If its not broke then why fix it  

 

After year's of people saying this and XTB continuing to have issues out the wazoo, yet somehow people still supporting them, they'll be fine. I've accepted that people will support XTB no matter how shit they become. They can start selling these figures broken in the box and people will still support them and say “im sure it was just another factory”.

 

My understanding (and I'm open to being wrong) is that Locke was basically made to very... flexible standards. Parts that didn't fit, parts that fell off, tight joints, loose joints, dodgy paint, missing fixings... I can only imagine that some of those lead to breakages. It wasn't really a figure I followed but I heard little bits here and there.

From what I can tell, "they" (XTB/KFC/Keith himself/not sure) found a series of almost systemic QA issues with the factory they were using. A recall was rumoured though never issued, many spare parts were sent out, and the factory has been blacklisted.

 

They Have used the "it wasn't our factory" excuse multiple times for many years now. Its their own factory, they just pretend it wasn't them to try and hold onto whatever customers they can by making shit up.

I mean ffs, they recently claimed that somehow a factory was pumping out g2 stunticons and locke and selling them to retailers for months without them knowing about it somehow. They then made up a story about how they would be getting lawyers and whatnot to go after them. Its a mystery how anyone takes them seriously at this point.

 

Thanks for explaining this. I kept hearing about this but never understood what it was about. That's quite worrying though!

Yes, now that you've explained, and if it's been like that for a long time, then I don't really understand why people keep buying from them. But if you think about it, people will keep defending TT when they released overpriced figures, with very bad QC, many issues and never providing any kind of customer service if you are out of Japan... So, that is loyalty to the max! Knowing all this, I really doubt buying anything from them, and that's sad as I had high expectations for this Ginrai. Now if it ever comes out, maybe QC will be great but I will definitely wait for reviews before trying my luck with it. IF it ever comes out!

 

I see the guys briefed you. Indeed XTB has been conducting itself with a...lets say shady conduct. Which is quite unfortunate given that they have a less than stellar history in past but always set up high expectations, which proceed more often than not to almost reach.

@octobotimus is probably right in no matter what they do, they will be supported.

 

Same thing seems to happen with this Ginrai. They advertised it as made with great quality materials as far as I can remember. The thing is if they don't deliver, we'll be disappointed. And I really don't want to be disappointed with Ginrai.

 

When I saw the render I was almost instantly sold, because this looks like what I always wanted from a Power Master Optimus. a rendition of my old toy. Then I read the price, I pissed my self from laughter at the audacity and that was it. Takara truly put some air into the heads of these 3p directors (not the least on their own as well ofc).

 

I have to be honest, these renders made me sold instantly because it looks like Ginrai in the cartoon with good articulation. FH is a bit too stylised although I really fancy him and TT's one is out of the league. And the price didn't surprise me as I didn't know the company and as prenium materials was advertised. I know I would be ready to pay quite a lot to have a perfect Ginrai.

 

If they manage to do this and assuming its able to stay in one piece after mutliple transformations...Most people believe that transforming a figure twice means its ok. Unfortunately its not....

 

I perfectly agree. All figures should be made like FH's figures or Transform Element TE-01 or like MP-44 minus the design flaws.

 

  Being a XTB fan, they are making me concerned with overengineering and going too toon (Galvatron's face sculpt looks terrible!). We'll see what happens.  

 

We got new pics in march so I'd say the project is alive

 

Yes.

 

It's not loyalty exactly, but that they do produce some lovely G1 accurate MP figures in frankly a market without much competition.

Look at their Junkions, Motormaster, Cosmos, Scourge, Cyclonus, Quintesson, Seaspray, Victory Leo, Skids plus others I don't have.
When they get their shit together they are more than capable of giving us some great figures.

Kup is the first real dud I have ever got from them, their Stunticons did have some tolerance issues, (Dragstrip mainly).

Of course everyone's experience will vary.

 

It's true that people may also have bad luck so it's always best to experience it yourself and see what you think. But this hobby is expensive so I mainly rely on reviewers and people here who get the figure to decide whether to get a figure or not.

 

Cyclonus does have its share of problems, albeit not catastrophic ones. Even the promo pictures in altmode show one side not tabbed in and they even used the same pictures to advertise the new coloured version (albeit digibashed).....

Their Stunticons and especially MMs trailer barring Breakdown in a large % do show problems and I am talking breakages not tollerance. I have 3 sets of the f@@@s on my hands (not mine) and I am trying to source parts since the release, demand is so high on replacements that Miss Zu has so far politely asked me to wait a bit for the factory to make new ones....

For the rest I agree, though the Quintesson debacle (and MMs trailer are another matter entirely, not QC related).

They ARE capable of constructing great figures, majority of my collection is composed of them, but the largest % of them are display only pieces. Either they are too overcomplicated for their own good or there are serious issues that have not been addressed. The sad fact is that they keep repeating the cycle. Release a great figure and then back at making things shitty again.

 

That worries me. Because if their Ginrai looks good but is not of great quality like they advertised then in my opinion, there is no use getting it... They might never release it any way though

 

ΜΥ ΜΟ, not with XTB but in general, has been: Ignore POs, read reviews, watch videos, reach decision. Its an unfortunate fact that the feeding frenzy we are experiencing lately in our hobby has us pretty much unable to lie back and do this or we miss stuff. In my case I dont care. I prefer to miss something than regret ever buying it. But on the flip-side, XTBs stuff are getting reissued all the time (sometimes they do iron-out problems, but not always) and rarely are they sold out completely.

 

That's good to know. I think I will be able to resist buying the first batch because that's really a character I don't want to be disappointed with.