Funskool stuff may have been unique, but it was that way because of the absolute crap that it was. The G.I.Joe vehicles were okay, but the figures for the most part were horrendous. Quality control wasn't just bad, it was almost non-existant. The early years were better, but the later stuff is garbage.

Because Hasbro needed cheaper product and in greater numbers than Takara could handle domestically.

Well not Transformers for sure.

 

This has been a trend in several industries and would have been happening regardless of where we are with the "trade war/tarrif" situation.

Following another of my hobbies, guitars, the "cheap" guitars used to be made in Japan. Then, as Japan got better at production, prices/cost rose, production of cheaper lines moved to China. Then, as China got better at production, prices/cost rose, production moved to South Korea. Then, as Korea got better at production, prices/cost rose, production moved to Vietnam and India. The current cheapest production guitars are coming from Indonesia, and I doubt that's the last move on the low end I'll see in my lifetime.

Production lines for mass produced product move to where the work force is cheapest, regardless of what the product is. This isn't surprising. It's just business being business.

 

I have to disagree with you there. I had some Funskool figures and vehicles and quality on both was actually good. The biggest thing was the colors was off on the figures. Just watch Youtube Hoodedcobracommander788 and he has the history of Funskool from India.

 

Called this when Transformers moved to Vietnam. Heck, I remember back in the day when I interviewed Hasbro at SDCC and suggested they move manufacturing out of China when raw materials, shipping costs, and labor costs were all increasing at once and they balked at the notion -- looks like you shoulda listened to ol' T-Bob.

I suspect the biggest impact will be on Star Wars and Marvel, those lines depend on a specific level of quality in sculpting, paint, and manufacturing that will take time to ramp up in other facilities. Star Wars was already moving to Vietnam on the 3.75" simple figures but those appear to be canceled.

 

Maybe the future of star wars black series figures?

 

Not in any way that you would ever notice or be able to attribute, it's really just another puff PR piece.

Let's celebrate chasing wherever they can pay people the least for the same work. That's what Optimus would do! Actually movie Optimus probably would.

 

New Hasbro toys from India... Sure hope they come with gift card scams built in.

 

It’s an inherently political topic. It’s impossible for this discussion NOT to get political.

Exactly. Despite what they say, Hasbro are using tariffs as the excuse. It’s not the reason. Moving production to India and other countries has been happening for 10 years or more. China is getting too expensive because they are beginning to expect the same rights that we in the western world enjoy.

 

Does you making it political count?

 

it has been in the cards for a while, I thought the siege line and studio series are already vietnam. MPM Optimus was and that's one reason the entire line had such qc issues, the manufacturing isn't there yet.

Moving out of china has been underway for many companies because it stopped being low cost, as Tim Cooks pointed out a few years ago. They stayed there for the manufacturing expertise built over several decades.

This will prove to be interesting to see how long it takes other places to build that up, and how China will deal with the loss of manufacturing revenues.

 

I was thinking people should thoroughly wash any toys from India before handling them too much. Cholera is no joke.

 

Moving out of China will take quite a long while. It's not just the manufacturing expertise, it's the logistics, etc. People seem to think that manufacturing is a self contained exercise i.e. everything that's required to make a single product is sourced at just one factory. Done, finish. But to make any product, you need other materials. Those things tend to be just down the street when it comes to China. There was a Bloomberg article a couple of days/weeks ago at that pointed this out i.e. a number of American companies actually tried moving out of China but eventually gave up because the total cost (NOT just the cost of manufacturing) will be prohibitive. There's coordination issues, etc. Boeing is actually a very good example of this. They outsourced so many things to multiple countries, but in the end the result is a crappier and more expensive product. Remember 737 Max?

China will deal with the loss of manufacturing revenues just like how America dealt with it. People seem to forget that America used to be THE manufacturing powerhouse back in the days. They'll move on to services. Also China is quite different from America. There's 1 billion plus people there, they can manufacture for domestic customers. What's required here is for the Chinese government to lift the income levels of its citizens so that they can demand better products.

Also there's still this "illusion" that Chinese companies are only copying Western products. It's now literally the other way around. Facebook is openly copying Weibo, etc. In fact Mark Zuckerberg wasn't shy to say that they should have done that much earlier. Payment apps is another example, Apple Pay is literally behind the curve.

 

I just hope qc gets better. Along with joints being tighter.

 

Didn\'t they already switch to Vietnam and announce late last year that they are exploring shipping production to India?

 

yeah, it's kinda funny people still make jokes about made in china quality. Chinese made goods has been insanely good in quality for a long while, in fact, made in america commodity goods like plastic toys are so atrocious it's sad. I bought a doll house that was made in usa two years ago for my daughter, and parts won't fit together... the tolerances were off by almost 3-4mm! Now we have KOs made cheaply in china that have tolerances of 100um's, that's a huge difference in quality.

I guess you're likely to be right, services, premium manufacturing for export like the USA did and perhaps domestic consumption now they boast one of the largest middle class population and rapidly increasing (they did push domestic consumption for over a decade now, which is slightly diff from USA's path)

Don't get me started how backwaters USA is regarding payment... hell, because of the fight between retailers and banks, usa was still using the insanely insecure and fraud ridden magnetic stripe when the rest of the world already considers the chip not secure enough. (yes, it is literally cheaper for the banks to write off fraud due to the magnetic stripe rather then just foot the damn bill for replacing all the terminals with chip reader. It took apple pay to have tap pay implemented widely....)

I still remember in 2014, I was shopping in HK (considered quite advance in many ways) and this mainland lady was buying some toys for her kid (obviously I was in the toys section  ) and she took out her phone to pay (alipay or wechatpay I guess) and when the cashier had this embarrassed look saying they do not support that, the lady rolled her eyes in annoyance at how inconvenience it was and took out her wallet, picked one of many credit cards, and paid with that (at least they used chips). People have been cash and cardless for a loooong while in most major chinese cities.

 

Hasbro started having Transformers manufactured in Vietnam at least 10 years ago. That's where HFTD/MPM leader Starscream was manufactured and I remember people worrying about how it would turn out. Turned out fine for the most part(though my copy has developed a few pin cracks through the years). Chances are if you've bought any Transformer within the last decade, it was probably manufactured in Vietnam.

The India thing is concerning due to how previous Hasbro tools ended up there. Back in the day, they had Funskool in India manufacture GI Joes. To clean the steel molds, Funskool salt rinsed them, which ended up destroying some of the molds/tooling. Maybe things have changed but that remains to be seen.

 

what group is that, man?

 

Been buying robots since 07