Hasbro Pulse Exclusive Skybound Leader Class Optimus is $80 and Comes Out in a Year

-Kanrabat- wrote:Commander price for a leader...
Might as well just get the SS86 optimus and some upgrade kit.

Megatron's arm and fusion cannon costs well... an arm (& a leg).

This whole thing feels kind of embarrassing. Like I love this figure, but the high price and huge delay when there's literally 3P/4P Skybound Primes of numerous flavors and sizes already available right now. Curious to note: most are swamped with accessories by comparison to the Hasbro $80 bare bones figure.

Forget that HasTak shows up late to a party after the fever for Skybound Prime made a pocket industry for cheap and easy upgrades so you can obtain this within DAYS and not wait, but there's that pesky KO that has everything and more that the SS89 Prime missed including the megatron arm. The only thing it has to set it apart are the official channels of the people that should have been the first to put this on the shelf and less everything.

Bad enough they're greedily price gouging out the gate with a Trailer-less release that chucks the defining accessories for a toy LITERALLY DESIGNED TO COMPLETE WITH MASTERPIECE RELEASES, then gut all save 2 the original accessories and apply barking mad pricing to a "limited release" figure that'll probably see 10 repaints to justify costs to any changes in molding.

Burn wrote:Australian pre-order for Energon Universe Optimus Prime - $99.95AUD
If Gamesmen have him, chances are JB Hi-Fi and/or Zing/EB Games will have him as well.

... And it's a Hasbro Pulse exclusive in the US for $80 USD + taxes.

See, I do think that Optimus looks good (I actually like that head sculpt better than the one on the first release), it's just definitely not worth that price, and I have no real need or want for it in my collection anyway. This whole 3-waves-a-year thing certainly feels like it's doing some funky stuff to the reveal schedule (or lack thereof) though, it feels weird to see entire panels to reveal only 1-2 preorders, or reveal a whole wave but have it not go up for preorder for months.

Emerje wrote:It's still stupid that they're charging $80 for what's effectively a Leader now. With Commanders now $100 does that mean the trailer and accessories are worth $20? I guess Hasbro is back to charging us an "exclusives tax" like they always used to until around 10 years ago, on top of the tariffs upcharge.

...okay see this sentiment was stated about Nemesis as well, and I gotta admit I'm kinda confused why people are talking about this like it's a new phenomenon? Optimus and Nemesis both are the fall/Pulsecon exclusive for their respective years, like Powerlinx Hot Shot and Dinoking the past two years, and that exclusive has consistently had a $20 markup I wanna say since it's inception. Are people just forgetting this and think this entire price is a tariff thing, did people not notice this before? Or is this literally just because the old price was said at the panel?

Nemesis Primal wrote:

Emerje wrote:It's still stupid that they're charging $80 for what's effectively a Leader now. With Commanders now $100 does that mean the trailer and accessories are worth $20? I guess Hasbro is back to charging us an "exclusives tax" like they always used to until around 10 years ago, on top of the tariffs upcharge.

...okay see this sentiment was stated about Nemesis as well, and I gotta admit I'm kinda confused why people are talking about this like it's a new phenomenon? Optimus and Nemesis both are the fall/Pulsecon exclusive for their respective years, like Powerlinx Hot Shot and Dinoking the past two years, and that exclusive has consistently had a $20 markup I wanna say since it's inception. Are people just forgetting this and think this entire price is a tariff thing, did people not notice this before? Or is this literally just because the old price was said at the panel?

The difference is in both the case of Optimus and Nemesis they gave us earlier prices that were in line with retail estimates, only to raise them later. They announced Nemesis as $75 back at SDCC which would mean $55 + $20 I guess (though they should have known tariffs by then), only to put him up for sale for $90. At NYCC Rob Kirkman let it slip that Optimus was supposed to be Leader priced at $60, but now he's $80. They were not planning a markup originally into the price, that came later. If it was just one time with Nemesis then fine, mistakes happen, but twice? Plus I'm hearing that in some countries the prices are in line with regular retail on both. It's also weird that Walmart has upped the price of the Retro line to $30 even though Pulse still has them at $28. There's strange stuff going on right now with exclusives.

Emerje