Are there too many Exclusives in the Siege Toyline?

[BigTransformerTrev]

Are there too many ‘Exclusives' in the Siege Line?

This year we have seen an unprecedented amount of ‘Exclusives’ released in the Siege toyline. The numbers speak for themselves as in the line we have:
48 General Releases
19 Exclusives
(bear in mind this does not count Unicron as we are unsure whether he will be made yet)

This means that Exclusives make up nearly 40% of the Siege line. But even that does not convey the whole story. Most of these Exclusives are made up of 2 to 10 figures. In fact the amount of Exclusives comes up to an even 40 individual figures. Some of these like Covert Clone Sideswipe and Holo Mirage are simply recolours of toys from the general release line. But many of the figures are of G1 characters there have never been a Classicsverse figure of before. This makes it a real headache for completionists.

Very few of these Exclusives have been made available on our shores. Some such as Slamdance have been made available through the Australian Amazon site, but the majority have not. This has necessitated Aussie fans either joining up to US Amazon Prime or to try and source it somehow from the US stores such as Walgreens.


So consider the following questions:
1: Do you think the Siege line has too many exclusies?
2: What Exclusives have you bought/are intending to buy?
3: Has the Exclusiveness, and associated cost, of these figures impacted your buying of them?
4: What figures from the Siege line would you have bought if they had been given a general release, but now will not be doing so?


My personal answers:
1: Yes, way too many. A few would have been ok, but not when it equals 40 individual toys!
2: I got Greenlight & Dazzlestrike and have the Autobot Counterstrike force (G2 Sideswipe, Raindance, Grandslam & Trenchfoot) shipping to me as I speak. I've also preordered Lancer and the Refracktor Pack (Spectro, Viewfinder, Spyglas & Kremzeek) with BBTS but depending on funds may have to cancel the Refacktor pack.
3: Definitely - I would be buying a lot more from this line if they were more widely available.
4: To be honest most of them, definitely all the ones I don't have a Classicsverse toy of already such as the Micromaster 10-pack and the Seekers 3-Pack. I would have skipped the likes of the Decepticon Impactor and Holo Mirage anyway though. As it is, because of the hassle and cost, I'll be skipping most Exclusives - a first world problem I know - but its annoying since I'd like to get a Classicsverse version of every G1 character possible. The fact that the general line contains big expensive characters like Omega Supreme and Jetfire is another contributing factor for me and the spare funds I have available.

[Defcon]

I voted 1 to 5, but to be honest with the number of exclusives, its enough to turn me off buying all together. I haven?t bought any exclusives yet, if I do i?ll be very selective. The hassle and extra expense really don?t help when I contemplate buyers remorse when I could prioritise other things instead.

[griffin]

The timing of a lot of them wasn't good, as we just had about AU$300 of SDCC exclusives last month at the same time as quite a few of the exclusives were either hitting stores, or showing up as pre-orders for people to jump on in fear of missing out. At least we dodged a bullet with Unicron, as the American fans were also faced with about AU$850 of expense this month as well... all in a 4-6 week period.
At least for us, we have a lot of time to pay for Unicron, and the cost of most of the exclusives that we want (including SDCC) will be spread out over several weeks as we track them down online or on ebay, as most of the original pre-orders would have been difficult for us to jump on (like Hasbro Pulse or US Target).

And since the majority of exclusives at EB/Zing are Japanese Transformers, it kinda sucks having our one major source of exclusives, to not actually focus on getting too many Hasbro Transformers exclusives. (I was really expecting Amazon Australia to pick up the slack of us losing TRU, as they took on a couple items last year, but now seem to have pulled back.... particularly after we could order from Amazon America again, so maybe the local branch didn't see a point of competing with itself.)

[DELTAprime]

I need basically all the exclusives for my collection, but I'd prefer them to be general retail though. It really is a case of too many exclusives, not just for Siege but in general with the LG-EX and Gen Select lines also.

I still need to track down a Ratchet and place a preorder for Star Convoy and the Seacons.

[BigTransformerTrev]

The timing of a lot of them wasn't good, as we just had about AU$300 of SDCC exclusives last month at the same time as quite a few of the exclusives were either hitting stores, or showing up as pre-orders for people to jump on in fear of missing out. At least we dodged a bullet with Unicron, as the American fans were also faced with about AU$850 of expense this month as well... all in a 4-6 week period.
At least for us, we have a lot of time to pay for Unicron, and the cost of most of the exclusives that we want (including SDCC) will be spread out over several weeks as we track them down online or on ebay, as most of the original pre-orders would have been difficult for us to jump on (like Hasbro Pulse or US Target).

And since the majority of exclusives at EB/Zing are Japanese Transformers, it kinda sucks having our one major source of exclusives, to not actually focus on getting too many Hasbro Transformers exclusives. (I was really expecting Amazon Australia to pick up the slack of us losing TRU, as they took on a couple items last year, but now seem to have pulled back.... particularly after we could order from Amazon America again, so maybe the local branch didn't see a point of competing with itself.)

For the purposes of the thread I discussed specifically the Siege line and the large amount of it that is 'Exclusives' but of course all this can come into play too. Ecto-1 along with SDCC Ghostbusters Prime, the various MP's on the way such as Hound, Lio Convoy and Blackarachnia, the Exclusive Seacons, The Botbots, Cyberverse - there are so many conflicting calls on ones TF budget. Gone are the days where it was just one or two TF toylines each year on offer (and indeed were stocked on the actual physical shelves of stores) and one could more easily afford what they wanted.

[Sinnertwin]

No

[Dimi194]

I'm defintely not a fan of the exclusives-esp the ones that aren't straight up repaints but are actually totally separate characters.
The biggest annoyance for me is that the combiner that was available at mass retail in POTP (Orthia) is being finished as an exclusive >
And making characters who are so mainline (Ratchet) exclusives also confuses me

[Raider]

1: Yes.... very very much a yes on this one.
2: Most and intend to buy all. Stupid need to complete everything...
3: It is just frustrating the time, effort and cost to acquire them. It is getting a little ridiculous.
4: N/A as I will be buying all (assuming I can source them all).

[SharkyMcShark]

I have no intent to buy them.

It really only bothers me if it's a brand new mold (like Counterpunch last year) or or a significant retool (like Grotusque).

[griffin]

For the purposes of the thread I discussed specifically the Siege line and the large amount of it that is 'Exclusives' but of course all this can come into play too. Ecto-1 along with SDCC Ghostbusters Prime, the various MP's on the way such as Hound, Lio Convoy and Blackarachnia, the Exclusive Seacons, The Botbots, Cyberverse - there are so many conflicting calls on ones TF budget. Gone are the days where it was just one or two TF toylines each year on offer (and indeed were stocked on the actual physical shelves of stores) and one could more easily afford what they wanted.

I got a bit sidetracked on all cost side of things to miss talking about the point you were making in that Siege seems to have an unusually large percentage of exclusives that aren't part of the regular release line.... and how important they are to collectors of the line because of how important they are as characters and not just obscure random redecos that most wouldn't care about.
I wonder if they just had too many ideas for the line to fit in the retail line and retailers only wanted a certain amount this year for Generations.