And Defensor. Still need a good Defensor.

 

I’m all the way in for this blocky SOB.

 

at last. Put me down for 3.

 

I feel like a king poseidon is imminent now!

 

I said if Zeta made it, I'll buy. I'll bite the bullet and gladly get this.

 

Man, I am happy for the people who wanted this. It has been one of the most requested combiners and one of the most ignored. Good Luck. I'm gonna get him also.

 

Great! A combiner I won't spend money on!

Awesome for all of you who wanted a Raiden. My wallet will be happy

(Knowing me i'll buy it if it looks cool....ugh)

 

HELL YES, I neeeeeeeeed this. Raiden is going to be AMAZING~
They should be able to do a really good job without parts-forming too, since Shouki is basically designed to be a short, fat little guy who forms the waist anyway. Raiden is practically designed to combine without cheating as it is.

Interesting that it's under their "Zeta V" line, whatever that is. I thought it was going to be a movie line but I guess not. Maybe it's something like "variable" or "variety" or "variance" or "VERY FUCKING COOL GIMME".
I think it's the last one.

Speculation time:
Yes, it sucks they're not doing Defensor first (for as much as I love Raiden, I think I would have preferred Defensor first) but I have a theory as to why they didn't.

Consider this: nobody has done a Raiden and he's a somewhat niche combiner. Predaking isn't a niche combiner. So they're going after two audiences at once.
But why not do Defensor? Surely someone else would do him in the meantime and beat them to the punch, like with Menasor, right?
Maybe not.

Consider the competition:

• FansToys, working on two combiners, none of whom are out yet in any form, and with several other non-combiner figures in the works. They're very busy. They tried to stick it to Zeta and DX9/XTB with their combiner reveals but they're lagging behind so they're really not competing much until they've actually shipped their products.
• X-Transbots, working on only Menasor but with a plethora of non-combiner releases following it, and their Menasor isn't finished yet.
• DX9, whom a lot of people have written off because of two main factors: QC issues with Breakdown, and direct competition with FansToys as their individual Stunticons are in the same scale, whereas XTB's aren't, so even though all three Menasors are directly competing, only two of the three Stunticons are in the exact same niche market. It's likely that DX9 will come last in the Menasor race in regards to sales because of these factors, and they might consider following immediately with another combiner to be too risky. Either way, I don't think other companies are looking at them as much competition at the moment.

This means that if Zeta wants to do a Defensor after their Raiden and Predaking, they should theoretically be able to get it to market at the same time as (if not quicker than) their competitors.
However, if their Raiden and Predaking both turn out well, they'll have a lot more people interested in their combiners over the competition.
Keep in mind, Predaking appears to be ditching the parts-forming, and Raiden is pretty much guaranteed to do so too.
Assuming this is the case, and assuming Zeta succeeds with BOTH of these combiners, they've now cornered the market: they've then proven that they can make reasonably affordable Masterpiece-scale combiners both with and without parts-forming, and both for the more mainstream characters and the niche characters.

Throw in their movie Bumblebee too, and if that is a success (which it looks like it will be), you have what appears to be a fairly simple, fun and good-looking movie figure.
Now you've got the G1 fans enticed because you've proven you can do good western AND Japanese G1 designs, and you've got the movie fans happy with your movie product too.
At that point, Zeta would essentially be able to do whatever they wanted.
Assuming all these projects turn out well, they could come out swinging with a Defensor in a year or two from now and probably corner the market on a Masterpiece-scale Defensor.

So, my theory, in short, is that Zeta's choice to do Raiden before the undoubtedly more popular Defensor is likely a careful business decision to corner the market on a niche product whilst using their Predaking to continue pandering to the "normie" G1 fans, ultimately allowing them to reign supreme (for want of a better term) as THE company for giant combiner toys.

If I'm on the right track with this line of thought, I think Zeta truly is going to be one of the best third-party companies in the future.
As of right now, I'm just super-excited to see them making more stuff, and it seems that they are still continuing to improve with each and every figure they make.
That, to me, is much more exciting than watching FansToys churn out the same overcomplicated, half-assed shite time and time again.

I mean, they are trains. What did you want them to look like? Pyramids?

I've been collecting for almost 20 years.  

Any chance you know when they'll start releasing them? I'll be pre-ordering the moment these things go up. I'm not one for pre-orders but, you know... RAIDEN.

By the way, if it's possible, I have a suggestion to pass onto Zeta: name all the individual bots after Thomas the Tank Engine characters.  

See, see, I gave this some thought already (totally not obsessed, by the way):
Shouki - Thomas
Getsuei - Edward
Kaen - James
Seizan - Toby
Suiken - Percy
Yukikaze - Henry

They've already done Devastator under ToyWorld (Constructor). That being said, I'd be down for them having another go at it.

I think it's likely ToyWorld will make a Diaclone colours version though, as they've made both yellow and orange versions of Constructor, so now they just need to mix and match them to make a Diaclone version.

Don't come to New Zealand then - our public transport doesn't know what "arrive on time" means.  

They've already said it's likely their prices will go up to something like the $80-$90 mark. Improvements would come along then too. Personally, I'm okay with that.

As for their previous figures, it's likely they did get some of the moulds from ToyWorld - they already have the first three Combaticons and first two Aerialbots teased under ToyWorld, with two of the five already being in colour, if I remember correctly.
Then for Slingshot and Skydive, they're just retools, so there aren't as many new parts being made, mainly just the jet parts (probably hence the extra $5 or so they added to the original $60 price tag).
At that point, only Swindle (maybe), Onslaught and Silverbolt were entirely new moulds, and both Onslaught and Silverbolt aren't exactly cheap (worth it, in my opinion - I think the price is fair - but obviously much more expensive than the limbs), and Swindle was probably just priced as-is to match the others because to price one limb higher than all the others would be a pretty stupid business decision.

So yeah, I would not be surprised if these are more expensive. Honestly though, I'd still buy 'em at the higher price. I love Zeta's stuff, flawed though it may be.

Yes, very petty of them to make money on products for which ToyWorld didn't pay them. So, so very petty.

Either you're dreaming or you're as high as a kite.

 

HOLY FORKIN SHIRTBALLS TAKE MY MONEY

 

Where does GT's Defensor come into play in your theory, I'm just curious. Are you not counting it because it's only in a 15" scale or are you already assuming they've canceled it?

 

I think the other one was an April Fool's Joke. It was some company whose name literally translated to "April Fools"

 

I'm not counting it because it's a different scale and different aesthetic. It's more of an IDW design and few people are buying it as their Masterpiece-scale Defensor.
That being said, I still think it looks cool and would like it, but yeah, different scale and aesthetic means it's a different niche.

 

i didn’t know the details of the split between toyworld and zeta. i retract my statement.

 

yes me too when they posted predaking last cny.
These trainbots are my answered prayers.

 

is it that bad if I want these guys train-mode is in scale with FT Astrotrain?  

THEN someone can make a full train tracks for these guys  

 

Yep me too! Was dreaming of MP Superion and Raiden before. Zeta, I think I love you now.

Hopefully the trainbots price are like Supes limbs, not Silver Arrows'.  

 

I would have preferred Defensor or Computron, but an autobot combined is always welcome. Now, the first member doesn't look exactly stunning, in part because of the original design, but we'll see when the set will be completed.

 

Scaled with FT Astrotrain? Hopefully Zeta read your post. But not FT Astrotrain price though please.

 

Not to mention how shit an alt mode a train is. Decepticons, if Raiden turns up all we have to do is travel at a 90 degree angle away from the team to get away from them. Or better yet let's change the track so it runs off a cliff. At least Astrotrain had a third mode that was actually useful!

Cue all the train fanboys shaking with rage and grinding their teeth.