No way in hell I believe they went from not being able to break the 8000 minimum to selling over 22,000 a month later. Why hide the numbers with the 8000+ BS?

Have they sold 22,000 of ANY transformer? Maybe something that was reissued multiple times like G1 Prime.

 

In the end they ended up with just under 9,000 barges backed, so I don’t think there will be much difference there, third party vendors or not.

 

I checked the source code for the Sail Barge page and the crowdfundind bar progress has the value 176.2 that is consistent with the 176% reported. In the Unicron page that value is 141.025 that is half of the 282% reported. I strongly suspect somewhere in the code there is a multiplication by 2 that shouldn't be there.

 

That's only part of it.
- Any recessionary downturn will make luxury goods a harder sell.
- Any competing product (3P Unicron), especially one that is better, or cheaper, or both, could bottom out the aftermarket for this version.
- $500+ collectibles already have a hard time selling, due to the psychological $500 barrier

Members here keep comparing Unicron to the Barge, but there are other big-ticket items like Super7 Snake Mountain. For S7SN, there are people who are losing money on it, some are lucky to break even, and those trying to profit keep watching their eBay auctions relist over and over again. To go one further, both the Barge and Snake Mountain were largely seen as flawless pieces, while Unicron has flaws that kept many of us from backing.

We shall see what happens in 2021/2022.

Anyway, to the single-buyer collectors: I honestly hope you enjoy your Unicron.  

 

They were over $1,100 when they showed up on collectors door steps.

When I last checked a week or so ago, they were down to $800-900 range WITH shipping still included, which I can tell you from experience, that shipping is about $100-110 depending where its going. Now, take off fees.

Sure, they are above the $550 but when you factor in all costs but not by much and there are fewer of these around too.

 

Or they could wait for the Haslab version to be produced and shipped, and then show their KO Super OS version that weighs 50 lb, with a laughing expression at the puny Haslab one, just for fun of course  

I really do wonder what the life of those collectors must be with that kind of shelf / toy display space...

 

I have argued throughout this thread that there isn’t a huge difference in the adult SW and TF collector market. Conversely, there is a huge gap between those adult collector sizes and the MOTU adult collector market, which is minuscule by comparison. There just aren’t enough potential customers for second hand Snake Mountains who didn’t buy it when available.

The Barge’s second hand market is more comparable to Unicron’s likely market than a MOTU toy.

 

No. That's ridiculous. Hasbro could just say the orders fell through. Or the tooling broke before they could make that many. Or whatever.

Anyway that's not how taxes and financials work.

OK so if I order five to resell at a profit then what would you call it?

 

Was that Snake Mountain really $600? I look at that and think (even as someone who grew up with MOTU) “who the fuck would pay $600 for that?”

And then, in the same breath I realize that a lot of people probably look at Unicron the same way.

 

I'd guess that deluxes sell in the hundreds of thousands.

 

Yeah that's not how anything works. They'd get caught by the IRS.

There is no fudge here. A fudge would be, you know, deeply illegal. You think someone hasn't tried the old trick of reporting (namely to investors and the board) they sold a lot more quantities of an item than they actually did, and then illicitly stashed their huge excess in a warehouse somewhere? Or even some damn storage rental unit? Every couple of years some mid-sized firm tries it. And every couple of years, they get caught and the people responsible go to jail. It's the oldest trick in the book. And also a felony - Fraud. There is no reason to believe it happened here.

Point is, this sold well about 8000, period. How well above? We don't quite know yet. But considerably well above. That's a very good thing for the line.

 

I stand by timing is everything, but you also forgot an important aspect when adding in S7SM.....as much as I love He-Man, he's more niche than the worldwide appeal/support of both SW and TF, both of those have been consistent for the last 35yrs with more than just a what 10yr collector's supported toy line.

 

But there is a difference between what the seller ultimately profits and what the after market value is which is solely the price consumers are willing to pay.

 

$500 is A LOT of money and pretty close to my personal barrier, which is actually $450. I spent $450 on a complete Grand Maximus back in 2001. That figure is my holy grail so I can’t bring myself to spend more than that on something I will enjoy less than the holy grail I already possess. I’m fine with Amazon Unicron being my Unicron.

 

11,282 (8000 x 1.41025) is pretty close to my prediction of 10,700  

 

and then their financial records would have to show x amount of refunds. again, money doesn't come out of thin air, thats not how finances work. hasbro cant just say publicly that they sold that many units without having both financial and inventory records to back it up

exactly!

 

COMPUTE QUICKLY!

 

Speculation

 

I wonder if this thing will pass the drop test?

 

Well the franchise has changed in the past few years. "Evergreen" lead the way. The "aligned continuity" of prime was the rough draft. Cyberverse / WFC are the direct and ongoing implementation of it.

There really isn't a "G1" anymore besides literal 1980s toys, the 1980s cartoon and direct continuation of 1980s stories. Instead the themes, characters, general designs, motivations and a broad story points have been lifted, reprocessed and just turned into "Transformers". Before RID 2000, there was no other Optimus Prime other than G1 Optimus Prime. With that, the Unicron Trilogy, Animated, the movies and Prime, there suddenly became MANY Optimus Primes.

Now there is basically one Optimus Prime again. And he's a red truck. And his Autobots are Bumblebee, Winblade, Hot Rod, Prowl, Wheeljack and Grimlock. ANd on the other side we have Megatron who transforms into a silver tank and the Decepticons. That's "Transformers".

There are different story continuities for sure - no mistaking Cyberverse Prime for WFC Prime, but they are all echoing the same raw conceptual character.

To offer an analog, Marvel has Spider-Man. They have MCU Spider-Man and churn out a new animated series Spider-Man every few years. They have comic book Spider-Man. They're all different continuities. Some of them are even different ages. But the core is the raw conceptual character "Spider-Man". And Peter Parker Spider-Man now always has a pal in Miles Morales Spider-Man, and sometimes now Spider-Gwen.

Getting back to Transformers, you know who really paved the way for this in the modern sense? IDW. They broke up most of the "team pairings" that went back to the G1 1984/1985/1986 divisions. They treated ALL CHARACTERs as relevant. You had Hot Rod hanging out with Megatron. You had Beast Wars characters like Ratbat interact with G1 characters. You had Beast Machines Tankor with Skybite and Jazz.

I empathize with the desire to go in a new direction. I hope that after WFC Part 3 Hasbro tries to do something really new and even weird with the line (and not just do Beast Wars reimagined), like revisiting something akin to the old Transtech concept. But the division between "G1" and "not-G1" is pretty obsolete at this point.