I believe they can all have their wings manipulated into the downward position. I have not had time to really go through the 3d myself yet and I don't have the proto in hand yet. Once I have that, easy answer.

I am curious as both mention cost, possible to gain further insight on this? What is a reasonable price tag here? Where is that sweet spot for something that is at an impulse buy but would still be valid for such a piece.

Ultimately cost has to come down to covering the costs of manufacturing of course but interested to see what really is thought on where prices for 3p should be. With the recent thread of collecting being too expensive, and what seems to be a lot of support in that thread, is this even more of a sign on things to come within the fandom?

 

Hopefully, these will be available at tfcon Toronto in July

 

2019 maybe. These would already need to be molded and into the testing to be ready for the up and comming summer shows.

 

Please... for 'non-US', overseas fans...PLEASE don't make them convention exclusives!  
I know one can eventually find them online after the event, but I hate the associated stress...I need these figs in my collection! 

 

Damn, these looks really good.

 

Super interested in these!

 

That far out?


Well that makes my wallet happy at least.  

 

...hmmm; interesting question as there’s a difference between impulse buy, reasonable price, and what the market will bear, and an non-linear relationship determining the sweet spot between volume and profitability as a manufacturer...

...let’s start with what we know: at skiff’s $40 price point, crowds were rancorous over the prospect of a well-designed, well-manufacured tetrajet, and the only real critique was people wishing it was even more old-school-tetrajet to quench a thirty-five-year thirst...given the maas’ exemplary quality standards established with skiff, and presuming design lessons were learned regarding those wonky shoulder joints, that’s an impulse-buy price point; i’d be in for at least six without hesitation, possibly as many as thirteen or fourteen if slipstream were dropped into the mix alongside the rainmakers and welcoming committee...i posit that if their vehicle modes were truly faithful to the G1 tetrajet form, for a figure at skiff’s design and build quality, at $40 you’d sell them as fast as you could make them across multiple production waves until demand gradually tapered off to sustainable perennial levels...

...at the other end of the spectrum, we have masterpiece figures demonstrating what prices the market will bear, currently $80 - $160 with the occasional super-high-end exception cresting $200, but these are all best-in-class landmark interpretations at much larger sizes, which in takara’s case command an extra premium by virtue of being definitive...masterpieces are most definitely not impulse buys for most collectors; they’re carefully-planned and budgeted purchases which must earn their place in buyers’ collections, subject to personal discretion and favoritism among characters, with double-dipping of repaints limited to completionists and devoted fans of the original toys...i think the recent starscream reissue has demonstrated that a lot more masterpiece seekers can sell at $120 than at $160, but even then most buyers probably aren’t going to follow up with all the variants unless they’re flush with cash and space, both...

...somewhere inbetween those two extremes we have third-party figures stepping up the game in size and quality from mass-market impulse toys but not playing in the rarified space of masterpiece figures, and the market has accepted prices between $40 and $80 as fairly reasonable, sometimes pushing $100 for exceptional specimens...with the recent changes to maas’ seeker design, you’re probably playing toward the upper end of this space: at $60 you’d see a lot of people picking up three or even all six characters, but mold fatigue would probably set in before many folks went the full nine/thirteen/fourteen; at $80 you can expect healthy demand for at least one run of all six figures, but your coneheads might only see half the demand of the original trio; unfortunately $100 is an awkward price point unless you’re playing in the masterpiece space, unlikely to spur many multi-sales of repaints beyond the occasional exceptionally-devoted collector...

...so there you go: $40 impulse, $60-80 reasonable, and $120 what the market will bear...i’ll go one step further in my assessment and assert that what we’ve seen of this design doesn’t cut it for the $160-$220 super-premium masterpiece market; you’d need a lot more classic tetrajet in its form, along with premium materials, finishes, and detailing to pull that off...

 

Maketoys Galaxy Meteor is the perfect figure to look at with this question. He's about a head taller than this mold, but is also a variation of the Tetra Jet design that is MP scale and $100. He has great paint, and even better articulation, and has been an impulse buy for many at his current price, even if folks knew hardly anything about the character, and I assume that the upcoming Skywarp and Thundercracker repaints will be similar in price as well.

Since this mold is a little smaller, I would say $80-$90 would be a good "impulse buy" price, and could certainly sway me into buying multiples even though I realistically have no place to put them.

 

That does look pretty good.

 

I mostly agree with everything myrrh has said, I think those are all fair assessments.

I'm coming at this from a little different perspective as I've had some exposure to the "back end" of this stuff. I know FOR A FACT, that a less complex 3PTF in this size class, at a full-production-scale as a whole-sale cost south of $10 a figure. Let's be generous and say that these bad boys are 4 times that benchmark in terms of complexity/part-count/finish cost. I personally doubt it based on what we've seen, but let's go with that for simplicity. That puts us at $40 wholesale. Retailers have to mark these guys up. too, so it becomes a matter of how much markup is getting tagged on by whom, where.

I begrudge no one making a profit, but here's my math breakdown:

If they peg these guys at $100 retail (Probably a low-end likely-price-point) - there's $60 of profit to spread around.
---- At that price, in this saturated market with this niche-version-of an over-over-saturated set of characters, I might buy 1. They get $60 from me. Easy.

If they acknowledged that the market is over inflated and decide to be price competitive and offer these at $60 - there's now a thin $20 profit for everyone to split.
-----But at that price, I'm getting all 6, and I bet many others would too. $120 in their pocket. Double the profit for all involved.

If they got crafty and did some real clever price-pointing and marketing, sold singles at $60 each, but also offered 3 packs of Coneheads at $150 ($50/$10 per figure) and 6 Packs of grape-flavored troop builders at say $270 ($45/$5 per figure), then they'd be doing volume.
----I'd be forking over in profit $60 on the trinity, $30 on the B-Stringers and another $30-90 in troop builders.

Plus they'd get a fire-sale in good will from the fandom.

Costs go down and profits go up when you can scale. Risk calculation is trickier...but that's business.

So if they want to double or triple the money the can get from me (and who know how many fans like me), they're better off dealing in volume than pretending that this stuff is actual heirloom quality art work.

See also every "1-3 generations back 3rd Party premium figure getting dumped on the market at 1/4 price" example in the last year or so. They're ALREADY producing these guys at scale, because it's stupid to do otherwise. Horde and milk with false scarcity is just what this fandom is willing to accept. Which it shouldn't.

Drives me nuts. Which is why I mostly play in China, Mass-Market, and try to be on the production-end MAKING the money anywhere I can these days. The whole game is so rigged.
D/L

 

...while fourteen tetrajets are an easy impulse-buy at $40, i’ve been thinking all morning about what it would take to get me all-in at the higher price points, and it looks like destrongerlupus’ thoughts aren’t too far off my own...

...based on my experiences with MMC’s reformatted line, last year’s knight morpher fire sales, and other similar third-party offerings, here’s a bundle approach which could get me to pull the trigger on all the repaints, bearing in mind that quality standards must scale commensurately with each proposed price point to keep the value equation compelling...

• $50/60/80 each - Starscream, Thundercracker, Skywarp, Ramjet, Dirge, Thrust
• $75/90/120 pair - Sunstorm/Slipstream two-pack
• $100/120/160 triplets - Rainmaker three-pack, Welcoming Committee three-pack

...that’s basically buy-one-get-one-half-off for the repaint two-pack and buy-two-get-one-free for each of the repaint three-packs...at the higher proposed price points, it would be essential to spread the repaints across a broader span of time, as six tetrajets at $80 apiece are a pretty hard sell...

...you know what’s funny, though?..just three proper masterpiece tetrajets at $160 apiece are a much easier sell!..

 

Man, they look good, but sadly the size doesn't match what I want. Taller than Striker Manus (and by default, Rioter Despotron) is too big. Just can't see the Seekers being taller than Megatron.
A shame, cuz they look like great Cybertronian CHUG Seekers.

 

if these are the same size as the existing mp seekers i would buy a set of rainmakers

 

These are about a head shorter.

 

@myrrh and @destrongerlupus

Even if each was say 60$ - 80$, do you believe most fans would care to get 8+ of this same mold, when, each takes some space on the shelf (away from MP figures), it is not really g1 in alt mode ?

 

...no, i think the additional eight seekers are a much harder sell at the $60-80 price point without some strategically-discounted bundling to make it a compelling deal; conversely, the three core figures rendered as proper tetrajets would be an instant-buy from a lot more people, even at the highest masterpiece price point...

...well-done army-building tends to justify its own shelf space, even at the expense of other unique figures, but most folks would only consider stocking up on mass repaints (6-14 figures of the same mold) if they’re priced down at the army-builder impulse-buy level, and better-made renditions than hasbro/takara figures of the same size class: think titans return sweeps, not impossible toys tetrajet shellformers...

...speaking of cybertronian armybuilding, spence, how about a shockwave/spacebridge control room playset to go with the tetrajets?..

 

I think the Seekers and Coneheads should each be bundled in 3 packs for $180. Offer Acid Storm and Sunstreaker as convention exclusives for $80 each. You can also offer the figures individually at $80. I think those prices are more than fair for a nice 3P CHUG figure. I think if you sold the figures for more than $85, you would really have to knock it out of the park compared to the competition. I'd pay up to $110 if it came with really nice paint and accessories. I'd love to only spend $40 on the figure, but I would want to make sure that it looks nice.

 

Considering that C9 Quakeblast, a much larger figure, with absolute perfect paint job, die cast, strong joints, only cost 60$ ebay, and say 80$ retail at certain etailers, it's possible for 3rd party to achieve it.

 

$80.00 i might bite. Might
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