Seibertron wrote:Regarding Scott's post above, I think Optimus Primal was a poor choice to go with as the first reveal/release. His original toy is still pretty awesome, especially with the remolds it got 10 years ago which Takara themselves thought were good enough for a release in Transformers Legends at the tail end of 2014.
Rhinox, Rattrap and Waspinator all recently got decent (not perfect, but still really awesome) updates in the Generations/Legends lines so I'd stay away from them. However, Dinobot, Cheetor, Tigatron, Airazor, Terrorsaur, Blackarachnia, Tarantulas, Scorponok, and especially Megatron all really need some proper toys. I think the concept should have been proven with any of those first, and then worked back to Optimus Primal, Rattrap, Rhinox and Waspinator. The problem with my idea is that Hasbro and Takara love to lead out with an Optimus toy, but I feel like in this case, that was a poor decision.
Another issue is ... why is it taking almost 1.5 years from when they first showed Beast Convoy/Optimus Primal from when we are actually going to get him? Is it going to take 1.5 years until we get Cheetor?
On the timing, I really think that was a case of something getting shown when they had barely scratched the surface of actually making the thing. Not something done often, but if some rumors are to be believed about Masterpiece there are a lot of designs in the pipe already in progress and some that are even conceptually finished and just waiting for licensing deals to close. Revealing some of that stuff now, way early, would probably lead to wait for that product like the length of the wait for Primal.
I'd also personally rather them lead out the line of Beast MPs with someone like Megatron, but let's be honest here, Takara is going to lead with some version of Convoy every time whenever possible. He's the face of the franchise, and probably seen as a "safe" play that will help other oddball stuff like Inferno keep happening. I imagine this is why there was a run of characters like Bumblebee and Ultra Magnus just before something like Tracks that's an iconic character but not on that A-tier within the brand.