HasLab Deathsaurus

[Exatron]

See, now with Hasbro confirming that Deathsaurus was going to be a retail item, I don't think the size had anything to do with it.
Hasbro's profits are down, they need to make up some money. They probably had a meeting and brainstormed a way to add things to this figure to make it fit their Haslab model.
You can't tell me that if they took away the throne and the stand and charged Commander class prices for it, that more of us wouldn't be lining up to buy it. I know I would, and I can afford it right now!

If they sold this Deathsaurus minus the throne and stand at the Commander price point, would more people buy it? Of course! Is there any world where this Deathsaurus with all his features and accessories other than the throne and stand would be sold at the Commander price point? I really doubt it, but if there is such a world, it certainly isn't this one.

Seriously, you seem to have a really skewed concept of how this could possibly work. Yeah, he seems to be around the same size as Jetfire. Without seeing more, I can't really compare the engineering for the transformation too much. But right off the bat, having two triple-changer bots that can interact with him is going to be a substantial complexity step up over Jetfire's accessories. And you're apparently expecting them to also include all the 14k tier weapons too. Even if we ignore the fact that Rodimus and Motormaster show that Hasbro has redefined what fits into the Commander-class budget, squeezing all that into the same price class as Jetfire is pure fantasy.

And you're ignoring the point of what was said. Yes, they tried to design Deathsaurus as a retail Commander class toy. The end result was underwhelming, which led to reclassifying him as a HasLab project so that they could improve him. I think it's safe to assume that increasing his size to equal Victory Saber is part of that reclassification, but I'm sure that's not all of it. I wouldn't be surprised if the potential Commander Deathsaurus would have been not only closer in size to Star Saber than Victory Saber, but also would have lacked his partners. And while I wouldn't have cried over the accessories, I'd bet on maybe a modest sword and a G1-toy gun rather than the full arsenal he'll be getting here.

Sure, I'd love to see him at mass-retail prices. But I'd much rather pay this price for this version of Deathsaurus than Commander price for the lesser version we would get in that scenario. The only way we could reasonably expect to get a Deathsaurus this good at a retail price point would be at the Titan class. And as much complaining as there is every time they release a smaller figure with more parts/paint/accessories at a higher price class, could you imagine how the fandom would act if they extended that policy to selling a Jetfire-sized bot in a Titan box? It makes my head hurt just thinking about it.

 

[unluckiness]

I hope it does well enough to get more stretch goals. I don't dislike the throne and stand but those just eat up valuable shelf estate. I'd prefer something more toyetic than display options to sweeten the deal, even if it is just more repainted Micromasters or something. I dunno, give him the weird sword things the Botcon RID Megatron had.

Or make his waifu.

 

[Shockwave 75]

The only way we could reasonably expect to get a Deathsaurus this good at a retail price point would be at the Titan class. And as much complaining as there is every time they release a smaller figure with more parts/paint/accessories at a higher price class, could you imagine how the fandom would act if they extended that policy to selling a Jetfire-sized bot in a Titan box? It makes my head hurt just thinking about it.

Why? It seems that everyone is fine with it right now as long as you slap "Haslab" in front of it.

 

[Dekafox]

Would you rather they slap "Masterpiece" in front of it? Because this is probably as close as we'll get on that front and it does also scale with the old MP Star Saber, AND that's probably at least what one would cost, if not more.

 

[Gizmoboy]

I do have a feeling that if Titan class ends for the retain market, HasLab would be a good way to carry them on in the future. Obviously they'd cost more than they do at retail, but it is nice to know we still have an avenue for their release.

 

[Darth_Prime]

“Masterpiece” would add at least another $100 to the price.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

And be less fun to play with.

 

[Confuzor]

Do we know if his wings have any sort of movement other than just the hinge at his back? They look like they may telescope in and out.

 

[Thylacine 2000]

Do we know if his wings have any sort of movement other than just the hinge at his back? They look like they may telescope in and out.

It looks like the wings can flap, and raise up, but not spread their segments.

 

[Superomegaprime]

Do we know if his wings have any sort of movement other than just the hinge at his back? They look like they may telescope in and out.

Going by the pictures of the prototype, they only move about similar to Combiner Wars Silverbolt

 

[Platypus Prime]

You mean Deathsaurus is a remold of Combiner Wars Silverbolt?! (I know I can get away with that joke here, but there are other forums where I'd be worried about someone actually believing that...).

 

[Darth_Prime]

100% he is. CaN yOu BeLiEvE hAsBrO wAnTs ThIs MuCh MoNeY fOr A rEpAiNt!?!?!!

 

[Dekafox]

I thought expensive remolds of Combiner Wars Silverbolt was reserved for Classics Kup now?

 

[Darth_Prime]

These are some of the cleanest photos of the G1 toy I’ve seen. Wonder if the gold parts on him will match the gold on Star Saber?

 

[Superomegaprime]

You mean Deathsaurus is a remold of Combiner Wars Silverbolt?! (I know I can get away with that joke here, but there are other forums where I'd be worried about someone actually believing that...).

If they did believe that, and backed out of the campain despite everyone telling them its a joke, they would end up regretting that choice for years to come, of course, CW Silverbolt is about the best torso bot out of the Prime Wars era

 

[Magnusblitz]

On the fence about this one... didn't go in on Star Saber because I've got no real attachment to the character, but Deathsaurus has shown up a lot elsewhere outside of Victory, and bad guys are cooler anyways. Is there a chance we see a picture of the painted version before the backing phase ends?

This may be a stupid question, but do the extra tiers cost extra money, or are unlocked for free if they reach enough people? Any estimate on how much they might cost? Throne is kinda cool, but that flail is what piques my interest...

 

[Dake]

The tiers trigger once that amount of reservations happens and are all included in the original price. So the more buyers the more we all get.

I'm confident we'll see a painted sample before the end of the campaign.

 

[Superomegaprime]

The tiers are included in the price, as for coloured images of the prototype, is coming soon from what I understand and last I read they were expecting within a week, so likely within the next week they'll upload pictures of the coloured prototype, but exactly when, I do NOT know!

 

[unluckiness]

And be less fun to play with.

And break after one transformation. Maybe none if you’re Hound.

 

[Exatron]

Why? It seems that everyone is fine with it right now as long as you slap "Haslab" in front of it.

That just doesn't track with how HasLabs have performed to date. Of the 14 projects that have been completed, 10 have gone into production, and 4 have failed. Of the two active projects, Deathsaurus looks likely to succeed, while HeroScape seems like it might be in trouble. I don't know how that rate compares with other crowd-sourcing efforts, but clearly people don't just automatically eat up anything HasLab offers. Now we are 2 for 2 for Transformers so far, likely to be 3 for 3 soon, but I contend that has more to do with the strength of the particular projects than that there's something fundamentally different about the TF fandom.

As for why we're fine with this Deathsaurus project, it's just because many of us legitimately do want a bigger, better version of this character. I completely get that not everyone's going to be excited about him, and I completely agree that a Commander-class Deathsaurus would absolutely sell a lot more copies than this HasLab Deathsaurus will. I would have bought one if that's the route they had ended up taking, and I probably would have been happy to get whatever he ended up as. The only real point of contention here is about what that Commander-class Deathsaurus would be. Your previous posts are basically implying the HasLab Deathsaurus is just the Commander-class Deathsaurus with a throne, stand, and bigger price tag. That's just not at all realistic, for all the reasons already stated. We wouldn't be OK with just selling a standard Commander toy as a much-higher-priced HasLab project. But this project is clearly not just another Commander.

So if it doesn't fit into what's been established as a Commander, what options are there? Bump him all the way up to Titan? No matter how many other accessories they might add, that would never fly. Create a new price class, or redefine Commander as some higher price point where this figure would fit? Theoretically possible, but then they have to get buy-in from retailers, and it opens him up to all the normal concessions that get made for retail figures that everyone complains about incessantly. The only other realistic option is HasLab, where they have some additional freedom to get away from the normal retail limitations. There aren't all that many characters that would be worth it. But like Unicron and Victory Saber, a lot of us agree that Deathsaurus is one that's worth doing that.