That would be suicide for haslab. they wont do it 100% guaranteed. because no one would ever back a haslab project again because everyone would think a cheaper version will just come out later.

 

The question isn't how they'd do it...it's if they can do it. Are there enough ways to scale back the prototype to produce a retail friendly version without compromising too much.

For example: Would people spend $150+ on a Unicron that wasn't a perfect sphere? And if they keep him a perfect sphere, can they do so without having a ton of compromising panel/wings in bot mode (think Armada Unicron).

 

If it fails, I am not really sure an explanation would be necessary just as if it succeeds an explanation for that wouldnt be necessary either.

I used to do this as a teenager to random phone numbers from the phone book, lol.

 

Wait, does that include BBTS in the 4600?

It's very confusing, as there's no way that BBTS, Chosen Prime, Robot Kingdom, etc, could carry much debt load, or enough to really get this across the line, without some negotiation with Pulse. In which case they're probably in the count. If they're not in the count, then they aren't covering very much of the remaining 3400. There's no way. This is too expensive for them to carry the debt of more than a 100 or so of these guys. Business loans, business credit, etc, are a thing, but this is a long term debt carry by companies that aren't that big. And with a recession looming, cash and credit lines will get tight.

Either way, 4600 isn't a terrible place to be sitting. There's still time left to make it with the usual last minute pledges. It may be close though. We may find out if 8000 is a hard and fast limit or if they'd still go ahead with a few less.

 

I would assume that's part of the reason they're taking the $155 deposit and charging $775 instead of $575. They're going to make sure people who order are serious about it. And if you cancel you're going to take a hit...and the people who don't cancel will make up the difference.

The additional cost will likely also go towards logistics of storing/shipping that many massive units.

 

So I made a dumb video about Unicron, and what I can only assume their pitch meeting was like.

 

no... BBTS is not an affiliate ... you can tell by how its marked up by 175$ over what hasbro and their affiliates are selling it for... their affiliates would be selling it for close to the same price as hasbropulse.

 

For people waiting for last minute to order, keep in mind that there could be too much load on the website in last few minutes.

Fair disclosure : I am not going to order, because I can't afford it.

 

As of right now we have to assume there are 3100 orders through Hasbro Pulse and 1500 through international Hasbro affiliated retailers. No orders through BBTS, TFsource, etc. are currently counted. You can take some people in this thread at face value who have contributed numbers claiming they are from the likes of BBTS, TFsource, etc. but I think it's safer to assume we are currently at 4600 not including those retailers.

 

Do we have any idea of what the production runs of the other Titan figures were? Unicron they want 8,000. The more you make, the less they need to charge. If they made 30,000, they could charge way less and still make their profit. It seems the main thing holding this back is the price. $600+ after taxes is just too much for most people. I guarantee if it was $200, it would have been funded weeks ago.

Just looking at the figure, it really doesn't seem that complicated. A bunch of panels seems to be where the complexity is. Even those seems pretty simple. Panels fold on themselves. The rest of him is pretty simple. Maybe the planet teeth are complicated but the auto-mouth could probably be taken out. Let fans pose those themselves.

 

Dude, I'd be in on a Titan sized $200-300 retail simplified Unicron. Hell, I've already decided to pick up a Armada toon colored re-issue Unicron and those guys are like $125. I'd pay twice that for a better version (this guy is purely gonna be displayed in planet mode so bot mode doesn't exactly matter to me but a Titan Unicron would be for both modes).

 

seriously, you are trying to think way too hard about this. lets use bbts for example. why would bbts submit any orders before they have to? wouldnt it be easier to call up hasbro on the final day and submit their total order all at once rather than having to submit multiple orders and then submit updated totals as people cancel and all that? in that instance why would a toy store submit an order prematurely? also in this instance hasbro affiliates means groups that are directly partnered with hasbro and are selling it for hasbro in areas where hasbro isnt with little to no markup. stores like bbts that arent directly partnered with hasbro took it upon themselves to make the preorders available, they have to actually but the figures for their retail cost (or close) from hasbro, hence the markup, they still need to turn a profit themselves

 

...Why is this forum the way it is?

If you made 30k Unicrons you have to pay for the resources to produce that. Also, if you produced 30k Unicrons so you could sell it at X price, you'd have to sell 30k Unicrons to make that price work. And now that includes the cost of the additional 22k Unicrons you've made.

Why do people assume the 8k number was pulled out of thin air? They've been producing toys for decades, which means knowing the relative ROI for producing a figure. They've been working on this for what, two years?, before listing it on HasLab. That means they've figured out how many units they need to sell to make this project worth taking on any further.

I...I just can't.

And since these are e-tailers, I'm sure they already have lines of communication available with Hasbro that Joe Q Sixgun doesn't.

So it's not like the window will close and Hasbro will say "It failed!" and then BBTS comes in too late. It's more likely Hasbro knows *exactly* who is taking pre-orders independently and will work with them once the window closes.

Because if they've got their final official number. It's easy for them to field all of the numbers from etailers, then go "We don't have enough." and those etailers can then go about the business of cancelling/refunding deposits.

 

How does the BBTS reselling it lead to the conclusion that the orders they’ve taken have already been placed to Pulse? There is absolutely zero connection between those two dynamics.

 

Brilliant  

Also, well played on the sideburns.

 

Can't wait for the Transformers fan community to find anyone but themselves to blame if this project fails.

It's like, there's absolutely nothing wrong with a $575 Unicron toy failing to draw enough interest to be worth it. We knew when HasLab launched this was likely the first big TF project that'd come from it.

Part of me wonders if all of the frustration is the TF collector community slowly starting to realize we aren't as big or as influential as something like Star Wars and really struggling to accept it.

 

The “blame” (to the extent there is such a thing here) lies solely with Hasbro. Certainly not the fans. Just as Hasbro should be patted on the back if it ultimately pulls through.

I don’t think anyone really cares about Star Wars or the size of the community do they? I don’t think many people are seriously taking personal validation from the number of other people who enjoy a very niche hobby.

 

Picture should read C is for collectors Dreams crumbling!

 

If they BOUGHT it from Hasbro, then they probably bought it the same way everyone else did. Through backing.