As CEO of the Global Toy Group, Richard Gottlieb has a finger on the pulse of the toy and play industries. He’s a popular industry commentator and an outspoken proponent of the importance of play in our lives. On this edition of The Friday Five, we ask Richard about trends in the industry and how he sees technology affecting how we play.
For more stories behind some of your favorite toys visit Toy Tales.
Back in September 2006 Takara Tomy released MP-3 Starscream into the fledgling Transformers Masterpiece line. In the near 10 years since the figure has been repainted and retooled more than a dozen times between Takara Tomy and Hasbro, mainly as variations on the original Seeker jet trio of Starscream, Skywarp, and Thundercracker (with a couple additions). And while new opportunities to get previously released characters is nice, what fans have really wanted is to see the mold further retooled into the Seeker "conehead" trio of Ramjet, Thrust, and Dirge.
Took some time but Takara Tomy is finally doing their first conehead with MP-11NR Ramjet. The wait was worth it as we're getting a fairly extensive remold and they've done a pretty incredibly job of it. New head, new wings, and even a new transformation for the cockpit/chest and head. He even comes with big missiles like those from the original toy. It's the Masterpiece Ramjet that we've always wanted.
Unfortunately Takara Tomy, in all their wisdom, decided to take a high-demand figure and make it a Takara Tomy Mall exclusive limited to only 2,000 pieces. Why? Why take a figure fans have been demanding for years and make it an exclusive to a store that doesn't ship outside of Japan? Meanwhile they're fine with obscure characters like Exhaust and Road Rage being sold at normal retail. I'd give up both of those figures for a retail release of Ramjet. This also means that the other two coneheads will also probably be exclusives as well.
Hopefully Hasbro will be nice enough to offer their own version of the mold outside of Japan, but if you don't want to take the chance he'll be on the site for ¥15,984 (US$132), though proxies are going to charge a lot more. Oddly, pre-orders will only be open for a very short window from October 26 to November 4.
[via Seibertron]
Toys R Us has a new ad promoting the 2015 holiday shopping season that plays out like a cross between something out of Toy Story and the Twilight Zone. Simply titled Clone the ad features a talking Baby Alive doll that sound awfully familiar and a Transformers Robots in Disguise Optimus Prime figure voiced by none other than Peter Cullen himself.
I wont spoil the ending, but it's pretty funny.
Radio Free Cybertron's John DeLuna is almost always in the lead when it comes to receiving new figures from the Collector's Club, and today is no exception. John has gotten the final TFSS shipment for this cycle, known already to be Krok. Shipped together with it is the "mystery bonus" figure, this time a Generations Legends mold. Thanks to John we have lots of photos of both. We won't disclose the identity of the extra figure here, but you can of course keep reading to see both figures and find out who Krok is bundled with!
Ridertoys on Weibo has posted some photos showing off Diabolus Rex, Master Made's Trypticon-alike as a color testshot. The somewhat SD-ified figure can be seen in robot and ...um, "spaceship" modes in color, along with some additional non-color shots giving a guide to the overall size of the figure in all three modes. This figure may hold some general appeal since its proportion tweaks don't immediately diverge it far from its origins, making it perhaps a decent general-purpose stand-in. Click through to see all the photos!
Newsarama is bringing the previews early once again, this time jumping ahead for next week's release of the double-size Transformers: Redemption one-shot starring Slag - er, Slug and the Dinobots. As usual you can expect to find our review of this book first early next week, and for now click through to have a look at the mirrored preview pages and watch a triceratops get arrested in a bar. What's not to like?
