I still have a small MP collection, just not adding to it anymore. I've got "enough" of the cast at this point. I prefer the older toyetic aesthetic so the newer official really aren't that enticing anyways. Tak on the outrageous price and I've zero interest in swapping anything out.

Makes me so glad that the mainline is delivering though. The transformations, articulation, aesthetics, and price are far more balanced than the MP line. Which makes the toys much more fun imo.

 

The main reason I've stopped buying official MPs is due to the crumbling MP Hound I have standing on my shelf right now. Until Takara offers me a free non-crumbling replacement or a coupon of some type for the full amount I paid for it, then I am forever finished buying official MPs. The entire situation is a kick in the teeth to every loyal Takara customer who got stuck with one (I couldn't return mine due to being well past the return period when the cracks started to show up).

 

Honestly its a combination of factors and I have had a MP figure but due to a freak accident it broke and no way of salvaging it. I didn't like the over complex transformations either because I felt it would break at any moment and with the price point would of been upsetting.

 

MPs are too expensive, and the conversions are such a pain in the aft that if you break it beyond repair, your figure is fragged and you're out the money spent. Also, they're never gonna make a genuine MP Jetfire, (no, I'm not interested in third party fakes) and even if they did, it would be WAAAY too expensive for me.

 

Price is the single biggest factor in a slew of factors as to why I don't buy Masterpiece, but let me run down the reasons:
1: Price. I simply cannot afford it and cannot justify such a large amount of money spent on a singular item like that. The same amount of money spent on one masterpiece could buy me 4-6 Deluxes, 3-4 Voyagers, or a week's worth of food. Three guesses as to which one usually wins out.

2: Availability. I'm surprised this one isn't on the list, but I cannot find them at any brick and mortar stores in my state and the only place I ever saw them in person was the late Toys R Us. I also generally don't shop at collector's shops and I don't trust shipping companies to be careful enough with something as expensive as a masterpiece figure to warrant buying them online.

3: Character selection. I like G1 characters, but I don't love G1 characters, at least not enough to buy a single figure of theirs for around a hundred bucks. Sadly, the only characters that I might, and I mean MIGHT pay that much for would probably never get masterpiece figures anyway, since they are neither G1 nor Beast Wars characters and Hastak are too busy going off on whatever tangent the Masterpiece line is currently in to ever get to another continuity.

4: Competition. I don't mean HasTak vs 3P, I mean Masterpiece vs retail figures. Siege, Earthrise, and Kingdom have given us some of the best possible renditions of classic characters for a reasonable price that even manage to rival Masterpiece in quality. Of course, Masterpiece will always be more articulate/complex, but for how much more expensive they are and how close the main lines are to that complexity and articulation, masterpiece doesn't really win over some characters in terms of availability and price.

5: Quality control. Now I'm not too caught up in the masterpiece ring to know much about the quality control of the latest releases, but if it is anything like SH Monsterarts, than there shouldn't be much, if any quality control problems for that kind of money when there are reasonably priced alternatives. I know quality control problems are inevitable, but when they charge around a hundred dollars for a single figure, there is a lot less tolerance for quality control issues. I'm the kind of guy who likes to fix things himself, so when I have a $20 dollar figure vs a $120 figure in need of repair due to, say, a paint-related QC error, I'm more likely to fix the $20 figure and feel justified if I can fix it and not totally wrecked if I can't than the $120 figure.

I know this kind of became long-winded but those are the reasons I don't buy masterpiece figures, or any other expensive, non-TF figures for that matter.

 

They actually can't get me interested in any way to buy current product. My memories ended with the Generation 1 products as that was my childhood & nothing since has or creates that sense of memorial relationship. A toy does not create an adult relationship with me. If I was 25 years or more younger & this was all I ever experienced, I'd feel different. Hasbro can't honestly obtain my collecting budget money. It goes fully to third party sellers, collectors & Takara Tomy now. They may get gift money from me on occasion. But impulse buying - nope.

 

Price.

I know exactly when I could no longer justify paying MP prices. At first the 'Real Cars' (Sideswipe et al) were too expensive but Kapow sold them for... £45 which is much more palatable so I stayed on.

But when Inferno came out for... I don't remember what it was but his price was the last straw and I was out.

 

QC reports really make me nervous (I'm unlucky enough with "cheaper" figures, let alone one that costs hundreds) however for me it's availability. If I bought - say - a new Skids Masterpiece, it would make me want more. So, I'd say, I want a Starscream or Prowl or Grimlock or Soundwave or Optimus Prime Masterpiece. Thing is, each one is very much a "one run and done" meaning that if you don't buy them on release, chances are you're not getting them without paying scalpers a huge markup (or settling for knockoffs). If I just wanted one or two favourite characters, that wouldn't be an issue, but if I wanted - say - the 84 Autobot lineup... I'm looking at major cash and - worse - a huge effort to track each one down (MIB).

Far easier for me and my FOMO to simply say "I don't buy Masterpiece figures" and ignore them all.

 

I liked the real car series. When they dropped that aspect, I was on my way out. The way the retail market dried up at the same time says I wasn't alone in that decision.

 

Hold up. Sunstreaker and Hound weren’t even close to three times the price of Prowl. They were closer to double the price. I don’t know where you’re buying MP’s from but if you’re paying $170 for Hound or SS you’re certainly getting ripped off. I think I got the Datsun for $55 each from HLJ when they came out. I think Smokescreen was a little more due to the retooling but I don’t remember. I think I paid $115 for SS and $125 for Hound. All from HLJ which tends to be on the middle ground as far as pricing. Anyone buying from Amazon JP probably got them even cheaper. It just drives me up the wall when people do this sort of wild exaggeration when it comes to prices. It always seems to happen when discussing MP’s.

 

They've gotten far too expensive, far too complicated, and Generations satisfies me enough for me to not want to buy anything else. Plus, in the case of Skids, I don't really like how it looks. I'm even selling most of my MP's now. I'm only keeping MP-10 and MP-11.

I think doing the cartoon designs is awesome, but like

I'm fine with Earthrise Sunstreaker, I don't need the MP.

 

I just don't care. It's not what I want to collect.

 

BBTS has been selling hound for 168.99 since his preorder, and crazy Tfsource wants 250. lol

 

At the beginning it was price for me - I didn't see the justification for why they were so much more expensive than mainline figures.

But now its basically 100% about the aesthetic. I have zero interest in the plain, hyper toon accurate look they have decided to go with. If they go back to a look that also shows some respect to the original toys than maybe I'll get some.

 

The price was already too high when I was younger, but I still managed to get both YOTH Prime and YOTG Soundwave for less than 100 each thanks to sales back in the old days.

Now? Lol. Even with a significantly higher budget, I’ve definitely been priced out. 100 dollars seems like a bargain for figures of those quality now. It certainly doesn’t help that I have zero attachment to Sunbow.

I also haven’t bought an official Transformer since like Combiner Wars/ late Thrilling 30. Nothing really grabbed my eye and some awful QC experiences with mainline figures put me out. Striker Noir revolutionized my standards.

 

Masterpiece figures are just simply too expensive for me, even though I have a few of them like Star Saber and Optimus, I cant get behind having to pay 400+ dollars on an action figure, when Generations especially right now have been making really good iterations of the G1 crew as well as many others, plus they're toys I can just grab and mess with whenever I can.

 

Okay, those are US stores and my point was there were cheaper options at the time of release. I used HLJ as an example since they are usually a lot cheaper than BBTS or TFSource. When you start comparing prices from a US store vs AJP or even HLJ it’s not a fair price comparison. Of course the US based store is going to be higher. It always is.

 

I'm listening

Lucky you, is it plausible that he didn't look on those sites?

Wild exaggeration?
55×3=165. 165<169.99 so 169.99>55×3.

 

It doesn’t matter if he looked at those sites or not. My point is, those figures WERE available for much cheaper than the prices you’re showing (once again) from a US seller. It’s widely known that BBTS and TFSource are priced higher than import shops. To try to equate the lower prices with the obvious higher prices from a US seller isn’t the same thing. Of course Hound is higher at BBTS. ALL of the Masterpiece figures are higher. I bought hound for $125 from HLJ which isn’t even the cheapest import option when you look at what some paid for him on Amazon JP. Probably closer to $110. It’a erroneous to say Hound was 3X the price of the Datsun bros when that’s just not true. Once again, I think I paid between $50-55 each for those figures (Takara Tomy versions, not the Hasbro version you used as an example) from HLJ. I think Smokescreen might have been a few dollars more but I don’t remember. It was still cheaper to buy and ship them from Japan than it was to buy from BBTS or TFSource. It always has been. You can also dispense with the “I’m listening” bullshit. You know what? I don’t know why I’m even arguing with a stranger on the internet about my experience with prices on toys and the facts of that experience. Have a good one dude.

 

That's still a $75 increase for the car bots. Still a lot.