The Energon Pub

This was taken from the new Ages Three and Up newsletter and it actually makes me happy and kind of sad. Hopefully Takara started doing awesome Encore figures to fight the evil KO's and hopefully they will continue to make awesome Encores.

Hasbro and KO`s
We have been contacted by Hasbro regarding our KO figures on our site. We have been asked to remove all the KO product for the time being. I will be creating more of a statement regarding this situation in a few days. If you have any questions please send them to me at spencer@agesthreeandup.com

That's interesting. I wonder if Hasbro and or Takara are finally going to be cracking down on all of the KO's, and if they are will we finally get official releases of these molds?

Geekee1 wrote:I wonder if ... we [will] finally get official releases of these molds?

I wish. I don't see why the companies making the KOs can make figures from "lost/damaged" molds, but Hasbro/Takara can't...

I appreciate that, with the Encore series, Takara is releasing some figures that haven't been released dozens of other times. If only Hasbro would get on the ball. You've got an online store Hasbro, sell them there.

lmao. They been selling KO's at ridiculous prices for too long. I would'nt buy from them anyway, they're Canadian.

Maquese wrote:I wish. I don't see why the companies making the KOs can make figures from "lost/damaged" molds, but Hasbro/Takara can't...

Usually that's because they are making new molds from old toys. That's how I understand it....

Can't they say I'm unhappy about this.
I think each of the KOs reduces the chance for aan official reissue.
Why should HasTak bother to find means to bring out the old figures again when quite a few people already spend their money on a KO.

Good to see Hasbro taking appropriate steps.

Funny thing is that it may start to raise the price on these KOs higher than they are. Which would be a shame.
I wonder if they are gonna approach all online toy retailers
in the same manner.

I wonder when Nissan, Porsche, Lamborghini are finally going to start cracking down on Hasbro/Takara for ripping off the Fairlady Z, 935, and Countach designs for over twenty years.

If they have licenses for those, why can't they get licsenses for these?

Tarphedon.

Sarri wrote:Can't they say I'm unhappy about this.
I think each of the KOs reduces the chance for aan official reissue.
Why should HasTak bother to find means to bring out the old figures again when quite a few people already spend their money on a KO.

If they'd release the figures people are asking for (Dinobots, Sunstreaker, Mirage, Wheeljack) there would be no market for KOs.
I don't care if they stop the KOs or not. I'd like to buy them, but they're too expensive for me. If TakaTomy or Hasbro would just get on the ball, I'd happily buy from them. I have a couple of the Encore reissues on preorder right now, and I have most of, if not all of, the TRU reissues. So I'll buy it, they just have to make it available.

Tarphedon wrote:I wonder when Nissan, Porsche, Lamborghini are finally going to start cracking down on Hasbro/Takara for ripping off the Fairlady Z, 935, and Countach designs for over twenty years.

If they have licenses for those, why can't they get licsenses for these?

Tarphedon.

We do not know if Takara got a license in late 1970s/early 1980s for those the ones that you mentioned.

Great news. Hopefully this be the start of a crackdown on G1-packaged KOs.

Thank goodness I got my vintage metroplex before I thought about going KO, not that it matters now.

I wonder if it would make a difference if the KO manufacturers called the KOs a different name, like Dinorobot Commander instead of Grimlock. I just suspect that it is the use of the character name and likeness that has caused Hasbro to take notice.

Counterpunch wrote:Good to see Hasbro taking appropriate steps.

Indeed. But I don't imagine they'll do too much as they will more than likely only target retailers in their market. It'll be up to TomyTakara to deal with the Asian market where the majority of these KO's are probably sold.

The big battle will be if they decide to go after the E-Bay sellers.

I just saw yesterday that some company was taking pre-orders for KO Insecticons and I thought to myself when is going to stop and now I see this...some sort of answer I guess

If your curious about the insecticons its here:

http://tformers.com/article.php?sid=8977&ss=as

I would hope that it would mean HASBRO has plans for these older molds, but it probably just means they are protecting the rights to their properties, and not that they actually have any plans to put any new re-issues on the market.