores at all.

Anyone complaining about beast toys in Legacy existing have nothing to complain about, since none of them are taking up any shelf or peg space in stores because of how downright scarce they have been when compared to everything else in the line. If anything's taking up space, it's Skids, Galvatron, and Jhiaxus who just won't go away.

Personally I've never believed that perceived shelf-warming is all that useful for determining how successful a line or a wave or even a product are. I'd also be shocked if retailers care enough about that that it gets back to Hasbro and influences them one way or another. We know that retailers expect a certain amount of product to move and then some will go to clearance, and we know that the volume is high enough that some shipments will go on to discount resellers. I don't think it makes sense as fans to try to draw conclusions from that process.

The Animated figures are not bad, but I still like the originals better and will keep my small collection of them. Theys both also not quite fitting in to G1 either. Its a tough tight-rope to walk with these kinds of figures and please both sides. Prowl I have and really like as a re-built G1 Prowl.

Infernac rock-lord guys look amazing. I pre-ordered Magneous, but plan on waiting in store for the trike one. I did not think they would turn out this badass looking. Can't decide if I will go with; regular Cybertronians with a cosmic rust type, turning into rock virus or something, or just made that way.

Tigerhawk looks amazing, maybe I would buy one on sale. Tazmanian Kid though I pre-ordered as fast as I could. He is great.

Chase looks good as well, but I will wait and check out the Cyberverse/IDW Lockdown from it.

One I was looking forward to seeing and maybe buying was Windblade, and it does look pretty fair. However I still like my Takara Adventure Windblade very slightly better(mainly because I already own it).

Titan Tidal Wave is very tempting. So far I am sticking with my, only own two Titan class figure thing, for now. Magnaboss is kinda interesting, but not really something that fits in my collection/head-canon.

Powerlinx Hot Shot and Jolt are awesome and I can't wait to gets them in. I see some already showing up. Mine still says "pending".

Entertainment Earth charged me over a week ago for Tarn and still haven't shipped him. I sure hope they don't cancel him on me. He's still listed as ready to pre-order for October, maybe they're making me wait for the next batch. Just strange that they charged me but didn't ship a few days later.

Emerje

Trashmaster combos:

Now with legacy Thundertron, they need to release cybertron Snarl (fangwolf) as his second in command

https://www.instagram.com/p/CxrJjHDMr_f ... BiNWFlZA==

Markclonus put up a post about animated Optimus
Those pics look sweet

Definitely getting this guy. Maybe I'll head Canon him as my Orion Pax and have him Duke it out with miner Megatron

Razorbeast88 wrote:Now with legacy Thundertron, they need to release cybertron Snarl (fangwolf) as his second in command

What? Why? Cybertron Snarl had nothing to do with Thundertron.

Sabrblade wrote:

Razorbeast88 wrote:Now with legacy Thundertron, they need to release cybertron Snarl (fangwolf) as his second in command

What? Why? Cybertron Snarl had nothing to do with Thundertron.

For funsies
They have similar color schemes
They both have beast alt modes
I think that's enough to look cool together lol

Razorbeast88 wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

Razorbeast88 wrote:Now with legacy Thundertron, they need to release cybertron Snarl (fangwolf) as his second in command

What? Why? Cybertron Snarl had nothing to do with Thundertron.

For funsies
They have similar color schemes
They both have beast alt modes
I think that's enough to look cool together lol

But why his second-in-command? Snarl's an Autobot, while Thundertron is evil.

Sabrblade wrote:

Razorbeast88 wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

Razorbeast88 wrote:Now with legacy Thundertron, they need to release cybertron Snarl (fangwolf) as his second in command

What? Why? Cybertron Snarl had nothing to do with Thundertron.

For funsies
They have similar color schemes
They both have beast alt modes
I think that's enough to look cool together lol

But why his second-in-command? Snarl's an Autobot, while Thundertron is evil.

Snarl went through some sh!t and left the autobots lol or he's a spy sent by the autobots to gain their trust idk
Maybe Thundertron can be more of a chaotic neutral like Barbosa. Of course by now you know that I know nothing about their actual characters and I need to pay a visit to tfwiki for some research haha

Emerje wrote:Entertainment Earth charged me over a week ago for Tarn and still haven't shipped him. I sure hope they don't cancel him on me. He's still listed as ready to pre-order for October, maybe they're making me wait for the next batch. Just strange that they charged me but didn't ship a few days later.

Emerje

Not really surprised, every time I have ordered from them, it's taken a minimum of 2 weeks to ship. Longest it took was an in stock order last November that took a full month to ship.

Razorbeast88 wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

Razorbeast88 wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

Razorbeast88 wrote:Now with legacy Thundertron, they need to release cybertron Snarl (fangwolf) as his second in command

What? Why? Cybertron Snarl had nothing to do with Thundertron.

For funsies
They have similar color schemes
They both have beast alt modes
I think that's enough to look cool together lol

But why his second-in-command? Snarl's an Autobot, while Thundertron is evil.

Snarl went through some sh!t and left the autobots lol or he's a spy sent by the autobots to gain their trust idk
Maybe Thundertron can be more of a chaotic neutral like Barbosa. Of course by now you know that I know nothing about their actual characters and I need to pay a visit to tfwiki for some research haha

Or simply watch the show. There's lots of places to watch several Transformers cartoons for free.

Knowing nothing about the character, why the hell does Thundertron have a peg foot, but his beast mode doesn't? Does it fall off when he transforms, and he has to go fetch it when he goes beast mode? Is it a "Prime's trailer" thing? Pirate aesthetic aside, that's dumb as hell.

Brokebot wrote:Knowing nothing about the character, why the hell does Thundertron have a peg foot, but his beast mode doesn't? Does it fall off when he transforms, and he has to go fetch it when he goes beast mode? Is it a "Prime's trailer" thing? Pirate aesthetic aside, that's dumb as hell.

On the original toy, the peg leg's beast foot would detach and become an accessory for his robot mode. Someone (I can't recall who) once described that to me as "He can rip off his own foot and beat you to death with it. That's metal as sin!"

It's kind of crazy that for the whole next year, depending on what we get from the Leader class Soundwave, and how Sandstorm looks, the only figure I'm set to get from the mainline is Gears.

I'll get Swoop, Scrapheap, probably Springer, and hopefully Sunstreaker and Hound from SS86 (and/or Buzzworthy).

And that's it... 4 figures for sure.
And 4 "maybe-it-depends-on..." based on version/series, appearance, and/or if they're actually released.

Even though I'll get 2 copies of Swoop, Hastak really isn't getting much of my money next year!

Thundertron's foot attaches to his sword on the new figure.

If we really do get Thunderhowl from Thundertron that would be a good opportunity to revisit the Cybertronian Knights since that became the rivals to the Star Seekers. Give me an orange Ginrai. Maybe next capsule or maybe the last two unnamed figures in that series are Knights.

Emerje.

Emerje wrote: Give me an orange Ginrai.

Emerje.

First, he'll need to be completely remade from the ground up. The Titan Return version suck sloppy ass.
A proper Ginrai should be a Commander. I don't know if the Commander budget would allow for God-Bomber. If it can't, God Bomber could be a voyager like Trashmaster. Maybe God-Bomber could have his parts that will also be relatively compatible with the other figures to allow some interesting shenanigans.

-Kanrabat- wrote:

Emerje wrote: Give me an orange Ginrai.

Emerje.

First, he'll need to be completely remade from the ground up. The Titan Return version suck sloppy ass.
A proper Ginrai should be a Commander. I don't know if the Commander budget would allow for God-Bomber. If it can't, God Bomber could be a voyager like Trashmaster. Maybe God-Bomber could have his parts that will also be relatively compatible with the other figures to allow some interesting shenanigans.

First off, I have every use of that Titans Return mold except for Legends Ultra Magnus (the one with tiny Alpha Trion in his chest), I love that mold.

Second, it doesn't have to be much more than, say, Siege Optimus Prime or an orange version of Kingdom Ultra Magnus' inner bot to match the blue one we got with Shattered Glass Ultra Magnus.

This is Cybertronian Knight Ginrai:



While our two Magna Convoys look like this:




So it wouldn't surprise me if they repeated things and gave us an orange "Ultra Magnus" inner bot as a Voyager. The bot mold is separate from the trailer mold so it's plausible.

Plausible but not necessarily a good idea. I'd rather see the Siege mold retooled to look more like the Classics OP mold and it wouldn't even be hard.

Emerje

Got Armada Prime and Beachcomber. Love em both!

~ Grim

Sabrblade wrote:

AcademyofDrX wrote:

Sculyblast wrote:Weird question: Did Hasbro release any numbers on how well beast-transformers sell in comparison with vehicle-transformers?

It is hard to see when a toyline only contains beasts, or only cars and planes... but with Kingdom and Legacy we actually have a nice dataset to see how big the market appetite for beast-transformers is.

No one releases sales numbers like that, that's not how this works. In streams they'll talk in generalities like "the non-G1 were ordered as much as the G1," but without giving any specific sources or explaining what that means. We can only speculate.

And it certainly doesn't help that the distribution of the main Legacy line (in the US, at least) has been completely slipshod from the start, with Walmart over-ordering Wave 1 and skipping certain later waves entirely, while Target also got too much Wave 1 and very little of certain other waves that Walmart skipped over. Galvatron and Blitzwing are chronic shelf-warmers, and so too is Jhiaxus.

In specific regards to the beast toys, the Deluxe wave with Tarantulas seemed to only ever turn up at Best Buy of all places, the Voyager wave with Inferno and Armada Starscream took forever to show up in any stores, well after Legacy Evolution started showing up, and even with a package refresh in Legacy Evolution, Transmetal II Megatron didn't even make it to brick-and-mortar stores at all.

Anyone complaining about beast toys in Legacy existing have nothing to complain about, since none of them are taking up any shelf or peg space in stores because of how downright scarce they have been when compared to everything else in the line. If anything's taking up space, it's Skids, Galvatron, and Jhiaxus who just won't go away.

Ypu gptta caveat this stuff with "in your area" because sparse or no, I saw every single one of those toys at retail in Target AND Walmart, even if it was sparse.

I can't really judge the figure on such a blurry photo. But the idea of updating Silverbolt feels weird, like most of the Fuzor / Transmetal range, because the things to "fix" are very specific. In Silverbolt's case, it would be the headsculpt and the backpack. But everything else about the old figure was really accurate, and feels like it could be inferior in a new version due to budget cuts.