Zeta ZV-02 Core Star (Unicron)

[Pgianos]

Don't take food off someone else's table bc they will f--k you up.

[Sun Swipe Prime]

Originally Posted by predahank

I agree that zeta may have been brash with their fanstoys style reveal but its also funny that hastak loyalists are throwing a parade because a video got taken down

Originally Posted by RNSrobot

People are stupid, what else? It's not the first fandom I've seen this kind of icky corporate loyalty demonstrated lol.

It’s soooooo weird. My head can’t stop shaking. The social media may have been taken down, but doesn’t mean the product won’t be made. Isn’t legal to knock stuff off in China so long as it’s only for domestic sale? This can be are for domestic sale, and spirited out of the country for distribution, no?

I don’t have a horse in this race. I’m not buying either of them. A part of me wants to see the Kickstarter fail now because it’s a bad corporate practice. Another part wants it to fail just to hear the cries of the corporate sheep as they stand crestfallen because they weren’t allowed into the slaughterhouse to be butchered.

[ssjgoku22]

Hasbro is definitely scared. Transform Element and Magic Square both made MP Primes and Hasbro didn't do anything to them because their sales didn't really affect MP-44's sales. Hasbro is looking in every which direction as to why their Unicron preorders have slowed, so they're attributing part of the blame to Zeta's Unicron (hence the whole copyright fiasco currently).

Zeta's Unicron will get made because it bears no resemblance to Hasbro's design, is smaller than Hasbro's and doesn't have the name Unicron. If it was a direct copy of Hasbro's, that definitely wouldn't slide. Fortunately, it's their own design and engineering, so long live Core Star.

[Matrix_Holder]

Since the trademark of unicron is dead (possibly, not sure but it's been posted around) zeta could legally get it, that would be awesome.

[ssjgoku22]

Originally Posted by Matrix_Holder

Since the trademark of unicron is dead (possibly, not sure but it's been posted around) zeta could legally get it, that would be awesome.

That would be pretty dope.

[QuadESL63]

Got this from a Hong Kong TF FaceBook group: if it is legitimate this is it... at least it won’t happen soon.

From Zeta:

“Official (Hasbro) has not paid so much attention before, I guess this has to be ended (aborted)”

“Thanks for your concern, we will be making much better toys”

Get a Chinese reading friend to translate it for you if you so wanted...

[GotBot]

[QUOTE=joshimus;796393]One can say the same about Zeta. First off, not their IP to sell, it belongs to HasTak, PERIOD.
Secondly, they should have waited for Hasbro's launch to fail, or until October a few days before the Hasbro ended. Instead, they gave Hasbro plenty of time to take action.

If Hasbro is seeing a dip in preorder sales, which have been somewhat stagnant since Zeta showed theirs off as well as the extension time, then yeah, I dont feel bad for Zeta getting stopped.

That said, I would have bought both, but Zeta was 100% stupid in being so loud about their version. I guarantee you had Hasbro's failed to meet the 8K backers and THEN Zeta announced Unicron, Zeta would be producing and selling their version without issue like so many others. (also still IF Hasbros gets funded)

Zeta let to much get to their heads and there is blowback, something the ACTUAL owner of the license has every right.
[QUOTE]

Indeed, I see your point and agree. Keep that in mind as you read on and I apologize for being long winded.

But,

Hasbro is so much more huge that they seem VERY petty to screw the little guy just to show investors that hey Haslab isn't a steaming pile of scanner crap but an actual viable business model. People want to crowdfund multibillion dollar multinational companies..... They have had 1 success (from the absolute most rabid fan base ever), and 1 failure. This second failing project looks bad on the books, so their rampant desperation is making them pull out all the stops..

To be fair, and to give some context, in life, I shop everywhere else I can besides Wal-Mart because they are too big and shady. I watch as much wrestling outside of WWE as I can and vary between NFL and CFL, UFC and, say, Bellator. My point is, I RARELY support the big guy. I usually do all I can for the little guy to create as much competition as possible so, hopefully, companies are inspired to do better and offer more for less to win my purchasing dollars and desires. There is zero brand loyalty, zero. I'm the customer. Your job is to win me over as a manufacturer and retailer. Fail in that and I take my business elsewhere.

As for you thinking there is IP theft, allow me if you will, to play devil's advocate though. A lawyer could EASILY say to you that they have no idea what you are talking about. There is absolutely no IP theft here. Zeta is making a character named Core Star that is an originally designed and engineered product in the transforming robot genre. It's passing resemblance to this Unicron character you're talking about is purely coincidental. A judge will likely see it the same way, especially as Hasbro has never pulled this before in 35 years with all the 3p and ko that has happened. I don't see them having a very strong case, to be honest.

I agree with you totally about Zeta's timing though. That said, Hasbro should have stuck to their word and when this disaster failed at the end of August, it should have just died then They said many times it HAD to be the end of August. We have a small window. Then magically that changed? In other words, they lied. So timing was bad for all around for this situation.

Honestly, I don't think Zeta even slightly impacted the preorder sales. I don't even think they even really serve the same collectors. I see the Haslab as the only largest option for, say, hardcore MP collectors, at best. The Zeta, however, works better for CHUG mainline or legends collectors. I was on the fence for Zeta, never for a second considered Unicron, even after my wife told me to get it. I'm morally against the Unicron pricing and the message it sends Hasbro about acceptable mainline pricing, that's just my moral code, and of course it looks like shit. After all this though, I am staunchly against the Haslab hunchback more than ever and pretty sure I'm all in for Zeta.

I think the stall has happened because the initial excitement wore off and people are like, shit, what am I doing? Hunchback-cron is unreasonably expensive, I'm out. Maybe you are right, maybe I am wrong. I just don't see the 2 offerings serving the same segments of the fan base at all.

All this said, I kinda don't care. I just want a titan Skorponok, man lol.

[positivelyken]

Zeta's Unicron was, and still is, a huge embarassment for Hasbro -- it's a better-designed figure that hides all of its kibble in bot mode, and more importantly, isn't being produced by a massive multinational corporation that somehow still needs to crowdsource its development.

Hasbro was well within its rights to slap Zeta down over IP infringement, mind you. But it does expose how little imagination went into WFC Unicron's design outside of the chomping maw gimmick. You could even say it's that one gimmick, primarily, that compromised the overall engineering of the figure. To make the chomping mouth possible, it had to be built on one large panel that doesn't collapse, split, or otherwise transform. In bot mode it could only sit on his back as a giant kibbly plate with the planet horns hanging off it, and to cover it up they used more nesting panels. And as long as they've made that choice, the rest of the kibble could just collapse around the legs. The end result is ultimately kind of lazy, although still with impressive presence owing to its size.

Zeta showed them up in a big way, and right in the middle of Hasbro's crowdfunding campaign. Imagine if HasLab saw Core Star and immediately went back to the drawing board to look for improvements in their own design? They could easily do it, since the story we've been sold is that production of Unicron will only go ahead if they meet their goal of 8000 backers by October. Plenty of time to modify the CAD files and 3D print another prototype.

[imfallenangel]

[QUOTE=GotBot;796509]

Originally Posted by joshimus

One can say the same about Zeta. ....

All this said, I kinda don't care. I just want a titan Skorponok, man lol.

Excellent post and I do agree with just about everything you've said here.

The Zeta, as far as I could tell is vastly superior, with Hasbro's version having it's size as both a selling point and a downside.

I found Hasbro doing crowdfunding instead of just pre-orders is a shameful approach for such a company.

I'm not a fan of the character and have no interest in getting either, but if I had to pick, the Zeta would be the winner.

For the Titans, I feel cheated a bit as I find that:

Metroplex wasn't produced in proper quantities. I can't even recall seeing him in stores more than once and missed out, and no re-releases that I remember, and now he's way above my budget (or my set limit for toys like that).

I managed to get a Fortress M. but barely, and for what he is (re-mold with many flaws, especially the legs as we can't even use the "base insides" feature as there's no proper angle to get them to open correctly), I find that he was overpriced.

Then Trypticon with the leg ratchet weakness, with mine snapping as I was unpacking him, making me return it to the store and not look back... as again, for a 200$+ toy, such a bad scenario is just not acceptable.

I didn't hesitate much with Omega as he was "THE" titan that I truly hoped/wished for as I lost my G1 to a thief, and he's actually the best so far, aside his claw that shouldn't have been translucent. I'm just glad that I managed to get him with that 20% sale price when I did the pre-order.

Scorponok will be interesting to see. I'm not a fan of the character, but I might change my mind depending how they do it.

Then again, I'm out of space and having to reorganize and put many again every time I get more.

[ssjgoku22]

As for you thinking there is IP theft, allow me if you will, to play devil's advocate though. A lawyer could EASILY say to you that they have no idea what you are talking about. There is absolutely no IP theft here. Zeta is making a character named Core Star that is an originally designed and engineered product in the transforming robot genre. It's passing resemblance to this Unicron character you're talking about is purely coincidental. A judge will likely see it the same way, especially as Hasbro has never pulled this before in 35 years with all the 3p and ko that has happened. I don't see them having a very strong case, to be honest.

Exactly my point. It bears no resemblance to Hasbro's design, it's a different size and it has a different name. Zeta's Unicron is not a ko, it's their own unique design. They're not really infringing on anything here. I hope they just continue with production on the down-low and, if Hasbro tries to take them to court, they can prove that they aren't copying them.