Well, part of my issue is the factors that contribute to the price. I am concerned about QC, because to my knowledge Hasbro hasn't made a 20 pound articulated toy before of this size, so I hope it can stand properly. And I feel like they could have cut down on size a little (because it's not like he's scaling with anything anyways) and have made it much more accessible. Even if it was "less impressive" I think the people who have funded it so far would still have, and more people who can't justify a toy like this or might not even have the space for one would be able to fund it too.

 

You don’t have to. You’re treating grown adults like children, yes it’s about a giant toy, but you don’t need to explain to people what else they can use their money for because you’re pretty much judging them for their choices. You don’t need to be telling others how to spend their money and say “guys you could be spending your money on other better thing” yeah well could grow up and stop smashing two toys together like toddlers in our 30s but doesn’t look like that’s happening anytime soon. Let people do with their money with whatever they want. You don’t want it? Cool. I’m not getting it either but I’m not gonna try and tell people how to spend their expendable income either

 

Wait a couple of years, and the Platinum version be cheap (hopefully)

 

I'm buying this sucker if I can figure out a way to do so without paying through the nose for mail forwarding and customs.

 

if only ronald reagan were alive to see this

 

You should change it to “For a time I considered sparing your wallet.”

 

As cool as this thing is unless it has the audio recordings of Orson Welles from the movie i don't see it as worth $600

 

No. It's that you can get more possibly better things for the same price, it takes up a lot of space, and backing it will prevent people with less cash from getting a Unicron for a while. That last one is the clincher.

Normally, I would be with someone about not telling others what to spend their money on but you clearly agree that this is a LOT of goddamn money and this quite possibly threatens what other fans can get. Cut the fucking moralising when more than half a grand and people's collections are at stake.

 

do me a favor and reread the initial post i quoted that created this tangent

nothing about this post indicates a timetable, just says that he doesnt think there are enough people in the fandom that will drop $600, yet people regularly do that for 3p items, so yes yall are missing the point of my original reply to @Matty (sorry for quoting you again btw)

 

From my experience in low production mfg, a good injection mold tooling will cost around $25k minimum. The larger the tool, the larger the billet of hardened steel, the more expensive. The more tools you cut, the more parts there are and the more expensive it gets. The more sophisticated your tooling, the more complex machining is necessary and the more expensive it gets...
Given the number of parts and the complexity of this toy, I assume they're going to need quite a few molds or large ones with tricky gating. I also think they'll need a few copies of the tooling to scale to production. Any re-tooling will cost money too, so assuming they make 10 sets of... lets say 6 tools??? at around $30k per tool, that's around $1.8M in tools right off the bat.
I am assuming this will be low production, so the customer will have to eat the cost, as there won't be enough sales to amortize the NRE.
This doesn't include the cost of engineering, cost to kick other projects off the floor, cost of QA.
if this was a high production mold, I think it would still be priced at like $300.

 

Including the out takes.

 

After this, will they make an opposing Primus?????

 

I think Hasbro prefers to look at hard sales numbers over ratios of sales to population. While the latter can be a measure for local impact and market penetration, nothing makes CEOs smile like pure sales numbers in the billions.

 

Stop. Just..stop. I mean, really, who told you you could bring reason into this thread?!

 

Oh get a fucking grip on reality Edward. This is a premium collector item, premium collector items have always been expensive and niche. You're out of your mind if you think this will 'keep other fans from getting a Unicron'. People with less cash can't get it? Good, if you don't have the money to blow on a gigantic expensive thing like this then it's your financial responsibility to not buy it.

"People's collections are at stake" is... what? What the fuck? Stop taking toys so seriously. That's just insane.

This toy ONLY EXISTS because of HasLabs, Hasbro was flat out asked at Comic Con last year if they planned a HasLab Unicron. This is not Hasbro denying normal fans a chance to own a Unicron.

 

It's a bigger market in the US. Third party stuff does /very well/ there.

 

1. If you have the money to buy this presumably you can also find room for it.

2. As cold as it may sound, so what? All transformers are, at the end of the day, the most luxury of luxury items, if you can afford it, fracking go for it. If you can’t, that’s a bummer, but you were never entitled to have one to begin with.

 

Yeah...maybe. There's still the question of whether this will earn 8000 backers...

 

Come on, man.
It didn't have to be this big in the first place and like with siege I am scratching my head at the comments about quality.
His legs and back are panel-formed in such a way you can spot it from Quintessa!
If they'd made this a titan with less weight and needless bling they could have sold it at retail for half the price at least.
A chomping mouth, articulated fingers and a bunch of heft aren't worth this price tag.

 

Makes you wonder why it's only available to one market.

Make it available worldwide and it'd smash 8000. Makes no sense if you want huge sales numbers.