Haslab Unicron

Discussion in 'Transformers News and Rumors' started by bearytrek, Jul 15, 2019.

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  1. RodimusZero

    RodimusZero Steezin fo no Reason

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    Agreed, I'm actually pretty underwhelmed by the specs of this figure.
    I know there's 300+ pages of similar comments, but I guess I feel that since they're trying to get us all to go in on the biggest and most expensive Transformers figure of all time, you'd think they'd really want to knock it out of the park, right? I think effects, lights, and sounds should have been a bare minimum, even the second most expensive figure, MP-44, has sounds. I think he should've come with a really, really tiny Galvatron for him to eat, or maybe the Quintesson ship and the other Autobot cars coming out of his eyes as a detachable effect or something. I know that sounds really nitpicky, but I would have been blown away if they had all those little bonuses in there.
     
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  2. tobecat

    tobecat Transformers KISS Toby TFW2005 Supporter

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    There seems to be a lot more bickering than in the Star Wars fandom. By this time in the Barge campaign most had pulled together to get it to happen. The price issue had pretty much left the convo by now and people were actively promoting it anywhere they could think of. I am excited for Unicron and hope it comes together. It surprises me how much more divisive he is. Maybe Star Wars fandom really had been wanting a Barge a lot more than the Transformers fandom had been clamoring for a giant Unicron? Not sure. Not really going anywhere with this... just some observations I noticed as I backed and followed both campaigns religiously.
     
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  3. PlanckEpoch

    PlanckEpoch Red and black red and black

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    Star Wars tends to be a lot more cohesive. Whether you like or hate the new trilogy, prequel trilogy, or original trilogy, it's all the same story, the same saga, the same timeline. Transformers has it's own tribes and continuity that don't have anything to do with one another aside from shared character ideas and names. I'm certain that has a lot to do with it. There will be some who just don't care for Unicron at all, much less G1.
     
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  4. Kingragnork

    Kingragnork Well-Known Member

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    It probably also has a lot to do with there being far more SW fans than TF fans who actively purchase merchandise. Also, I'm unaware of a big 3P and KO presence in the SW toy community like there is here. The fact that so many here despise Hasbro and find all their offerings to be gross and lacklustre in lieu of the more expensive and higher quality 3P stuff also plays a part. People just have the mentality of waiting for 3P to do it better because 3P has shown up Hasbro in so many ways and I dont think that has happened at all with the SW community.
     
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  5. Ikkstakk

    Ikkstakk Well-Known Member

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    Well, see, a lot of stuff people are hoping for like an extra (transforming, even!) figure or a tiny ship accessory adds up. Parts. Paint. Assembly. Probably unrealistic to expect such things. But a blast effect? No assembly. No paint. Just one piece of translucent plastic that maybe costs a tenth of a cent. So I'm going to keep hoping for such a thing, whether realistic to expect it or not.
     
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  6. XXLMagnus

    XXLMagnus King of Kings

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    You get nothing!!
     
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  7. [Wing_Saber-X]

    [Wing_Saber-X] Takara Fanboy Collector

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    hahahaha^
     
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  8. tobecat

    tobecat Transformers KISS Toby TFW2005 Supporter

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    True. I haven't seen much in the way of 3P Star Wars items. I think I was getting out of collecting Transformers when 3P started making inroads so I am very much unfamiliar with anything 3P. I only remember the WST Dinobots and maybe a fake Defensor from Big Lots or something. There has been quite a lot oftalk here on 3P but I mostly get lost with it. Since I haven't much collected for about 10 years (my last Botcon was 2009) hearing about better quality 3P or trusting in a company that isn't Hasbro to make a better Unicron just seems odd. tbh, I am really back into it because of this Unicron campaign. Since it launched I am rediscovering Transformers and I have even purchased a few new ones (Ecto-1 and the MP Ratchet (I may have that MP part incorrect)). Back on subject though. I only know of a few Star Wars sites that do 3P and most are just accessory items and some easy to make droids from ANH.
     
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  9. djtfmd

    djtfmd Well-Known Member

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    regardless of all other factors, the price is still a big problem - the barge was already $499.99, and Unicron is 15% more expensive at $574.99 (pre-tax). though it's "only" $75 more, there's a *huge* psychological difference between buying a figure that's less than HALF A GRAND vs one that's a bit over that amount...

    imagine if Unicron were priced at $499.99 like the barge, i bet it would probably be substantially farther along in its funding by now. or if it were $399.99 (which is still a lot of money for a figure), it may even BE funded by now.

    it's not that people don't want this figure - i'm sure most fans do, but money is not a limitless resource to the vast majority of the population and when the price of a luxury good may drastically interfere with someone's ability to make a car payment/rent/mortgage/etc. then that's gonna make it much more difficult to sell.

    i realize it's a bit pointless to speculate on all this, but perhaps Hasbro was bit overly-ambitious with this project (as well as pricing in too high of margins into their price - most of you aren't realizing how cheap plastic and screws really are, even at 29lbs). i hope this project gets funded so this "holy grail" of a figure can come to fruition, but if not then hopefully Hasbro learns a lesson about pricing and what the market will bear...
     
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  10. Apollux

    Apollux Turbomaster - Former Leaker

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    Apologies if this was mentioned earlier, but was it confirmed that the leg kibble is removable?
    Just looking at the Haslab page and noticed that the cad render has different colour plastics for different sections - like the face plate which we now know is removable.
    upload_2019-8-20_9-30-24.png
    Also makes me wonder if one of the reveals involves the wing sections somehow?
     

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  11. GAUGE

    GAUGE Wargod ARTS

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    That is a super early conceptual render that is not indicative of the final product. In other words, no. It's not removable. It was mentioned in one of the interviews that none of the kibble is removeable. Now sure, a pin removal tool can make it removeable but, I'm more inclined to believe the toy will be ruined along with all of its stability if you decide to do so.
     
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  12. xjsb125

    xjsb125 Well-Known Member

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    I had a lot of sticker shock when this was first announced as well. $575 for a figure, are they out of their minds?! Then I stopped to think about it. How many people out there forked out $544 for MP-44, or $500+ for Constructor? Figures that are still smaller than this iteration of Unicron. They're in the game to make money, but I doubt there is a ton of markup on this. Plus if your shipping is included for US buyers, then are they really asking too much? In my opinion, no. I think Hasbro should have launched their campaign in early spring when globally people tend to be in better positions financially, and given more than a 30-45 day window to jump in the pool. Now the question is can that gap in the backing goal be closed up in the next 13 days. I hope so, but again I remain very skeptical.
     
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  13. Homerrca

    Homerrca Well-Known Member

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    I expect Unicron to go to the fridge, grab me a beer and make me a damn sandwhich ;) 
     
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  14. Hicks_Royel

    Hicks_Royel Hurts feelings being honest.

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    And I am still confident MP44 is going to be much cheaper by this time next year.
     
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  15. bearytrek

    bearytrek Unicron Backer #1...

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    those blast effects would be awesome (and potentially poke someone's eye out too)
     
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  16. Ikkstakk

    Ikkstakk Well-Known Member

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    To be fair (and I have nothing to back this up, just personal feeling), I believe the production runs on MP-44 and Constructor are less than 8000. Perhaps significantly less.

    Hey, this is an adult collectible, get outta here with that child safety talk! ;) 
     
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  17. deathsheadII

    deathsheadII Not a Bounty Hunter yes?

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    2759 backers has the number dropped? i thought there were more than that
     
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  18. Single Elegant Machine

    Single Elegant Machine Purity and order.

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    Jabba's Sail Barge seems far less important respective to its own franchise than Unicron is to Transformers.
     
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  19. galvatran

    galvatran Galvatran lives!

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    Unicron devours planets & you’re worried some poor sod may lose an eye. :rolleyes: 
    :p 
     
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  20. Redog75

    Redog75 Well-Known Member

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    Unicron is very ambitious. I say that in a positive way. That is the point of Haslab. These are "dream projects" not mass-market. The barge is a hollowed out play-set. It is wonderful (I still regret not buying it). I've seen it, tried to crawl inside it. But it is a play-set...albeit a HUGE play-set. You talk about them pricing in too high of margins and the cost of materials being so low. Many of us have brought up at great length and detail the costs associated with producing this. Plastic, screws, hinges, and whatnot are pretty inexpensive, true. A HUGE cost is the creation of the injection molds. Do a quick Google search about what these cost to make. There's some pretty cool info out there. Each piece needs a mold. While true Hasbro designers/engineers and Takara designers/engineers will do all they can to reuse the same parts as many times as possible within each Unicron, but still... We are talking about many molds...many, many, many molds. Some of the larger pieces will need dedicated molds. Some of the smaller pieces can be combined into one mold.

    Let's do some simply, hypothetical, math here. I know there are those on the boards who are going to argue with the numbers. These are HYPOTHETICAL ;)  These are also, frankly, conservative estimates on costs and quantities.

    1 mold (pricing ranges from $6000 to $50000 based on size, complexity, and so on...Google will show these are realistic numbers). I'll pick $10k as my number for the average mold creation cost the sake of keeping the math basic.
    200 unique parts. Again, picking a semi-random number to keep the math basic.
    4 parts able to fit in the size of 1 mold. Keep in mind, simple math here.

    Using this, hypothetical, math Hasbro would need to create 50 molds. At $10k a pop that is a cost of $500,000 (half a million dollars). That is just the cost to create the molds! I've been very, very, very conservative in the dollars here. Unicron isn't like other figures where molds can be spread across multiple releases (redeco's for example). This project has to be able to cover 100% of the costs AND make the profit they projected.

    Hasbro will, and should, make money on this. They are a publicly traded company. They sure as heck aren't making 50% profit on this, at the end of the day. They don't do anything that has 50% profit (please refer to their, publicly available, financial records). I have no clue why or how the $575 amount was set. There were, no doubt, many cost analysis reports run. I, presume, they learned from the first Haslab project. That doesn't mean this project was run perfectly. There is plenty of room to learn and improve going forward. For whatever reason, that we will likely never really know, $4600000 (8000 units at $575 each) is the revenue amount Hasbro has set in order to make this a feasible project for them.

    About the price-tag: $~500~ figures are not that rare anymore. MP-44 is staggeringly expensive compared to previous MP releases. The new Ghostbusters release of MP-10G is $150 USD. That makes MP-44 three times more expensive with it's $450 USD price tag. I know Unicron is a lot of money! For some it's way too much money. For others it's not worth the money. And for some, the people Hasbro is targeting with this release, it's just right. As I said, we will never truly know why 8000 units at $575 was chosen. We could speculate about this all day long. "It could have" or "It should have" or "I wish it..." can be debated at nauseam... Frankly, they have been on this thread. What we are faced with is what is. As of this moment there are 2759 backers with 11.5 days left. We are getting to crunch time. I *hope* Hasbro increases the marketing campaign and makes some more reveals. I *hope* the magic 8000 number is hit by the time the worldwide numbers are added up. I'm a backer and want this to be made.
     
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