Yeah, I didn’t mind the bump in price after I started getting my hands on the Siege figures. I could feel the extra few dollars worth in my hands. The price increase seemed justfied.

 

And we're not even going into Macross Bandai territory (sorry Arcadia.... ) .

 

Honestly...those Macross figures are starting to look more and more like a bargain these days compared to official MPs and the like...provided you can find them at regular retail prices...haha...

 

It will effect the kid purchases as well. Just like collectors, there is a point where parents/gift-givers will say 'Nope, not worth the price'. Little Johnny may love Bumblebee but will be told 'too expensive'. Things that might have been a random toy buy will turn into a Birthday or Christmas gift, when people do spend more. I know when I was a kid, (using today's line as the example) anything Voyager priced and higher would be Birthday/Christmas toys. Even Deluxe priced items would likely be 'Got good grades' gifts. Core class would be the 'here have a toy' type of gifts that would happen throughout the year' These were based on the costs. So if Deluxe figures were getting to near Voyager prices, well hope Santa is generous.

Little kids with their own spending money will likely feel the effect. I've been in the aisle and overheard parents telling their kids that they have $___ to spend and then telling the kid that they can't buy that item because it is over the amount they have. So the choices the kid has is to either not get a toy today and wait until they get more $$ (when they might had 2 toys depending on the price. Today and then the next time) or, most likely, they will get some cheaper toy since many kids just want A toy today.

 

I feel for them too big buddy ! I'm also a kid at heart   and Hb will have to bear the consequences when they price their products too high or scrimp on the materials to keep their bottom line. Market forces will eventually be the deciding factor. but MP-44 broke the ceiling for TFs. Unlike the other franchises like Macross (Arcadia and Bandai 1/60 and DX chogokins), those are the Big Boys market. MP was kind off straddling in between and didn't you notice? Recent Siege/ER and even SS are looking very much like mini MPs at, well initially "consumer friendly" price range but now..... 

 

Your comment has been put in the _pipeline_ for consideration.  

 

Same here. I was going through my stuff and I have at least 5 versions of every mainline character. Can easily walk away and not suffer.

 

They still have to cut steel molds, which we're told cost eleventy Brazillian dollars. It may not be design but they do pay for 3D scanning which is not free. We also don't know that 3P companies don't have investors to please. If KOs were free to make, everybody would make their own.

This is a good perspective that adult collectors sometimes miss. Kids don't have credit cards, so the choices they face and make are different.

 

There's a sale on retro Star Wars games going on on GOG right now. All of those games together would provide hours of fun and at a fraction of the cost.

Look, I love Transformers and I love buying figures, I JUST got the Botopolis Rescue Mission not that long ago but at the rate Hasbro keeps raising prices, I'm gonna have to peace out and that's gonna be a sad day. I remember the days when Deluxe class figures were $12.

Oh yeah, screw NFTs. They're a scam and run roughshod over the environment. NOT IN FAVOR.

 

They will have to find a way to manfucture a good product cheaper, here on latin america we pay for deluxes 30 bucks, voyaguer 50 we cant tolerate more price increase and the worst part is quality going down, they have to find a way to manufacture in a cheaper way find a type of material that is resistant, durable and cheap. They have to do it or they adapt and began researching new ways or the toy industry would not last much longer true leader class toys are already 100 bucks, just think about it some people just pay 450 bucks for mp 44 , with the actual economy they have to evolve find better materials and faster and cheaper ways of constructing them, another thing they could do is going the gundam way and skip the assembly part in collectors pieces the majority that buy those are adults i wouldnt mind assembling my own prime, but yet been durable

 

As a parent and having watched a few other parents. Hasbro is really screwing themselves here.

My oldest will always ask for something around 30 bucks and we always say no. But under 15$ we typically are ok with it. This happens on a weekly basis.

Right now he is into carebears. The 14 inch plushes. They are 14 bucks. He has 5 of them already bexsuse of the price point. Yes I know it's a stuffed animal vs something that has a lot of parts to it.

If deluxes where 9.99 I'd be buying doubles all the time. One for me and one for him.. but since they are 20 I can't do that.

20 is my limit really. I've already limited my marvel legends. I skip a lot of them. Last full wave I actually bought was the house of x wave. I still don't have a wolverine though but it's not pressing.

If they shot up to 30 bucks I wouldn't collect the line outside of maybe 12 characters I really enjoy.

I'm already not buying beast wars and I won't be buying any SG toys at all.

I constantly see parents selling their kids for toys that are 12 and under price wise.

After the whole Amazon bullshit with those 3 sets I'm not paying above retail for new toys. I'll wait.

I'm still buying the titans because I feel those are worth it.

The only reason the price doesn't hurt as much is because ove cut out 75% of the toys they are making now. Hasbro has been getting a little too greedy for my tastes of late.

 

It often seems like they're in a spiral/loop:

1. Sales volume is down.
2. Jack up prices to compensate.
3. Go to 1.

My dad makes the same observation about public transit. Lots of people took the bus to work back in the 70s, but ridership had its ups and downs. Transit companies responded to reduced ridership by making it more inconvenient. Lo and behold, the more inconvenient it got, the further ridership fell. 40 years later I'm like "buses used to go the mall? and more than once per day? and cost less than driving yourself?"

Sometimes these highly paid deciders are real one-trick ponies. Raise prices! Reduce quality! Try raising prices again! Sometimes it's like how doctors used to prescribe leeches for every illness. Broke your distribution arm? Try some price hike leeches!

I strongly believe lousy retail distribution is the root problem. They're letting Walmart and Target limit their sales. Jacking prices is not going to fix that. A less hostile attitude towards small wholesale customers might (referring us to Embarrassment Earth is as hostile as telling us to fuck off). Hasbro Pulse was a (small) step in the right direction (reducing reliance on Walmart and taking a few preorders) but 10+ years too late. Had they the foresight to build that up _before_ COVID and Walmart had them in an unbreakable chokehold, we wouldn't be having any of these discussions. But they didn't, so here we are, trying rationalize paying $25 for a deluxe if Walmart deigns to stock any next quarter.

 

I recall reading about how Taco Bell was in a serious decline in I want to say the 90s (or maybe the 80s?). Anyway, they'd been doing all the stuff you're complaining about here and were still suffering. Eventually, they hired a consultant to help figure out what to do and one of the first things the consultant suggested was lower your prices dummies. You'll attract more customers and be seen as a desirable option again. So they did that, and lo and behold they bounced back and then we got the Taco Bell dog ads and all that.

 

This is Swindle.

 

FWIW specific to Japanese Macross toys, production remained in China where the costs to produce went up(however the quality gradually went up too). So while we noticed it more gradually with Macross(mainly from Yamato to Arcadia as Arcadia is a smaller company, lower production/economies of scale, et al) price increases for Transformers are more noticeable because they happened more frequently and most importantly...in some aspects the quality went down(whereas quality for Macross toys has gone up...some nagging issues here and there but nothing the likes of MP-47 Hound). Meanwhile with Transformers, Hasbro started migrating production from China to Vietnam more than 10 years ago for some mainlines and some MP figures....however, costs for MPs went up substantially in the last 5 years and we get stuff like MP-47 Hound where it ends up with people struggling to justify its price. It’s a clear of example of Takara trying to cheapen production cost(allegedly tooled in China then sent to Vietnam depending on whichever rumor mill you find yourself reading) while charging more.

We did get a heads up from Goldner that costs would be cut post-SIEGE and while I noticed it in Earthrise I DEFINITELY felt it in Kingdom. No issue with most of the designs themselves but moreso the construction and the more obvious areas where you can tell the budget got cut. Better than POTP yet the budget cut affects can be seen which makes them similar.

 

Project Jam. $70 for a Deluxe class.
*mic drop*

 

Now compare incomes in 1984 to incomes today.

 

Kingdom UM. The cost cuts were so atrocious  His right shoulder and the sides of his "boots". There should have been Autobot sigils stamped on (there's even the molded shape) yet he was released without it. Were the symbols so expensive?

 

That’s the real issue IMO. Wages have been seriously stagnating in this country for decades. Yeah we have inflation and the cost of living going up but your wages should keep up with those factors but they haven’t. You can call Hasbro greedy all you want but they literally don’t have the power to reverse reality. Average American workers have steadily lost their spending power.

I mean, back in the day someone with a very modest income could buy a home.

 

Median income 1984: $26,430, or $67,379.20 today.

Median income 2020: $78,500