TF Views

Yes, but that's not what we were talking about. Everyone was going on and on about how much shelf space Half-Assedimus is going to take so I was addressing specifically that issue.

Onslaught Six wrote:Source? Or is this extrapolation?

An educated guess.

And Death's Head can't be fudged into a Cybertronian?

I guess, but doesn't that betray the idea of the character? What would be the point?

Shockwave wrote:Yes, I would definately put my money where my mouth is (otherwise I wouldn't be spouting off from it to begin with). This is all a matter of perspective. You say that we'd be paying twice as much, how does that work exactly when the original release of the figure (ie: the Japanese one) retailed for around $200, Hasbro releasing the full version at $100 would be half price for essentially the same figure. The same has happened with MP Grimlock, the Japanese one retails for about $150 and the Hasbro one is $70 so it's technically less than half price and yet the rest of the fandom still seems to be whining. Which now that I read that, I realize that I'm the only fan in existence that would actually buy the full version and be happy paying half price for it. That said, I'll shut up now and you all can enjoy your half-assed Hot Rod when it comes out.

Nobody wants the situation to be what it is, but there are realities which force it, so we can either have a trailer-less Hot Rod or no Hot Rod, but in the US there just ain't enough market to make a full Rodimus happen.

I can't explain why Japanese Grimlock was so damned expensive, the previous MPs were not that high originally unless they came with a trailer.

And it wouldn't be $100, it'd be more like $120 or more depending on how few they made, plus sales tax, and it'll still be inferior in some annoying little way to the Japanese one 'cause that's how Hasbro rolls.

Dominic wrote:Heh.

Joking aside, you are forgettig JT's point about shelf-space. That is a huge variable in the pricing of items in any type of retail. That is one of the reasons that stores like little electronic items. They are small, yet still command high-ish prices. (Lottery tickets and phone cards are another favorite.)

An American MP Rodimus would be expensive simply by virtue of size. I could see the trailer punching the price up to $150.

The box wouldn't be thaaaat big, they're offering the Star Wars AT-AT for $100 right now, for example. But mixing in the exceptionally low run size since the US market won't support it, yeah, you mix in those factors and the smaller shelf space that TF gets being crowded by a trailer-bearing MP Rodimus box, it could really get up to $150. It's all about what the market will and won't bear, unfortunately.

Shockwave wrote:

Dominic wrote:I could see the trailer punching the price up to $150.

I couldn't. I mean seriously, exactly how huge is this thing? The "Hot Rod" portion looks like it's probably about the same size as Starscream which means that Hasbro could reasonably package him in robot mode with the trailer opened up behind him. In that configuration it's shouldn't be much bigger than one of the seeker boxes. If they just did the Hot Rod portion and priced it comparitavely at $50, I could maybe see that driving the price point up to a MAXIMUM of $100 and that's about it. And I would still point out that $100 is still half the original retail price of the Japanese version.

Shockwave
-Seriously, $200 - $100 =50% = a good deal. Why am I the only one who sees this?

The problem is that you're applying a mass-market sensibility to the situation, which in the US this toy will not possibly have, so it's incredibly unlikely for your line of thought here to bear fruit. And the idea of making a collector-populated product crammed into a display-unfriendly situation with the figure jammed up into the trailer (which will also widen the box as well as set it deeper, even close-quarters) will lose shelf appeal, which will take away the "collector-focused high end product" aspect that Hasbro's going for - if it could even fit that way at all.

I also didn't touch on the fact that the larger the box, the more expensive the shipping costs and the smaller the number per case, which again raises the price.

Dominic wrote:Shock, I would pay $150 for the damned thing. (Well, I would if I had the money.) The problem is not how you or I see it, but how retailers would see it.

I am curious enough about the pricing that I vote we add a pricing question to the Q and A thread....which we happen to be posting in now.

Would the weight/raw material of the product bump the price at that scale?

Dom

Can you write that out more? I'm not sure I understand exactly what you mean.

Shockwave wrote:I got a new business model for them... just send all the MP Toys to Sacramento. Seriously, those things almost NEVER show up at retail here and what does show up doesn't last long. Now, if Rodimus turns out to be the same size as Optimus, ok, sure I could maybe see skipping the trailer due to size, but for a figure half that size would winding taking about the same space as Grimlock which really makes the space argument completely invalid. And then there's the crappy toys they have released in recent years and lost money on such as that crappy Devastator from ROTF, and not one, but TWO releases of Unicron.

Starscream isn't half the size of Optimus, he's about 2/3rds in bot mode.

Devastator, Unicron, Ultimate Bumblebee twice, those have entertainment support (tv or movies) and aren't that complex or exacting in product design, manufacture or deco.

Dominic wrote:The Unicron releases sold though, (well at least around here they did). The black one is actually rare-ish.

Around here, they all went to clearance. The Armada one was an infamous clearance.

I am thinking about asking Hasbro how much the materials cost influences the price of the toy. For example, are metal toys more expensive because metal is harder to work with, or because it is harder to ship?

For the record, employees at Games Workshop stores have looked a friend of mine in the eye and said that plastic figures were more expensive. Even if it was not GW, I would call bullshit on that. But, it would be interesting to see what Hasbro has to say.

Dom

Metal is more expensive to work with, both in terms of the materials and the tooling.

Not to hear GW tell it.

Dominic wrote:Not to hear GW tell it.

I'd get them to source that. I know one of the reasons for the demise of the Titanium line was the rising cost of the alloy they used for the die-cast portions of the figures. We've seen the price on plastic figures go up, but at least they haven't been priced right out of existence. And to be fair, that wasn't the only problem with Titaniums, but material and tooling costs were a big factor.

Then again, plastics are a petroleum product, so with the rising cost of oil it's entirely possible that plastic has gone way up in cost. But I have a hard time believing it's more expensive than metal.

Plastics are definately cheaper. I have been able to produce plastic replacement parts as a hobby. My friend did the research and found out that it would be possible to do "back yard" manufacturing for plastic parts. When I asked him about die cast he found out that the process is not something that can be done on anything less than a mass production factory setting and would be too cost prohibitive for "back yard" toy replacements.

I am not going to be around much this weekend, there is a family emergency ongoing.

I will try my best to get the questions mailed to Hasbro on Sunday night, but I won't be able to add more questions to the thread, so unless someone comes up with a really good one and you all get on board with it between now and Sunday, any votes for existing questions will get them mailed off.

My vote is for questions 3 and 4.

Seconded for 3 and 4. (And, we have plenty to cycle through into round 15.)


Dom