Still looks great, but that price is way beyond what I’d want to pay for a TF. Then again, I only buy the occassional Masterpiece and am still very happy with mainline figures, so no harm done for me, I guess.

 

TT does reissues from time to time. So your investment gain would only be for an interim period before the re-issue.

And in the medium term, when a new, latest and greatest version of a character comes out, value of the older version would fall.

 

tHAT gold SOUNDWAVE SURE DOES HAVE A PUUUUUURDY MOUUUUUTH..........PLATE.

 

August seems to be quite a ways away for having such finished looking photos. Do people think there is a chance for them to do any design tweaks before this is finalized?

 

Has anyone done edits of this Prime in Ultra Magnus and Nemesis Prime colors? Also I wish the site I use would hurry up and get their preorder page up, want to lock this guy down.

 

Nah, they're most likely building the casting right now getting ready for production. The only changeschang here on out will be fixing any tolerance issues that might happen along the way.

 

So... AmiAmi or Nippon-Yasan? (Apologies if this has already been asked ten times - it's a long-thread and searches only bring up that these companies still have it in stock.) I've never used either before, but I've missed out on Anime Export and Amazon Japan. I was going to wait until Kapow gets it in stock, as I normally buy from them and they have decided not to do preorders, but having seen the latest pictures, I've caved and don't want to risk them selling out before I get my order in after it's released.

 

Both places are reliable.

 

Out of the two Nippon Yasan will mark down the value of their packages.

AmiAmi are a better company in terms of customer service, but they declare full value, same as HLJ or Amazon Japan (the difference with AmJ is that you pre-pay tax up-front and shipping is thus super fast, avoiding customs).

 

I buy 2 of a lot of my TFs. But I dont' buy for an investment, but just for the mental sake of getting two.

....I'll throw my hat into the ring and being serious, I don't know what this 5th wheel is.

 

I didn't know this until the last few months either, but apparently that's what the large round hitch that connects the cab to the trailer is sometimes called.

 

I did not know that either. I have 0 knowledge on trucks. I only know they look like crap around that area.

 

Ah ok. Thanks. Wasn't losing any sleep over it, but good to know.

 

Oh, all this time I thought people were talking about a spare tire.

 

That's what I thought at first too, ha.

 

English is crazy.

 

Yeah shouldn't it at least be called "7th wheel?"  

 

Considering most trucks have 4 sets of rear duelys , & the standard 2 fronts it’s actually an 11th wheel.

 

Neither you or I know what the 3rd parties would have done had they included a trailer. Personally, I think it's a missed opportunity that one of them didn't use the brilliant idea, which was mentioned here, of having the trailer transform into the medical table or as this lovely morbid bunch refer to is as, the death bed. More transformation ability would mean more parts, more development time, so hence a higher price. The lack of a trailer also makes shipping far less for the 3rd party options. Let me add that some time this year, the US will no longer subsidize postal shipping from China to the States. It will be interesting to see what changes that will bring about.

As for the cab, you can't compare it to MP-10. Your arguement lies on what you think it costs or what it should cost according to you. I watched the transformation of TE-01 last night. The transformation is akward even at the hands of its own creator, which underlines the points that others are trying to make to you. I get that some people don't care about transformation. Much like in life, how we get from point A to point B is the what drives the decision making process. There are official only people that want the line to revert to more releases with lower prices. I'll quietly and happily step away if and when Hasbro buys out Takara Tomy because I know what will happen.

As for development times, here is what is known.

MP-10:
– When did you start the plan for the Convoy version 2?
Hasui: The development began around Golden Week last year, with making him in scale with MP Rodimus in mind.
Transformers MP10 Masterpiece Convoy Pictures/

That would be the last days of April 2010 which Hasui is referring to. First images appeared May 2011 as per the thread. Release date was September 2011.

MP-44:
1: When did the project planning start?
We normally start planning for an MP project a long time in advance, this was started from back in December 2016.

First full images were the blurry ones from Tokyo Toy Show, June 2018.

There is a long wait until release, have a read through that MP-10 thread. Nothing wrong with opinions and views changing. Here's more,
MP 10 Convoy officially unveiled/

You are the first person on this thread to finally make a comparison to Gundam in a logical and correct manner. My eyes roll out of my head with the usual apples to oranges comparisons from others. I still remember when you asked if there would be mass burnings of Evasion Optimus once it was revealed that Kobayashi designed that well regarded figure. What gets overlooked is how many pragmatic and chill folks we have that collect both 3rd party and official. I always look forward to reading your comments as well as those of folks like Madgame, DaptoDog, Zambot(nice to see you back), Jarrod, Liampope, Oku, and a slew of others.

I hope a more affordable release is in the future so others can get a chance to fiddle with this Optimus. Let's see what our guy Phamduc has for us.

 

Here you go, with credit to @chchchch for his great digibashes.





And a nice one by @GAUGE without the head and gun swap.