MT not Defensor! :bowdown

 

Damn it all! I need a better paying job!

 

^You and me both, bub.

Some incredibly awesome looking future prospects from everybody's favorite third parties here.

Still blown away by Fans Projects' Dinobots. Man, did these guys just come right out of left field or what. Still amazing how just before Bay's movie got released that every third Party and their mother starts releasing their own Dinobots...  

Looking forward to quite a few of these releases, especially tailgate...who we didn't get to see this time around. Very excited to see MMC tackle the JDJ!

 

Ugh. Am I the only one that's getting thoroughly sick of "third-party" at this point? They're just blatantly ripping off every character possible these days, and ripping off each others' ideas as well.

The engineering side of it is still, for the most part, pretty clever, but the market for these things is so horribly saturated at this point. Not to mention that they're still ridiculously expensive, and a lot of them seem to have low production runs (like FansProject - I've got three Glacialbots and can't get the other two, and FPC's shipping costs would ensure that I'd be broke to get them even if they did have them available any more). I'm much more content with waiting for official Masterpiece Transformers.

Yes, some of these are legitimately impressive, and some are unlikely to get official toys even. Quantron is one that I desperately want, and not really because it's based on Computron. I just think it looks like an awesome set of well-designed robots that happen to look similar to the Technobots. Same goes for Guardia.

Others, though, are so blatantly identical to their source material. Utopia is a fine example, although is one that I would love to own because I don't care for the official Metroplex (too lanky for my tastes), but at US$500, I will never own it. And that's fine - if people want ridiculously, slavishly G1 figures, I don't mind, but it's getting to the point where everyone is stepping on everyone else's toes, and the market for these items is so saturated that it's almost surprising that it hasn't imploded yet.

 

Maybe the market has reached that point. With so many things out to buy, collectors will likely spend less--who isn't playing the waiting game at this point? As soon as you pre-order a figure, a better one arrives 

I wonder how long before we start seeing sales on these figures 

 

The danger here with so many new great things popping up all the time is that etailers won't be economically able to get high stock for everything. At the prices these things are going you can't risk having ALL in high numbers.

I think the first cracks of the 3P system will come from there. A store owner will want to make more business with a veteran over a new 3P any day. And then you have to factor in that as we go along there are less fanfavourite characters that guarantee high sales.

 

Not Crasher is obviously going to be repainted into mirage, the mold has more nods to him.

 

Pre-order will definitely become more and more important and I suspect early bird sales are here to stay too.

 

Everything is so exciting!   What with all the cool stuff Hasbro announced at the last Con, and the treasure trove of third party stuff unveiled here, I'm going to be spending a whole lot of money. @_@

 

Fp, mt, and mmc all killed it. That damn defensor and scorponok won it for me. My jaw about hit the floor. 

 

I hope everyone had as much fun with the reveals as I had putting the slides together. If anyone had any questions about the slides or the presentation please let me know.

I should clarify something though. The FansProject Optimus is only an add on kit, not a completely new figure. Sorry for the miscommunication.

 

Yeah I don't think they dropped Minerva. I think FP changed their approach and decided to do all the 1987 headmaster toys first. Nightbeat came out in 1988 and will probably be in FPs next wave of headmasters. Which we will get the eventual Minerva repaint. So it looks like X9 will be Snapdragron and x10-x16 will be the Masterforce Headmasters and whatever repaints(Nightbeat, Siren etc)

 

Thanks to people who built the slides, did the real time update, etc.

 

3P is killing us with all this badassery. that MP scaled megs...thank primus.

 

Might have to grab the DJD...they are looking to damn awesome already...and its good to see another company doing clones...might have my interest as I've no faith in Hasbro actually doing those...

 

Just went back and read the DJD portion of MTME Vol. 2 in anticipation of Vos and Kaon. I can't wait!

 

Yes, I think this recent set of reveals showed that we're close to a bubble reaching critical mass and bursting.

So many companies just doing the same figures, competing on the same projects.

I will be very surprised if, by end of 2015, we have a number of 3rd parties closing their doors or just limiting their releases.

You're absolutely right that this area is getting over saturated but couple that with the fact that this is a niche market (likely very niche) and you can see the problems.

The amount of companies working on Dinobots makes the Predaking saturation look minor.

This is very typical of companies entrenched in China (I've worked there so can say this with some confidence), little vision but fast in production.

 

Easily more figures I want announced at TFcon than were announced at Botcon this year for me.

...and for those who complain that we have 4-5 different good Sludge and Slag figures coming out in the next year, it's more than HasTak is offering us!

 

That's the problem though.

4-5 companies all targeting a VERY small consumer base with the same figures.

There's no way all companies doing this will survive.

Yes, you could say that some are doing Masterpiece scale and some are doing Generations scale but the bottom line is that they all cost money and quite a bit at that.

Let's just look at this from a economics stand point.

AOE Scorn. Regardless of whether you like it or hate it. How many units were produced? 500,000 maybe for global release. Produced by a company with global distribution capabilities and promoted by mainstream media (movie, retail stores, TV ads etc).

Now take FansToys Scoria. I'm not interested in the quality of the product but how many units would be produced for this. 10-20,000 at the high end?

Now you add another 4-5 companies offering the 'same' products at similar prices i.e. above $80 all targeting a very small but enthusiastic consumer base.

Now within this consumer base the % of who will buy more than 2 of these Dinobot lines probably diminishes significantly. The % who will buy 3-5 of these lines is likely not worth counting in absolute numbers.

The point here is that there is two much focus on a small market with the same products. Something has to give.

 

but who's going to fill in Impossible Toys' Quintesson void? they had a nice niche, then expanded into crap and then kaput.

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