Fan-backed Hasbro project: Unicron

[griffin]

I'll certainly be asking Hasbro Australia about this, but logistically it would be unlikely, as Hasbro America want the money as soon as the reservation period ends (August 31st), which means, if Hasbro Australia were to play middle-man on these, they would need to take your money (somehow), and then be liable to Australian Consumer Laws (like refunds, which would have to come out of their pocket because the money would have been sent onto America).
Then you have the whole shipping procedure, that Hasbro Australia probably would have to outsource.
This probably should have been done through Amazon, which has branches in many countries, or can service many countries they aren't in... and they would then be the ones who would ship the items once they are produced (buuut, the price would be 30-40% more for the toy if sold through a retailer - Hasbro America are probably wanting to sell this themselves, to give this a better chance of reaching minimum numbers - a US$575 price from them would be at least US$900 if sold to a retailer first).

I think we just have to wait and hope that there are at least 8,000 seriously dedicated Transformers fans in America and Canada who have US$575 within 6 weeks, to warrant extras being made and then sold off to non-Americans (some how). (the big Transformers conventions only manage to get about 5,000 people willing and ABLE to splash out this much money to attend a dedicated event, not to mention, Unicron isn't a contemporary "iconic" character, so a toy of this price won't appeal to too many newer fans of the last decade, since TFPrime and the Live Action Movies... and there aren't a lot of us left who grew up with this character in the 1980s)

It's a bit of a catch-22 though... the non-Nth-Americans like us will only get a chance at buying this if they reach their 8,000 target in Nth America, but I'm pretty sure it would need the non-Nth-American fans to reach that goal. They would get a couple thousand in Japan and a couple thousand in the Hasbro Asia countries, a couple hundred in Australia and each of the main European countries... if they barely make it to halfway with their goal, they MUST find a way to take reservations from non-Nth-Americans, or else no one will get one. (they've certainly spent a lot of time and money already producing a prototype, as the fully coloured images are not a computer generated image - the factory tooling is the most expensive expense, but those images suggest that this is something they've already spent a lot of money on)

I love the size of it though... probably on-par with cost-to-volume of Fortress Maximus, taking into account the lower production run.





Lots of screen caps (and links to the video and images), including the two images above, from TFW here.

Did they show the back of the robot or planet mode at all?
If not... should we be worried that it has some kibble or issues that they are hiding?


Again... it's one of those rare occasions when I wished I lived in America.

[DELTAprime]

I guess there's nothing preventing them from doing a limited retail run of Unicron if the campaign is successful.

Thing is I just don't know if they will meet the 8000 backer goal if they don't open it up internationally somehow. Star Wars has a much larger fan base than Transformers and they only managed to get 8810 backers of a much cheaper toy.

[Paulbot]

Did they show the back of the robot or planet mode at all?
If not... should we be worried that it has some

You can see in the close up shots of the head that there’s a fair bit of planet folded up on his back. Also on his calves but I don’t think it’s a bad thing.

[danny-boy]

not sure if posted;

If the requirements are met, the massive Unicron will be available beginning in 2021 for a price of $574.99 USD. Hasbro said if the figure gets funded, it "will be looking at ways make this item available internationally," which is fantastic news for Transformers fans outside the US.

https://m.au.ign.com/articles/2019/0...er-figure-ever

[DELTAprime]

not sure if posted;

If the requirements are met, the massive Unicron will be available beginning in 2021 for a price of $574.99 USD. Hasbro said if the figure gets funded, it "will be looking at ways make this item available internationally," which is fantastic news for Transformers fans outside the US.

https://m.au.ign.com/articles/2019/0...er-figure-ever

Thank you for finding that. I certainly would get him if Hasbro AU made him available here and gave me time to save up for him.

[Sinnertwin]

Nek minit
Hasbro AU will import Unicron
$1300
Bwoaaaahhh
WhY sO ExPenSiV?

[doublespy]

As awesome as this looks, I too feel that the nature of Hasbro Pulse not willing to ship outside of NA just might stop this from happening. A lot of American collectors I know are quite price sensitive and to be fair $575 US is a lot of money over there.

On the flip side, minimum of 8000 units equal to $4.6m US. Surely the designer team gets a fat bonus if this does go ahead. John Warden might have to sell this baby even harder than he already had been at the upcoming cons like SDCC lol.

[KELPIE]

That's weird, I've kind of been assuming this whole time that War for Cybertron was a prequel, leading up to launching the Ark. I mean yes it's got Ultra Magnus and co. but it's easy to assume they were around but missed the boat to Earth, and were busy somewhere else when everyone woke up in the 80s. Was Unicron around back then? Like maybe they used to send him a pizza every now and then to keep him happy, but that was Starscream's job and he forgot to delegate to anyone before he left, so the poor dude's just been waiting out on the edge of the galaxy getting progressively hungrier and more annoyed for four million years until he's finally lost his temper.

Haha, couldn't get his Pizza so he started eating planets.

Yeah, this doesn't fit in with any story so don't stress and likewise, to answer your question as to when Unicron started to hang around, depends on which continuity... best not to think about it and just enjoy that there's an awesome toy (hopefully) on the way.

It's a bit of a catch-22 though... the non-Nth-Americans like us will only get a chance at buying this if they reach their 8,000 target in Nth America, but I'm pretty sure it would need the non-Nth-American fans to reach that goal. They would get a couple thousand in Japan and a couple thousand in the Hasbro Asia countries, a couple hundred in Australia and each of the main European countries... if they barely make it to halfway with their goal, they MUST find a way to take reservations from non-Nth-Americans, or else no one will get one. (they've certainly spent a lot of time and money already producing a prototype, as the fully coloured images are not a computer generated image - the factory tooling is the most expensive expense, but those images suggest that this is something they've already spent a lot of money on)

Did they show the back of the robot or planet mode at all?
If not... should we be worried that it has some kibble or issues that they are hiding?


Again... it's one of those rare occasions when I wished I lived in America.

I'm with you Griff, grave doubts on them hitting 8k without help from outside Nth America. Lets not sugarcoat it, a lot of American collectors are minimum wage earners which for the record, earn far less than Australian minimum wage earners. Just collecting a full wave stretches the budget. It would be tough, heck irresponsible for them to back this.

They haven't shown the back but one has to assume that there is a heap of folded up panels back there and probably even the planet mouth? I imagine he'll be at SDCC so we'll get lots of photo's from all angles through that.

Someone on TFW said the leg panelling reminded them of MP Bee v2 which makes sense.

not sure if posted;

If the requirements are met, the massive Unicron will be available beginning in 2021 for a price of $574.99 USD. Hasbro said if the figure gets funded, it "will be looking at ways make this item available internationally," which is fantastic news for Transformers fans outside the US.

https://m.au.ign.com/articles/2019/0...er-figure-ever

That doesn't sound promising or hopeful at all to me. Nor does the option of eBay. Ebay has the worst shipping rates going around and who knows how many will be made available for the rest of the world.

They are the largest toy company in the world - Independent toy company's can crowdsource and ship internationally, not sure why Hasbro can't? I mean they are shipping to Hawaii... not much different to fly/boat it a little further. Heck, the TF statues are larger and heavier than this and they ship to Australia just fine. Then of course as mentioned above, the risk this doesn't fund without us.

Still, over 1k is promising however as mentioned earlier, most of the backers come in the first 48 hours with a surge at the end. If this was to fund I'd expect to be nearly at 3k this time tomorrow. All that said, Hasbro will have SDCC as a great platform to push this.

[griffin]

You can see in the close up shots of the head that there’s a fair bit of planet folded up on his back. Also on his calves but I don’t think it’s a bad thing.

I saw the leg panels... and I know how difficult it is to have a spherical Transformers toy turn into a biped without too much kibble. Just look at the first few attempts (and toy) of a planet Unicron toy... either they looked like a ball with legs in robot mode (unproduced prototypes in the 80s), or half a planet in planet mode (Armada toy)... or have half a planet on their back (Star Wars TFs Death Star).
You can see on the close up images of the planet mode, it has a lot of small panels... and judging by the hinges on the panels at the back of the legs, there looks like a lot of it layers up on itself like a folded up road map.

Funny thing is... even though I think the recent expensive Japanese Masterpiece toys haven't been worth their price, this one feels worth it due to the size and detail... and lack of redundant accessories that have just a single display usage.
That said, I'd love to have some in-scale items like the two Autobot ships and a Galvatron figurine from the 1986 movie, to play out the final battle at the end of the movie.

[Trent]

I'll certainly be asking Hasbro Australia about this, but logistically it would be unlikely, as Hasbro America want the money as soon as the reservation period ends (August 31st), which means, if Hasbro Australia were to play middle-man on these, they would need to take your money (somehow), and then be liable to Australian Consumer Laws (like refunds, which would have to come out of their pocket because the money would have been sent onto America).
Then you have the whole shipping procedure, that Hasbro Australia probably would have to outsource.
This probably should have been done through Amazon, which has branches in many countries, or can service many countries they aren't in... and they would then be the ones who would ship the items once they are produced (buuut, the price would be 30-40% more for the toy if sold through a retailer - Hasbro America are probably wanting to sell this themselves, to give this a better chance of reaching minimum numbers - a US$575 price from them would be at least US$900 if sold to a retailer first).

I think we just have to wait and hope that there are at least 8,000 seriously dedicated Transformers fans in America and Canada who have US$575 within 6 weeks, to warrant extras being made and then sold off to non-Americans (some how). (the big Transformers conventions only manage to get about 5,000 people willing and ABLE to splash out this much money to attend a dedicated event, not to mention, Unicron isn't a contemporary "iconic" character, so a toy of this price won't appeal to too many newer fans of the last decade, since TFPrime and the Live Action Movies... and there aren't a lot of us left who grew up with this character in the 1980s)

It's a bit of a catch-22 though... the non-Nth-Americans like us will only get a chance at buying this if they reach their 8,000 target in Nth America, but I'm pretty sure it would need the non-Nth-American fans to reach that goal. They would get a couple thousand in Japan and a couple thousand in the Hasbro Asia countries, a couple hundred in Australia and each of the main European countries... if they barely make it to halfway with their goal, they MUST find a way to take reservations from non-Nth-Americans, or else no one will get one. (they've certainly spent a lot of time and money already producing a prototype, as the fully coloured images are not a computer generated image - the factory tooling is the most expensive expense, but those images suggest that this is something they've already spent a lot of money on)

I love the size of it though... probably on-par with cost-to-volume of Fortress Maximus, taking into account the lower production run.





Lots of screen caps (and links to the video and images), including the two images above, from TFW here.

Did they show the back of the robot or planet mode at all?
If not... should we be worried that it has some kibble or issues that they are hiding?


Again... it's one of those rare occasions when I wished I lived in America.

Have you received a response from Hasbro Aus yet Griffman?