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Originally Posted by Crazy Jetty

The brief time that Animated and the Animated toyline were available TOGETHER, the toys flew off the shelves. But they didn't hit stores (Thanks to Hasbro's idiocy with dragging out the first movie line well past it's experation date) until the TFA cartoon was almost finished.

That wasn't Hasbro's fault, nor was it their idea. They fully intended on having Animated toys released at the same time the cartoon aired. But overwhelming retailer demand for more Movie toys and their refusal to buy any other TF lines except Movie forced Hasbro into a difficult position. Hasbro even tried to get Cartoon Network to push back the TFA premiere so they could get toys on the shelves at the same time as the show, but CN was locked into its broadcast schedule too. Basically, Hasbro's hands were tied.

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DotM also has a lot of foolishness on Hasbro's part working against it. The first several waves have absolutely no variety. Aside from Starscream, Thundercracker, Laserbeak, and that voyager helicoptor, then entire line are cars and trucks. All of them in *very* simular colors. Even though there's a dozen different characters on display, if you look at any store's given display, it's all virtually identical.

What? This makes absolutely no sense to me. Of course there was/is variety. Aside from Optimus, Bumblebee, Skids and Ironhide, there was plenty of new stuff to choose from:

Starscream/Thundercracker, Roadbuster, Topspin, Skyhammer, Shockwave, Megatron and Sentinel Prime for the larger classes and the Cyberverse line is just pure win all around.

As far as re-doing characters goes, I'm sorry but how many times have collectors bought a Batman or Superman figure when a new version comes out? How many Spider-Man figures do we all own? Hell, Star Wars practically thrives on making the same characters over and over.

Besides, the first wave of G1 toys were mostly cars and trucks too.