RID Convoy is easily my most wanted masterpiece. By miles.

 

Not necessarily. Years ago, a Chinese company (Fire Figures) attempted to put out a 1/6th scale Ezio figure from Assassins Creed Brotherhood and when fans brought it to Ubisoft's attention they issued a cease and desist letter and were able to shut the project down. If Ubisoft lawyers can go after 3P companies, then reasons dictates Hasbro could as well.

 

Money in the bank, or a big centerpiece named Unicron? I'll take Unicron every time. And getting this close (if it fails) would leave a very nasty taste on a brand that I've associated with my childhood and happiness for quite some time. I want to collect toys and enjoy the process, that's a big part of my hobby. Like a lot of us, there's a lot of dismay watching that stupid counter going nowhere and Hasbro showing little interest in promotion.

Am I weird? But deep down inside, I sort of feel like Hasbro showing little interest in Unicron is a slap to my face, an ugly reminder that the corporation has little interest in me the fan and collector... minus my money and status as a white whale. No need to jump on me saying I'm being over dramatic. I get it, it just sucks right now, and theres too much dead time between news so the mind wanders off to negative tangents.

 

So Hasbro and Takara have just allowed KO and 3rd party companies cut into their profit and steal their intellectual properties for the last 30 years because all the cool kids are doing it.

Retailers openly sell 3rd party products and KOs in the US at the same sites that carry Hasbro/Takara merchandise but THIS Zeta release is the final straw?

This company just paid $4 billion for Death Row Records (joke) so they must have lawyer money.

Either it is really difficult to shut down all the KO/3rd party companies or Hasbro/Takara are complicit with their practices.

 

I dunno, to Hasbro they don't care. To me the dude who wants Unicron really really bad... it's mentally draining to see the sky (not) falling. But then again, so is reading the vitriol on tfw forums... lol. I kid.

 

If hasbro threw in a moon base 2 and half devoured moon base 1, this thing would run to 8K. Could hollow globes increase costs too much? They wouldn't be huge, they'd be tennis/soft ball sized

 

For everyone's viewing pleasure.

 

because hastak would have any judge killed if they dared going against them being the almighty mafia of the toyworld  

i think this whole forum is full of a lot of drama queens who are under the impression that hastak the toy company is this almighty force to be reckoned with and still don't know the difference between ip theft/ko's and the original engineering of a third party transformer being a new product even if it has the likeness of an 80's cartoon character .... it don't matter how many time's people explain the difference it just don't sink in  

 

Do any think that possibly with HasTaks QC issues that people might be hesitant to back or backed out of a $600 CHUG that could have QC issues that is limited edition with no possibility of replacement.

If they cant lock down QC issues on their flagship character MP whats to say that this thing wont have some major issues.

 

That's certainly one of the reasons I'm not backing it. Not the main reason, but a reason nonetheless.

 

Hendjr is certainly a nice guy but like anyone who claims they have a direct insider source, I always take that information with a grain of salt. He could be right...he could also have been fed BS from his friend, or he could very well be making this all up. It's interesting information, but I'm not going to believe it 100%.

Once again, that number could very well be an insignificant number. Relatively few people may be cancelling for Zeta, sure, but how many more people just aren't decided yet or have decided against it for a multitude of reasons? Hell, I didn't back Unicron until two and a half weeks after it's announcement as I just wasn't sure if I wanted to drop 600 bucks on this when 600 bucks can buy me a good pistol.

A possibility, sure. Never said it wasn't. But to claim without any hesitation that "Zeta is taking away my Unicron" is a ridiculous statement that ignores many other real factors that could lead into this thing's failure.

I agree mostly, here. If you note my first posts in this topic, I was skeptical of this thing's success. 8000 units at nearly 100 dollars over the Sail Barge? No matter how you cut it that is a hard pill to swallow. Also, I always believed that such a high priced Transformers item might be a stretch as contrary to what many may think I feel the Transformers fandom isn't nearly as big or strong enough to support an item like this, at least not at the numbers Hasbro wanted.

I do not buy the argument for a minute that 8000 backers is what they NEED to actually put this thing into production. I think that was a number chosen to impress investors with. The number doesn't seem arbitrary at all when you consider that the Sail Barge landed just a bit over 8000 backers in the end, and that Transformers is Hasbro's no.1 brand. Personally, I think Hasbro was probably making a profit even at about 5000-6000 units. But what Hasbro needed was that 8000 to prove just how big of a franchise Transformers is.

Also, I see the deadline extension as a bit of an insurance call rather than any kind of optimistic opportunity for more sales. The thing was about, what, 2500 units short of being backed just days before the original deadline, which honestly was way under my own personal projections on how close the margin of failure would've been. Makes sense from their perspective to give backers a whole month to get that two and a half thousand backers to hit that number.

Absolutely. I keep saying there's precedent for a company to go after 3P. In the last 3 years, Bandai shut down popular KO and 3rd Party Gundam kit makers Daban Models and Dragon Momoko, and the Chinese authorities and government actually assisted Bandai with this. It could happen, I keep saying.

 

They need 8000 backers to make production worthwhile, but I don’t believe these are just being made to order. I can’t imaging Hasbro not providing a replacement for a defective figure. They would absolutely have to. More than the bare minimum will be made

 

I really hope the Haslab goes through with the production as they already saw that there is a real commitment from those who already backed. Serious repercussions? What will it be? I don't see this happening unless the war on factories are done everyday for the rest of their existence which won't happen as it will be equally costly.

 

Yeah lets continue to hope good outcome for both so that both camps will be happy  

 

For me, yes. Since the recent MAsterpiece figures (from MPM Optimus to Mp Beast Wars Megatron to even MP-44) have had QC issues, I’ve been hesitant to give HasTak $575 of my hard earned dollars for a ginormous figure that could have QC issues of its own. When it comes to Unicron, they’re pretty much expecting us to trust that they’ll get it right and come out with a home run.

 

Not necessarily. Transformers doesn't have single ownership. There is licensing, distribution rights, derivative rights, etc.

Again, not really. It's complicated.
Read this, a post from yesterday: Haslab Unicron
Or this post from July: Zeta Toys Unicron ZV-02 Core Star
There have been many, many more (and longer) posts explaining this.

To this day, Metallica is still reviled by many for screwing up a major paradigm shift in music, or at least attempting to. They were tilting at windmills, and actually more anti-digital than anti-piracy. Lars has stated multiple times that he regrets the whole thing, while Kirk is still head-up-ass stubborn with righteousness. No real comment from James, he defers to Lars.

The same digital scenario will exist for toys. Some toy company will likely ignore history of digital paradigm shifts in an industry, and also sacrifice their own fanbase for righteousness. 3D printer designs of Transformers will exist, shared/sold directly to consumers, and Hasbro will likely lose their mind, trying to stamp out the technology rather than adopting it. History repeats itself.

 

Has this been posted yet? It's interesting to see the different ways they engineered the transformation and panel storage.

 

LOL