Hasbro has never had a wave that used a single buck. Not to mention they've kept introducing new ones. The Bucky Cap mold seems to be almost entirely phased out.
The fact that Palymates is still milking the same inferior mold that predates Bandai's, NECA's, and Super 7's offerings is embarrassing. In the absence of an ongoing TV show, they seem creatively lost.

They don't even seem to understand scale with the Turtles being so big.

They aren't even in scale with the Bebop and Rocksteady from the same line, or the yet-unreleased Shredder and Krang.

Playmates doesn’t need to renew their license. They outright own it for keeps, unless they choose to sell it. The purchase of tmnt by Viacom did not affect Playmates ownership of the master toy line rights.

For a slightly oversimplification based on The Toys That Made Us as well as numerous stories I’ve read over decades…Back when tmnt was two guys’ satire of the “dark & gritty” turn of mainstream comics seen in Batman and Daredevil, they were approached by a marketing guy for a toy company looking to compete with Hasbro and Mattel in the boys action figure lines. Playmates basically told them if you sell us a percentage of your brand (the master toy license), we will help finance a kids cartoon and make a line of toys. For a while, playmates also managed a lot of the regular merchandising license rights as well, but those were under regular licensing agreements that required renewal.

When Viacom approached Mirage to buy the tmnt brand, they bought the percentage of the brand that Mirage still owned… the copyrights, trademarks, etc, but either didn’t want or were unable to negotiate a buyout for the toy rights from Playmates.

For all the toys, whether it be Neca, super 7, Mattel Mega Construx, etc, the chief negotiator for licensing toy product is playmates.

I don’t think it’s apathy, I think Playmates is just behind the times and very stubborn. A lot of the toy industry has changed in a very short time, and kids don’t demand toys like they used to, and Playmates really doesn’t have the size of Hasbro or Mattel. Other than Tmnt and a few doll products, Playmates is very much still a tiny toy company. Their heyday was in the 90’s.
They are just now discovering the benefits of licensing to other companies, but they already spent thousands on the Classics molds, so I understand their desire to squeeze every penny they can out of it. Face it, the tmnt brand didn’t have the Renaissance that Transformers did when they released their live action movies, so playmates is probably just trying to do the least amount to keep the brand visible… which is a few reissues of the original toys and the classics.

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Hasbro also know how to introduce new characters. In addition, these four Cobra Kai dudes and the Shredder and Triceraton also coming out are the first new molds since they dropped the Rise line. Everything else has been a repaint or re-release of these four Turtles, or original line.

Found the Johnny Lawrence/Donatello and Daniel/Michaelangelos sets at Target yesterday. I assume those 2 are just shipping together in a case, so does anyone know when the other 2 sets with Kreese and Miguel are shipping? Will it be later, or should those be showing up in stores at this same time too?

Similar question about the 7" Playmates sets. The Mike/Bebop and Leo/Rocksteady 2-packs have been showing up at Walmart stores for over a month now and are very easy to find at this point. When can we expect the other 2 sets with Raph/Triceraton and Don/Shredder to hit?

I've been surprised at how easy to get the Walmart two packs have been given it's generally a fight to get the NECA sets.

I wonder if these will also be as easy to find, or if the inclusion of Cobra Kai figures will make them more desirable?

Saw them in target yesterday already. Bought them just for the novelty of adding them to my TMNT shelf.

The Wal-Mart sets looked pretty bad, plus people have been getting the NECA figures, so no need for extra, inferior figures.

I wish I could find the NECA Turtles themselves. had to buy the Walmart sets just to get Turtles to go with the rest of my NECA TMNT.

Pre-order? Half the series has been out for like a month now.