Yup. Also, that's a very standard price for 10-inch vinyls from Unbox, the HK company that's producing it for Mondo (they do the same thing for Medicom). In fact, $100 is pretty much a standard price for any 10-inch vinyl. A more accurate comparison would be to something like a Jumbo vinyl, which typically retails for twice as much as this Jumbo Prime.

Also, that IG is not an ultra-doofy sculpt making a toy reference that only a 45 year old would appreciate, and it passes well as a modern take on the character.

Exactly this. Of all the toys I've sold in the past year, my retro-styled vinyls were the ones I had to discount the most because of attitudes like this.

A Jumbo Prime design only targets a niche audience within an already niche one.

People are willing to drop money all day on cool-looking modern toys, but retro kitsch is another story. To a lot of people, it's more like, "Yeah, if I see this weird-ass thing for $15 at Target."

TenScaryMonkeys brought up the idea of prestige pricing from Flynn. I'm open to that idea, but I think the one that's more important is that buyers themselves have bestowed prestige on modern-looking, transformable, diecast, etc. and are actually willing to pay more for stuff that has those qualities...vs. nostalgically designed stuff which they in their minds have priced much lower.

That's the story the market (eBay) has been telling me all year.

Or, from the poster above (and I've seen this sentiment throughout not just this thread, but across a number of collecting spheres)...

In short, for people who say, "This ain't worth $350 to me. It's worth $____, IMO," that's totally cool.

But when people say, "I think it actually only costs $____ to make and it should realistically be sold at $_____," that, I think, ignores a lot of the economic realities of toy production and realities of toy consumer habits.

 

Who buys these things ?

 

This isn't made for Transformers fans, though, it's specifically made for fans of the Super Shogun toyline who want new toys made to the exact specifications of that old toyline.

The whole point is to make a toy that is authentic to a cheap toy from the 70s, which costs a lot nowadays because no one makes toys like that anymore. So yeah, the toy looks and fèels cheap, that's the idea. If it was made with high quality plastic and die cast and had more moving parts and whatnot, the people this is targeted towards would have less interest in it.

 

im like 90% convinced this is just a gag on their end

so what youre sayin is these figs are made to be cheap as hell, but sell them for as much as possible

 

What I'm saying is that the figures are made to have the same attributes as figures that were inexpensive and easy to produce back in the 70s but are now very costly and difficult to produce in modern times.

 

Three points of articulation!?! Wow and even better it\'s not g1 toy accurate and doesn\'t transform. Amazing!

 

This. Its like those 1970s Sofoubi Japanese robot and Super Sentai toys. Only updated for modern times.

 

I don't think that's true at all, when the company that makes these normally makes highly detailed 2' duck decoys for $30 a pop. The process was never forgotten or abandoned, if anything it was improved and streamlined.

It's not a matter of technology, it's a matter of charging out the ass because people will pay it - that and they will sell about 10, so they have to make it worth their time. Seems like a really bad thing to collect, but that's just me.

 

"As collectors, we just want to make the nerdiest, best toys we can make," Flynn said.

 

I'm just going by the explanation given in this article, which was provided above. It seems like finding a suitable factory was not easy, and the factory they found was not particularly enthusiastic about making Super Shogun toys instead of ducks. No doubt because the ducks sell orders of magnitude more units and thus bring in orders of magnitude more revenue than retro styled Super Shogun toys ever would.

It's not about a change in technology, it's about a change in circumstances. No one is mass producing toys like this anymore, there isn't a high demand to produce toys like this anymore, and the factories that are still able to produce toys like this have no incentive to do so unless they are paid a lot for the effort.


By the way, here's something amusing: This exact discussion seemed to happen nearly ten years ago when Super7 first said they'd make a Shogun Warriors Optimus Prime:

Super 7 24" Shogun-style Optimus Prime in 2013


I wonder why it took so long?

 

I just never got into "memorabilia" type Transformers merch. I buy Transformers that transform because thats how it all began. Never understood the point of super 7, funko pop, or those stupid kits with the huge crotches. Even the statues are kinda silly.

 

I used to think like that. These days, and 23 collecting years later, not so much.

The toys I have I just plop on the shelves in my office and look at when I'm trying to avoid work. I breathe in the nostalgia they exude. I don't spend time transforming and posing figures anymore and making pew-pew sounds. That just doesn't interest me anymore. I'd rather have something that's sculpted/designed well, whether it transforms or not.

If anything, I find transformations a hassle, especially complex transformations. But some people love them. I don't judge and I don't really care.

People like different things. Go figure.

 

I rarely transform my figures either. But knowing that they transform and live up to their namesake is what makes them cool to me. Without that transformation, tgey might as well be gijoe, motu, or superheroes and I dont collect fleshlings lol. As far as transformation goes, I use reviews for all they're worth. I see them more like online transformation tutorials rather than someone trying to sell me on a figure. The unboxing and articulation scenes get skipped.

 

I could have sworn something like this was teased a few years ago along with a “shogun” styled Fortress Maximus. It was shown off at some sort of toy show where these things are announced. It’s been a few years, but maybe those fell through and this is taking its place.

 

On the topic of transformation videos, can 3p just do away with instruction inserts and just do a video and save us some money? Same with those dumb cards as well. How about with the video, they include a link to the card artwork with a blank space for the name so enthusiasts can print with the actual character name if they want the card that bad.

 

This is true, because a lot of the workers who were at the same factories(which produced the older Jumbo Machinder stuff in the 70’s) no longer work there hence why S7 had to search for a factory that could actually pull it off. It’s dated technology sure but when you don’t have factory workers who don’t know how to pull it off, it’ll take time and effort to find some that do.

 

I do. Why.

 

This the attitude that took away rub signs and generally why we can’t keep anything nice around here.

 

Still remember my friend having a Tranzor Z figure that seemed about 2 ft tall, with a firing fist.
 His little bro had a Shogun one with the 2 red horns on each side of his head.

Still wondering if those were knockoffs since their parents were, um, extremely old fashioned when it came to toys and Kmart didnt sell them. 
   I had a bunch of Robotech kos.