Took me a minute to find this thread lol.
Thanks for reminding me; I gotta see if I still have points available to put towards this guy. I stopped using them for awhile because they upped shipping rates sometime in the last couple of years, basically blowing out any savings from using them instead of HLJ or what have you. I still don't like the price, but I don't buy K.O.s either. Would wait for a sale, but I fear a sellout regardless of sticker shock, especially given there's fans out there who would want to cannibalize this release to kitbash a toy look Sunstreaker.
Might be because it's a much lower production run than Sunstreaker was, due to him being a non-show character that will probably sell less.
That's the current theory regarding Cordon's inflated price; but considering how badly Road Rage and Clampdown both lingered at retailers (foreign and domestic), this might be the path that Takara opts for in the future regarding Diaclone based repaints of carbots. Personally, I'm still waiting on a possible black Ironhide release, though it might not happen this late in the game.
Changing the subject slightly, but has anyone else been having trouble actually finding new stuff at retail? With TRU gone, there's only a handful of retail stores that carry toys left and none in my area have stocked beyond wave 1 of Power of the Primes. Hell, I never even saw waves 2, 4, or 6 of Titans Return. Is everyone else's distro just as bad as my area?
Distribution has apparently been off the rails since before ROTF if you believe the stories. Haven't really been hunting myself since before that first movie hit, when Classics was the only product on shelves. Titans Return turned my head a bit though; finally some renewed interest in characters made *after* 1986 - ended up grabbing the (former) Targetmaster Decepticons, Kup, Scourge and IMO the two best deluxes out of the entire line - Topspin and Twin Twist. Most of those were bought online, however.
Finding anything in the deluxe size was a nightmare, since the stores kept stocking that wave 1.5 refresher of 2 x Chromedome, 2 x Highbrow, Blurr, Scourge, Hardhead and Skullcruncher nearly nonstop. Never saw anything past that (barring one badly crushed box of Wave 3 in a store nearly an hour away) until the final wave with Slugslinger dropped. No mini-figs, no Scouts (or w/e they're called now), no Leaders. Voyagers would pop up every now and again, but never in enough supply to stay on shelves for more than a few days.
Power of the Primes has been different. Wave 1 - blink and you miss it. Haven't seen anything except deluxes get restocked, but two cases in the span of six months is hardly what I'd call flush. Wave 2 of those little Prime Masters showed up (Skullgrin wave? idk) along with the Battletrap set of Legends and those got restocked a few times along with that Black Rodimus Leader figure. Wave 2 Deluxes ... two cases back in early April I think... picked clean on sight I guess, but two of the female Autobot in that wave sat around for over a month before finally being sold.
Voyagers have not shown up... at all. I've had to ask employees at several different stores about it, and they say distribution is terrible all the way down the line. Ended up buying Hun-gurrr for $35 online a few weeks back; I always try to stop at Wal-Mart on gym nights to check but I simply don't have the time or gas money to keep looking for him otherwise. Can a brother get a single damn set of Terrorcons or is that too much to ask?
I don't know if it's Hasbro, or distribution in general across the board, but every time I walk down the toy aisle, Transformers and Marvel Legends are sold out and rarely get restocks to meet demand. Nothing else seems to get touched in other lines beyond a figure here and there.
