Robots in Disguise (2015) Hyper Change / 3-Step Optimus Found At Retail

Autobot032 wrote:Fellow Seibertron staffer, ScottyP shared a sighting with us, a Toys R Us sighting of Hyper Change/3-Step Robots In Disguise Optimus Prime. As you probably know by now, this has seen release across the country in various spots, but not at all retailers and not in every part of the country. This is our first official sighting of the figure and if it hadn't been for ScottyP we wouldn't have one to share, this is why we need your help to know what's been sighted. Please, as soon as possible, send your finds of brand new figures to sightings@seibertron.com and post in our sightings forum, here, so we can spread the word when new and hot items become available.

Here's what ScottyP had to share:

Hyper Change OP at a TRU in Raleigh, NC. $21.99 each.

Keep your optics tuned to Seibertron.com for the latest in news and updates, plus the best galleries around!

I spotted these back on March 14, and they're still missing from the sighting page:

http://www.seibertron.com/energonpub/toys-missing-from-the-sightings-page-t990s200.php#p1662701

Found this 2 months ago at Target and Walmart.

Just wondering, a lot of people are saying they already saw these, but we didnt get any e-mails about it. Is it because you guys thought it was old news? I know Kyleo posted it elsewhere, but why didnt anyone else write to us about it?

william-james88 wrote:Just wondering, a lot of people are saying they already saw these, but we didnt get any e-mails about it. Is it because you guys thought it was old news? I know Kyleo posted it elsewhere, but why didnt anyone else write to us about it?

Well, I don't report as much as I should because I just assume the stores I frequent in SE Michigan are the last to get anything (and I don't have a digital camera), but THIS time...I'm honestly shocked that this warranted a front paged sighting. Not only has this been in stock for over a month at Westland's TRU, we've consistently had more of it than any other hyperchange figure. My mind is blown to know that anyone near a large U.S. city has had trouble finding Almost-Star-Convoy since February.

I can't recall what other stores have him, but I guess I'll check his saturation next time I'm on my (probably year-long) Arcee/Chromia hunt, which FINALLY yielded a Brainstorm at the Ford Road/Beech Daily TJMaxx; but I left him because, like the one I bought even cheaper at Kmart last month, he has no headbrace, which means Arcana's head will vanish into his depths with any play whatsoever, yes?

Bumblevivisector wrote:

william-james88 wrote:Just wondering, a lot of people are saying they already saw these, but we didnt get any e-mails about it. Is it because you guys thought it was old news? I know Kyleo posted it elsewhere, but why didnt anyone else write to us about it?

Well, I don't report as much as I should because I just assume the stores I frequent in SE Michigan are the last to get anything (and I don't have a digital camera), but THIS time...I'm honestly shocked that this warranted a front paged sighting. Not only has this been in stock for over a month at Westland's TRU, we've consistently had more of it than any other hyperchange figure. My mind is blown to know that anyone near a large U.S. city has had trouble finding Almost-Star-Convoy since February.

I can't recall what other stores have him, but I guess I'll check his saturation next time I'm on my (probably year-long) Arcee/Chromia hunt, which FINALLY yielded a Brainstorm at the Ford Road/Beech Daily TJMaxx; but I left him because, like the one I bought even cheaper at Kmart last month, he has no headbrace, which means Arcana's head will vanish into his depths with any play whatsoever, yes?

Thanks for your reply to my post. To answer your last question first: yes, the brainstorm from TJMaxx is not the fixed version but not all the older versions were bad. I got one from TJ Maxx and its perfect.

Now for the other part, I live in canada so the distribution is always off a bit (we get stuff a bit earlier or later) and as of right now we stil dont have that hyperchange prime so it didnt really surprise me that no one else was talking about him. Since the interest in those toys is not great, its hard to know if the lack of discussion is because he isnt found yet or because people dont care about him.

And the front page post was more of a reminder that we need people to send in e-mails like that we can get news to the rest right away instead of reporting stuff late like this (kinda meta, at least in my opinion). And about no owning a digital camera, I just use my phone, dont know if you were referring to that too.

All the best!

william-james88 wrote:Just wondering, a lot of people are saying they already saw these, but we didnt get any e-mails about it. Is it because you guys thought it was old news? I know Kyleo posted it elsewhere, but why didnt anyone else write to us about it?

Probably partly because nobody really cares about the Hyper Change stuff. >_>

Phew, you'd think people would be happier about us passing along sightings news, even if it is a bit out of date, but then I come in here to this thread and it's just, well, speaks for itself really.

KirbyForce1 wrote:Saw one of these about a week ago (about a week ago) at my local ASDA.

Kyleor wrote:I spotted these back on March 14

Primeultimus wrote:Found this 2 months ago at Target and Walmart.

Tsutsukakushi wrote:Saw this at a Target store yesterday and a few weeks ago.

Bumblevivisector wrote:I'm honestly shocked that this warranted a front paged sighting. Not only has this been in stock for over a month at Westland's TRU, we've consistently had more of it than any other hyperchange figure.

Drift082111 wrote:I didn't know it was news. The hyper change Optimii seemed to be so prevalent in the Central New York State area so I for one didn't even think these were hard to come by.

TimothyR wrote:yeah.. this thing has been saturated in stores for over a month... i'm not sure how it qualifies as news.

It's very clear to me that there is still extreme confusion to the site's policies for what kind of sightings qualify as news, and how we obtain that information. I for one don't scour the internet for sightings news, I generally just check things here (or get emails sent to staff copied over to us podcasters about stuff) to know what's out and what isn't. I'd known this thing was online for awhile, but genuinely had no idea it was in stores until yesterday.

So all that said, once again for everyone reading this, here's the site's general guidelines for reporting a sighting as "news":

• First reported sighting for a given region, such as "United States", "Canada", or "UK".
• Said sighting is emailed, with picture proof, to news@seibertron.com or sightings@seibertron.com
• Said sighting is emailed, with picture proof, to news@seibertron.com or sightings@seibertron.com
• Yes, I listed that twice. Site staff does not roam the boards checking sightings. It's not a feasible activity and it can turn into a bunch of work, and we're all volunteers here. Once in awhile, yes, we may catch a thread post and news it, but this is the exception. You have to let us know and email is what we monitor. Pretty easy to check that info out even on the go, on even the cheapest of smartphones.
• Generally, must be a newer toy. This is relatively new, probably hitting distribution saturation just now, hence I actually saw it in NC at last If we went back and looked through news and couldn't find a newspost about RiD 2015 Legions Wave 1, well, sorry that wouldn't be news anymore, but if you're out and see Wave 3 (Fixit/Underbite), let us know!
• If you aren't sure whether or not to report something, here's an easy thing to do. Take a picture with your phone while you're out, and later on run a quick search of either our news, or heck, even go to google and search "(Insert Toy Name Here) Seibertron" and you'll almost definitely just get hits of our news articles related to it, including sightings. No sighting for your region? Email us!

So remember, if you think this news is horribly out of date, the power is in your hands to help us out on being more current in the future. To those already doing it, and to those helping us point out what's missing in the database, you rock! Hope this helps, I'm off to mess around with this Optimus some more now

It's hard to mark figures as sighted on the in-store sightings page when the sightings database doesn't get updated when people post in the 'missing listing' thread. Shouldn't figures get added to the database right after they're announced?

william-james88 wrote:

Kyleor wrote:It's hard to mark figures as sighted on the in-store sightings page when the sightings database doesn't get updated when people post in the 'missing listing' thread. Shouldn't figures get added to the database right after they're announced?

Sure, but regardless, the staff wouldnt have noticed it because the in store sightings page is not the place to report news that is aimed at the staff. They will only post what they get in e-mails. The sightings page is more for the community and other collectors. For the staff to get it, it must be sent by e-mail to either news@seibertron.com or sightings@seiberton.com.

I'm not talking about news or news posts, I'm talking about figures not being added to the sightings page in a timely manner.

Except for the colors and the fact that it turns into a car instead of a motorcycle, this thing really smacks of TFA Prowl...