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Post by Philip Ayres on Jul 2, 2015 21:22:30 GMT
Argos have had Hotspot and Cyclonus so....
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 2, 2015 21:34:51 GMT
Be a real coup if we pick up one of the later assortments that still has Motormaster in. That'll be nicely confusing.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jul 2, 2015 22:01:00 GMT
Be a real coup if we pick up one of the later assortments that still has Motormaster in. That'll be nicely confusing. Motormaster returns in the Optimus Maximus Voyager wave. |
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Post by nevermore on Jul 3, 2015 6:26:20 GMT
Australia did the same thing, skipping Legends wave 2 and 3 proper and instead getting Groove and Warpath as part of the Rodimus/Skywarp wave.
What's odd is that the Groove/Warpath/Viper wave is out in Germany, and Slovakia as well.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jul 8, 2015 14:55:46 GMT
It's come to light that the UK & German Legends stock is different to the rest of the world and has co-sells on the cardback    UK & Europe Groove on left, US Groove on right |
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 8, 2015 21:34:07 GMT
Ha! 'Dead End figure sold separately' is says on Viper's card back - yeah, on a different continent!
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Post by nevermore on Jul 12, 2015 11:33:50 GMT
Ha! 'Dead End figure sold separately' is says on Viper's card back - yeah, on a different continent! Also note that the wave 3 figures have Huffer as a cross-sell. I'm actually surprised that European packaging being different from packaging in the rest of the world is news to you guys. It has always been obvious to me. The wave 1 Legends have cross-sells too:     To point out the differences, I had to search my arse off for Hasbro stock photos of Groove and Viper in European packaging, because European retailers obviously depict the non-European versions on their websites. I eventually found stock photos the European versions on a Brazilian site. Go figure.   Here's how it breaks down: USA, Canada, Latin America, Australia and Asia: English/French/Spanish/Portuguese. The age recommendation is multilingual too: "Age Edad Idade 8+" Europe: English/French/German/Spanish. The age recommendation is language-neutral: "8+" In detail:   As you can see, what little French and Spanish texts are there are different between Canada/Latin America and Europe (France/Spain) too! This is actually a common occurrence for multilingual Transformers packaging. "Combine to form" is translated into French as "Permet de créer" for Canada but into "Combine pour créer" for France, and into Spanish as "Combina para formar a" for Latin America but into "Combina para crear a" for Spain. The same applies to the translation of the word "included", which is translated into French as "incluse" for Canada but into "inclus" for France. The Spanish translation is "incluido" for both Latin America and Spain. Meanwhile, the European versions retain the product code numbers which have been missing from American packaging for a while now. You might also notice that the bios have different translations for the French and Spanish versions between Canada/Latin America and Europe (France/Spain) as well. Not completely different, but not entirely identical either.  |
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Post by nevermore on Jul 12, 2015 11:41:46 GMT
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 12, 2015 11:41:51 GMT
I'm actually surprised that European packaging being different from packaging in the rest of the world is news to you guys. That bit isn't news, it was more that the card back was promoting a figure (Dead End) which isn't available in Europe. However the depth of your exploration into this is fascinating! |
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Post by nevermore on Jul 12, 2015 11:43:11 GMT
However the depth of your exploration into this is fascinating! I wasted several hours on a rainy Sunday with this.  |
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 12, 2015 11:49:23 GMT
Every minute well spent. I love reading stuff like this.
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Post by nevermore on Jul 12, 2015 11:55:52 GMT
Also: That bit isn't news, it was more that the card back was promoting a figure (Dead End) which isn't available in Europe. Phil, at least, appeared to be surprised between here and TFW2005 (where he even started a thread in the news & rumors forum about the packaging differences), putting the emphasis on "the packaging is different than the one I got from Hong Kong!" and "the European packaging depicts cross-sells which my versions don't have!", rather than on "Huffer is depicted as a cross-sell and Dead End is shown too!", which appears to be your main point of interest, so it appears that while it wasn't news to the two of us, it was news to Phil.  TFW2005, being naturally unfamiliar with the inherent differences between European and American packaging to begin with, took this into an even weirder direction by suggesting that this was a "running change", even though it's just a typical European vs. non-European packaging difference, interpreting what's basically business as usual for us Europeans as "VARIANT ALERT!" Oh hey Phil, might I make another proposal for a minor change to your format? I would like to suggest the addition of another color-code for "Europeean release", which in my eyes (usually) trumps a US release in terms of the chances of a UK release, just like a UK release highly increases the chances of a German release. Hasbro's European packaging format is standardized, and more often than not, what's released in one European market also gets releases in other European markets. (Also, UK fans that might want to import a toy that's not available in the UK would have to pay fewer shipping costs if they imported it from the continent than if they had it shipped from overseas.) Meanwhile, stuff that apparently never got produced for the European market to begin with, like the entire wave 2 of Combiner Wars, hasn't been seen in European packaging at all. The odd one out right now would be wave 3 of the Combiner Wars Legends figures, which was apparently skipped at UK retail in favor of wave 4 (which still includes Groove and Warpath), while wave 3 proper (including Viper, but excluding the wave 4 figures Rodimus and Skywarp) is out in Germany and Slovakia, in European packaging. Your mileage may vary, but I think "European release" would be more relevant than "US release" in such a case. |
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jul 12, 2015 13:26:41 GMT
I was genuinely surprised by the cross sells! But there again all my legends are imports, I'd never looked at the back of a card in a UK store. It would appear it was known about but nobody had called attention to it until I did.
(this is one of those "I saw the toy last week that you're saying is a first sighting" situations that we,re all too familiar with!)
The way releases generally work here, and how the list is designed is Far East first, then USA, the UK...... Cos we're a UK site IS IT OUT HERE? ends our interest in the matter and usually Europe gets stuff around the same time/later than us. But the Viper wave in Europe needs some form of notation..... The word Wolfang keeps going through my mind, a similar thorn in UK sides in the past, also shown on UK card backs and non distributed here.
So yes a European release with non uk distribution does need noting, very good point.
Will sort when next on PC.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jul 12, 2015 13:48:28 GMT
To the Bargain Shops for your Christmas Tree Jetfires! |
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 12, 2015 14:04:41 GMT
£30! £30!?!?!
That's a bargain and no mistake guv'nor. Even with the sparkles.
Now someone do the Deluxes so I can pick up the handful I didn't get. Come on, someone must want to punt those out for, what, £6.99 a pop?
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jul 12, 2015 14:15:06 GMT
Just in case....
Which deluxe do you need Pinwig?
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Post by nevermore on Jul 12, 2015 14:24:15 GMT
I was genuinely surprised by the cross sells! But there again all my legends are imports, I'd never looked at the back of a card in a UK store. It would appear it was known about but nobody had called attention to it until I did. (this is one of those "I saw the toy last week that you're saying is a first sighting" situations that we,re all too familiar with!) Except in this case the toy has always been out and everyone was aware that it had been out and nobody cared and... well, the comparison is skewed. Basically, Europeans are typically familiar with European packaging and thus don't give it a second thought, while Americans don't care about European packaging differences at all until the first reveal of a toy shows it in European packaging and they all go "WHATS WITH THE PACKAGING THIS IS LOOKING WEIRD IS HASBRO BRINGING BACK TRILINGUAL PACKAGING WHATS GOING ON!!!!11111oneone". I'm aware; I handle things the same way at the German site where I maintain localized versions of my lists. If it's officially out in Germany, that's usually the end of it for a toy (unless very special circumstances warrant additional highlighting of an international release). I was specifically referring to instances of "out somewhere in Europe, but not (yet) in the UK". Some Platinum Edition figures are going to get an official German release via an online retailer through a special cooperation with Hasbro Germany and several German fansites too. Insecticons and Seeker Squadron are already up for preorder, while Trypticon and Autobot Intel Ops are confirmed. Did the UK ever get the gray variant of Beast Hunters Deluxe Windrazor that was available in Germany, Norway and the Netherlands? |
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jul 12, 2015 14:41:16 GMT
Some Platinum Edition figures are going to get an official German release via an online retailer through a special cooperation with Hasbro Germany and several German fansites too. Insecticons and Seeker Squadron are already up for preorder, while Trypticon and Autobot Intel Ops are confirmed. Be interesting to see if we get them too. Did the UK ever get the gray variant of Beast Hunters Deluxe Windrazor that was available in Germany, Norway and the Netherlands? Not as far as I'm aware, I've never seen it claimed. I'm still waiting for someone to prove that Doubledealer has been grey imported here! A couple of people on TFW claim to have seen it, but don't have pictures. The closest I've got is Nick here, who's word I would trust, saying he *thinks* he's seen it..... So if anyone sees Doubledealer in B&M/Smythes take a picture! |
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Post by nevermore on Jul 12, 2015 19:30:17 GMT
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 12, 2015 21:12:47 GMT
Just in case.... Which deluxe do you need Pinwig? I think the only one I'd claim to actually need is Jhiaxus, despite the fact he's too small to really be that character, but the other T30 branded toys I don't have are Blitzwing, Goldfire, Crosscut, Megatron & Dreadwing. I don't really have a burning desire to own any of those, but I'm a sucker for these discount prices in B&M. |
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Post by nevermore on Jul 12, 2015 22:56:07 GMT
Although I'm completely sidetracking now, there's another minor tidbit regarding the translated bios regardless of which language and packaging version we're talking about:
From the German version, I can tell that all sense of colloquialism from the English bios get lost in translation.
Original: "[Warpath] loves watching his targets go blammo."
German: "[Warpath] enjoys the view of exploding rubble."
Original: "[Viper] can take a pounding"
German: "[Viper] withstands attacks"
My extremely limited understanding of French and Spanish tells me their translations have about the same effect.
Children need PROPER grammar and wording!
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Post by nevermore on Jul 13, 2015 8:15:31 GMT
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jul 13, 2015 8:23:49 GMT
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Post by nevermore on Jul 13, 2015 10:53:24 GMT
That was fast. |
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Post by nevermore on Jul 13, 2015 18:28:48 GMT
I've seen photographic evidence that RID SUper Bumblebee is out in Germany...
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Post by nevermore on Jul 15, 2015 9:31:27 GMT
Not a sighting, but I found stock photos of Combiner Wars Air Raid, Offroad, Dead End and Breakdown in European packaging, at the Chinese and Portuguese Hasbro websites and at several Brazilian online retailer's websites.     This is curious. It would appear that at least samples exists. It also serves to show once again how poorly organized Hasbro is when it comes to their promo images. |
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 15, 2015 11:56:59 GMT
I would not be surprised to see these turn up as grey imports in discount stores in a year or two.
-Ralph
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Post by nevermore on Jul 15, 2015 12:56:10 GMT
The comic-less versions or the versions with comics?
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 15, 2015 14:23:32 GMT
We never get the comics packs over here.
-Ralph
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Post by nevermore on Jul 15, 2015 19:40:07 GMT
Not even as gray imports?
Well, I guess there's the off chance those might (heaven forbid!) make it to retail in a country that doesn't have English as its first language...
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