Zeta Toys ZV-02 Core Star / 1Studio Cell (G1 Unicron)

Discussion in 'Transformers 3rd Party Discussion' started by foxracing, Jul 22, 2019.

  1. UtahRobotInDisguise

    UtahRobotInDisguise Herald of Utahcron

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    American companies have been given a lot more bite in recent months compared to the past. Trump’s “negotiations” have included stronger legal recourses against IP infringements and patent thefts in Chinese court. Mostly it is to benefit the clothing, jewelry, and electronics industries but could be used by the toy industry as well. Hopefully these “in Hasbro’s face” pokings don’t come back to haunt the entire 3p industry.
     
  2. XXLMagnus

    XXLMagnus King of Kings

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    w/o jurisdiction it’s much ado abt nothing ... we shall see
     
  3. Sup3hobo

    Sup3hobo Well-Known Member

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    I don't have a pre-order in yet, but I'm excited to see how he comes out. Hopefully, they made those spikes out of a more robust material to prevent breakage.
     
  4. UtahRobotInDisguise

    UtahRobotInDisguise Herald of Utahcron

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    I hope Hasbro continues the blind eye. I’m merely pointing out there has been a change in international trade between the west and China. Some companies (Apple, Rolex, Gucci, and others) have already used the new protections to go after vendors and factories making IP infringing product in China.

    Hopefully HasTak waits until after I get all the characters I still need for my collection.
     
  5. Dodgy Dan

    Dodgy Dan Some sort of carbon-based bastard.

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    I'll be honest: I was very late to the party when I started my collecting seriously, and I've spent most of it acquiring figures already in circulation (or not, as the case may be). Most of my collection had already been released for some time, were second-hand or were reissues. As such, this is this first major release that I am genuinely hyped about.

    With that in mind, I really, really, REALLY don't want zeta/cell/whoever to piss off Hasbro again and ruin this whole thing. I'm constantly and pleasantly surprised that 3rd party companies get away with what they do, and I just want these guys to release Core Star without poking the sodding hornets nest.
     
  6. octobotimus

    octobotimus Bad company ruins good morals

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    They seem to be moving out of China atm so that helps us at least.
     
  7. Thundercracker Blue

    Thundercracker Blue Well-Known Member

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    2C615672-F4E6-4040-BC32-F46C86B8F562.gif
     
  8. UtahRobotInDisguise

    UtahRobotInDisguise Herald of Utahcron

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    I feel the same. Honestly, I was surprised it was a Unicron that incurred Hasbro’s wrath. I was certain that TE01 and Magic Square were going to bring down the 3p world for daring to compete with MP44. When there wasn’t a peep from Hasbro after the 3p Megatron wars AND 3p Prime wars, I thought Hasbro totally didn’t care about 3p at all. I know Hasbro is fully aware, since several of their staffers own some 3p figures.

    Still, it was interesting to see how quickly Hasbro put the squish on Zeta’s unveiling. Shows how being a super corporation has its benefits.
    I understand why, since it was a limited window of an expensive figure, but Unicron isn’t the poster child for the brand.
     
  9. Thundercracker Blue

    Thundercracker Blue Well-Known Member

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    Zeta wasn’t competing against a Hasbro figure. They were competing against a Hasbro crowd-fund. And they were doing so in a public, provocative manner.

    If that crowdfund hadn’t gone through, that would have been a major source of embarrassment for Hasbro. It could have severely compromised the viability of HasLab. And it would have made it very difficult (if not impossible) for Hasbro to release Unicron anytime soon. A core character in the lore, who they were assuming they would be releasing as THE premium, hallmark piece for the WFC Trilogy. And they’d have to shelve it, because you can’t say a figure will ONLY come through a crowdfund, then release the figure anyway following the failure of the crowdfund. Hasbro simply can’t afford to lose crowdfunding as a viable means of marketing and selling premium toys moving forward.

    So they had to bring the hammer down... hard. And I’m glad they did. Transformers as a franchise has a vibrant ecosystem of offerings, provided by many unofficial companies who exist with Hasbro’s tacit consent. This delicately balanced ecosystem has helped the franchise thrive, and I’m not cool with some reckless entity upsetting the equilibrium.
     
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  10. mikequillm

    mikequillm Well-Endowed Member

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    Imo I still think it was jealousy. I got two haslab unicrons coming so not biased. They both have awesome modes but... John warden looked so smug at that convention, proud of the baby he helped create, chewing gum, smiling. Then someone kept throwing zeta in his face and he finally got pissed about it. They worked however many years to get a perfect unicron that wasn't that much of an improvement over the original armada version. Then zeta pops in with a no kibble unicron. At $600 apiece I am sure Hasbro is making $400-500 a figure. It was bound to happen. If zeta had made their figure look like ass it wouldn't have been an issue

     
  11. Kevin Iaquinto

    Kevin Iaquinto 8 Strings Enthusiast

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    I still cant believe how clean the robot mode is on this figure. I cancelled my preorder, but I'm still happy that it is releasing. Hasbro's has a perfect planet mode, but the robot mode is such a let down. If someone upscaled zeta's figure, I think that would be the perfect companion piece for the hasbro one.
     
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  12. Ryuu

    Ryuu It is Looooord!

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    Wait so this thing is shipping out early June?
     
  13. Robogeek28

    Robogeek28 Proud grandpa

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    I wonder what the shipping cost will be from Show-Z if it's released before shipping goes back to normal.
     
  14. metaphorge

    metaphorge Decepticon

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    Gah, finally caved and preordered one, even though I also have a Haslab Uni on the way; now the question is, which one do I want to display in planet mode, and which one in robot mode?
     
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  15. octobotimus

    octobotimus Bad company ruins good morals

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    To the US it’s free with the new shipping method via ship (takes longer but is free). Europe still won’t get shipping for packages over 2kg.
     
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  16. Robogeek28

    Robogeek28 Proud grandpa

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    I see.

    I hope it's better than the shipping they had before everything shut down. A figure I ordered two months ago finally hit the China airport a month ago and hasn't moved since, whereas a figure I ordered a month later arrived last week through a different ship method. :lol 
     
  17. octobotimus

    octobotimus Bad company ruins good morals

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    I imagine it will be in the hands of customs. Customs was what made my Capone take a solid 2 months.
     
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  18. Mercutio

    Mercutio Well-Known Member

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    Sometime between June and August, based on what retailers have said so far. Most anticipated event of the summer! :thumbs2: 
    That's a rhetorical question, right? :lol 
     
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  19. Daedelus

    Daedelus Know sacrifice, know victory

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    I think you're right with the principle of Zeta not upstaging the figure, but rather interfering with a crowdfund venture. Because they probably could have produced it otherwise, but they wanted to demonstrate the market viability of it for the franchise as well as mitigate anything that would compromise this specific model of marketing so early on in the history of "HasLab".

    I don't think they see throwing their legal weight around as worth their time now, especially since the money is locked in and the campaign is finished. But I would expect them to act again if any similar 3P announcements mirror another HasLab crowdfund.
     
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  20. Robogeek28

    Robogeek28 Proud grandpa

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    No contest, Hasbro in planet mode, this one in bot mode.

    At least that's how I'd do it. :lol 
     
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