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Originally Posted by GotBot
My point is this, from a collector's stand point, I totally and completely agree with you that, yes, these would and could be great extra entries in the titan class line for sure. From a business stand point, I think the question becomes, as production and plastic costs rise, which inevitably will make retail costs rise, would it make economic sense to do these other lesser known titans? Is there actually a wide enough market? And, would people be willing and interested in shelling out 200-300 or more dollars over time for these characters, not to mention space and storage issues. There is a lot to consider. Naturally, I can only speak for me personally, but after getting the main six I dunno if I would be interested in characters I don't really have a connection with. Plus, as it stands now, displaying three titans, with a fourth on the horizon is a challenge in and of itself,lol.
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I totally understand your point and agree that more plastic needed to make the figure the right size would result in a larger price, but nothing's really stopping Hasbro from jacking up the price tag they think they can get for them anyway.
When Generations Metroplex was released, his tag was $140 CAD. Fort Max was $230 on release. That's about a 64% increase in under 2 years, from one titan to the next. And for what? Fort Max used essentially the same arms and legs from Metroplex, so the extra $90 went into re-designing a new torso, head gimmick, and a comparatively inferior audio chip. How did sales go? Early adopters will always be there, sure, but aside from the odd sale or two (or that TRU sale in conjunction with a discount coupon), Fort Max didn't really move off of the shelves that much at that price even throughout this past Christmas and only really started flying off when it went clearance for around the $150/160 range.
I was expecting Hasbro to bump the price bar again to at least $250 and as high as $300, so why not make it the proper size anyway? Sure, it won't sell as well until it goes on sale or on clearance, but my point is they've jacked the bar by $90 from one titan to the next, so what's another $50. They're already trying to rob us by pitching their new TLK Optimus helmet at a whopping $130 which was like $50 or $60 when the first one came out 10 years ago and hasn't been radically improved that much since then.
And as far as lesser well-known characters are concerned, we've already seen some fan service for niche characters going into mass production like Chromia, Jhiaxus, Sky Shadow, Darkmount (Straxus), the combiner wars set we got for Liokaiser, etc. The recent revival of the Jumpstarter brothers! None of these were expected and have been welcomed surprises. So while I understand that you personally may not have interest in characters you don't have a connection with, it's not the first time they've mass produced figures for less popular characters.
