Canadian Transformers News and Discussion Forum

[The Nemesis]

The rapid price increases are pushing me out of the market too. already from Earthrise and now through Kingdom I've skipped a bunch of figures simply because I can't justify buying another version of them so close to a previous one (I didn't go for the ER non-conehead seekers because I just bought all the Siege set. I'm not concerned with Kingdom Ultra Magnus just for the sake of no battle damage splatter paint and a slightly different core bot mold when the Siege one is sufficient for my needs already. I have had no interest in another G1 Megatron after picking up the silver wave 1 Netflix version. Etc)


From here on out it's likely going to just be the odd figure here and there when something catches my interest. The nice thing is that between WFC and the new Studio Series 86 stuff I'm rapidly getting pretty definitive versions of a lot of characters. I don't expect I'll need any more Dinobots after the SS86 ones presuming they do the whole batch. SS Jazz, Hot Rod, Blurr, and Scourge are all pretty much bang-on what I want out of those characters' looks. Ditto for the Kingdom BW bots and Cyclonus. Shellformer or not, ER/Kingdom Arcee is as close as I figure I'll get to a "perfect" G1 style Arcee without spending mucho $$$ on 3rd party or masterpiece versions.



The list of bots I have that I will want to upgrade on is pretty small at this point. I didn't go in for the Netflix Soundwave shenanigans, so I might want a different version of him from the Siege one if I want a tape player alt mode. I like aspects of Siege Springer but I could also see my way to preferring one that's maybe a touch smaller with less janky legs. I'd be on the fence about a re-do of the Insecticons from the PWT trio just for the sake of consistent decos, though I would also be concerned that they would all be pumped up to Deluxe scale...


Factor in that I'm extremely take-it-or-leave-it with the collaborative crossover bots (is there any word what's next after the X-Jet? I have no interest in that one) and that they're allegedly ending mainline Titan releases after The Ark (which is fine because from PWT onward they've pretty much covered all the big canonically significant city-sized bots. And other than maybe one day wanting a fresh crack at a Metroplex or Trypticon that I didn't get the first time around I'm not high on needing brand new versions of anything)


There's also very little I can think of that would really suck me into needing to get a whole line. Maybe if they did the Victory cast?


The price increases are a big kick in the teeth that are helping me decide to dial down my focus/attention on collecting, but honestly the bigger issue has been simply how hard it is to find anything after wave 1 now. I literally had to fight with Toys R Us customer service just to get a Runabout. A freaking Runabout! And then there's the massive *shrug* that Hasbro is giving us about the lack of Conehead 2-pack distribution. And the general need it seems to have to pre-order everything somewhere to guarantee it. I'm not an obssessive "gotta have it day 1" collector. I liked the ability to go into a Walmart to pick up some groceries and maybe a tube of toothpaste, swing by the toy aisle and snatch a couple of bots I needed off the shelves. Fluking into being up at 1am PT right when they put the Wave 2 Retro Headmasters online and being able to snatch the trio I need before they're all out of stock less than 2 hours later is not fun. Looking at my credit card bill every few months and seeing like $200 in charges to pre-order a wave's worth of bots from a variety of places is not fun. And I can't even imagine if I were someone buying Transformers for my own kids instead of for myself. I couldn't imagine blowing easily almost $1,000 a year on toys for kids who might destroy them or outgrow them inside of a couple of years.


Honestly Hasbro's making it really hard to want to give them money right now.