I wouldn't mind if they changed up the combination just a tad and gave Victory Saber arm extensions as well, like God Ginrai has. The one thing that's always bothered me about the design is that the arms become disproportionately short compared to the newly longified legs.
I considered getting the dai atlas set for a while but I ultimately skipped it. My Japanese shelf is getting pretty crowded now so if they didn’t make the cut.
Guess I misunderstood the point of HasLab. I thought it was projects focused toward collectors, not a will this sell figure but has exclusivity to it.
A larger sword with a chrome blade would be a neat stretch goal. Kind of like how the MP Exkaiser had a transforming sword that could be stored in the legs and then a larger show-accurate sword that couldn't transform or be stored in the figure.
It is pretty much a bit of both. Collector focused products that would not be made available at mass retail due to loss of investment.
I mean, it is aimed at collectors. The problem is that thing collectors want are not always market viable. If they want to deliver a product to collectors that they don't think they can sell at retail, they can use HasLab and sell it directly to the collectors and fans while limiting losses by only producing the amount ordered.
They are collector focused items, but they're also items the aren't smart financial investments for regular retail. Look at how many people complained that Commander Rodimus Prime was "just a Voyager". How many people do you think would be willing to pay Titan and up prices for Victory Leo? Do you think retailers would actually stock something like that on their shelves? Questions like these are part of the equation for why things are Haslab projects rather than regular retail.
Big Powered was good for any on the fence still. I know Dai Atlas had the flimsy connection deal going against him. I haven't had issue yet. As for size, eh, I watched Zone eventually, I've got the manga, it's kind of the epitome of JG1 not caring about sizes anymore. Come on, Trypticon the size of combiners or vice versa? Really? Old trilogy Leader size is fine for me. IDW putting him around that size is fine anyway. He's much larger than Prime using the new trilogy toys and that's far more than enough for me. Almost Siege Jetfire too big for those who want a smaller version. Having Top Spin and Twin Twist for that crazy manga combo helps too ;-)
Hasbro doesn't do MPs, that's Takara's business. So it doesn't matter what his MP cost. It's a HasLab thing because Hasbro has it's current retail price points and none of them will likely fit what they want to do with Saber. It's most likely too spendy for Commander but too "small" for Titan, even with Leo. And that's before you account for the risk they may see in trying to market a JG1 figure at retail, at a premier price point. If they could deliver Saber at retail, they'd do it. They must not think they can, based on sales of Selects and other numbers we don't have access to that tells them it'd be too risky to mass produce at retail.
Who is asking for a Victory Saber outside of Japan? Don't get me wrong, he's one of my favorite characters and the whole dad vibe he gave, but the show was never released in the US. Hasbro also has pretty much avoided the character altogether so I understand Takara wanting to doing a Victory Saber, just odd that Hasbro wants to and with no media to go with it.
This is exactly why it is a HasLab project. Hasbro has probably seen interest for the character online and are doing him as a limited run product. If not enough people back the project no one gets Star Saber, Hasbro doesn't lose any money other than what it spent making the prototype, and Hasbro won't try to bring Japanese exclusive characters to the western market anymore. If enough people back the project Hasbro makes a profit off of a niche character and learns they can make money bringing JG1 to the west. There are no downsides for Hasbro doing Star Saber as a HasLab project.
Have you been following the last 140 pages of this thread? Tons of people do. The question is would enough want it to make it viable? That's why it's a HasLab. They likely know the Japanese market will sell well but they need more than that overall. We don't know if there'll be no media. We just know there isn't media *now.* HasLab is a great option because even if Takara is involved (or is the impetus behind it) they don't have the infrastructure in place to run this kind of campaign. With Unicron, Hasbro was able to run a campaign that despite being primarily via a US company was able to draw in consumers from other parts of the world. So now they're going to leverage that system to try and make Star Saber happen. Because both they and Takara may want to...but neither market is certain if it can sell enough to make the project viable. So what better way to ensure it IS than by crunching the numbers up front and seeing if you can hit your target before going to work on it? HasLab can account for markets outside the US, which means Japanese buyers (who could be the primary target) could fund a good portion of this and leave US/Europe to pick up the slack. After watching Galactus, I'm pretty sure Saber won't have a problem getting made. People thought Galactus was doomed and then in the last 24 hours they've gotten over 2k backers to not only make goal, but get half way to the *second* stretch. Yup. This is basically HasTak going "Okay, let's see what the market for JG1 looks like." Because if Saber can't get enough support, what luck would anybody else have? I dunno if they'll go that far, but it'll certain pump the breaks on any JG1 guys in the super accurate/scaled style we've become accustomed to in WfC. That's why tomorrow will likely be primarily about HasLab with little discussion of Kingdom/Studio. This is a big project, and they want it to succeed. And since he's not an obvious monster like Unicron part of the hard sell is going to showing why this figure isn't something they could just stick at retail...regardless of price.
Are other stores doing pre orders for Galactus like with Unicron? If so, when do their pre order numbers get added?
I mean, if you don't put risky projects into HasLab, what projects would you use? That's the whole point of HasLab. It's designed for projects that are high risk because they are either (a) too pricey for regular retail, (b) too niche for regular retail or (c) both (a) and (b). Star Saber fits that. Obviously Hasbro could release Star Saber in any price point (Core to Titan) but it looks like they want to do something special that wouldn't fit into those classes. He's also a niche character and there might be fear he'd fail at mass retail. Are we seriously complaining that Hasbro wants to put something special out in the marketplace? Have we come to that point our fandom? Sheesh.
Third-party seller numbers usually get added towards the end. Just like with Pulse, people may be adding or cancelling orders as time goes on, so it's more helpful for everyone to get one fairly solid number per retailer.
