^Clearer still, thanks for the education fellas.

 

The annoying take-away from all that is if you happen to buy just P-15 (realistically who would, but just work with me here) than you'll wind up with a trailer that transforms into the shell of most of a robot. Conversely if you buy P-14 and P-16 you'll wind up with two self-contained robots and alt modes with no means to combine them together.

To which end it really makes no sense that P-15 is a separate product from P-14, unless they're planning for a non-concurrent release. If there's a sizeable gap between when P-14 and P-15 come out - long enough for P-14 to be out of production - than shipping and selling them separately is reasonable. But if they all come out at the same time I'd wager there's going to be next to no-one who gets P-14 but passes on P-15 outside of any reason other than cost, and that is going to leave them with awkward stock levels.

 

Yeah, we (several of us at TFW2005, anyway) pretty much told Keith straight up that P-14 and 15 should be one product sold together for $100 less than their current combined price, but Keith just kept saying, "it's going to be quality." Granted, he announced this project right around the time MP-44's price was made public. I think he saw that (too many) people were willing to spend $450 on an Optimus Prime and wanted to get in on that.

 

I was ROFLing so much.

 

Especially when Maketoys and Fanshobby made it a tough act to follow in terms of what comes with a transformer.

 

Definitely a risky gamble. I mean, I understand the pay-off, and people will pay for quality. But HasTak can charge what they want - 3Ps can only really exist by charging what they can, and there's a very real risk of a single product being sold at too high of a price leading to serious complications due to how heavily the returns of one product influence the ability to even make the next.

Much as I wish him the best, I know I've no intention of paying close to AU$1,000 for this set in much the same way I've no intention of paying over AU$600 for MP-44. Asking more than I paid for my city-bots... if I was buying over, I'd prefer the Titans in my collection and ~AU$200 in change over God Ginrai - even if it's a quality figure of one of my favourite characters.

 

I remember him being called Powermaster Optimus Prime with Apex Armor as I bought one for my son ages ago. BBTS still has it listed (sold out):

Commemorative Powermaster Optimus Prime With Apex Armor (New Version)

 

I'm going back to this route....

 

So I'm late to this game here, I was about to pull the trigger on the fans hobby power master prime and overlord when I saw this guy pop up. Am I correct, you need to order 3 separate pieces to get the full power master prime? 14/15/16? Because it looks like fans hobby has the 3rd part available for pre order also, the God bomber piece. And way cheaper?

 

Fans Hobby is good also, lots of good reviews on their version. There are three parts you have to buy for KFC and I think its like around 500 for all three and Fans Hobby is like 350 for two parts. Pls correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Yeah, unless Keith's changing his mind and hasn't told us yet, KFC's is going to come in three parts and be significantly more expensive than Fans Hobby's (retail prices are something like $150 for Ginrai, $200 for the trailer, and $200 for Godbomber, or around $550 total). Based on the prototypes KFC's will be bigger more cartoon accurate (and in my opinion has better proportions between the cab and the trailer), but despite Keith's assurances KFC's quality can be hit or miss.

Fans Hobby's is a little stylized and a little chunky. It is, however, available now, with one single $220 purchase getting you Ginrai and the trailer, with Godbomber already released in the black colors and the regular-colored version supposedly already manufactured and just waiting to get to retailers. Godbomber's roughly around $140 at US retail, which makes the total package around $360, almost $200 less. Power Baser has gotten mostly favorable reviews. Initial reviews for the God Armor were critical due to issues with some thin parts, but after a video was released demonstrating the proper way to connect it to Power Baser more positive reviews have started to trickle in.

Two other things that are probably worth noting. We don't know what extras KFC may or may not include with theirs, but based on the prototypes KFC is going for something in between the Japanese Masterforce series and the original toy. While that's also more the direction that Fans Hobby took, they did make an additional head available for purchase based on the old Marvel comics. And if you care about having the villain to go with him, Fans Hobby already put out their (excellent) Overlord. I don't think Keith's even mentioned one.

And that's really the choice you have to make. Do you save money on something you know is good but a little stylized, or do you splurge on something that's bigger and more cartoon-accurate, but no one knows how it's actually going to turn out, or even when that might be? Me personally, I don't care how good it turns out, I think KFC's overpricing theirs by $150-$200, I'm happy with Fans Toys. If Keith eventually walks it back, maybe releasing PC-14 and 15 as one release for $250 and knocking PC-16 down to $150, then it looks like something I might be interested in. And if I wind up with both, KFC's can always be my God Ginrai, Fans Hobby can be my Marvel Powermaster Optimus.

 

When I was a kid pmop was the coolest version of Optimus as there wasn't many options beyond Laser Optimus. I acquired a cab only without Ginrai and gun on alt.bin.trans before the reissue of the Japanese God Ginrai came out (around the same time as Car Robots). IDW comics were in infancy but they supplied box art on American book-style G1 toy re-releases. I am hopeful they can deliver on a solid version of both the cab and powermaster figure with full cab features, doors, separate glass plastics, door cards and rubber tires. I understand the expectations everyone will have with each item being a separate release. The biggest thing holding me back from investing in the PM trailer is the lack of finesse and functional play ability of the base mode from released previews. I would only invest in such a hefty item if it provided a displayable base for my legends and diaclone figures.

 

Any news on this?

 

What is this supposed to mean?

 

If there was any news between December and now. It would have been posted. Bringing up threads gives people notifications so they think there is new news.

Given that nothing was announced at the TFCon 3P Panel. There is likely no news until the next one and even that is a maybe

 

Any news on this?

 

KFC's gone quiet for a long time about this guy. XTB too is being silent about their products(especially the trailer for the stunticons) since last month.

 

Might have something to do with the pandemic but what do I know

 

Nope, cause alot or third party had updates at tfcon recently. Gotta stop using that excuse since China "is going back to work"