Originally Posted by protoform_ironhide (Post 808159)

On one hand, I agree that the price hike is quite outrages... but on the other hand.. the engineering is just too good to pass up on the Siege/Earthrise if you compare to the older Classics. I have all the Classic figures that you showed in your photo +more... and I was up to a point I quit buying the main line but Masterpiece only. However Masterpiece right now is just too much for what you get.. so I am very selective on that. I have been telling myself to stay away on updating my Classics, however I gave in at wave 3/4 on Siege, and ended up paying double for Ironhide/Ratchet. These new TFs are significantly better in comparison. The main point is, I have limited space, hence I rather display something better/advance.

Here is my new display for this year. I also have another shelf for other TFs and big figures like Metroplex, Trypticon, Omega, etc. I recently installed LED on this new display and I am slowly working on it whenever I have time, I have been enjoying doing it all these years of collecting.

https://i.imgur.com/fPV68uI.jpg

Originally Posted by protoform_ironhide (Post 808159)

On one hand, I agree that the price hike is quite outrages... but on the other hand.. the engineering is just too good to pass up on the Siege/Earthrise if you compare to the older Classics. I have all the Classic figures that you showed in your photo +more... and I was up to a point I quit buying the main line but Masterpiece only. However Masterpiece right now is just too much for what you get.. so I am very selective on that. I have been telling myself to stay away on updating my Classics, however I gave in at wave 3/4 on Siege, and ended up paying double for Ironhide/Ratchet. These new TFs are significantly better in comparison. The main point is, I have limited space, hence I rather display something better/advance.

Here is my new display for this year. I also have another shelf for other TFs and big figures like Metroplex, Trypticon, Omega, etc. I recently installed LED on this new display and I am slowly working on it whenever I have time, I have been enjoying doing it all these years of collecting.
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Originally Posted by General Tekno (Post 808177)

That display is Bestas with doors, yes? Where'd you rig the lights exactly? Curious given that's rather similar to what I'm thinking of for my own shelving revamp.

Originally Posted by protoform_ironhide (Post 808190)

No, it isn’t. It’s Billy. BESTA would be more ideal if u have the room for it, which I don’t. The light is quite easy to install. I just test fit it before I put it in , and then all u need is a electric drill to drill some holes, that’s about it.

Originally Posted by General Tekno (Post 808202)

Yeah, I don't know why I said Besta when I meant Billy.

I'm more curious about what the placement of the light strips was and if they interfered with shelf placement clearancewise.

Originally Posted by RNSrobot (Post 808205)

I disagree with this. Some of the engineering is tops. Some is garbage. JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER LINE SINCE CLASSICS STARTED.

Just because something is more "complicated" doesn't make it "better." Movie leader Prime, step up! Now, does Earthrise Prime look pretty great? Yeah, although, the trailer, not so much.

I think the current datsun is mediocre. Those feet are terrible. The CHUG datsuns are fucking great toys. Voyager Jetfire remains a great toy even if Siege is an amazing size we never had before. Not so impressed with a lot of the Siege toys. It is what it IS. The engineering/paint is not suddenly ten dollars more toy. Not a chance. There are still widespread QC or design issues. FOr ten bucks more a small deluxe, come on. For forty dollar voyager, why are Grapple and Apeface entirely prone to snapping pegs?

Because it is "more G1" I get why that appeals to fans. I'm not necessarily super into G1 toon accuracy. T30 Springer remains the superior toy to me, both engineering and aesthetics. That's also subjective, but siege Springer does little for me, and almost every friend who kept theirs has had something break or go loose immediately, or is terrified during transformation.

Meh.

The price increase is stupid and dumb.

Originally Posted by protoform_ironhide (Post 808208)

^Only Hasbro can answer those questions. I feel that Hasbro isn’t here to ripe us off. Who knows how much it costs them behind the scene right? Don’t think anyone want to lose customers looking at how hard it is to run a business nowadays, plus there are competitions now from lots of 3rd party out there. Perhaps they don’t produce that much anymore due to many reasons, hence drive up the price? That could be one of the main factor and why the figures are so much harder to find in these couple years. They may not make the toys themselves instead find factories to make the toys for them, so making less could cost them more.

Originally Posted by protoform_ironhide (Post 808227)

That Unicron...it's just a big chunk of plastic. I have to agree with you on that one... Not worth the money and shelf space at all... LOL

Originally Posted by imfallenangel (Post 808223)

How much does it cost? Plastic prices are at a very low point at this time. Technology has made mold production a LOT cheaper than ever before with much better precision than how they were done just 10 years ago (so less testing and redos of molds due to defects). If anything, prices should be the same, of even lower at this point... but supply and demand has made them to simply pull more money in but doing less.

Originally Posted by imfallenangel (Post 808223)

Like all capitalist company it's about maximizing profit.

They do not care to lose 100 customer, if they get to produce 1/3 of products and still have 30 customers that are paying multiple times the actual value and still making more money than if they sold at lower prices to more customers.

Their target audience are the ones that has the most money and to take as much as these peoples will accept to give them, it's as simple as that.

Look at the fundme for Unicron.. people lines up to bend over and were shouting how great it was to overpay... I don't aim to offend, but to be honest about the fact that this was a social experiment to see if they would have the numbers to justify such a price, and those that threw themselves on the pile, did just that.

How much does it cost? Plastic prices are at a very low point at this time. Technology has made mold production a LOT cheaper than ever before with much better precision than how they were done just 10 years ago (so less testing and redos of molds due to defects). If anything, prices should be the same, of even lower at this point... but supply and demand has made them to simply pull more money in but doing less.

When you see a lot of figures being produced dirt cheap that ends up as "KOs" that are just as good but at 1/2 or even as much as 1/4 of the "original" price and still making a decent profit, when you see 3rd parties able to make excellent original figures (or other toys) at still a much lower price, and many times, much better quality than Hasbro does, when you see that Hasbro is making huge profits on their quarterly/yearly reports, then at some point, you have to realize that Hasbro is absolutely in it for the money and it overpricing these figures by a lot, simply because they know that they will sell enough, even in smaller numbers but larger prices, to make money by the truckload.

To think otherwise is to not understand these points that are quite a reality.

At this point, if the Siege and ER figures hadn't been done with better plastic and improved engineering, if they didn't go with the characters that would appeal the most (and they keep measuring responses and activity about what people are still asking for), only to ensure interest, there would have been a huge decline in their sales as for the kids, most that's out there now, it expensive and not that great to be honest, but they do manage to do figures that has just enough appeal to draw people in.

Siege and ER has a few amazing figures, but as I've repeatedly stated, they do act with the "this is good enough, it'll sell" for almost all figures.

The gaps, the lack of decent accessories, being my main pet peeve for just about every of these figures.

I've never had to buy as many 3rd party add-on kits, never had to paint or customize as much as I have with my figures as I've done in the last year... all because they are all missing that little extra that would make the figures "too good" I guess, for Hasbro.

Every figure that I find amazing but lacks that little "extra" push that should be there, pushes me further and further from future purchases... and that's on Hasbro.

Originally Posted by OptimusB38 (Post 808263)

They cut the size of the figures down and made a bigger box. Bs IMO , my kids play with these often and I often have to fix or return. They play withClassics HFTD etc no issues. They need to stop wasting their time and money on packaging. That should knock the price and garbage down. The new figures need work, good enough is not good enough when u double prices

Originally Posted by bqpetn (Post 808302)

totally agree.


look many other products, electronics, cars, appliances and other. The products get better and better but not with huge price jumps. Many are even cheaper and better than previous ones.
Transformers toys are basically on the low tech level of products. But the new lines are just same quality or sometimes worse quality than before and the price is increased so much.

Originally Posted by Zenith27 (Post 808248)

I work in manufacturing and deal with plastic parts somewhat similar to what are in Transformers and I can tell you there are some extra costs involved that you are perhaps not considering.

While the amount of plastic in the newer releases remains similar, the increased articulation adds a lot more cost. Each mold needed has a fixed cost to produce/use/store.

You may be able to machine a mold in half the time now, but you need to machine 3-4 different molds for an arm for example, where you used to use 1-2. Also, all those molds now take up more setup time and cost more to store (storage/shipping of molds can be a considerable cost).

Each arm now takes double the assembly time, add increased paint apps like the most recent bots and the cost can increase significantly.

Not saying they're not making more money off us rich collectors rather than dumb kids but I don't think they're COMPLETELY evil. They certainty need to amortize the setup/design costs over fewer unit sales to collectors. Maybe the Vietnamese workers are demanding better wages these days as well.

Originally Posted by Mumps (Post 808260)

All prices are high. Just look at 3P. Yeah, I know, smaller production runs and all that, but... we pay $30 for a deluxe, a toy that is quite good. Now let's look at NewAge, who BTW are producing masterpieces. Their products are damn near unaffordable. If you were to scale up their incredible engineering talent to MP sized figures, they would cost damn near as much as Unicron!


Not exactly sure where I was going with this... I want to be able to afford NewAge toys...Right now, I can only afford Hasbro.

Originally Posted by bqpetn (Post 808302)

totally agree.


look many other products, electronics, cars, appliances and other. The products get better and better but not with huge price jumps. Many are even cheaper and better than previous ones.
Transformers toys are basically on the low tech level of products. But the new lines are just same quality or sometimes worse quality than before and the price is increased so much.


I also make gundams. Yes, the new ones are a little more expensive. But I can tell the improvements on the design details, the mold quality and etc, which is reasonable for the price increase.


The new line of transformers toys, you can feel the cheapness when you are playing with it.


Just my thoughts