Hah, don't tempt me man! I will definitely get around to watching it, I already quite liked everyone's characterization even from the first episode. I just can't afford to crave BW MPs right now, got a tour to save up for  

I read this a few weeks back and it just took me about half an hour to find it again.

About why Kobayashi isn't named as lead designer:

Profile
Kobayashi Hironori
Born 7/26/1976
BOYS Marketting Unit, BOYS Kids Character Division
Nagaoka Institute of Design, Industrial Design Department, after graduating with degree in Industrial design joined Takara in 1999.
He has worked on TF Car Robots: Speedbreaker, Overseas TF, Gobots, TF Micron Legend: Convoy Super Mode, Rachet, Land Military Microns, STD Convoy, Jetfire, Space Microns, Air Military Microns, as well as various other transforming robot projects. "My first project was Speedbreaker, and I had a painful experience as I was suddenly introduced to the difficultly of designing transforming robots. Even now Speedbreaker serves as an admonition for my future developments", he painfully recollects. He impressed me by asking for his face not to be shown, saying "In the end, developers are people behind the scenes, so there's no need to photograph me."
Currently he is working on all Binaltech and Masterpeice convoy related development, and production work for TF Collection, Collecter's Edition, USA Edition, and the domestic introduction of TF Superlink (Energon) and assisting with new TF development. He is passionately pursuing his work.

source


So basically he's too damn modest, and he doesn't want the limelight - he'd rather let the toys shine!

 

Aha! Kobayashi fails at ego as well!

I love you Kobayashi

 

With all the third party stuff that comes out goes to show how much money Takara is missing out on. This market could easily support 12 releases a year. Plus releasing smaller characters through the year could keep cost down some.

 

I think you're overestimating how much money the 3P market actually represents in a year, particularly when you consider that Takara has to legally license things, which means lawyers, lawyers, lawyers.

 

I think we are in the same boat, my friend. I stuck to G1 VHS tapes my friends no longer wanted and mainly my Turbomasters and Predator jets and other various weird euro releases as G1 died on the shelves. I got Optimus Primal because his head kinda looked like Prime but it was just not really my vibe so I got into Power Rangers instead because they were more exciting at the time.
TT are doing a great job on Dinobots promo material I agree, I even think the price is good at $180 from the Japanese retailers, I cant understand how all these so-called fans begged and wished for this guy for so long and are now complaining about the price/panel lines etc... so mind-boggling.

Hound & Mirage were probably my two fav car bots as a kid, never knew anyone who owned them either so I cannot wait for them! Mirage's parachute jump from the Nemesis is one of my fondest memories.
Jazz is the next biggest milestone after Megatron & Sunny so that will always be a fun time.
I think late 18 and the whole of 19 is going to be our year bro!
I'm going to use this time to get my money together so I can pick up Megatron, Artfire, AKOM Hotrod Sunny and maybe grey Bape Prime among others I've regretfully missed lately.

 

Well, another companies throwing their hat into the MP combiner game. If there’s ANY truth to the whole “Takara keeps tabs on 3p” thing, I expect them to follow suit any time now.

 

Sounds like the biggest 3rd Party releases hit around the 10k mark in units produced...but that's not the norm. Even without us knowing what kind of numbers TT releases actually do, I think it's safe to say 3rd Party is small potatoes. I think a standard 3rd Party release is 2-5k. I think a Hasbro TRU exclusive MP release is over 10k. I assume TT produces way more than a TRU Hasbro run. If TT is only going to sell 5k units, it's not worth their time. If TT isn't going to sell far better than a TRU run, that's probably not worth the effort either.

 

The entire reason Mirage is my favourite G1 character is that he's the secret dude that doesn't really want to be there, but comes through and saves everyone in the end... end then parachutes like a boss despite being a 2-ton metal person.

 

Not really. You have look at 3rd party as a whole.That's reflecting so much demand it's nearly insane. As for licenses, G1 has a lot on the front end, but the bulk of characters don't need one at all. BW is all free of them, and the movie characters are most likely already licensed. I use to buy everything Transformers, spending hundreds every month. Now l only collect MPs, as do so many others. Sure not everyone can afford that, but so many of can. Honestly with sure number of characters l want 12 a year spread between G1 BW and the movies is still a snails pace.

 

Okay, except...

-Lawyers, executives to run the business, and related support staff.

-Development teams with standards they have to adhere to - safety, product, workplace safety, etc.

-Production time.

-Design time.

-QC - 3-5 releases a year can be a challenge, most 3Ps can't even hit Takara's level at maybe 2/year.

-The lawyers and engineers Takara has to waste on examining 3P stuff for actionable theft every year.

-Cost of moulds and production staff - getting a fly-by-night factory in China to produce something is easy, getting them to do it well consistently is not, as many 3Ps have found.

-Oh, and the big one: The very real possibility of alienating the fan base with too many releases.

You might be able to afford 12 figures a year, and that's cool, but most collectors can't. This happens over and over with premium lines where as soon as the fans get as many releases as they want, the line starts to die because collectors get to a point where they don't have the pocket money to spend on the maximized releases. Then you have a general breakdown of quality because a majority of fans are skipping most figures. They're not going to make them less expensive and now, and if they did, we'd all lose our minds at the drop in quality. Then there's a rise in QC problems (not the minor crap we see now, but major, mass-production problems).

That's what happens when you force a line like this to up their numbers by a factor of 3.

 

My 5 Biggest MP Grails yet to be made:

Jazz
Mirage
CJ
Blurr
Chromia


I'm sticking to my plan of buying no less than 5 MP Jazz, when Takara graces us with his presence.  

 

Not sure what point you are trying to make with most of that. Yes it cost money to produce a product. What's being discussed is what themarket will bare and how much that market is already spending. A single release a month is nothing compared to what they are doing as as a whole. But just taking MPs, this year we got..... Thrust Grapple Megatron Cheetor Dirge 4 tapes Sunstreaker movie Optimus and Bumblebee, not to mention the ton of reissues. Counting just the new stuff that's 10 this year. And, your argument is that 2 more would ruin everything ?

I only set aside $60 a week for collecting. That's $240 a month, more than enough for nearly any MP. Honestly if that's out of reach for most collectors l'd be shocked.

 

The point is that Takara has much more significant costs that they have to consider, and the market won't actually bare what you're asking for, nor would they. They'd have to expand the MP design team as well as related staff, and that's a surefire way to kill things like quality.

They only put out 3ish new moulds - like all-new characters - every year, plus the MPMs now. Repaints are much less to put together, even remoulds released as exclusives through the Hasbro Asia side. The MPMs have infamously taken up space in the schedule, so that's MPM Bee and Optimus, Megatron, Sunstreaker, Cheetor. 5 is actually quite a bit.

Repaints/Remoulds released are more because the work is already done. On that front, we've got Grapple, Artfire, Legendary Convoy.

Then, from the exclusive side, you've got Coneheads, which are a different kettle of fish, because the design beyond the wings was done ages ago.

 

l'd never argue the point Takara as an official law abiding company does't come at a higher cost. And, getting a release every month is not the same as asking for a new mold each time. I mean l don't count lnferno Grapple and Artfire as one release. The MP line is ever growing and seems to successful, so much so Takara even asked in their survey if we wanted a speed up in the release schedule. To me that says they are seeing it much the way I do.

 

You understand the point though, right? It’s important to understand what you’re asking for. They may permanently up the output of the line to the three main generations and each get 2/year, and then have repaints and remould aplenty, that’s different than 12 new pieces per year. Half of the releases you referenced are secondary uses (hell more in the case of conheads) to maximize value of the core mould.

 

So if my comparisons are close to accurate, Dinobot should be around the height of Shockwave. So I'm completely in agreement of this shouldn't cost any more than Megatron. Less sales or not, beast wars has its following, especially in Japan, where they made 2 shows waiting for seasons 2 and 3, if my understanding of the situation is right. This feels like a huge cash grab to me. The base isn't a necessary addition at all, so that feels like monetary filler. The complexity doesn't look that much different from Megatron, so parts count and production cost doesn't really explain it. Idk, something just feels very off about this release. Even if they are for some reason accounting for lower sales, that shouldn't push this into the $200 USD range. I think the price they put this at is what's going to destroy the sales, not is following.

 

Wow. I'm not into BW, but I would pick up Dinobot just to see how this all works. That alt mode to that bot mode? I don't care if the tail comes off, I want to see this all come together.

 

So, true MP-scale Arielbots were announced rather than another Devastator by FansToys. Wonder if they know an official set of Constructicons is right around the corner and wanted to avoid direct competition in the sales space?

 

Ooooo, intriguing theory, especially considering we already New fanstoys had a Devastator coming.

Would also play into rumors that myself and others have heard in the past

 

I have my money on DX9. From what I understand they work pretty quick but haven't showed any other stunticons off...stunticons almost seeker size in altmode. I could see them teasing a scramble city superion. I thing Takara will go with something big due to the schedule... but we'll have to wait and see. I've never thoughtcombiners were impossible for them because, we have seen with the last couple of releases putting out expensive items doesn't scare them.