Transformers Legacy toyline

MrBlud

Well-known member
Citizen
I will say, Takara getting out a $1,000 or so Grand Dion as they are makes me rather suspicious that the market couldn’t support Unicron as Grand Dion has significantly less cultural cache.
 

Undead Scottsman

Well-known member
Citizen
It's important to note that Haslab isn't really a crowdfunding service; it's a made-to-order preorder service with a minimum required production number. It just masquerades as a crowdfunding service. It's not Kickstarter no matter how much they want it to look like Kickstarter.

Also note that demand for a $550 (would cost even more now) Unicron was low enough that they had to cheat on that campaign and extend it out in order to get it over the finish line. It would have totally tanked at retail without the FOMO of "This is the only time this will ever be offered" hanging over it.
 

Sabrblade

Continuity Nutcase
Citizen
I will say, Takara getting out a $1,000 or so Grand Dion as they are makes me rather suspicious that the market couldn’t support Unicron as Grand Dion has significantly less cultural cache.
I guess it just boils down to the old notion of fictional giant piloted robots being more popular in Japan than fictional giant living robots.
 

G.B.Blackrock

Well-known member
Citizen
Rock lords when we can’t even get Gobots that aren’t quick and easy repaints. What a world.

It might be a little easier to do since a lot of the Gobots designs are owned by other companies if I am right, even if Hasbro owns the characters. Maybe these won't be Rock Lord's though I am hoping ...need at least a version of Nugget.

I mean Rock Lords designs would also be owned by Bandai since they were in Machine Robo too.
Getting into the weeds a bit re: copyright and trademark. Copyright would apply to the specific toys of the Rock Lords back in the day. Get too close to those, and arguably Bandai could have a claim to win a lawsuit. Copyright lasts a long time. Decades.

Trademark, on the other hand, applies to the names and characters, but doesn't last for more than a few years unless actively maintained by the rightsholder. Thus, in the absence of any new Rock Lords media in decades, Hasbro would have legitimacy in creating new toys for those characters, so long as they don't resemble the originals so closely as to trigger a copyright infringement suit.


Also note that, while the only GoBots we've gotten have been "quick and easy repaints," a rock design, in and of itself, is likely to be able to repurposed a great number of times. Hasbro may consider that worth the investment.
 

Superomegaprime

Wondering bot
Citizen
With the Star Wars Haslabs, I would say the resent failures is partly down to misunderstanding what the fans want and expect of a product, I do kind of expect maybe one day, Hasbro might revisit the Rankor, of course, one also needs to factor in the fact a lot of fans are feeling disintersted right now after seeing a bunch of bad products produced by Lucasfilm and people working for them, actively going out of their way to insuilt them online, plus the media running with this Toxic fandom narative, thou I would says its more toxic media than fandom, so people are walking away from Star Wars and Disney in general, but that is a whole another story, full of stupidy and bad management choices!

Rock Lords, I recall handling one as a kid, belonging to a friend (at the time) but it wasn't really something great, so Rocklords today, their alt modes would make great paper weights, thou if they were to do them, I can see a crossover with Star Wars, High Republic being done, thou it would be a one off because, well, they are a rock:
1686000846237.png
 

Post-BayTransformersFan

Member
Citizen
Am I the only one who is shocked we have no BM or MW representation? I don't think they would be that hard. I also think that Cybertron Metroplex should've been Energon Omega
 

CoffeeHorse

Exhausted, but still standing.
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
I'm not surprised. Beast Machines designs are either difficult or unpopular or both. Tankor should be a relatively easy one, yet the T30 toy was horrible.

Machine Wars is doable but its popularity is always a question. It never gets a fair chance to prove itself.
 

Haywire

Collecter of Gobots and Godzilla
Citizen
If the original Cyberverse sub-line (with the Legion and Commander size classes) had continued, I feel like that would have been a good place for a continuation/redux of Machine Wars. Make the Basic figures in Legion class, and the larger ones as Commanders. Each Legion mold would have at least 2 redeco uses (and the Commanders would have their European counterparts for future redecos), and maybe even throw in a few new decos or molds in the Machine Wars style.

I will never NOT want more support for smaller-scale figures, but I feel like Machine Wars would lend itself particularly well to it.
 

unluckiness

Somehow still sane
Citizen
Machine Wars was a wave or two of the relatively less popular late G1 molds with random colors and legacy names slapped onto them. Add on to this, it was only sold exclusive to one retailer and with no official release in other regions. I doubt they'd go out of their way to make the Machine Wars specifically but they'd probably not miss out on making Selects redecos for the recent Skyquake for example or a hypothetical Thunderclash.

Also, IIRC, didn't the Machine Wars Botcon set do particularly badly? Probably not the best metric but if even the nichest collection of superfans didn't like it very much, I'd expect Hasbro to take notes.
 

Undead Scottsman

Well-known member
Citizen
The rumor was that Bombshell was going to be a Kickback retool. Someone got their hands on a copy and... I would have never guessed he was a retool.

 

ZacWilliam1

Well-known member
Citizen
I'll be honest, I'm buying the regular Insecticons, but I don't really care that much about like my third modern set of them. What I care about is the Deluxe Insections. Give me a decent Chop Shop, Barrage and Venom and then I'll be happy.

-ZacWilliam, insert requisite request for a Beet Papil homage here...
 

Shadhausen

Well-known member
Citizen
Buzzworthy RotB Airazor is a paint job and new head away from BM Silverbolt, so I'm guessing some BM toys are planned for down the line.
 

Post-BayTransformersFan

Member
Citizen
Machine Wars was a wave or two of the relatively less popular late G1 molds with random colors and legacy names slapped onto them. Add on to this, it was only sold exclusive to one retailer and with no official release in other regions. I doubt they'd go out of their way to make the Machine Wars specifically but they'd probably not miss out on making Selects redecos for the recent Skyquake for example or a hypothetical Thunderclash.

Also, IIRC, didn't the Machine Wars Botcon set do particularly badly? Probably not the best metric but if even the nichest collection of superfans didn't like it very much, I'd expect Hasbro to take notes.
The set was a bit of a flop. But it featured a MW Hoist that barely resemble the original, two random BM Vehicons, and an inaccurately colored MW Skyarp. Not to mention getting ANOTHER Mirage instead of a MW Prowl. Plus the missed opportunity to use Cybertron Defense Red Alert as MW Soundwave. And nothing is too niche after the Powerdashers
 

CoffeeHorse

Exhausted, but still standing.
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
They made every possible wrong decision with the set every step of the way. Then when they got called out on their decisions they played the "Uh, I meant to do that" card. They declared it was never supposed to be a Machine Wars set and we just didn't understand their great creative vision. Then when the set failed they blamed us for not liking Machine Wars enough. Not their great creative vision. They did that part right of course. It was Machine Wars' fault. Even though they said it wasn't Machine Wars and we never should have thought it was.
 


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