I think the third-party combiners (which are, what 2/3s of total third-party output?) have probably played a huge role in convincing Hasbro that there's money in this. After all, if people will pay $600 for gigantic combiners that look great but don't really fit with each other or anything else in their collection, they'll probably also fork over $90 for a slightly-less-imposing official one that works with their Classics toys.
Unicron wrote:I'm digging the idea of a year of combiners, if they turn out well. I'm just wondering if they're going to end up being Energon-style, with the repaint limbs, wasn't too thrilled with that the first time. Though given their recent forays into heavy retools like Sandstorm and Chromia, they may go that route.
That's possible, yeah. Though if they make the Aerialbots and Stunticons, I'm not sure anyone would worry about design reuse. After all, all four of the smaller G1 Aerialbots were basically the same toy with different jet parts tacked on, with the same transformation and parts layout. The Stunticons were a
bit more varied but still very "samey" as far as the design goes. Just make one "limb" design for each team, retool it with different alt-mode parts and maybe give it a Universe Sideswipe/Sunstreaker robot mode, and you're more or less there.
If they're planning to stick close to that for new toys, then those two teams would give them a lot of budget leeway when it comes to whatever else they're doing next year (in terms of not having to redeco everything).
Unicron wrote:Personally, I'm hoping for a new set of Technobots. They always seem to get left out, except for pointless filler repaint.
Oh, I'd love to see Technobots and Terrorcons too. But it'd be a very pleasant surprise for that to happen before the pre-movie teams are tackled, unless they make a tiny Computron to go with BH Abominus.
Unicron wrote:Though I'm expecting whatever teams they do to be something with some semi-logical repaint potential. Stunticons into random Autobot cars stapled together/Masquerade, Aerialbots into random Decepti-jets or Seekers, etc. That or they'll re-use some limb molds across two or more gestalts.
This is entirely possible too. Lots of people are speculating that Terrible Optimus was
actually designed to be Motormaster for just that reason. Though considering the sameyness of the smaller Aerialbots and Stunticons, I'm not sure how wise it'd be to try and flog sixteen toys based on the same two basic designs inside of one year.
Another thing they could do is embrace the "scramble" aspect of the old toys and release one or two characters from each of the G1 combiners, rather than putting out complete sets right off the bat. Certain chunks of the fandom would be awash with rage over a move like that, but I'd love it!
Blackjack wrote:Combiners is a big resounding 'meh' for me, considering past attempts like mini-Abominus and Bruticus have been mostly underwhelming and generally ending up making the individual little toys suck. Would rather have a full set of Aerialbots, Constructicons, Protectobots or whatever that didn't combine but are just good toys.
Generally agree with that, TBH. I'd rather have cool toys of Scrapper, Fireflight, Dead End, Swindle, First Aid, Divebomb, Hun-grrr, Lightspeed, Seawing or Wildfly than a really cool Devastator or Superion that breaks apart into ugly or poorly-articulated components (I can only hope that they've learned some lessons from FoC Bruticus in that regard). I know when I saw that Superion silhouette, my first thought wasn't "yay combiners", but "yay, a new Skydive!"
I suspect you and I are in the minority when it comes to caring about combiner team members more than the gestalt forms, though.
Blackjack wrote:Though by combiners they could mean stuff like Jetwing Optimus or Tidal Wave Armada Megatron some shit like that... doesn't give an excuse for that atrocious Optimus toy, though.
The numbers the Hasbro folks gave were something like "5 Voyagers and 16 Deluxes", which a lot of people are parsing as "Scramble City" since it's Optimus plus four standard-sized special teams. It's all just speculation now, though, so who knows? There could be a bunch of curveballs in there with Duocons, Overlord or Energon-style combinations as well.