Sentinel_Primal wrote:Skritz wrote:You know, as much as I'm the guy who want them to show up in CHUG I'm starting to think we will never see Star Saber or Deathsaurus. Titans Return was the line where the obscure Japanese G1 characters got brand new mold (I'd argue Sixshot count, even if he was in the Rebirth) and were released at the Leader price point. None of these guys sold particularly well and the Leader class since has been nothing but heavy hitters for mass retail: Orion Pax/Optimus Prime, Hot Rod/Rodimus, Ultra Magnus, Shockwave and Astrotrain. The exceptions are Optimus Primal (due to the fan vote) and Galaxy Convoy who, granted, was a retool and technically just another form of Optimus Prime.
Maybe they'll never bother risking such a large price point on characters like Overlord again, given how he warmed shelves.
I think part of the issue is that Overlord and Sky Shadow both had weirder transformations with the splitting in half to form different vehicle modes. POTP is different because it was designed around Primes, but I think we might get lucky later down the line. I hope anyway
There's gotta be a zero percent chance that Deathsaurus gets released in a mainstream commercial line, and I wouldn't hold out too much hope for Star Saber either. The best bet would be releases in Generations Selects as retools of other characters. The biggest challenge I see for that is their builds are each very unique. Deathsaurus has the Breastforce components, but even excluding that, you're still talking about a dragon to humanoid transformation. There are a few of them across various US toylines, like BW and RiD Megatrons, but nothing that looks close. Takara certainly could do a unique mold, but would the sales make up for the cost?
Star Saber might be easier, since there are plenty of spaceships in Transformers, even if none of them look like him. But even in this case, how do you represent the complexity of the original toy, especially the combination with Leo? It seems like to wind up with something practical, they would have to make sacrifices that would undermine the original appeal.
I would claim that I don't understand the enthusiasm for CHUG versions of characters that weren't released in my region's toylines, but I personally would really like to see Rotorstorm and Thunderclash, so I can't judge.