Video Review: Simplified Deluxe Beast Hunters Bumblebee

Hey Chuck ... where'd you find Bumblebee at?

see i wouldn't mind these kind of transformers nearly as much if they had also given bee AT LEAST elbows and knees.this guy would be SO much better if he still had at least those, but still retains the simple transformation. hasbro still gets simple transformers they want and i wouldn't mind having this guy in my collection if he had them. (aside from it being another bumblebee, i still wouldn't get it. but thats beside the point.)

This toy looks like garbage.
I don't mind a simplified transformation, but the lack of articulation and paint apps kills any interest i had in it. (also the fact that its another Bumblebee)

There is a reason I don't collect g1 toys, they're primitive unposable bricks. I started collecting tfs back when Beast Wars came about, because the engineering behind those figures was amazing to my ten year old brain. and the line continued to impress me through Beast Machines and RID.....and Then Armada happened. hasbro went back to unposable brickformers. That line single-handedly killed any Interest I had in Transformers for 3 years. it was the 2007 Movie line that got me interested again and soon afterwards I backtracked and got some Energon and Cybertron figures (turns out those were pretty good afterall) and the Classics of course.

Goldner's line from the interview he did a few days back stuck with me, you know the one, the one about instant gratification. and on that I call bullshit. Children are NOT STUPID. if my three year old nephew can figure out how to play angry birds on my sister's iphone, then a five to ten year old can figure out how to transform Animated Blurr, or a First Edition Cliffjumper, and so on.

This is not Hasbro catering to the slightly younger crown, this is cost cutting pure and simple. simpler design means less hourly wages that they have to pay designers. sure the toy may be bigger, but I daresay its the same amount of mass due to having fewer moving parts.

I'm looking forward to Toyfair though, for one main reason, I need to know in what capacity Generations will continue. It is my sincerest of hopes that Generations keep going (in its current form) through another Year of Movie hype, and isn't swallowed/buried by it. because if the Movie toys follow the Beast Hunter example, and Generations is nowhere to be found on store shelves, hasbro is going to lose a loyal customer. most likely for another three years or so until they pull their heads out of their a**holes again.

Here's hoping that Fansproject and Mastermind Creations are ready for my money this year (seriously MMC more Knight Morphers please?)

i dont think these are going to sell to well for a few reasons, 1) no kid is going to want to go from major articulation thats found in the current figures to less articulation than G1, 2)the lack of paint apps, the current figures have barley any paint & this is damn near naked and is not going to draw attention to it, 3) the price, no kid or parent with half a brain is going to dish out the same amount of cash for these as they would a real TF deluxe. Now if they dont know any better sure but again no seasoned user is going to want to go from articulation to no articulation. I agree with SG Roadbuster kids are not as stupid as most people think and these new figures are being done to save money not to cater towards the target demographic. Thats the reason why everything is the way it is in this franchise corporate greed pure and simple. Once again hasbro isnt thinking about the future, yeah these might lure a new young fan for a while and save them some money but anyone whos been playing with TFs for a year or more is going to look the other way at these. And that young new fan that you hooked will get tired of it and move on to something else or hunt down older figures on ebay or clearance. In either case you lose money and a customer. If they were cheaper then they might find a place but unless my info is out of date these are the same price as current beast hunter figures and thats to much.

SG Roadbuster and MEgatron Wolf, you two make it sound as if collectors and children like the same exact things in their toys.

News flash: Not so.

Megatron Wolf wrote:i dont think these are going to sell to well for a few reasons, 1) no kid is going to want to go from major articulation thats found in the current figures to less articulation than G1, 2)the lack of paint apps, the current figures have barley any paint & this is damn near naked and is not going to draw attention to it, 3) the price, no kid or parent with half a brain is going to dish out the same amount of cash for these as they would a real TF deluxe. Now if they dont know any better sure but again no seasoned user is going to want to go from articulation to no articulation. I agree with SG Roadbuster kids are not as stupid as most people think and these new figures are being done to save money not to cater towards the target demographic. Thats the reason why everything is the way it is in this franchise corporate greed pure and simple. Once again hasbro isnt thinking about the future, yeah these might lure a new young fan for a while and save them some money but anyone whos been playing with TFs for a year or more is going to look the other way at these. And that young new fan that you hooked will get tired of it and move on to something else or hunt down older figures on ebay or clearance. In either case you lose money and a customer. If they were cheaper then they might find a place but unless my info is out of date these are the same price as current beast hunter figures and thats to much.

Then again, what kid is going to go "Oh.....I don't want to play with it, its not articulated enough......" The only thing that I think would be a turn off for kids, is the lack of paint. Sure, it doesn't have to be detailed to the grain, but I agree when you say that its near naked. Lets be honest though people, I've seen many kids struggle with transforming these toys. Take something like the Armada line, and I've seen kids figure it out easy. Why? They are more simple. I think Hasbro just needs to improve the quality of things, and add just a little more pain to recent figures.

the younger kids who are too old for rescue bots but still not old enough to care about articulation will eat this up. I mean, I've had action figures even less articulated (remember when action figures didnt even have ball joints? they were just like... pegged into their sockets and could move exactly back and forth and thats it? It didn't occur to me that my beast wars figures were somehow better until much later in life. I didn't care because hell yeah toys.) More importantly, hasbro please stop trying to zerg rush us with bumblebee toys, some of us are starting to actively hate him.

Manterax Prime wrote:SG Roadbuster and MEgatron Wolf, you two make it sound as if collectors and children like the same exact things in their toys.

News flash: Not so.

but I was a child once, and what I thoroughly enjoyed as a child, I continue to enjoy nowadays as a collector. it is because of my enjoyment of these brilliant pieces of engineering that I continued to collect, despite society telling me to "grow up and put down the children's toys"

when I was younger I had a crapton of different action figure lines, Star wars, TMNT, Ghostbusters, Jurassic Park, Hell i think I even had some Swamp Thing toys in there. but Transformers is what I stuck with, and I stayed because of the complexity, the articulation, beautiful paint apps, and clever transformations. because those toys impressed ten year Old Walter, 28 year Old Walter is still collecting

Well, my wallet will be fuller going forward. these TF's here are embarrassing failures that look like cheap KO's.

durroth wrote:the younger kids who are too old for rescue bots but still not old enough to care about articulation will eat this up. I mean, I've had action figures even less articulated (remember when action figures didnt even have ball joints? they were just like... pegged into their sockets and could move exactly back and forth and thats it? It didn't occur to me that my beast wars figures were somehow better until much later in life. I didn't care because hell yeah toys.) More importantly, hasbro please stop trying to zerg rush us with bumblebee toys, some of us are starting to actively hate him.

I have two sons, 4 and 6 and they can transform the legends figures just as easily as a rescue bot. So, I don't see the distinction of these upscale legends vs rescue bots. That is why this change in product is irrelevant, save the costing cutting measures they have taken to rake you for the same amount of money for a cheaper product. I guess we will find out then we see the prices of generations deluxes vs TF4 & Prime deluxes.

Hmmm...Well we will have to see what the masses think of this line change. I'm not for it, but heck Playmobil is still around after all these years with lack of articulation and pricey sets that make Lego brand products a much better option.

Introducing the simplified deluxes prior to the mass movie toy release seems semi counter productive. Why waste money on inferior molds to introduce a concept change? I would rather have seen a couple TF4 movie preview figures filter out than yet another Bumblebee and some upscale stand alone beasties from the end of Prime/Beast Hunters line.

Supposedly Hasbro has kept Generations and Masterpiece for the collectors. Well I'll believe it when I see it as Hasbro has NEVER successfully had three Transformer lines, with equal representation, in the brick and mortar market. Poor Walmart gets absolutely screwed every year with more wave 1 than anyone else and flounders the rest of the year until a new line pops up. I feel the same way for struggling TRU and Kmart as well.

The brick and mortars are going to have their shelves piled high with Rescue Bots/ and new cartoon line and the movie figures. We will NOT see good representation of Generations in the marketplace...it is just not financially feasible. I assume most of the adults out there will be looking to import or hit up Amazon, BBTS, and others that will have some of the generations line.

Then what about the masterpiece line? If not for TRU/BBTS/Amazon we would not be seeing any of them. It is bad enough that NONE of the cars have made it to TRU and that both the Platinum and Year of the Horse figures are complete crap. I'm hoping we see MP Ultra Magnus at least in TRU.

The market for these toys is so diverse and the marketing strategy of Hasbro is so limited. What kind of sickening case assortments do we have to look forward to? I've covered the gamut of concerns at this point. I can say my wallet is much happier. Please keep in mind I'm from the Midwest and using the collective "We" usually incorporates the Midwest rather than either coast that sees more figures than WE do.

~reluctantyouth~

Surely no child has found the Prid Revealer bumblebee mold so difficult they would need this?


Let's be sensible about this, people.

When I was 5 I was transforming beast wars trans metal guys just fine. Who spends 3 hours on a transformation? I will probably only get these for the weapons

Hate to keep saying this, but Hasbro has to do this. I don't know why it's taken them so long. Hell, they even made non-transforming "power bots" but just could not make kid-friendly transformations?

Kids don't buy transformers toys, and moms don't buy them for kids once they've got one or two in the house. Kids love the characters, but when they get the toy they've been dying for it pretty much stays in robot mode until dad or a big brother gets home and they find him to transform him (then transform him back).

I see my sons' friends (5 to 9 year-olds) houses, and all have maybe one or two transformers, and a buttload of star wars, bey blade, redakai and legos. And the mom or dad will always comment how much they (the parents) hate the one transformer toy (and my wife will comment 'give it to my husband!'. Watching seven years of preschool through fifth grade - i have met one other kid who actively collects transformers, but tons who have lunchboxes, shirts, books, etc.

Know what else I see a lot of?


http://www.vtechkids.com/brands/brand_view/switchandgodinos

Well, my 5 year old son and I just sat down and watched it together. I can't remember his exact words, but it was something like... "Wow look at that massive sword, he's just like mine (cyberverse Bee), Bumblebee looks really cool...CAN YOU GET HIM FOR ME?"

So maybe Hasbro's onto something? because I know that he does struggle to transform some of his PRiD deluxe's, especially Smokescreen.

And thinking about it logically, when I was 5 collecting G1, I didn't care about articulation or paint apps etc. either.

The physical appearance and transformation isn't so bad, I'm not even bummed about the articulation (G1 toys are fun after all). I think that they would sell better if they looked like better quality toys. Maybe clear windows, light piping, paint apps on the taillights, he would looks great. As it is it's just an upscaled legends toy. I also have to say that Hasbro has done this correctly! I have a handful of Fast Action Battlers and they're full on Transformer toys. They have nice paint apps, and look fine. They're bricks and they sometimes look a little funny, but they're like Armada grade toys. So this isn't a new phenomena, they're just reintroducing a poor quality version of them.

Seibertron wrote:Hey Chuck ... where'd you find Bumblebee at?

Hey Ryan sorry I didn't get back to you sooner as I wasn't getting updates from the thread. I got Bee and Smokescreen off of eBay from a seller in Hong Kong named joeyyamamoto. As of today I think all they have left is Smokescreen and the two Predacons. They might have the Voyagers too. Keep in mind they have lousy communication skills.