Quote:
Originally Posted by Darth Cylon
Both Lamborghini and Porsche are part of VW AG. If Lambo was on board with Takara, it's not entirely impossible for Porsche to get on board as well.
I can see that talks between Takara and car maker can be quite different from talk with Hasbro. Being a Japanese company, Takara's sales pitch is catering towards collectors with MP figures. It's a high ticket high quality item similar to 1/18 die cast model car. It's not a kid's toy. The Lambo brand equity is not likely to be whored out by a limited production run of Takara MP model.
Hasbro, on the other hand, will very much run your brand equity down the hole if you are a car maker.
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Well remember the Binaltech/Alternators and then Alternity lines? Way i heard it VW didn't want to license out any of their cars (for Bumblebee for example) because VW as a company did not want to be associated with machines/robots of war. I guess that's how they saw Transformers as. But that was a long time ago before the movies so who knows maybe their stance has changed. Indeed Sideswipe is proof that Lambo (& maybe VW) are ok with licensing out their cars.
As someone pointed out above, license for use in JPN on a high end collectible is one thing. License for mass retail at Toysrus is quite different. that is the BIG reason why i went ahead to buy MP Sideswipe JP version because i seriously doubt Hasbro will be able to release MP sideswipe at mass retail at TRU anywhere else in the world especially in the USA. Lambo/VW simply won't license.
That's going to my personal stance. On fictional non-licensed alternate modes I believe Hasbro will have no problem having a US version at mass retail. Anything that is licensed is another story altogether.
