Quote Originally Posted by kup View Post
The only reason Hasbro doesn't have a Collector exclusive line outside of retail, is because they don't want to take the risk - That's it.
Is anyone surprised by this?

Even when TakaraTOMY produces collector-exclusive lines, Hasbro either doesn't touch them, or they modify them so that they can be targeted at kids.

e.g.

+ G1 reissues. Since TakaraTOMY's reissues are marketed at mature collectors, they're exempt from child safety laws, and thus they can have super-strong missile launchers and regular sized missiles. Hasbro insists on marketing G1 reissues at children who never grew up with G1 and thus we have things like neutered launchers or stupid looking over-lengthened missiles etc. RRP was also really overpriced.

+ Alternators. Whereas Binaltech have die-cast metal parts and beautiful paint apps and details, Alternators are entirely plastic and don't look anywhere near as nice. Alternator Smokescreen seriously looks like a KO of BT Smokescreen. RRP was also a rip-off.

+ Masterpiece Optimus Prime: smoke stacks shortened for child safety (even though they self-collapse anyway *shrug*)

+ Alternity, Sport Label, Device Label -- all collector-focused lines which Hasbro won't touch. I've heard rumours about them considering Device Label, but not sure if that's been confirmed...

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<puts on Devil's Advocate hat>

It could also be pointed out despite Takara's greater focus on collectors and Hasbro's lesser focus on collectors, Hasbro has enjoyed greater corporate/financial success (although being "Toy Microsoft" helps). We know that about 10-11 years ago Takara began experiencing considerable financial difficulty and was considering declaring themselves bankrupt.

But the fact is that in 2006, Takara merged with former-rival company TOMY. Because Takara had been experiencing financial woes for 6 years before the merger, a lot of people (including some people in the media) assumed that it was a takeover of Takara by TOMY, but Takara actually had significantly higher sales than TOMY between 2003-06, and apparently both companies had discussed merging for quite some time, long before it actually occurred.

So one could argue that Hasbro has survived with their conservative "keep it for kids" attitude, whereas Takara experienced hardships with their riskier "let's appeal to collectors" initiatives.

</hat>