Titaniums 6" not as dead as we thought

[kup]

Looks like US Target (hopefully AU too) will be having a three nice Titanium repaints:

http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/titanium-13/titanium-series-to-return---6-inch-series-exclusive-to-target-167010/

- WW Prime with what I reckon to be an improved more 'G1' paint job
- Hot Spot (yeah I know he being called 'Hot Zone' :)) who is a nice redeco of RID Prime
- WW Thrust who is a repaint of the WW seeker mold.

Not bad but I hope I don't have to go through the same dramas as I had to for Grimlock and Prowl.

[Lord_Zed]

I think WW prime, looks less G1 and more movie Prime, WW Prime never had Blue shoulders or cockpit.

While they are kinda nice reapints, my love of this line largely dissipitated with WW in Jetfire.

[kup]

You are right, its more Movie than G1 but minus the flames :p

I like the Hotspot repaint and I may go for it if released here but I will not go out of my way to get them like I did with Grimlock and Prowl. It is indeed a somewhat mediocre line anyway.

[Golden Phoenix]

Nice to see it alive, all be it only just.
The Hot Spot repaint looks nice. Might pass on the WW Prime. Looks pretty meh, especially in alt mode.

[i_amtrunks]

Who wants to bet that these repaints get a wide international release so they can shelf-warm while Prowl and Grimlock remain US exclusives, that cost an arm and a leg to hunt down? :p

[Zippo]

Not bad at all, love the Hot Spot repaint, and Thrust is bound to be good, just because its Thrust. As toys, Titanium's do suck but they still look really nice.

[SGB]

Will give these a pass.

[swoop]

Hopefully we'll get the molds they cancelled at the end of the line. Wasn't cosmos and shockwave planned?

[Mr_K]

Hot Spot was always one of my fav transformers so I will be getting him for sure! Would be great to see WW Prowl and Grimlock come out here too since I am not gonna pay what is currently asked for them from overseas. Also, be great to see cosmos and shockwave -> if they come out they will be buys for me.

[kup]

I don't think we will get Cosmos and Shockwave or these exclusives would be them. It is unlikely that development of those toys went beyond the prototype and it is doubtful that Hasbro would want to spend money on further developing those molds for mass production when the line has been announced as canceled despite these repaints.

These exclusive repaints may signal that the line is not completely dead but it is likely to be dying and this may be its last wave of releases.

[STL]

Whoa, late last end of the line releases. I guess that's why they're all repaints. I can't complain about Hot Spot though. Definite get for me. Thrust - not so much but if there's Dirge and Ramjet down the line... :eeK: !!!

[kup]

Hot Spot is indeed the best of this lot. If I only get one of these it would be him.

[dirge]

I'd get Prime if it has decent paint quality - the first one was awful in that regard.

[Kyle]

I prefer the colour scheme on the old one, but agree it had less than ideal paint quality. :p

[griffin]

Just like Classics Tankor, this is one toy that I don't think we'll be seeing called 'Hot Zone' by anyone.
Gen1 Hot Spot must be rolling in his grave... :p

[Thanatos]

Man, Hot Spot was basically my favourite transformer as a kid. I'll have to get my hands on this upcoming titanium one way or another.

[FFN]

From what I understand, Arcee, Cosmos, Shockwave and Bumblebee/Cliffjumper seen at Hasbro's tour during BotCon 2007 never made it to the tooling stage, so they have no molds. Grimlock and Prowl did have molds, however, which is why they were eventually released.

I doubt this is any indication of Hasbro reviving the Titanium line or it still living. It's more likely a case of Target requesting an exclusive and Hasbro taking molds they thought might be marketable (the ubiquitous Optimus Prime and another Seeker) and one they never repainted in Titanium's original run.

[Bartrim]

Not really a fan of titaniums but I am really liking Hot Spot:D

[griffin]

Just adding to what FFN said - the toolings/moulds for those four prototype Titaniums were not made, so unless Titaniums became a big selling mainline again, or those prototypes can be re-worked into another line (something they did mentioned, suggesting hope to oneday see them again), they won't be spending the money on making the toolings in the foreseable future. The problem with those four prototypes is that there isn't much redeco potential in them. Hasbro could do the usual cheat redeco of Bumblebee into Cliffjumper, but the other 3 really don't have anyone else they could be redecoed into that is an existing character.
And before anyone jumps in to say that Arcee could be redecoed green and called 'Pardron Medic' like the PVCs or whatever the Energon bike version was coloured into - I don't think the retailers would want to risk having a shelfwarming *obscure* female toy.

[sifun]

I kinda wish that this line would just die and hasbro would use their resources on better things..

[blackie]

I kinda wish that this line would just die and hasbro would use their resources on better things..

id take an encore fort max over the whole titanium line any day :P

[kup]

I kinda wish that this line would just die and hasbro would use their resources on better things..

I personally prefer this Hot Spot more than yet another 'Cybertron Defense' repaint with a badly thought out name slap.

[FFN]

I kinda wish that this line would just die and hasbro would use their resources on better things.. Budgeting for new toys is either there or it isn't. The repaints don't take away from the (considerable) amount of time and money required to make a new design and tooling for some other product line.

Like I said in all likelihood Target requested an exclusive, Hasbro thought "Hey, these are molds we haven't used in the past year or so".

[Sky Shadow]

Are these actually any good as toys? I've never owned any Titaniums (Titania?), but if they're good then I would buy the War Within Prime recolour (as long as the price was right.)

[GoktimusPrime]

As Transformers action figures, they suck. The playability and transformation engineering are poor. And there's just way too much die-cast in them. Titanium Series are designed by the Galoob branch of Hasbro, not the same division of Hasbro which works in tandem with TakaraTOMY to design Transformers... so yeah, compared to most other Transformers designed by HasTak the 15cm Titanium Series TFs are just amateur.

Most of my Ti Series TFs are those based on figures which don't exist in other lines, such as The War Within. If the regular branch of HasTak gave us War Within figures then I'd be jumping on those and selling my Ti Series TFs. In fact, some existing TF moulds which were inspired by War Within are better designed/engineered TF toys than their Ti Series counterparts, e.g.: Galaxy Force/Voyager Cybertron Starscream is a better War Within Starscream toy than Ti Series Starscream! (who's not even accurate to the War Within Starscream design, it's a repaint of War Within Thundercracker - the three jets had distinctively different designs in War Within and were not recolours of each other - despite that the colourist still managed to stuff up and swap their colours in a few panels. :/)

[kup]

Are these actually any good as toys? I've never owned any Titaniums (Titania?), but if they're good then I would buy the War Within Prime recolour (as long as the price was right.)

Overall the line has pretty poor toys but there are a few which are reasonably good but also rely on taste. Also most toys suffer from different levels of 'lazy design' elements. Some of them are crippled by this such as WW Jetfire, GI Joe Megatron and Soundwave.

My oppinion of ok (but no toy in this line is more than just 'ok'):

- G1 Magnus (the only 'real' magnus we have officially gotten since G1)
- WW Prime/Magnus (Prime release suffers from bad quality paint job)
- Rodimus (flawed robot design but good)
- BM Cheetor (simplistic but good, particularly by both BM and TI standards)
- WW Grimlock (pretty good robot mode, so so Tank mode)
- WW Starscream, Sunstorm, Skywarp, Thundercracker (reasonably good)
- G1 Scourge (very nice tribute)
- The Fallen (suffers from lazy design elements but overall well executed)

Not so good:

- WW Megatron (nice robot mode, crappy tank mode)
- Optimal Optimus (flawed in both modes but stable, third mode is a bit of a joke)
- WW Prowl (just weird looking)

Appalingly bad (as in shocking):

- GI Joe Megatron (Oh my god, they approved this??)
- Soundwave (Jeebus! They thought this was a good idea, Soundwave with a big nappy?!?)
- WW Jetfire (not a bad concept idea but its execution sucks, suffers badly from lazy design)

[griffin]

As Transformers action figures, they suck. The playability and transformation engineering are poor. And there's just way too much die-cast in them. Titanium Series are designed by the Galoob branch of Hasbro, not the same division of Hasbro which works in tandem with TakaraTOMY to design Transformers... so yeah, compared to most other Transformers designed by HasTak the 15cm Titanium Series TFs are just amateur.

Credit where credit due.
At least these were done 'in house' by *a* division of Hasbro. The *real* transformers division can't even design AND engineer convertable transformers toys without having the Japanese figuring it out for them. If I recall from a BotCon presentation (I could be wrong with this though), the last time 'the transformers division' at Hasbro tried to do their own engineering, was several figures in the 1986 line, like Rodimus, the special teams combiners and some other movie toys, which had very simplistic transformations (compared to the earlier 2 years of toys designed by Takara) and had very limited articulation.

Then again, the Galoob division may have acquired Takara help as well, but at least this gave us the oppotunity to have a number of War Within moulds that probably wouldn't have been done by Hasbro or Takara for a main line (because it would be from a long past comic series, that very few in the general public would have read anyway, to want to buy the toys).

[griffin]

- G1 Magnus (the only 'real' magnus we have officially gotten since G1)


If you are referring to the many redecoed Primes as Magnus, what about Animated Ultra Magnus?

[kup]

If you are referring to the many redecoed Primes as Magnus, what about Animated Ultra Magnus?

Animated Ultra Magnus is not G1 Ultra Magnus, he is inspired by him in design but is not directly trying to represent the G1 character. Animated Magnus is his own character just like Beast Wars Scorponok.

When I said 'real' Magnus, meaning that I wasn't counting the endless white Prime repaints but one that actually represent Magnus as his G1 cartoon/comic character model (complete with armor).

To me that's like saying that the purple Animated Shockwave is G1 Shockwave - Yeah its inspired by the original but its a different character in another fictional universe.

[jaydisc]

Anyone wanna get in early (http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/705-53470-19255-0/1?type=2&campid=5336043815&toolid=10001&customid=&ext=200321409168&item=200321409168)? No bids yet ;)

[jaydisc]

Thrust in package (http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/705-53470-19255-0/1?type=2&campid=5336043815&toolid=10001&customid=&ext=110366236931&item=110366236931)