I see this more as an issue with our local distribution (or lack thereof) rather than what I would call "true exclusivity." After all, we also missed a lot of the Thrilling 30 stuff but those toys were readily available in stores overseas. Even store exclusives aren't the same as mail-away/online exclusives because people can just walk into any of these stores and grab the toy. We've had our fair share of store exclusive stuff too (e.g. Target exclusives, TRU exclusives etc.). I know that the end result still sucks for us, but it wasn't by design. Not in the same way as Pulse or Takara TOMY Mall exclusives; I regard those as "true" exclusives if you take my meaning.Originally Posted by Bidoofdude
Once upon a time most of these figures would have been picked up by local retailers, but for whatever reason that eludes me it doesn't seem to be happening with these store-exclusive Siege figures.But even all of these store exclusives appear to be repaints and/or retools of pre-existing moulds, and again many of them are based on fairly obscure characters (with characters like Ratchet and Skywarp being exceptions).
Although if you're looking to build a CHUG collection based just on characters who appeared in the G1 cartoon then you're at a considerable advantage. Not only do you have fewer toys to collect but also most of those characters have already been done as CHUGs anyway. Obscure and generic cartoon characters aside, we've got...
* Season 1: all done
* Season 2: all done
* Season 3: almost all done; there are a few outstanding ones like retail CHUG versions of the Battlechargers and... that's it
* Season 4: most done; we need the remaining Throttlebots, Autobot Targetmasters, Headmaster Horrorcons and Scorponok
So as far as the Anglophone G1 cartoon is concerned, the overwhelming majority of the cast already exist as CHUG toys. You're just filling in a few gaps now with the latter two seasons.
If you're also looking to complete the Japanese G1 cartoon cast then that's a different story, but again we have had some progress here including characters like Go Shooter, Metalhawk, God Ginrai, Dai Atlas, Sonic Bomber, Grand Maximus, Lio Kaiser etc., and arguably King Poseidon with the upcoming Seacons. When I look at both the store and online exclusives for Siege, aside from obscurities from the G1 cartoon, I can't see any toy based on a character that doesn't already exist as a CHUG figure. As much as the decision to include Smokescreen as an exclusive figure instead of Barricade just confounds me, but the fact is that CHUG Smokescreen toys already exist.
And honestly... we live in an age of online shopping. Making toys exclusive like this isn't nearly as difficult as it used to be before online shopping. In 1985 we missed out on Shockwave and the Deluxe Insecticons which just sucked. The internet didn't exist for any of us to bug our parents to shop online. I mean, we had a modem on our Commodore 64 but all it could do was allow computers to remotely communicate with each other... but it wasn't the internet! Heck, a lot of us could've probably imported G1 Megatron if online shopping were a thing.
And I'm talking as someone who has, for a very long time, resisted online shopping. I didn't really get into it until 2013 (the year when we started missing those sweet sweet Thrilling 30 toys). I still greatly prefer brick and mortar shopping over online shopping but the fact is that we're doing pretty well considering that online shopping even gives us the option to obtain toys that we're missing at local retail. Especially as local retail seems to be increasingly unreliable.
Reply With Quote