The Energon Pub

Jelze Bunnycat wrote:

primalxconvoy wrote:

william-james88 wrote:
I really think we are using the "shelf-warm" term too loosely to the point where it loses meaning. If Clampdown, which has been on shelves for barely a month, is considered a shelfwarmer, then what do we call the Studio Series Blurrs and Kups from last year that I still see on shelves?

Well, then they're both shelf-warmers, just with possibly slightly different reasons for the state they are viewed as being in.

I think the point is we need a new term for "figures that don't sell as fast as their case mates" vs. "figures that don't sell, period."

Arguably, the "don't sell at all" belief might not be accurate. Perhaps both "groups" of toys we've just discussed differ only by the length of time warming the shelves? I suppose one way would be to (hypothetically) see which ones were sold (at a discounted price?) to customers or a discount chain of shops (like the ones that sell liquidation stock, etc)?

Perhaps "bargain bucket-fodder"?

sol magnus wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

sol magnus wrote:

Seibertron wrote:

Hellscream9999 wrote:****, my walmarts haven't even started stocking this line yet, and these guys have wave 2 before hasbro even announces it

Are you sure your Walmart didn't get them and they're gone already? Came out about a month ago. I feel like I saw them and then they were gone just as fast. I thought they were going to be shelf warmers, but people seem to really like these.

In my area, everything except Cosmos is starting to shelf-warm, INCLUDING Clampdown. I've been to 3 Walmarts in two days and they all had at least 1 Clampdown and plenty of the others. Of course, this is one are, but they were definitely flying the first few cases. Now the rabid have all theirs and it's regular product.

I really think we are using the "shelf-warm" term too loosely to the point where it loses meaning. If Clampdown, which has been on shelves for barely a month, is considered a shelfwarmer, then what do we call the Studio Series Blurrs and Kups from last year that I still see on shelves?

No, I agree....I use the term as familiar, but not to kill the meaning of it. I don't think any of them are actual shelf warmers just yet. The market is starting to cool, lets say. But in the case of Clampdown, he was going right along with Cosmos. Now I can walk in dry and see him.

It's cool, I do like following your analysis. We see the speed at which some fly off the shelves and as there is more supply, we see which toys end up having met that immediate demand vs the ones that still don't. And from what we see in that pic of New Zealand, Clampdown will eventually stay on the shelves as much as any other toy since it will be repacked in the next wave.

I got Hauler and he's the only one that's a must-buy for me since he's one of the few TFs from the cartoon that hadn't had a modern style release yet.

I would have gotten Cosmos, but I never saw him.

I did see Clampdown, but his police lights were missing.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:I got Hauler and he's the only one that's a must-buy for me since he's one of the few TFs from the cartoon that hadn't had a modern style release yet.

I would have gotten Cosmos, but I never saw him.

I did see Clampdown, but his police lights were missing.

the police lights are with his weapons

Gauntlet101010 wrote:I got Hauler and he's the only one that's a must-buy for me since he's one of the few TFs from the cartoon that hadn't had a modern style release yet.

I would have gotten Cosmos, but I never saw him.

I did see Clampdown, but his police lights were missing.

They arent missing, they just arent placed on the alt mode since that would be really easy to either fall off or get stolen due to the open window.

william-james88 wrote:

Gauntlet101010 wrote:I got Hauler and he's the only one that's a must-buy for me since he's one of the few TFs from the cartoon that hadn't had a modern style release yet.

I would have gotten Cosmos, but I never saw him.

I did see Clampdown, but his police lights were missing.

They arent missing, they just arent placed on the alt mode since that would be really easy to either fall off or get stolen due to the open window.

The open window as nothing to do with that. Remember the Prowl family, the Red Alerts, and ER Ratchet. All had their "cherries" on top removed and segregated among the weapons. That is, if I remember correctly.

-Kanrabat- wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

Gauntlet101010 wrote:I got Hauler and he's the only one that's a must-buy for me since he's one of the few TFs from the cartoon that hadn't had a modern style release yet.

I would have gotten Cosmos, but I never saw him.

I did see Clampdown, but his police lights were missing.

They arent missing, they just arent placed on the alt mode since that would be really easy to either fall off or get stolen due to the open window.

The open window as nothing to do with that. Remember the Prowl family, the Red Alerts, and ER Ratchet. All had their "cherries" on top removed and segregated among the weapons. That is, if I remember correctly.

Yeah, but they were all packaged in robot mode so you wouldn't see it. That's why this is the only release where one would think it's missing from looking at the toy.

william-james88 wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

Gauntlet101010 wrote:I got Hauler and he's the only one that's a must-buy for me since he's one of the few TFs from the cartoon that hadn't had a modern style release yet.

I would have gotten Cosmos, but I never saw him.

I did see Clampdown, but his police lights were missing.

They arent missing, they just arent placed on the alt mode since that would be really easy to either fall off or get stolen due to the open window.

The open window as nothing to do with that. Remember the Prowl family, the Red Alerts, and ER Ratchet. All had their "cherries" on top removed and segregated among the weapons. That is, if I remember correctly.

Yeah, but they were all packaged in robot mode so you wouldn't see it. That's why this is the only release where one would think it's missing from looking at the toy.

Yeah, exactly that.
Also, it's a pretty damn genius move to separate those lights. It keep production costs of the repaints way down. The downside is that it's one more loose part that can be missing. I predict some of those lights will sell for 50$ on eBay 20 years from now.

[/quote]

You know seeing as how I feel like a minion of the bad guys....root for the bad guys....it would be nice if the Generations symbol were altered for the symbol for a while. C'mon / only greatness can come from this.

How about the term peg-squatters....shelf-squatters?

And regarding Cosmos.... ....'nuff said!

More Shattered Glass for me please!

blackeyedprime wrote:I'll be pasing on theese two. Race car modes for both are still pretty bad

Whuh? I can maybe see that for Crasher, but not Shadowstrip.

blackeyedprime wrote:though Shadow Strip looks pretty good as an arm -the colors make him look less like a bulldozer gone wrong.

Is that what you think of the Tyrell P34 in general?

blackeyedprime wrote:Honestly prefer fracture over crasher

They're the same; "Fracture" was just a now-unnecessary lawyer-friendly name.

blackeyedprime wrote:if she had been the potp Jazz mold then maybe (it's not like its a big deal to hasbro to have incompletable combiners hahahaha).

Except that the PotP Jazz mold only works for the vehicle mode, and doesn't have a suitable head pre-molded.

blackeyedprime wrote:Hotrods still going to be crazy priced if it's £33 for a voyager deluxe

For the umpteenth time, it's because of the crazy jointing needed to match the cheating animation model. And it beats whatever the crap SS86 is going for on eBay right now, oy.

blackeyedprime wrote:but seeing as they havent got his colors right yet the toy color version might work for me (and ifthey paint his roof the right color -they finally got clampdowns lambo panels paint matching so who knows)

I mean, red is always a butt as matching goes, but they did fine with the SS86 version so this should turn out fine also.

RodimusPrimeUkraine1 wrote:

SpaceEagle wrote:I'm always a sucker for toy-accuracy, I'll happily pick this Hot Rod up if even has tampographs to mimic the sticker detailing like what was done with the Titans Return toys.

Hot rod interesting because the legs on the origional toy and animation model are very different.

Yes and no. The big difference is that on the animation model the rear fenders, wheels, and lights are part of the arms (Hot Rod's cuffs are in fact supposed to be the taillight sockets); the non-kibble part of the leg is the same.

I think it might have served SS86 Hot Rod better to replicate that intended transformation.

Nemesis Primal wrote:

Cyber Bishop wrote:

Nemesis Primal wrote:Toy Colors Hot Rod? Boring, easy pass.

Agreed, Toon accurate colors would have been nice.

I was personally hoping for an IDW Rodimus (considering IDW Blurr exists)

Yeah, but the Blurr mold has a lot more wiggle room. They could probably have managed an IDW chest, but the head spikes...

Nemesis Primal wrote:or a SG Hot Rod,

That would honestly be more expected, but OTOH that would probably be in the Shattered Glass line.

Nemesis Primal wrote:but it does seem like even the people who are saying they might get the Toy Colors one would still rather have the magenta anyway, magenta seems like it would have been a safer bet than what they're going with.

Yeah, but HasTak's block about doing a magenta Hot Rod is evidently even more stubborn than their block about giving G1 Arcee a proper toy, so...

Also, it has to be considered that aside from not being magenta... SS86 Hot Rod already is cartoon colors (what with the black lower legs, gray hands, etc.) So a fully toon colors version would just be a rehash with the red parts hue-shifted. Toy colors at least adds further difference (red lower legs, orange hands, new decals, etc.) to make him stand out more from the version that already came out.

Nemesis Primal wrote:

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:I'm not too surprised that it turned out not to be Shadow Striker, since we haven't had a new Side Burn or anything resembling him. It's not like with our expectation of Armada Blurr where we were seeing Unicron Trilogy signs everywhere and knew we were getting a suitable base mold (Pointblank).

People weren't expecting Universe Shadow Striker, they were expecting a Generations version of the much-more-well-known Cyberverse Shadow Striker as presumably an Elita-1 repaint/remold.

Fair enough.

I agree about Crasher; it really should have been the POTP Jazz mold. Hasbro should have made it with Crasher in mind as it's an obvious choice (it was to me, at least, as soon as I saw that Jazz mold). It's surprising that they didn't really reuse that mold, apart from that lackluster Ricochet repaint (sans targetmaster).

Did Toyhax make any stickers to turn Ricochet into Crasher?

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:

Nemesis Primal wrote:or a SG Hot Rod,

That would honestly be more expected, but OTOH that would probably be in the Shattered Glass line.

Fair, but that would be assuming that the SG subline gets another wave next year (which, with no more IDW comics to pack in, seems extra up-in-the-air). Considering PotP Rodimus Unicronus not only exists but was a retail figure, SG Rodimus showing up in this multiversal Speedia exclusive line doesn't seem that far-fetched to me....or at least it didn't, before we knew what this release was gonna be.

Till-all-R1 wrote:

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:For the umpteenth time, it's because of the crazy jointing needed to match the cheating animation model. And it beats whatever the crap SS86 is going for on eBay right now, oy.

I don't get why SS86 would even be fetching that much on ebay in the first place, not too long ago you could get him on sale for only $25 at several places, plus he's still currently available to order at the regular online shops for retail.

My Wal-Mart has 7 or 8 of him, along with Bee Soundwave.

primalxconvoy wrote:I agree about Crasher; it really should have been the POTP Jazz mold.

Again, that only works for the altmode.

primalxconvoy wrote:Hasbro should have made it with Crasher in mind as it's an obvious choice (it was to me, at least, as soon as I saw that Jazz mold).

Why? Its main purpose was to be Jazz, and Crasher doesn't have a hood chest. The altmode is similar, but that was probably just to make it stand out more from the redecoed-ad-nauseum CW Dead End/Prowl mold.

While it's true that they could have built an alternate transformation setup into the mold... thinking about it, they probably can't match the Machine Robo designs too closely.

Also, if they were going to go that trouble, then Braver would make more sense than Crasher.

primalxconvoy wrote:It's surprising that they didn't really reuse that mold, apart from that lackluster Ricochet repaint (sans targetmaster).

That might be due in part to PotP getting cut short.

primalxconvoy wrote:Did Toyhax make any stickers to turn Ricochet into Crasher?

Nope. A touchup set, but no conversion set (I don't think they do those for exclusives, usually). They did do a conversion set for Jazz, to make him into an original Decepticon dubbed "Smokeout"

You know who I think should have used the PotP Jazz mold?
Legacy Knockout. At least that way he'd have being a combiner limb to make up for the G1-ified chest.

Till-all-R1 wrote:

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:For the umpteenth time, it's because of the crazy jointing needed to match the cheating animation model. And it beats whatever the crap SS86 is going for on eBay right now, oy.

I don't get why SS86 would even be fetching that much on ebay in the first place, not too long ago you could get him on sale for only $25 at several places, plus he's still currently available to order at the regular online shops for retail.

He would be fetching that much because profiteer resellers are greedy smegheads. Admittedly I hadn't checked his eBay prices since I originally went shopping for him; at that time, I had to buy from Amazon instead because I could actually get him at retail there (instead of twice retail or higher, which was the eBay situation).

Having actually checked today, there are some reasonable listings (more than I expected, considering), but there are also plenty of greedy ones too.

Nemesis Primal wrote:

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:

Nemesis Primal wrote:or a SG Hot Rod,

That would honestly be more expected, but OTOH that would probably be in the Shattered Glass line.

Fair, but that would be assuming that the SG subline gets another wave next year (which, with no more IDW comics to pack in, seems extra up-in-the-air).

There may be no more comics to pack in, but the line still has plenty to give in terms of prospective redecoes to make money from.

Nemesis Primal wrote:Considering PotP Rodimus Unicronus not only exists but was a retail figure, SG Rodimus showing up in this multiversal Speedia exclusive line doesn't seem that far-fetched to me....or at least it didn't, before we knew what this release was gonna be.

True. Although that was before we got a dedicated SG line.

Here's hoping we'll get a Rapido out of this line. All the speedsters would be great for it.

grimdragon2001 wrote:Here's hoping we'll get a Rapido out of this line. All the speedsters would be great for it.

That'd be awesome

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:... Disagreement about Crasher...

YouTube video of custom Crasher:

- https://youtu.be/aDrl8jLgfvc

Again, I believe this to be the superior choice for this character, regardless of whether the front or back of the original mold is used for bot mode.

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:

Nemesis Primal wrote:

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:

Nemesis Primal wrote:or a SG Hot Rod,

That would honestly be more expected, but OTOH that would probably be in the Shattered Glass line.

Fair, but that would be assuming that the SG subline gets another wave next year (which, with no more IDW comics to pack in, seems extra up-in-the-air).

There may be no more comics to pack in, but the line still has plenty to give in terms of prospective redecoes to make money from.

On this we absolutely agree, I'm still hoping for an SG Grimlock listing to pop up.

primalxconvoy wrote:

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:... Disagreement about Crasher...

Crasher.jpg

YouTube video of custom Crasher:

- https://youtu.be/aDrl8jLgfvc

Again, I believe this to be the superior choice for this character, regardless of whether the front or back of the original mold is used for bot mode.

Eh, I don't think using the front works that well. The back can definitely be made to work, but doing so takes more effort than HasTak generally put in for GoBots characters (have any of the GoBots-based redecoes so far had so much as a new head?)


(By the way, whoever named these photos was obviously on cruise control)

The thing about using the Mirage mold is that while it's not a match altmode-wise, it still does the robot mode well, and the curvature of Mirage's head makes for a decent resemblance to Crasher's animation model head (which is more than can be said for either of those customs). Although they somewhat botched that by not putting on a middle black line to complete the "domino mask" look.

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:
The thing about using the Mirage mold is that while it's not a match altmode-wise, it still does the robot mode well, and the curvature of Mirage's head makes for a decent resemblance to Crasher's animation model head (which is more than can be said for either of those customs). Although they somewhat botched that by not putting on a middle black line to complete the "domino mask" look.

However, for those of us lucky enough to have the previous Fracture remold, the latest version still fails to deliver, IMO (if only due to having more variety in any given collection, which is another reason Jazz's mold is more welcomed than yet another version of the recent Mirage mold).

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:(have any of the GoBots-based redecoes so far had so much as a new head?)

One could argue Golden Disk Road Ranger does, since he's the only release of that mold to feature the toy-based Huffer head.