Because that's hyperbole, and the figures are nowhere near as bad as you make them out to be.

 

Yes and no to the outsourced design. The designer for all the XTB bots that I can think of is 539 designs. In the end Keith is over all in control though but from my understanding he gives 539 total control in his designs where as other companies may place limitations in designs, for one example total parts count perhaps. That may be one of the reasons 539 choses to work with Keith, free rein on designs.

I don't know 539 personally and am only speculating and piecing together what I've read and heard here and there. Maybe what I wrote helps you understand or maybe it only begs more questions but this is as much as I can confidently speculate.

 

Its only an opinion when you can say xtb is crap "because Keith doesn't care". Small bots are hard to make work as well as larger ones. Andras was perfectly executed. Transistor is great, all runs but I understand paint in corners upseting some on the v1, which I have. The design and excecution were well done. Beachcomber has a fiddly cage and a pop off steering wheel on his foot but look how small and thin those parts have to be to stay in scale. Everyone raves about mp 10, he is the biggest fn bot they made in the season 1 2 mp line. Ironhide chrome is fading with light use, I had 25 year old G1s with mint chrome. It ain't Keith doesn't care, it's you plan and plan to prevent but shit still happens. I'm hoping for some diecast parts where it counts. Liking the way he doesn't look small compared to mp 10. Especially looking forward to alt mode comparisons.

 

I won't say the flak XTB (Keith) gets is undeserved, but it is often over the top. I have every single main G1 XTB release and KFC Transistor. I love them all. I admit XTB figures have required more care and replacements parts to get them 'right', but once they are 'right', they're amazing figures. I agree that we shouldn't have to do this, but I don't find it a particularly big deal and as long as I'm happy with the end result, I don't see an issue. Keith at least cares enough to provide free replacement parts and figures through retailers when things need fixing. Now if he stopped doing that, then I would stop buying their products altogether.

 

Hmm. I love the design inside and out... but I'm not so sure about the size.

 

having been in Manufacturing for a few years, I can tell you that if he were to indeed care about what he put out to the public, he would and could do more to ensure what is being put out is not as poorly constructed as it is.

Wheelie was a marvel in engineering. No doubt about that. It is a great figure to behold. Loose joints, thin plastic, these are all things on Keith, not the designer. All these things can be caught long before the item is delivered to the public but he does not care enough about his items to actually have them tested properly. they are released with flaws and with issues to then have to do a V2 or a 'fix' later just means that he does not care enough to actually research what he is doing or gain the knowledge to manufacture products properly. Tolerances, thickness of plastic, material construction, these are all things that Keith should have been able to work out by now with the number of releases he has and yet, here everyone sits waiting to see if it is worth buying by waiting for an in hand review.

There are resources out there. Look at what MMC has done with its figure and put it in the hands of Vangelus who has handled hundreds of figures. This is not about reviewing a figure before anyone else it is about MMC using Vangelus to assess what is the good and bad about their figure. You don't think that if Vangelus notices something significant that does not work with their figure that maybe MMC would take note of something like that.

Keith has a huge fandom out there to draw from and use as I know so many people will just give him free advice or free assistance as we all want to be a part of the process but he does not take any of that into consideration. Why? And this is just speculation of course.....Because he is not a real transformers fan. he saw an opportunity to make some serious money and decided to take advantage. When did he show up? After MT, After FP after PX and he saw what they were doing, had access to resources and decided to use them.

All I am saying is Keith could be one of the top out there but he does not care enough to put everything he has into what he is presenting. If that were the case his quality would have gone up long before now, and not just have one or two good items out there. How many tapes did he produce? Did he not learn anything from the beginning? Those were all a floppy mess also.

The reason all of this is such a shame is these designs are so very good. this inferno is the best out of the three no questions but who wants to risk getting it? Who wants to risk a version 1 when a version 2 will have all the fixes? Why does everyone want to wait for a review? because everyone knows that XTB does not put out quality product.

Honestly, I really want this version of Inferno. I love the size, I love the look, I love everything about this figure but I know I will never own it because there is now way I will risk it and no way I will support someone who does not care about what they are sending me. Haha, actually it make me pretty angry that I won't own this. Maybe that is what is getting me all riled up about this........

 

I actually agree with much of what you say and appreciate your well reasoned and thoughtful critique...so often we just see the usual 'XTB makes garbage' types of posts. I do wish XTB would get it's act together on QC as well. They could easily be the best 3P producer with 539 Designs were it not for the QC fiascoes. To their credit, they did try to get feedback from some in the modder community for Apollyon. Most that frequent these forums that had an early look said the figure was great. Then once the V1 fully released, people were still having issues resulting in a V2. In contrast, I don't believe any samples of Andras went out and yet he was near flawless in QC.

Honestly though it isn't even so much the QC that irks me most about XTB\KFC. Sometimes they make the oddest choices that make you shake your head in disbelief. Apollyon's chest dimples for example... They were obvious in every photo and people did notice them, yet they weren't fixed until V2. Another example is showing prototypes of Transistor with silver buttons, then just a few weeks before release we get production pics with black buttons. Just recently they showed renders of Boost and Hatch with toy coloring, yet show what appeared to be an unfinished prototype with very different coloring That 'unfinished' prototype ended up being the final release. Magically after people complained, an 'underwraps V2' is announced which looks shockingly enough like the original renders...imagine that...

I agree Keith can be a shady character, and he doesn't seem to pay much mind to anything unless enough people start complaining. Still, so long as he's willing to support his products with replacements, I'm pretty content. You just have to be sure to run the figures through their paces in the first month or so of owning them. If anything's going to break, that's the time you want it to happen...while you can still get parts. Out of all the XTB\KFC products I own, I've only ever had one actual break occur, which was a tab an Apollyon's hip. I guess maybe I've had pretty good luck with them in general.

 

Even though what your saying is true, people don't care and if he wants to make a quick buck there are other ways to do so, besides ruining someones hobby. I wanted to buy Transistor but I'm not eve sure anymore. I'm thinking I might just skip everything from these guys. There are so many other options that are better, and as for Beachcomber I'll just wait for Badcube and now that I saw the second head from MMC on their Inferno I'll probably get that one. Its disheartening to read but it rings true. I really really regret buying Appolyon and it just sits there and thats it, such a waste. Reading what you wrote just makes me want them to go away more than ever. I've noticed that some people are just blind in this community and super slavish to G1 and its pretty sad, no its really really sad that people can't keep an open mind. At least their tape making days will be numbered. That new Ravage from MMC is awesome.

 

yeah the argument "he doesnt care,he just wants to make a quick buck" makes zero sense to me..Its like you going to work and intentionally take a giant shit in the middle of your workplace...You wouldnt care?

 

So what you are saying here is that it is not that Keith doesn't care, it is that Keith does not have the intelligence to see what errors there are and fix them before hand? Or he does not have the skills and experience to do any kind of quality check?

If you care about your work then you are constantly doing your best to make your workmanship better, for yourself and for the pride of the company or brand. To continuously put out sub quality items and to never better your own efforts is to not care about your work or to care about your customer base. If Keith is not smart enough to find these things himself then he should consider hiring someone with more skills in this area of expertise. You can't tell me that it is a good business decision to see this kind of track record and figure it is good to just coast along. If Keith is unwilling to hire then yes, I would say he does not care about his own production.

You think that because he puts out parts fixes it means he cares about what he is doing? No, this gets done because if he did not then he really would loose his customer base. Instead he is forced to go back and 'fix' items that should have been sent out correct the first time.

And saying taking a shit in your workplace and not caring, well, my guess is you have not been to a lot of places in China or other poor countries. This is not as uncommon as you may think. Just because you live in a society where this is hugely frowned upon, it does not mean it does not happen elsewhere. While actually taking a dump in the middle of the floor may be more rare, the amount of garbage that is just thrown on the floor or ground is absolutely staggering. Until you experiences it first hand, you would never even imagine.

 

I agree that most of the toys that Keith touches look cool but are designed like shit! Ollie looks awesome, but in hand he is a piece of crap. Apollion looks incredible in both modes...but man is he wonky!!! He is terrible to transform and feels like you will break him all the time. The hip joints on mine will no longer stay together because the pressure peg is too hard of a plastic and always wants to migrate out making him look like he is spreading open his left leg in an awkward fission. The design of this figure was incredible but the execution is about a D-.

Fanstoys, Maketoys and fansproject are companies that display quality. I wish that keith would step things up.

Remember the hip problems on his Ultra Magnus where ratchet kept stripping and breaking off teeth? again Quality issues.

 

I dont know the specific reasons.....You've noticed zero improvement?From Ollie to Andras?No improvement at all eh?

 

I don't know why some people are still complaining about the QC of XTB. I have the feeling that those people don't even own one of their new products. They are just talking bullshit they heared previously somewhere!
I have all releases so far, and they improved with every new figure.
My V1 Apollyon even doesn't have any issues, and Andras is just perfect!
I hate that discussion popping up each time.
I also have all of the FT products for comparisson. They always had a good reputation, but my latest buy from them (Spotter) is incredibly bad. Stressmarks on the plastic where you wouldn't expect it, lose joints, bad paintings on some spots - what the hell?
Even Takara or Hasbro is not perfect! One of my Tracks figures is good, the other one is not. Acid Rain is a floppy mess, while Starscream is perfect. Overprized Takara Thundercracker has some really bad spruemarks which this mold did not have previously.
I can tell that, because I own all this figures.
So stop that damn discussion about XTBs quality and that Keith doesn't care. That is nonsense! If you don't like it, don't buy it and stop making thinks worse than they are!

 

I don't call an anomaly the norm. Andras was a good figure, consensus is there on that but that is not the norm. That is the exception.

The question is why? Why would Andras be good where everything else is not. Whs it designed with more thought to plastic thickness? Joint structures? What make Andras different from the others and why can't those things be applied to everything else.

If you look at the sample of this figure you will see the ladder connector pieces on the back. This will be an issue area for certain. Anyone who has ever handled a transformer will know this. So the question is what steps are going to be taken to ensure quality here? I think we all know at least 1 hamfisted individual who will twist this wrong and break that part within 20 minutes of opening this figure.

I would really like to see Keith step up his game. I am not looking for him to go away or anything, just become more of what he should be, especially considering the number of releases that he has put out over the last few years.

And if it has taken him 4 years to really work out what works and what doesn't then that is also not a very good track record. You can't tell me that someone who is really wanting to put out quality items would take 4 years and 20 releases to BEGIN to get it right.

 

Not sure what I think of the bot mode (he's a character I have no connection to and I like Maketoys the best there)- but that is almost certainly going to be the best, most detailed fire truck of the bunch.

If I thought I would get the character, this one would deserve a serious look. (I think- beware of making judgements on protos)

 

I was led to believe that X-Transbots used to be called CHMS, maker of numerous knock-off figures with the typical poor ko quality.

 

and just like that he slaughters the other 3p versions

 

I'm kinda torn on this issue. On one hand, I do think KFC/XTB needs to step up their game with the QC.

I think back to the original G1 Transformers toys. They may have been bricks, but they were solid bricks. They did have very simple engineering that may not have been screen accurate, but holds up to repeated play. The fact is the more small fiddly parts and complicated engineering you introduce into a figure, the more chances are that things will go wrong. I think this needs to be taken into consideration by KFC/XTransbots, and more care should be taken where appropriate. The corner cutting they take in the factory really hurts the finished product.

I do love their designs and I think they're some of the most beautiful on the market. At the moment though, they're just display pieces for me and not something I can fiddle about with.

 

That alt mode scale is pretty disappointing. Oh well  

 

Notice the minimum wage sweatshop worker in the corner, working his fingers to the bone for his toy master overlords