Quote Originally Posted by kup View Post
Hasbro was blind but it can now see.

Before they had absolutely no clue of the market and thought a concept such as classics only good enough as a 'filler' line before the movie. After its massive success and demand they have now awaken.

Although to the average fan/customer it would be obvious that a G1 based line would sell like hot cakes and have far and wide appeal; to the Hasbro executive (& Archer) they were completly clueless and kept pushing their weird futuristic ambiguous crap. Their legacy for the past 8 years.

Now profits have spoken on what people want thanks to Classics and the movie line and thankfuly Hasbro has wised up (looks that way from the Botcon previews).
The old argument from collectors that Hasbro don't know anything about the market is a load of bull. If they didn't know anything, then their toylines would not have sold. Case in point: Armada, predicted, nay, screamed from the rooftops by collectors to be a doomed line from the beginning (DOOOOOOMED) because it did not cater to the collectors and was aggressively marketed to children with its gimmickery. It ended up being one of the most commercially successful Transformers toylines ever made, until the Movie (which was something else predicted to be a failure by collectors).

Universe 2008 is not a strictly Classics line, as evident by the Armada and Beast Wars sub lines that exist within it. We know what the marketing requirements of Hasbro needed a Transformers Movie-style 'realism' line for consumers who may be turned off by the style of Animated, which is expected to be the big earner for Hasbro the rest of this year and the start of next year, as it's the 'Main line'. Its to provide realistic-style product to a market that may only know Transformers from the Movie.

As for Aaron Archer: Mate, he has presided over Hasbro's biggest successes in Transformers history. That's why he was promoted from lead designer to overall design director. I think he and his team have a good bloody clue what the market want, and their legacy is called success.