Select Page
25th Anniversary Unicron toy

Check out that sweet CG render!

Today marks a new beginning in Transformers exclusives.  For the first time, Hasbro has sold an exclusive Transformer though a new online retailer, and not just anyone, the biggest one.  Amazon.com is the proud owner of our latest version of the big guy, Unicron.

I’d been predicting a US release of the remolded Unicron head for some time now, and had kind of forgotten about it until Botcon 2011 where the sale through Amazon was revealed. So what does this mean?

Historically, Hasbro has used brick and mortar retailers to release exclusive product through.  We are talking about stores like Target, Toys-R-Us, Walmart, K-mart, and even Walgreens.  These stores are given an edge against another store by receiving a certain toy that will only be available at their stores.  It’s kind of a little ‘thank you’ from Hasbro for carrying their product so heavily and prominently.

Offering such a large exclusive like Unicron to Amazon could have far-reaching effects.  Toys R Us sold a version of Unicron as an exclusive a few years ago and it underperformed, becoming a giant shelf-warmer.  The difference here is that this Unicron features a G1-ish paint scheme and the wonderful Japanese resculpt of the head.  This one is actually sometime people want.

It’s been a bit of a roller-coaster the past few days though.  Amazon sold out of Unicro quickly, leaving many potential customers banging their heads against their keyboards and screaming “Scalper!!!” to no end.  However, this morning the figure was put back in stock, then sold out again, and now as I write this, is currently available.

(If you want to check if this guy is in stock, do it by clicking here!)

Unicron planet

I'm hungraaaay!

So is this thing going to be hard to get or raise in price?  With Amazon’s repeated restocking, it seems like they can make Unicrons like Lays makes Doritos (“Don’t worry, we’ll make more!”)

It’s really hard to gauge, but my spidey-senses tell me that this is Unicron, this guy is big, and he is always awesome.  This Unicron will hold its value, maybe even more than the Japanese version.  With all these versions of Unicron coming out, people are going to start wanting to collect him specifically, which increases the demand.  All I can say is I bought more than one!  Good luck Collecticons.