aceoftherebellion

So I guess hoping for Sharon (or anybody for that matter) to show up wearing Ishtar's 'outfit' is right out, huh? Pity.

That's a valid theory as far as business law and practices go, and it wouldn't discount that it's a (rather frightening) possibility, but it's also fairly at odds with what we've heard from our members 'closer to the ground' so to speak. All of the comments I've seen from people who have connections inside the company suggest that it's all fairly clandestine. Certainly nobody 'in the know' has said a thing about debt restructuring or anything to that extent, so I wouldn't start entertaining bankruptcy theories just yet. I think it's important to remember that Japanese business works on somewhat different rules. Secrecy is a big thing, born more from respect than a desire to hide something. We're used to US companies issuing press releases every time they replace a toilet, but a smaller Japanese company isn't likely to make any actual comment until they've finalized everything they're planning. Silence doesn't necessarily mean gloom and doom like it might for a western based company. It doesn't automatically mean they're keeping their cards close- it could be as simple as they don't intend to make any major announcements until they've got the office set up and finalized.

Graham's been dropping hints, but IDK, I think we're getting close to putting words in people's mouths. I don't think we've been given any details on what to actually expect. As for rumors on anything else, it was in another thread a while back, it was Mr. K, as I recall, mentioning that he wanted to revisit some of the older designs that were done before he came aboard, including the VF-0, SC-51, YF-19 and YF-21... But honestly, that seemed more like an off the cuff pipe-dream and not really Yamato (Arcadia's) actual stance on it. As usual, the temperature in the air seems to be more of a 'wait and see' kind of deal.

I still want a Metal Siren... but I'll settle for a VF-2SS and maybe the VF-2JA that could be retooled from it

I haven't heard anything about any of this, but running-changes aren't unheard of in toy production. A silent revision, perhaps? I'd also be curious to see if anybody else here has more insight on this

Yeah, that's the thing. I've been underemployed for many years now. Most of the small money I make is through odd jobs and occasional sales. It's just that any time I do happen to have the resources to spend, I happen to make my collecting hobby a priority. Sometimes at the expense of other things. True, I only own a fairly small number of Valkyries and other toys from Yamato, Bandai (and even Matchbox, haha), but thats fine, I'm happy as it is. It's not really a social class thing. Again, they've made smaller transforming toys. Toynami has made them, Kaiyodo has made them, Bandai has made them. They don't sell very well. I get where you're coming from, wanting to be able to connect with the kids on this hobby and this series, but that's kind of the thing- The series itself was never geared for younger children in the first place. This isn't Pokemon or Dragonball or Bleach or whatever. Yes, we liked Robotech when we were little kids, but Robotech had been specifically rewritten in many ways to be accessible to us at the time. That's simply not how the actual Macross franchise is now, or has ever been handled. Would it be cool for them to expand into that demographic? Maybe. That's a big maybe, though, and one that would require some pretty major shifts in the entire franchise, from Big West to Studio Neue down to the individual companies merchandising for it. And from a logical business standpoint, I simply do not see that happening in the near or distant future. 'It's not broke, why fix it' Then again, we've seen the other big mech franchise try just that, and frankly, it did pretty poorly. Gundam Age tried to do just that, repackage the brand to make it more accessible to the younger generation. It's been a pretty obvious ratings and commercial failure (at least judging from how much Age merchendise I've seen go at rock-bottom clearance....) and was the first Gundam show in nearly a decade and a half to run less than 50 episodes. I HIGHLY doubt a less commercial franchise like Macross is going to be jumping at the chance to repeat that attempt.

See, that's the thing though. 'Overspending' is just a perception. These toys have no intrinsic value. They're not necessities, they don't save lives, we can't eat them. They're worth only and exactly as much as those of us who buy them feel that they're worth. That's like, basic business/economics 101. If many of us here pay the asking prices and are satisfied with our purchases, then that's that. If some of us wait for sales before a thing is offered at the price they're willing to pay, that's what that item was worth to them. If somebody buys none of these items because their price 'locks them out of the loop', then that's simply a matter of what they perceived their value at. Make and production are almost irrelevant here, in a way. It all boils down to just what we as collectors are willing to spend, and how much of a priority we want to make these. I understand if some people might be resentful of the higher prices here, but ultimately, these are collector goods. It's entirely up to the customer what they're willing to pay. These companies HAVE attempted to offer lower-price, smaller alternatives, and the collector market spoke loud and clear with their wallets, that it wasn't worth their time. We can certainly lament that, but again, that's just how this hobby (toy collecting) goes.

In the news today: A man was arrested for repeated trespassing and stalker-like behavior in front of the new headquarters of an unspecified toy company. When questioned, the suspect could only respond with repeated references to a television cartoon from the early 80s. He is currently being evaluated at a psychiatric facility pending further investigation. Details at Eleven.

Haha, you know with all of this wild speculating and guesswork and random hopes, I'm just gonna go for broke and hope that this new company structure somehow makes the chances of finally getting some sort of MII merchandise go up. Come on, Arcadia, your predecessor finally made the VF-4 happen, some of us have been waiting almost as long for a VF-2SS! This is what I will be crossing my fingers for now.

I would love to see that too, honestly. It would be nice to have a solid 1/100 scale line of toys as a lower-cost alternative to the full on 1/60 line.

This isn't really the correct thread for this, but there's a pretty big Elephant in the room here that people seem to be forgetting about any upcoming Robotech movie, and that is very simply that it's a Robotech movie. Robotech is not Macross, just like Macross is not Robotech. Most likely, any Hollywood film will almost certainly be a general re-imagining anyway, and will have very little if any recognizable Macross content. Especially if you take into account HG's recent efforts to distance themselves from the Macross Saga, which probably has a lot to do with the fallout from Studio Neue vs. Tatsunoko, although that's another discussion altogether. For quite a while now, Robotech's focus has been almost entirely on Mospeada, which they have full rights to. If, and that's a big if, IF any robotech live action film is recognizable in any degree, it'll probably be closer to Mospeada than anything else at this point. All that aside... Why would Yamato/Arcadia produce anything for this, even if/when it does happen? They have no working relationship with Harmony Gold, they have never had licence rights to Robotech, and it's unlikely that they would produce anything for an American film anyway. If you see any toys from that film go down, they'll be like every other Robotech branded product- Produced by Toynami. In other words, any possible live action Robotech film will have nothing to do with Yamato/Arcadia whatsoever.

Graham mentioned in the other thread that the CEO hasn't changed, so at this point I'd tentatively say things are looking good that we probably won't see any real changes overall. Let's just cross our fingers, knock on wood, and pray to our Birdman/Protoculture idols that this is true. EDIT: As extra precaution though, until this is all worked out... Nobody eat any Pineapple!!

Do you still have the original parts? Maybe you could figure out a way to combine gluing the old parts back together along with Veef's replacement parts?

I've noticed for another series (specifically Super Robot Wars models by Kotobukiya) that Amazon has some pretty hit and miss labeling... I suspect the problem is that too many amazon sellers (and Amazon itself for that matter) really have no idea of what they actually have, and make too many assumptions. I'm sorry you got hosed by it, though. Fortunately, they do tend to have an agreeable return policy from what I've heard... Fortunately I've never had to return anything, but I'm hyper-picky about what I actually am willing to order from them. I hope they don't give you a runaround. In the absolute worst case scenario, you could most likely find somebody here on these forums that would be willing to buy it from you to recoup some of your losses.

You're probably out of luck as far as getting any sort of replacement part from Yamato at this point, given their stance on unsupported markets and the fact that the VF-0 has been out of production for quite some time. At best, you might be able to find somebody who has spares to sell you. On the upside, some or our members have made third party replacement parts available, depending on which parts have actually broken, you might still be in luck.

My understanding is that this will depend on whether or not Arcadia is going to be recognized as the same company or not. If it's a 'buyout', the licences will likely need to be re-negotiated. If it's simply a change in title, than the licences will most likely simply be transferred to the company's new name as a matter of course. Don't quote me on that, it's been a while since I took any courses in business, but that's my general understanding of how this sort of thing works. EDIT: In that case, yeah, I would expect the old licenses to simply transfer over to the new name. That's fairly good news- it implies to me that there should be relatively few major changes... Here's hoping, anyway.

Same. In fact, if I knew a good technique that got adequate results I'd go and tint the canopies for some of the others, too. I really like the effect, very suited to what is effectively a spaceplane...

We've got plenty to be nervous about, but I think we're probably over-reacting here, at least for how little information we've got right now. That said? It's been said here already, but we need to remember that we're a very niche market, while said creepy dolls and girl-figures make up a much, much larger section of hobby toy and figure collecting, especially overseas. It might now be anything most of us here are interested in or care about, but it is a smarter business move, overall. You have to produce what your market will consume, and this is at the end of the day a business thing. They might lose our money, but that could well be offeset by not having to spend as much to produce and tool such complicated toys, if they decided to go that direction. We gotta remember that no matter how much any of us spend, it's still drops in the bucket compared to what you need to pull in to remain a successful business. (Except for maybe Kicker. I bet he makes up a noticeable percentage of Yamato's bottom line singlehandedly... ) All we can really do is wait and see, and be realistic. There's no reason to expect they're going to completely change their business approach overnight, but at the same time, things ARE hard right now, especially for a smaller toy manufacturer. Yamato isn't Bandai, they've got way more to lose here. But again, it's probably better to wait and see what's really happening before we all dust off our panic buttons.

From what I had read it's the other way around, Yamato had acquired this sculpt before the Arcadia thing came out, and it caught people by surprise when it was solicited for pre-order under Arcadia rather than Yamato. That said, as Exo mentioned in the other thread, these types of figures really make up the bulk of this industry and are MOST of what gets shown at places like Wonderfest, so the answer might be less 'who buys that stuff' and more 'let's hope they still cater to the few of us that don't'... Although again, I'm not particularly worried.

I would expect that only their newly produced goods will carry the Arcadia name, I don't imagine the Macross stuff will be listed under the new name unless/until it's reissued. The old company name will still probably be around for a while yet to come, at least until all of the backstock gets cleared out, I would assume.

I'd almost be interested in that, maybe... But then again, at that point, what's the difference between that and the one they already make? Seems a little pointless, but eh. Their business what they feel they wanna market, I guess.

That's fairly typical of ball-point-dolls, yeah. It's a pretty huge collecting fandom, actually, but understandably one with very little overlap with mecha-toy collecting! I've personally known girls that have spent upwards of a thousand dollars on a single ball-joint-doll, though, so... It's clearly a demographic that's worth tapping into if you're a big specialty toy manufacturer.

http://arcadia.ac/wf.php They still have the macross 30 logo listed in their event schedules. Most likely they're still just constructing the new website and it only reflects the items they had already announced under Arcadia over the past few weeks.

That's honestly what I suspect, with the name-change simply being a reflection of their expansion. The mid-season upgrade, to put it in mecha terms, with the sudden announcement simply being an effort to coincide with a major toy-event, just for publicity. Personally I doubt much will chance if anything... I just hope I'm right about that!

Hahaha if they did stop making Macross product (which seems unlikely given the factors you just said re:licence acquisition and the like) I bet a LOT of us will end up eating their own words when it comes to Yamato Criticism... Kind of a case of 'you don't know what you've got until it's gone', maybe.