Encore Devastator

[Lordy]

If the Dinobots rumors are true, especially with Swoop (who is a huge one for KOs) then I will be very very poor.

[reillyd]

The dinobot moulds are most probably lost, so I wouldn't bank on them being reissued. Fort max might still be possible because the mould was of course used for brave max. Problem is that encore omega supreme & metroplex reportedly shelf warmed, which would discourage tomy from reissuing other big & expensive city formers like trypticon... Let alone the biggest and ultra expensive toy like fort max. All we can do is vote with our wallets & continue to support encore if we wanna see more

You seem to be our resident expert on all things Japanese Goktimus . ,so perhaps you can answer a mystery for me about the molds. New transformers are created and sculpted all the time, no? Eg classics henkei Grims. So why isn't it just a case of creating a new mold for a toy that is a close replica to the original? Some of these knock offs don't quite get the mold right, so they must be rebuilt and not using the original molds. Is it that encore just doesn't have the same volume as say a Hasbro toy at retail, or that hasbro just isn't intested in Encoree?

[GoktimusPrime]

New transformers are created and sculpted all the time, no? Eg classics henkei Grims.

Yep. And it takes a considerable amount of time and money to develop new moulds.

So why isn't it just a case of creating a new mold for a toy that is a close replica to the original? Some of these knock offs don't quite get the mold right, so they must be rebuilt and not using the original molds.

It always costs more to produce something legitimately. Counterfeiting is easier and cheaper. Look at the costs of legit DVDs and Blu Rays versus the cost of buying pirated DVDs and Blu Ray discs -- you can get some pirated DVDs at a third of the price of the legit, and some of them are decent quality too.

And there's a lot more to producing a legit toy than meets the eye - costs that counterfeiters don't have to pay. e.g. legal costs (e.g. registration, patents etc.), marketing, design etc etc. And remember that TOMY is a company that employs professional engineers, maintains customer call centres, market researchers, illustrators, designers, cleaners, secretaries, human resource officers, liaison officers, web designers and all the other people who are on their payroll. And these people would be paid in Japanese Yen, probably on higher wages than bootleggers in China being paid in Chinese Yuan - and they would also have various other employer costs such as superannuation, sick leave, annual leave etc. Then there's the costs of maintaining their actual offices (there's one in Tokyo and one in Osaka) and all kinds of other additional costs like liaising with Hasbro in the U.S. (which would include international business class travel, accommodation, transport, interpreters etc.) -- while a lot of these costs may be tax deductible, it's still a cost that they have to bear. Then there's the costs of attending toy shows where they showcase their products to retailers.

Furthermore, TakaraTOMY have higher standards than bootleggers. They also have a strict budget to adhere to -- I don't buy KOs, but I've heard that a lot of them can be pretty expensive, whereas TakaraTOMY tries to keep their reissues relatively affordable.

Look at the reissue of the original G1 Optimus Prime toy (first reissued by Takara in 2000) - the G1 mould was too deteriorated or far gone to use, so they took the G2 mould. But the problem was that the arms were too deteriorated to use, so Takara had to rebuild new arms for Convoy from scratch. Takara have said that this was a _very_ expensive venture for them - and we've seen HasTak milk that mould for all it's worth with many, many times that they've kept reissuing that toy over and over again! But with Optimus Prime it seems to have been worth it as the single most iconic toy in Transformers. And that's just with a mostly in-tact G2 mould that just needed new arms! If the Dinobot moulds are even more deteriorated than that, or are completely gone - then I highly doubt that it would be viable for TOMY to reissue those figures.

Is it that encore just doesn't have the same volume as say a Hasbro toy at retail, or that hasbro just isn't intested in Encoree?

This is also true. G1 reissues are part of what Hasbro classifies as "high end collectables" - i.e. toys targeted at the adult collectors market, which is a niche market. As a result, toys like reissues, Binaltech, Masterpiece etc. are produced in much more limited numbers compared to their "mainstream" Transformer toys aimed at children.

This is also why when a Japanese reissue is shelfwarming, it's more serious than seeing a regular mainstream TF toy shelfwarming.

[kup]

I am not sure if I would buy all the Encore Dinobots if released. I already have all the originals complete. I would still like to support 'lost mold' reissues so I would at least try to buy a couple.

[UltraMagnus]

The dinobot moulds are most probably lost, so I wouldn't bank on them being reissued. Fort max might still be possible because the mould was of course used for brave max. Problem is that encore omega supreme & metroplex reportedly shelf warmed, which would discourage tomy from reissuing other big & expensive city formers like trypticon... Let alone the biggest and ultra expensive toy like fort max. All we can do is vote with our wallets & continue to support encore if we wanna see more

Reportedly and facts are two different things. From HK perspective, Omega and Metroplex were good sales. Metroplex (if you remember) was reissued again because they didnt meet the demand. The shelf warmers are Ironhide/Ratchet/Skids as well as Op Prime.

I remember when the TFC was starting people were screaming for Soundwave and people were saying "the mould this, the mould that". Honestly with todays technology, putting a new mould together is simple and relatively inexpensive for Takara/Hasbro (who 100% guarantee have mould machines).

It all comes down to supply and demand. If they know the Dinobots will sell even if they have to retool the mould, they will do it.

Japanese business, now more than ever, need to get their bottom line up.

[Kranix]

I am another one who would purchase all the Dinobots. I wouldn't expect them to be made though. Mind you I didn't expect Devastator either! Pretty excited about it but the Dinobots would be on a whole new level!

[GoktimusPrime]

Remember when Takara used to include self-addressed survey cards with all their toys? And each card always allowed to name any 3 Transformers that you'd like to see them do? Well each time I got a reissue I always would put down the name of one of the Dinobots - so by time I got my 5th reissue I'd already requested them all. After that I'd keep cycling through their names again. Takara actually did pull through on most of the other requests I've made (and I'm sure many other fans too), e.g. Inferno, Hound, Skids etc etc. -- so this indicated to me that they were listening to people. But of course, this was all before the merger with TOMY, because unlike Takara, TOMY's online survey no longer gives you the option of making open suggestions like that, which is a shame IMO.

But anyway, if retooling moulds is as cheap and easy as you say it is (which is contrary to what Takara told us back in 2000 - unless there have been considerable improvements in technology since then, I wouldn't know) - then other than sitting around and complaining, all we can do is show our support for Encore and hopefully prove to TOMY that it is worth their while to ressurect more moulds and reissue more stuff through Encore.

Because there's only a small handful of Takara owned moulds from the first two years of G1 that Takara/TOMY haven't reissued yet. So upon examination we have...

1984
+ Bluestreak: reissued
+ Brawn: reissued
+ Bumblebee: reissued
+ Bumblejumper: not reissued (possibly insufficient demand for such an obscure figure)
+ Buzzsaw: reissued
+ Cliffjumper: reissued
+ Frenzy: reissued
+ Gears: (re)issued
+ Hound: reissued
+ Huffer: reissued
+ Ironhide: reissued
+ Jazz: reissued
+ Laserbeak: reissued
+ Megatron: reissued
+ Mirage: not reissued - mould known to be lost
+ Optimus Prime: reissued like a mofo
+ Prowl: reissued
+ Ratchet: reissued
+ Ravage: reissued
+ Rumble: reissued
+ Sideswipe: reissued
+ Skywarp: reissued
+ Soundwave: reissued
+ Starscream: reissued
+ Sunstreaker: not reissued - mould rumoured to be lost
+ Thundercracker: reissued
+ Trailbreaker: reissued
+ Wheeljack: not reissued - mould known to be broken
+ Windcharger: reissued

1985
+ Astrotrain: reissued
+ Barrage: not reissued - mould not owned by Takara
+ Beachcomber: reissued
+ Blaster: reissued
+ Blitzwing: reissued
+ Bombshell: reissued
+ Bonecrusher: not reissued - reissue pending
+ Camshaft: not reissued
+ Chop Shop: not reissued - mould not owned by Takara
+ Cosmos: reissued
+ Dirge: reissued
+ Downshift:not reissued
+ Grapple: reissued
+ Grimlock: not reissued - mould known to be lost
+ Hoist: reissued
+ Hook: not reissued - reissue pending
+ Inferno: reissued
+ Jetfire: not reissued - mould not owned by Takara
+ Kickback: reissued
+ Long Haul: not reissued - reissue pending
+ Omega Supreme: reissued
+ Overdrive: not reissued
+ Perceptor
+ Powerdasher (drill): not reissued
+ Powerdasher (F1): not reissued
+ Powerdasher (jet): not reissued
+ Powerglide: reissued
+ Ramjet: reissued
+ Ransack: not reissued - mould not owned by Takara
+ Red Alert: reissued
+ Roadbuster: not reissued - mould not owned by Takara
+ Scavenger: not reissued - reissue pending
+ Scrapper: not reissued - reissue pending
+ Seaspray: not reissued
+ Shockwave: not reissued - mould not owned by Takara
+ Shrapnel: reissued
+ Skids: reissued
+ Slag: not reissued - mould known to be lost
+ Sludge: not reissued - mould known to be lost
+ Smokescreen: reissued
+ Snarl: not reissued - mould known to be lost
+ Swoop: not reissued - mould known to be lost
+ Thrust: reissued
+ Topspin: not reissued
+ Tracks: reissued
+ Twin Twist: not reissued
+ Venom: not reissued - mould not owned by Takara
+ Warpath: reissued
+ Whirl: not reissued - mould not owned by Takara

...so as we can see, Takara have reissued quite a lot of G1 figures from the first two years of Transformers. Many of the Transformers that they haven't reissued have been either because the mould is no longer available, or because they never owned the mould to begin with. It was only possible for them to reissue Omega Supreme and Sky Lynx after the merger with TOMY because TOMY owns those moulds.

Anyway, having said all that, if they did reissue the Dinobots, I'd definitely get them for the same reason that I wanna get the Constructicons -- even though I have my original G1s from my childhood, it'd be nice to have a minty new set, and also so I can have another set so I can display them in robot and dino modes So while I'm skeptical that they'd reissue the Dinobots, if they did I'd be all over them like Cosmic Rust germs!

P.S.: they really should re-reissue Ramjet and Thrust again... because the first reissues were very limited convention exclusives. They deserve to be reissued in as retail toys IMO.

[GoktimusPrime]

kristofferer's posted links to pics he took at the Tokyo Toy Fair, including a nice pic of Encore Devastator here

[Tetsuwan Convoy]

Ratchet, ironhide, Omega Supreme and to a lesser extent Sky Lynx all shelf warmed quite a bit.

I was in Japan a good 6 or so months after Omega Supreme was released and I was able to find plenty sitting on store shelves. Same story with Sky lynx as well if I remember correctly.

[kurdt_the_goat]

Metroplex did indeed have a second run as mentioned above.
But, just last month in Japan i saw 2 Omega Supremes and for only 2800Y if memory serves!
Whatever it was, it was damn cheap; only the cursed overflowing suitcases prevented a purchase