Transformers Kingdom Wave 4 Deluxe Toys Found at Chilean Retail

Those purple wings look terrible. The it's fine on the eyes but the wings are just

Meanwhile, my Walmart is still full of wave 1 deluxes.

Wolfman Jake wrote:My "Battle Across Time" Maximal Grimlock and Autobot Mirage 2-pack finally arrived today! I was disappointed when this new Earthmode Mirage was first revealed. While the alternate mode does look more like a typical F1 race car, the robot mode was less on model, in terms of color layout and deco choices, and worse yet, wasn't designed to mount the shoulder cannon like the G1 toy, cartoon model, and Siege release of the premold over 2 years ago. Well, I had a hunch I would be able to do a few easy parts swaps between the Siege and Kingdom version of Mirage to get a much more screen accurate representation of the character than either figure by itself. Take a look at the picture I took before and after the process below and decide for yourself if you like the results.

Old Hotness on the Left - New and Busted on the Right:




After swapping the Kingdom legs and arms unto the Siege torso at the mushroom pegs (and retaining the Siege weapons):





Vehicle Mode (Almost Works!):


I love the way the robot mode comes out. I get almost all of the colors and details where I want them and the shoulder cannon can actually mount on Mirage's shoulder. The vehicle mode mostly works exactly as the Siege version of the mold, but they remolded the forearms and legs enough that you can't peg the back end of the vehicle completely together, particularly where the air intake meets the driver's cockpit. It sits fine, but there is nothing to keep it in place if not resting on a flat surface. Maybe someone could engineer a few new plastic pieces that can secure it all together? That's really the only big downside to this modification, but the transformation still mostly works. You just lose some functionality/playability in vehicle form, but if you just want to display either mode on a shelf, you're fine, really. Plus, the best part of this mod is that it is totally reversible and doesn't take any special tools to do. You can just pop the legs off at the mushroom pegs at the hips and the arms at the shoulders and swap them between figures. I did have to use a pair of pliers and some protective cloth to get the legs to fully pop back in to their joints, but the arms require almost no effort. The guns are identical, but you do want to stick with the Siege shoulder cannon, with the black barrel and gray missile, for maximum G1 cartoon authenticity. What do you think?

I really like what you've done here. Mirage is the only Siege figure that I didn't upgrade to the ER/Kingdom versions due to the obvious deficiencies you call out. I'm personally not going to drop the $50 needed to make the modifications you describe, but it's a perfectly valid choice, and even with the alt mode issues you describe it seems like an improvement on the base Kingdom design.

Dr. Caelus wrote:Meanwhile, my Walmart is still full of wave 1 deluxes.

At least you have those. My WalMart's Transformers section is full of an oxygen/nitrogen gas mixture.

william-james88 wrote:It's as many if not all of us predicted, the Transformers Kingdom wave 4 toys are being found at retail before being revealed. Below you will see images of deluxe Waspinator and Shadow Panther in package and being unboxed. These were found at the Chilean toy store Irion.
The sighting was posted on the Transformers Chile Facebook page.

The first thing I noticed with the packaging is that the little cave painting style symbols you see above the alt mode picture are gone, and now it's just a blank space. I hope there's some kind of running change that adds a symbol, but I'm not expecting one.

Much like Rhinox, I'm hoping, this would be a prime opportunity for a standard fan to be the first to obtain, and do a full review of Slammer.

So I bought Kingdom Wheeljack…

And now after opening him do I see that his right hand still has the sprue peg.

What should I do?

New Golden Disk card from the Waspinator/Shadow Panther wave.

https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/waspinator-and-shadow-panther-in-package-images.1220058/page-5#post-19524658

The text translates to
Becomes
Darkarachnia..
Herald of Unicron

Ig89ninja wrote:So I bought Kingdom Wheeljack…

4E30F8E3-4019-401F-A76E-8EF031C31BDC.jpeg

And now after opening him do I see that his right hand still has the sprue peg.

4BEEE0D5-CD07-47EB-965D-0104E23B8FBF.jpeg

What should I do?

In such cases I use my small nail clippers and if necessary a small nail file to smooth it out. Be careful not to go below the edge of the piece when filing; sprue marks sometimes are just raised bumps.

Sabrblade wrote:New Golden Disk card from the Waspinator/Shadow Panther wave.

https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/waspinator-and-shadow-panther-in-package-images.1220058/page-5#post-19524658

The text translates to
Becomes
Darkarachnia..
Herald of Unicron

Kind of like all the cards for PotP. Is there a place on TF wiki where all the different information about the Golden Disk cards are collected?

o.supreme wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:New Golden Disk card from the Waspinator/Shadow Panther wave.

https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/waspinator-and-shadow-panther-in-package-images.1220058/page-5#post-19524658

The text translates to
Becomes
Darkarachnia..
Herald of Unicron

Kind of like all the cards for PotP. Is there a place on TF wiki where all the different information about the Golden Disk cards are collected?

Like with the Power of the Primes Cards? Here you go:

Source: Golden Disk Destinies

Sabrblade wrote:New Golden Disk card from the Waspinator/Shadow Panther wave.

https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/waspinator-and-shadow-panther-in-package-images.1220058/page-5#post-19524658

The text translates to
Becomes
Darkarachnia..
Herald of Unicron

Out of all of the names they could have chosen, they went with that?

Jelze Bunnycat wrote:Like with the Power of the Primes Cards? Here you go:

Source: Golden Disk Destinies

Perfect. Thank you

Autobot N wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:New Golden Disk card from the Waspinator/Shadow Panther wave.

https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/waspinator-and-shadow-panther-in-package-images.1220058/page-5#post-19524658

The text translates to
Becomes
Darkarachnia..
Herald of Unicron

Out of all of the names they could have chosen, they went with that?

Yeah its pretty lame. Might as well have been taserface

Razorbeast88 wrote:

Autobot N wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:New Golden Disk card from the Waspinator/Shadow Panther wave.

https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/waspinator-and-shadow-panther-in-package-images.1220058/page-5#post-19524658

The text translates to
Becomes
Darkarachnia..
Herald of Unicron

Out of all of the names they could have chosen, they went with that?

Yeah its pretty lame. Might as well have been taserface

But it's a name what strikes FEAR into the hearts of bots everywhere...

Also of note, both Rodimus and The Ark came with cards as well (so it's not just Deluxe/Voyager/Leader). Although they were not special or exclusive in any way, just duplicates of what I had already. In fact while I have only purchased 6 Kingdom toys to date, I only have 3 unique cards (and got 3 duplicates of the same). It really speaks to the randomness of how they are packed.

Regarding Shadow Panther and Waspinator, it's about time we got a few more .

Both looks amazing.

Razorbeast88 wrote:

Autobot N wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:New Golden Disk card from the Waspinator/Shadow Panther wave.

https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/waspinator-and-shadow-panther-in-package-images.1220058/page-5#post-19524658

The text translates to
Becomes
Darkarachnia..
Herald of Unicron

Out of all of the names they could have chosen, they went with that?

Yeah its pretty lame. Might as well have been taserface

Just as silly as "Dinomus".

Interesting that Darkrachnia is seemingly based on the MP, the sources for these cards are all over the place

So now we're down to the last two (of three) final Destinies. Blackarachnia was the least predictable (I was kinda expecting a BM reference for some reason) but Megatron and Optimus are pretty obvious. If the final two aren't Heroic Megs and Nemesis Prime I'll be really surprised.

Sabrblade wrote:

Razorbeast88 wrote:

Autobot N wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:New Golden Disk card from the Waspinator/Shadow Panther wave.

https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/waspinator-and-shadow-panther-in-package-images.1220058/page-5#post-19524658

The text translates to
Becomes
Darkarachnia..
Herald of Unicron

Out of all of the names they could have chosen, they went with that?

Yeah its pretty lame. Might as well have been taserface

Just as silly as "Dinomus".

Agreed!

Rogue-Primal wrote:Those purple wings look terrible. The it's fine on the eyes but the wings are just

Yeah the purple is rough but my biggest issue is with the bug head (eyes specifically) being innacurate which leads to an innacurate chest (it's not as bad as the images in the article though since they forgot a transformation step).

First-Aid wrote:

Dr. Caelus wrote:Meanwhile, my Walmart is still full of wave 1 deluxes.

At least you have those. My WalMart's Transformers section is full of an oxygen/nitrogen gas mixture.

Yeah I was gonna say that. And plus none of my stores ever got the wave 1 deluxes, so you never know how lucky you are.

o.supreme wrote:Much like Rhinox, I'm hoping, this would be a prime opportunity for a standard fan to be the first to obtain, and do a full review of Slammer.

Same. And if ever we see talk of "stolen toys" online when that review is released then it gives full credence to the fact that some people just like to shout and pretend to have a moral high ground rather than actually check facts and see if a toy is stolen or not.

This is actually some pretty good news to many who dislike exclusivity and find it an extra hassel to find certain figures. Takara has several news listings, where some figures are exclusive to TTMall while others are not. And what is super fun about this is that it is revealed that both Red Alert and the Deseeus Army Drone (that Siege Ironhide redeco) are not exclusives. Meaning that both figures which are exclusive in the West (at varying locations depending on your country) will be available at standard retail in Japan. So you'll be able to order them from HLJ or Amazon Japan. Of course, shipping will add to your cost, but this will definitely help in terms of finding toys you may have not been able to find before.

Takara also revealed that the Pulse Exclusive Beast Wars Ravage will be a TTMall exclusive, which is not a surprise, and it will be released in February 2022 in Japan. They also have listings for Studio Series Jolt and BB Thrust. That means we have more official images of Jolt to give you, which you can see below.

Here are links to the listings, though the TTMall channel is only open to Japanese residents.

Red Alert: https://takaratomymall.jp/shop/g/g4904810188384/
Deseeus Drone: https://takaratomymall.jp/shop/g/g4904810173595/
Ravage: https://takaratomymall.jp/shop/g/g4904810193401/
Thrust: https://takaratomymall.jp/shop/g/g4904810193302/

Sabrblade wrote:New Golden Disk card from the Waspinator/Shadow Panther wave.

https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/waspinator-and-shadow-panther-in-package-images.1220058/page-5#post-19524658

The text translates to
Becomes
Darkarachnia..
Herald of Unicron

Noice

Fudge my luck, I recently ordered RA from TT, as it wasn't listed at Amazon.jp (which is usually cheaper and actually accepts Japanese Visa-Debit/credit cards, unlike TT Mall)...

AmiAmi has Red Alert for $22 plus shipping. https://www.amiami.com/eng/detail/?gcode=FIGURE-131413

In case anybody still wants to pre-order one.

Any idea where on that Chilean website the figures were found? I can't even find an out-of-stock listing.

...well that seems timely, considering we were just ranting about bad/weird distribution. However, there appears to be an additional wrinkle here.

chuckdawg1999 wrote:Any idea where on that Chilean website the figures were found? I can't even find an out-of-stock listing.

They were found in-person at the store the website is for, not online, which leads into that wrinkle I mentioned. The following is the Wave 4 Deluxe case they received, according to the the provider of this photo who confirmed with the store staff. You notice who's missing? Looks like instead of pushing Blaster from Wave 5 up to Wave 4, they pushed Pipes and Slammer back to Wave 5 to join him instead.

Nemesis Primal wrote:...well that seems timely, considering we were just ranting about bad/weird distribution. However, there appears to be an additional wrinkle here.

chuckdawg1999 wrote:Any idea where on that Chilean website the figures were found? I can't even find an out-of-stock listing.

They were found in-person at the store the website is for, not online, which leads into that wrinkle I mentioned. The following is the Wave 4 Deluxe case they received, according to the the provider of this photo who confirmed with the store staff. You notice who's missing?

Kingdom Wave 4 Deluxes.jpg

Looks like instead of pushing Blaster from Wave 5 up to Wave 4, they pushed Pipes and Slammer back to Wave 5 to join him instead.

Unless this is a different wave altogether.

william-james88 wrote:

Nemesis Primal wrote:...well that seems timely, considering we were just ranting about bad/weird distribution. However, there appears to be an additional wrinkle here.

chuckdawg1999 wrote:Any idea where on that Chilean website the figures were found? I can't even find an out-of-stock listing.

They were found in-person at the store the website is for, not online, which leads into that wrinkle I mentioned. The following is the Wave 4 Deluxe case they received, according to the the provider of this photo who confirmed with the store staff. You notice who's missing?

Kingdom Wave 4 Deluxes.jpg

Looks like instead of pushing Blaster from Wave 5 up to Wave 4, they pushed Pipes and Slammer back to Wave 5 to join him instead.

Unless this is a different wave altogether.

What other wave would it be? I'm not following.

Also I meant to respond to this the first time:

william-james88 wrote:

Rogue-Primal wrote:Those purple wings look terrible. The it's fine on the eyes but the wings are just

Yeah the purple is rough but my biggest issue is with the bug head (eyes specifically) being inaccurate which leads to an inaccurate chest (it's not as bad as the images in the article though since they forgot a transformation step).

The bug head is "inaccurate" to Waspinator because it IS accurate to actual wasps, both in terms of the head shape and the wrap-around eyes:
Also I happen to like the purple wings, it reminds me of Animated.

It could be a repack wave, or it could just be coincidence those 2 toys were in stock as well. Stock from different waves can be on the shelf at the same time.

Nemesis Primal wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

Nemesis Primal wrote:...well that seems timely, considering we were just ranting about bad/weird distribution. However, there appears to be an additional wrinkle here.

chuckdawg1999 wrote:Any idea where on that Chilean website the figures were found? I can't even find an out-of-stock listing.

They were found in-person at the store the website is for, not online, which leads into that wrinkle I mentioned. The following is the Wave 4 Deluxe case they received, according to the the provider of this photo who confirmed with the store staff. You notice who's missing?

Kingdom Wave 4 Deluxes.jpg

Looks like instead of pushing Blaster from Wave 5 up to Wave 4, they pushed Pipes and Slammer back to Wave 5 to join him instead.

Unless this is a different wave altogether.

What other wave would it be? I'm not following.

Also I meant to respond to this the first time:

william-james88 wrote:

Rogue-Primal wrote:Those purple wings look terrible. The it's fine on the eyes but the wings are just

Yeah the purple is rough but my biggest issue is with the bug head (eyes specifically) being inaccurate which leads to an inaccurate chest (it's not as bad as the images in the article though since they forgot a transformation step).

The bug head is "inaccurate" to Waspinator because it IS accurate to actual wasps, both in terms of the head shape and the wrap-around eyes:

zoology-animals-insects-wasps-detail-compound-eyes-close-up-distribution-worldwide-animal-insect-X5T16K.jpg

Also I happen to like the purple wings, it reminds me of Animated.

The pic of the bug you posted doesn't have the same venom like eyes as the toy so I really don't understand. Please post them side by side so that I can see what you refer to because I am not sure how it looks like that.

Also, it could be a 3.5 wave that appears in select markets. We don't know.

william-james88 wrote:Also, it could be a 3.5 wave that appears in select markets. We don't know.

o.supreme wrote:It could be a repack wave, or it could just be coincidence those 2 toys were in stock as well. Stock from different waves can be on the shelf at the same time.

I guess it could be a weird interim wave, but I thought Hasbro stopped doing those, since the late TR and PotP waves got messed up by interim restock waves and they haven't done one since? Also the store employee specified that those four figures all came in the same case, so unless the store employee is lying or just plain wrong, these aren't leftover Tracks/Paleotrex's from earlier waves, that just is who's in Wave 4 whatever that wave is I guess.

william-james88 wrote:The pic of the bug you posted doesn't have the same venom like eyes as the toy so I really don't understand. Please post them side by side so that I can see what you refer to because I am not sure we are looking at the same toy.

Let me see if I can explain this better: the OG Beast Wars Waspinator has round eyes on the front of his head, right? I think we can all agree on that, but to illustrate my point, here's both a shot from Beast Wars cartoon and a pic of my soon-to-be-replaced T30 Waspinator, since it emulates the cartoon's bug head design:
Now, actual wasps have almost cashew-shaped eyes that wrap around the sides of their heads rather than sit on the front of them. To illustrate this, the same Google image result as before, as well as the Wikipedia image for wasp:
This brings us to Kingdom Waspinator, who, wouldn't you know it, has cashew eyes on the sides of his head, which shouldn't be a surprise considering it's well-established that Kingdom is doing realistic alt-modes over cartoon-accurate alt-modes for the most part:
Kingdom Waspy's head is also slimmer and has more pronounced mandibles when compared to the original design & T30 figure, which again matches the real animal.

IIRC, one of the leakers a while back said that there was a chance Slammer and Pipes would get pushed to Wave 5

Speaking of WASPinator's eyes, it follow Kingdom's way of having the most realistic beast mode possible.

For pure cartoon accuracy, one should buy/wait for the MP instead.

Thanks Nemesis Primal, I was not seeing the cashew like shape properly on the real life wasp.
And yes, odds are better that this is the 4th wave but I'd like some confirmation if ever I news it.

william-james88 wrote:Thanks Nemesis Primal, I was not seeing the cashew like shape properly on the real life wasp.
And yes, odds are better that this is the 4th wave but I'd like some confirmation if ever I news it.

No problem!
And yeah, wanting to wait to news that makes sense, I just wanted to raise awareness of the possibility.

Nemesis Primal wrote:

william-james88 wrote:Thanks Nemesis Primal, I was not seeing the cashew like shape properly on the real life wasp.
And yes, odds are better that this is the 4th wave but I'd like some confirmation if ever I news it.

No problem!
And yeah, wanting to wait to news that makes sense, I just wanted to raise awareness of the possibility.

Thanks, definitely a possibility. Also would explain why reviews for these 2 deluxes came out first.

Question to those who have seen Rodinus at Target, how many boxes were there when you saw him and was he ever restocked? And was he just found at Target or Walmart too?

william-james88 wrote:Question to those who have seen Rodinus at Target, how many boxes were there when you saw him and was he ever restocked? And was he just found at Target or Walmart too?

I've seen them 4 deep at one Target once, and 2 deep at a couple others. I have seen him restocked at a couple stores as well.

I saw a single Rodimus Prime on the top shelf at my Walmart as well, only once.

Target had him priced at $86 while Walmart had him at $80.

I've only seen one - at Target, 79.99.

I ordered and received my Rodimus Prime through Target.com, but I’ve never seen him, nor the Ark, in any store in the Twin Cities area. In fact, I still haven’t seen any sign of Kingdom Deluxe wave 3 here as of yet. I found them at a Target in Easton, MD while I was visiting my mom a few weeks ago.

I received my Rodimus last month from Amazon. However, I was looking at brickseek a couple of days ago, and it did show a "limited stock" of Rodimus at the Target closest to me, while I did not personally see it in store myself, I'm sure they probably got one shipment in. I've not seen Rodimus physically in any store yet. This closest Target to me is also where I got The Ark at the end of July, and I know they restocked it at least 2 times since then, which also sold relatively quickly.

Also it seems very likely that Pipes and Slammer got pushed back which is unfortunate, but would also explain why we've seen very little of them (one short video review of Pipes, and only a few pics of Slammer) whereas Waspinator and Shadow Panther had early reviews months ago.

o.supreme wrote:I received my Rodimus last month from Amazon. However, I was looking at brickseek a couple of days ago, and it did show a "limited stock" of Rodimus at the Target closest to me, while I did not personally see it in store myself, I'm sure they probably got one shipment in. I've not seen Rodimus physically in any store yet. This closest Target to me is also where I got The Ark at the end of July, and I know they restocked it at least 2 times since then, which also sold relatively quickly.

The reason I ask is to maybe get closer to answering your question about ho many they made. With knowing how many target got per store, we could make an estimate of how many got allocated to Target and that would show us a number of one of the 2 biggest stores in what might be the biggest market/nation where TFs are sold. There are 1,897 stores. If there is an allocation of 4 per store, then we already start with 7588. Walmart orders systematically and are technically bigger (what I mean is they will order it whether or not they stock it in store), so since it's been seen at one already we know they order it too. So we get to 14000. Then we have Amazon, would they order as much as Target? Don't see why not, so we get to 21000. Doesn't include BBTS or any other online store or smaller collectible store. It could be 40 000 just the US (in there I also include the stock needed for Target's online store which I had not written before). Yes, I made up that number, but I am extrapolating, based on the amount of retailers and possible demand. I am looking for a believable number to then get to the next part, could be higher, could be lower (but I doubt it's much lower). We had a stat from hasbro that US allocation for an exclusive Transformer (the only info we ever had on this) was 33%. So, let's say there are 40 000 Rodimus toys being sold in the US, that would mean over 120 000 Rodimus toys made. Of course, could be lower. If only 30 000 rodimus toys are made for the US, then the global output would be over 90 000, still what I see as a pretty big number.

So when talking about economies of scale, yeah we have multiples of ten compared to the proposed out put of something from Haslab.

And here is the only info on global production we got from hasbro (it was a pretty big leak). It's for the exclusive Fortress Maximus Titans Return toy that was a redeco of the later released Fortress Maximus.

There were 9000 made (at least that's how I read it, unless the 3000 US allocation is an addition to that 9000, but I'll keep the numbers conservative).

So 9000 of this exclusive that is a fraction of how many of the regular release exists. How many of us own that regular release compared to the exclusive release? What's the fraction? Don't know, but the number can't be low. If it's a factor of 10 (which would not surprise me), there you are again with a 90 000 - 100 000 units made of a titan class Transformer (not including the extra units made for this exclusive and brave max, I am seeing them apart, just trying to figure out how much of the regular release there are)



All I mean to say by all this is what people mean by economies of scale. Rather than 10 000 units, we are looking at 100 000 or more. And using the only numbers we have ever been given.

Awesome, I appreciate you digging in and trying to do the research. I'll definitely keep an eye on Brickseek, and check every Target I go to in person. Another factor is, I've discovered, at least with the Titans, is that only 3 stores of 20 in my area have actually had them in stock (the same 3 stores for Scorponok last year and the Ark this year), so not all get them.

CC may have a *bit* of a wider distribution due to only being about half that price, (seems like more stores had Skylynx last year), but I'll defintely keep my eyes open. Still there was the odd incidence last year of Target getting 2 MPM toys (Starscream and Ratchet), I saw probably 2-4 of these at almost every Target I went to, unfortunately most ended up going on clearance, definitely not one of Targets better strategies. I see they are not investing shelf space for MPM currently, probably for the best.

*Wow that kind of blows my mind away that there were 9000 of the *exclusive* Fortress Maximus made. I remember this coming out for SDCC in 2016, but I'm sure it was made available for other conventions around the world as well. It also sold out eventually on Hasbro Toys sore IIRC? (maybe not? would nto surprise me if it took a while to move even 3K of those), but personally, I don't know anybody who owns one. I always felt the standard edition was good enough. I got Legends Grand Max which came with the Master sword. But if I ever wanted my Fort Max to have any accessories, there are plenty of 3P kits out there.

Speaking of Grand Max, I just recalled this. The first time a crowdfunding endeavor was attempted:

Grand Maximus was released as a TakaraTomy Mall exclusive; he was available for preorder starting October 11 at 12:00 am until November 2 at 1:00 pm. A minimum of 2000 orders were required for the figure to be produced, this target was reached on October 27. Upon 3000 preorders or more, he would have included a new Pretender Suit retooled from Power of the Primes Micronus's decoy armor, presumably intended for Waverider, which can transform into a weapon, store Gran's Headmaster, or attach to a Prime Master in weapon mode. Unfortunately, preorders did not reach this level within the three-week deadline.

So while limited only to customers in Japan, and with a 3 week order window, they reached the 2000 production goal, but not the 3000 stretch goal, which is kind of sad. But other than some Botcon exclusives which range in the low 100's to sometimes 2000's, It is nice to know I own a toy that we know less than 3000 of exist in the whole world.

o.supreme wrote:Still there was the odd incidence last year of Target getting 2 MPM toys (Starscream and Ratchet), I saw probably 2-4 of these at almost every Target I went to, unfortunately most ended up going on clearance, definitely not one of Targets better strategies. I see they are not investing shelf space for MPM currently, probably for the best.

Target is carrying MPM Bumblee Prime, so they are allocating some shelf space for him in some stores. I've seen him in 2 different stores and he sold immediately.

TF-fan kev777 wrote:

o.supreme wrote:Still there was the odd incidence last year of Target getting 2 MPM toys (Starscream and Ratchet), I saw probably 2-4 of these at almost every Target I went to, unfortunately most ended up going on clearance, definitely not one of Targets better strategies. I see they are not investing shelf space for MPM currently, probably for the best.

Target is carrying MPM Bumblee Prime, so they are allocating some shelf space for him in some stores. I've seen him in 2 different stores and he sold immediately.

(just writing in general here)
The MPMS are produced in big quantities too, despite their higher prices. That's because unlike the Takara MPs (which granted are never said to be limited either), they are Hasbro initiatives and sold with the same acessibilit/channels as other Hasbro toys and thus comes with the same big quantities. Which yeah has lead to discounts. I have had the same thing happen in Canada with most MPM releases. The supply was bigger than the demand in the past but with MPM Prime, it might be different as TF fan Kev points out.

Nemesis Primal wrote:

william-james88 wrote:Also, it could be a 3.5 wave that appears in select markets. We don't know.

o.supreme wrote:It could be a repack wave, or it could just be coincidence those 2 toys were in stock as well. Stock from different waves can be on the shelf at the same time.

I guess it could be a weird interim wave, but I thought Hasbro stopped doing those, since the late TR and PotP waves got messed up by interim restock waves and they haven't done one since? Also the store employee specified that those four figures all came in the same case, so unless the store employee is lying or just plain wrong, these aren't leftover Tracks/Paleotrex's from earlier waves, that just is who's in Wave 4 whatever that wave is I guess.

william-james88 wrote:The pic of the bug you posted doesn't have the same venom like eyes as the toy so I really don't understand. Please post them side by side so that I can see what you refer to because I am not sure we are looking at the same toy.

Let me see if I can explain this better: the OG Beast Wars Waspinator has round eyes on the front of his head, right? I think we can all agree on that, but to illustrate my point, here's both a shot from Beast Wars cartoon and a pic of my soon-to-be-replaced T30 Waspinator, since it emulates the cartoon's bug head design:

Waspinatorhappyatlast.jpg

T30 Waspinator.jpg

Now, actual wasps have almost cashew-shaped eyes that wrap around the sides of their heads rather than sit on the front of them. To illustrate this, the same Google image result as before, as well as the Wikipedia image for wasp:

zoology-animals-insects-wasps-detail-compound-eyes-close-up-distribution-worldwide-animal-insect-X5T16K.jpg

wikipedia wasp.jpg

This brings us to Kingdom Waspinator, who, wouldn't you know it, has cashew eyes on the sides of his head, which shouldn't be a surprise considering it's well-established that Kingdom is doing realistic alt-modes over cartoon-accurate alt-modes for the most part:

Kingdom-Waspinator-05.jpg

Kingdom-Waspinator-04.jpg

Kingdom Waspy's head is also slimmer and has more pronounced mandibles when compared to the original design & T30 figure, which again matches the real animal.

One problem, Waspinator is based on a specific wasp called a green yellow black wasp which has the cartoon style almond eyes.



The WFC figure is neither cartoon nor real wasp accurate, the T30 version remains the most accurate in both regards.

william-james88 wrote:The reason I ask is to maybe get closer to answering your question about ho many they made. With knowing how many target got per store, we could make an estimate of how many got allocated to Target and that would show us a number of one of the 2 biggest stores in what might be the biggest market/nation where TFs are sold. There are 1,897 stores. If there is an allocation of 4 per store, then we already start with 7588. Walmart orders systematically and are technically bigger (what I mean is they will order it whether or not they stock it in store), so since it's been seen at one already we know they order it too. So we get to 14000. Then we have Amazon, would they order as much as Target? Don't see why not, so we get to 21000. Doesn't include BBTS or any other online store or smaller collectible store. It could be 40 000 just the US (in there I also include the stock needed for Target's online store which I had not written before). Yes, I made up that number, but I am extrapolating, based on the amount of retailers and possible demand. I am looking for a believable number to then get to the next part, could be higher, could be lower (but I doubt it's much lower). We had a stat from hasbro that US allocation for an exclusive Transformer (the only info we ever had on this) was 33%. So, let's say there are 40 000 Rodimus toys being sold in the US, that would mean over 120 000 Rodimus toys made. Of course, could be lower. If only 30 000 rodimus toys are made for the US, then the global output would be over 90 000, still what I see as a pretty big number.

Funny, I wrote a very similar thing in the HasLab Victory Saber topic this evening. We came to pretty similar conclusions though I dropped my estimate down to 80K from originally writing 100K as what I think is a conservative minimum.

Emerje

Emerje wrote:One problem, Waspinator is based on a specific wasp called a green yellow black wasp which has the cartoon style almond eyes.



The WFC figure is neither cartoon nor real wasp accurate, the T30 version remains the most accurate in both regards.

...while I certainly see the resemblance, I have honestly never heard this before or seen this particular wasp before, and more importantly, this inspiration is mentioned nowhere on the wiki, which leads me to feel safe assuming that the current design team may not have known about this either, and when told to design the figure to look like a realistic wasp, they checked the wiki (since we know Hasbro has based things off specific images/quotes on the wiki at the cost of accuracy before), saw all the places on there he's just referred to as a generic "organic wasp", and then just checked places like Wikipedia and Google Images for generic wasps to reference like I did rather than look for that wasp specifically. The details on the wasps I found match Kingdom Waspinator enough that I'm convinced it was intentional, and if that is what they did they would have had to look for a while to find this guy. Does that make it inaccurate? I guess technically, but I'll be honest, I still think Kingdom Waspy looks better.

Also that particular wasp still has the eyes on the sides of the head rather than directly on the front, since that's how compound eyes have to be placed to function properly, so at least that aspect of the comparison stands regardless.

Oh wow, who knew Waspinator was so beautiful. I'm going to need to update some of my assumptions about that character.

I received an email from Pulse early this morning. I guess the Tricranius/Blast Effects pack will be shipping soon. That will be nice to actually get something a couple weeks early.