There’s also the possible reason that Takara lost the Pokémon license so they need to make a further profit off of this.

 

While my heart is happily fluttering at that list, my pocketbook is curled up in a corner.

I know V2s and V3s are not high on everyone's list, but Sideswipe desperately needs a V2 to flow better with Sunstreaker.

 

Can I just ask in terms of you, are you not currently into the Badcube Sideswipe remake?

 

That’s been pretty well debunked, Takara knew they were losing that license for a long time. The loss of a separate line is more likely to result in a loss of the division working on it and employees on it. Transformers is a large enough brand to have its own division for budgetary purposes.

 

Although I would argue that sunstreaker should have been designed to match better with sideswipe, I agree that since we have a new sunstreaker that we also need a new sideswipe to have them match a lot better. Right now, they look completely mismatched together. It would be nice to get a V2.

 

Right that makes sense.

 

This will be my last response on this tangent, so as not to further continue a discussion that's technically off-topic and wasn't intended as the primary topic of my previous post responding to you about where the G1 MP line can go from here.

However, I do feel that it's worth responding to some of your points on the topic of KOs as a contributing factor to the price hikes. Please note I'm not saying it's the only factor, nor a major factor. It's simply one of several factors that go into setting prices on the products in the MP line.

I'm not talking about "3P", this is strictly about KOs which are counterfeit consumer goods and part of what has been a rapidly growing industry across a wide variety of manufactured products worldwide - not just Transformers.

Diminishing returns is exactly how KOs impact the official line. The KO industry has been growing, and with it more people are opting to save money by purchasing a KO MP over the official. In the cases of KO manufacturers who make improvements to the original mold or add parts, that's providing more incentive for some to pass on the official product and opt for the KO instead. Money going to the KO purchases results in a diminishing return for TT (potentially fewer units sold by distributors resulting in potentially smaller orders by distributors for future product).

Are KOs being made of "3P" product to the extent that they are of TT's? For example, if every FansToys release had one or more manufacturers producing and selling a less expensive KO, it's likely FansToys would be losing some of their profit as well and raising their prices to compensate.

I'll be happy to continue this discussion in another thread or in PMs if you like. Not here though as I don't want to continue taking away from actual MP speculation discussion.  

 

Well, it's a good thing he's not actually retailing at $115. Granted, I'm not including shipping, but using a plain jane CC, he's available on Amazon Japan for around $82 right now. Shipping is global and roughly ~11 dollars. Given you're citing US price, that shipping price is probably going to be another ~5-7 dollars or so, depending on method and assuming you're in the continental US. $93 vs $120 or so doesn't sound like a big difference, but that difference is approximately 23% of the cost you're citing.

I reference this a lot in this thread, because it seems for whatever reason people legitimately want to pay a US retailer for... buying a toy, adding markup, and selling it to the consumer in turn. It's a waste when you can buy it from Japan directly, and it reflects the actual price differences much more closely. Additionally, the yen is far stronger now than it was, say, during Tracks and even Optimus Primal's releases. I got Tracks for about $50 shipped because the yen was so weak (around ~75c/100y if I remember), while with Primal it was around ~82c/100y. It's about 90/100 now, so your dollar doesn't go as far in Japanese currency.

The other thing people don't seem to realize is that prices are increasing for all figures in the figure market. There's companies who used to retail figures around the 7-8k yen mark. Then it went to 9-10k. Now some companies are pushing "standard" size scale figures and the like (1/8, 1/7, 1/6, etc) for as much as 16-17k yen. There's even a 1/7 scale from Alter recently that went for a bit over 20k yen - and that's on preorder discount. There's 1/4 scale figures which used to run around ~16k yen, and now that's a rarity, with most breaching 20k, and a few going even higher than that. It's doubtless a factor of the figure market, which is pushing harder and harder for premium stuff at a premium price, because, quite simply, people are willing to pay for it.

 

I'm pretty sure I have Steamroll. Since I'm reorganizing, I'm not quite sure where he is at the moment.    

 

Overall, really great post, but this in particular. A fair amount of folks in this room (and probably a lot of others on various sites) forget that there are realities beyond greed or intention for companies like Takara.

The simple reality of shipping, importing, and designing & producing figures is affected by so many factors in the world that aren’t just contained by a community of fans, it’s probably easy to forget too, but it’s important that we, as fans, make an effort to be aware.

 

I'll leave the effects on price of MPs discussion on the final point that I disagree with much of the conjecture that's been posted in response to my thoughts on the subject. No need for me to elaborate further in the interest of keeping the thread on topic.

Price variance does not seem to be affecting MPM and BW MPs lines that seem to be humming along quite nicely. Any guesses on when we'll see pre-orders for Blackarachnia and ballparks of what she might retail for? I expect she'll be very close to primal in class and will likely cost as much. I am also very sure pre-orders for her will be up before Hound, if we see him make it to retail. The BW line is also heavily lacking repaints and I think it is about time that we saw Tigertron. My guess is he'll be the next figure announced in the line, also retailing fairly close to cheetor with perhaps a small mark up due to a smaller run for a lessor known character.

 

I’m super happy that the MPM line has not been affected by the price increases. Being able to get Megatron who is quite a large figure for only $160 is incredible.

 

If (when) they make Tigatron, he’ll be, at the very least, the same base mold as Cheetor but upscaled. Some retooling on the beast and robot mode heads, along with a generally beefier tiger mode, would seal the deal. I’d predict a price over $100, hopefully not as high as BA since he shouldn’t have as many accessories, but at this point they could charge over $150 and it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility 

 

I think a big part of that is that MPM appears to have been pretty much mandated by Hasbro to help expand the line and capitalize on the movies while also keeping to a tighter price point. They don’t have the same degree of over-the-top engineering and design.

What I’m curious about there is how long they’ll keep on the Bay movie designs now that Hasbro is officially behind moving away from that period and into the rebooted looks of the Travis Knight movie. I can’t afford to get into the third group of MPs, but the newer more familiar (and way more visually functional for my money) designs could probably bring in a lot of new and old collectors.

 

I was hoping we'd see something like a MP-13+ revealed at this toy show, but since we didn't and I just can't help myself, I did a digibash take on what that could look like. Obviously I've made some choices here with painting over certain molded details that some may not like, as the placement of the legs in alt mode present challenges for making the colors 100% accurate in both modes. But, I think this is probably what I'd want if I narrow down the options to what we could realistically expect. Also, I don't know if they'd really retool the tape player buttons to have no molded text/shapes, but, you know, maybe!   Overall I think a + version could look better than I thought, but it really just makes me pine for a v2 to hopefully get a smaller chest and more elegant arms and legs.





I am also majorly honored by and grateful to @Sixo who was kind enough to take new photos for me since I couldn't find high-res images out there with the poses I wanted! And I don't know if he wants to be associated with this, but @Sam is responsible for the familiar-looking background   There's a few more shots in this series that I hope to get to in the near future, including with more cassette action.

EDIT: Here are some of the screenshots I used for reference:

 

This is the thing that makes me dissapointed about the MPM line, because I know that there are quite a lot of collectors that would probably pay more for that over the top engineering that the BW and G1 MPs are known for.

 

I really wanted to get the recent MPM Bumblebee, but the lack of paint detailing and giant backpack kinda turned me off. Theres definately a noticable difference in overall quality of the MPM figures vs. regular or beastwars masterpieces.

 

I am actually drooling right now...that is beautiful!!!

 

Dude! Excellent job. I’m liking the white a lot more than I thought I would. Definitely want to see more of this style with the cassettes. But next time, could you include a reference picture from the show for those of us too lazy to google it? I plan to after I post this, though 

That’s one of the reasons I haven’t picked any up. I particularly enjoy the Masterpiece engineering we’ve been getting recently since that’s the appeal of transformers to me: the puzzle aspect. That and they haven’t done any of the characters I’d like to see (looking at you, Devy. I’ve resorted to the SS version). Frankly I had a hard time telling apart the studio series and mpms at first; the engineering level is closer.