He is not a retool of Cheetor. He is not an upscale. He is a brand new figure, 100%, from the ground up. His transformation bares no resemblence to Cheetor in any way, shape, or form. To make Tigatron, they literally threw away Cheetor's transformation design and started from scratch. He is a brand new figure, a bit shorter than Dinobot. Nearly every Beast Wars figure so far has had minimal QC issues, with the exception of Dinobot, who a lot of people had a faulty arm that still made the figure 100% useable. There were a handful of Megatron with the crotch piece too tight. If you don't want to buy him, don't. I'm okay with that. But do not spread misinformation.
It’s not about effort. Beast Wars characters literally morph between modes, marrying organic “real” beast modes with explicitly mechanical robot modes. When you have characters like Dinobot who completely shed their entire alt mode during transformation no amount of “effort” will make that possible. I’d like to see these other lines you speak of and what they accomplish compared to the BW MPs. I... what? Forced perspective? Dude, he’s nearly twice Cheetor’s size, he’s an entirely new mould with completely different engineering. How is that even a question?
I'm sure he'll share some design aspects with Cheetor similar to Blackarachnia and Arcee but for the most part he's all new.
My brother (who is also a Transformers fan but to a lesser extent) frequently acts as a "financial advisor" when it comes to my Transformers purchases, giving me advice if I am on the fence about a figure. As soon as I showed him a picture of this he told me to buy it. No hesitation. This guy looks amazing and I will be purchasing him regardless of price.
I believe FT Phoenix is worth $250, I believe GP Superator is worth $200, I belive FT Roadking is worth $180, I believe MP-36&44 are worth $150 each, and I believe MP-39 is worth $100. Dinobot is smaller than MP-44 by a fair margine, thus his value is give or take around $130. Takara's best figure, MP-44, nulling the QC for a moment, is not worth even $240, so why would Dinobot be worth that much. It's unreasonable for me to think that, as much as it is unreasonable for Takara to puch these prices. They can make good designs, but their QC and pricing is... out of this world, next to Cybertron.
Except it isn’t as unreasonable, that’s his point. TT at least has the intimate knowledge of the economics of toy production and sale. You literally pulled all those numbers out of nowhere. Personally I think MP-44 is worthless, does that mean it should be free? There’s having your own opinion of value, and then there’s just being ridiculous and making shit up. You’re kidding, right? I mean, you either must have barely even glanced at Tigatron or just not have an eye for... I was gonna say detail, but is it even detail when they’re that obviously different? The forelimbs do not share engineering, as Tigatron’s are not just the front legs but also part of the actual body. Cheetor’s forelimbs were entirely self contained. The hind limbs are nowhere close to being shared, namely because Tigatron’s hind legs are stored entirely within the robot’s lower legs, whereas Cheetor’s were the entire robot leg. Cheetor’s rear paws also folded up quite simply into the calves of the robot, whereas Tigatron’s completely rearrange and transform into the calves themselves. The pelvis are completely different, chiefly because Cheetor’s is one solid piece that becomes the lower back and Tigatron’s is jointed to fold up and presumably into the tiger itself. The weapons are not shared, namely because Tigatron only has one. As was discussed earlier, he lacks the “tail” gun and thus the hind quarters and tail itself fold into the robot mode body rather than detach. This also disproves the tail being shared engineering, as silly as such a statement is since the “engineering” consists of basic hinge joints along the tail itself. (If that’s the case, it also “shares engineering” with Beast Machines Cheetor) and the robot arms are clearly not shared engineering, as Tigatron’s arm panels are clearly multiple pieces verses Cheetor’s single piece kibble. You could argue the hands share the same design but, well, they should, they had the same hands in the show. (And Tigatron’s are still a different tooling as they’re larger) Like, come on, man.
To people who said they are out at 220. Some people will tell you that AJP will have a 30% discount, but those people will be wrong as well because Black Arachnia was finally discounted 50% a month after release. 110 for this sounds reasonable to me. Of course you'll need to add shipping.
I'm sorry, but I'm not sure what you're saying here. Design in terms of appearence? Because yeah, they share similar models in the show. In terms of transformation? Looking at it, it actually more seems like they went out of their wait to make every single piece of him transform completely differently. Crotch piece comes apart in 3, the beast chest opens up not the back, robot thigh becomes beast waiste, etc, etc. There is nothing similar in transformation. And what do you mean similar to blackarachnia and Arcee? What do those two have in common... other than boobs? I'm so confused. No, they aren't. They have a similar appearence in robot mode because they had a similar appearence in the show. The transformations are 100% different. The hind limbs are not similar, at all. The pelvis transforms completely differently, it is a single solid piece on cheetor but breaks into 3 with tigatron. They do not share engineering, just basic appearence.
In fairness, we're not actually sure about the weapon(s) or tail yet. We've seen no evidence of the tail gun, and it does appear there is enough room to store it inside the bot torso. So that could actually be a fairly substantial bit of re-engineering. Too early to say.
I listed the actual prices for FT Phoenix, FT Roadking, GP Superator, and MP-39. MP-49 is $200 on AMJ. I didn't pull those numbers out of nowhere. I'm going off of reasonable thinking. Takara has lost what put them at No.1, neglacting the fact that they are billion dollar corporation, their QC. Old Takara is just that, old, outdated. New Takara can make a good design, not MP-45, but they lack what makes a good product, good.
Okay I see what you mean now, the quality control (or lack thereof) is what’s the issue. I actually agree, and it’s one of many reasons I’ve sworn of G1 MPs. Problem is QC is a nebulous concept in itself. No company is free of bad QC, and presumably anyone who gets a totally perfect sample has got their money worth, no? For example both my Dinobot and Megatron were free of any issues whatsoever. Did I overpay or underpay there? I feel like your conclusion is the inverse of your deduction. The toys should not be priced lower for their spotty QC, they should have better QC for the price. Otherwise we end up with these wish-washy numbers of what it “should” be worth given what particular issue plagues which release. What does that even mean? Make a good product “good?” Is value the only determining factor for you? Not that it shouldn’t be a factor, and I definitely agree price affects enjoyment, but in twenty years when I have (hopefully) full season one cast, I doubt I’ll look at them and vividly remember what I paid for which one and whether or not I thought it was worth it at the time. And no, that’s not to say TT can or should charge whatever they want, but like I said it feels like your solution of arbitrary consistent price reductions is not appropriate for the problem, which is the inconsistency of quality.
definetly a great looking mp, i'll admit the price has me feeling a bit more sour than most mps but i'm curious to see what type of accessories he includes, alternate faces are obvious.
Good Transformers Figure - Accurate to Source Material - Inventive Transformation - Good Articulation to Cleanliness Ratio - Reasonable Price This is, most figures released today are not perfect; there are many near perfect figures, Jiang Xing Winged Beast, but most tend to stray out towards excellent. Worth can only be given to something by the individual who wants or needs it. I think Takara is expecting to much for what they offer. MP-45 - Trash - Egregious Transformation - Horrid Articulation to Cleanliness Ratio - Overpriced
One thing I’ll say on the price: on the placard it’s rough, but remember almost nobody will be paying that. I can see AJ at least knocking 3-4000¥ off considering how low Megatron went. (AE also tends to take off 20%-odd chunks, no?) But what if those two things are mutually exclusive? What if accuracy demands an unexciting, uninventive transformation? This as well is nebulous. What is this ratio? What constitutes cleanliness? Also articulation doesn’t usually factor into cleanliness, transformation does. You’re equating two things that are tenuously related. Again, I don’t necessarily disagree with you, but you qualifications are exceptionally broad and vary from case to case. There are people who were upset that- and I shit you not -Primal transformed too similarly to his original toy because the arms were still the arms and the legs were still the legs, yet there’s no reason or possibility for it to be done any differently and remain accurate. Hell, look at people saying Tigatron shares engineering with Cheetor because the beast modes legs wind up in (almost) the same place on both robots.
