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wolfx

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  1. wolfx
    Thruster will transform into a flamepod and will spew out napalm. Btw, anyone noticed the logo on the tail fins? That's not NUNs. A new faction?
  2. wolfx
    Frontier is 2059. Delta is 2067 based on the first post of this thread. So its only 8 years. As for war based story, yes please. No hippy pacifism via power of song, no eco-preservation undertones. Considering the world's current affairs, i wonder if it might have themes of terrorism, racial discrimination, refugees, etc. Maybe enough human worlds are colonised and some worlds decide to go to war with others over limited resources. You're not alone. I've been dreaming up a SW1 side story following a rag-tag squad of Destroids + Valks engaged in guerilla warfare with the occupying Zentran garrison forces. It features retro-fitted military hardware and valks going hand-to-hand with Zentradi soldiers in jungle settings. Takes place somewhere after the Macross folds away from Earth (the ones left behind on earth) until its eventual return. Unfortunately the only way we'll ever see such a side story is via visual novels, manga, or video games or stay in the realm of fan-fiction.
  3. wolfx
    One thing is for sure. The "Hero Valk" 's air frame and basic transformation will be very similar to Frontier-era valks. Not sure if that's a good thing. As much as I loved the Frontier-era valks I was hoping for a whole new revolutionary valkyrie with new transformation scheme. But really I' m not sure how would Kawamori improve on it. Anyway, anyone wanna start naming the Valks? To continue the Arthurian theme: VF-34 Lancelot? VF-37 Mordred? XD
  4. wolfx
    Since you still have friends working in the HLJ, perhaps you could help get some numbers of how many Arcadia Valks vs Bandai Valks are actually stocked by HLJ? Just a ballpark figure would do. If it truly is below 50 and is more in the 10-20 range, then i'd be very surprised and my opinions would be obviously ludicrous and flawed. 50-100 isn't that big a number of stock for an online retailer to sell to all of Japan plus the export market. As you mentioned, during the golden era of Yamato, I'm guessing HLJ probably stocks 100-200 units easy. And that was also when there was less competition from other online portal. I agree that this era has long past. But really, 50-100 units of Arcadia valks per online retailer is also ludicrous by today's standards? How do they break even with the steel molds required to build it? Interesting to know that Feral Rex is 6000 units on initial run. I believe there was a second run which means there is more demand for it despite the premium pricing. But the distribution channels for a 3rd party item like Feral Rex is more limited than a Arcadia Valk. Based on your assumptions of 100 units sold per shop there needs to be 60 at least of said shops. I doubt we can come up with 60 shops either for the 3rd party TF market which is a niche within a niche. There's fewer major players who have lesser reach and customers than HLJ etc. Which means to say that there is a large number of specialty stores that sell within the 5-10 units range each since Feral Rex is being sold like hot cakes.
  5. wolfx
    Not Arcadia specifically. It was generally applied to all items. And yes should be same across the board for major hobby stores. 50-100 is a general range. It's not specific.
  6. wolfx
    I know someone who was working in HLJ who provides some insight on how procurement is done. As a supplier its generally known that major stores will only list your product if you can supply a certain amount of stock. They aren't gonna list you if you are just gonna give them 1-10 units.
  7. wolfx
    I'll try to sum up what i've said in the past few posts: Arcadia's Macross is sold in major hobby stores (i.e.: HLJ, Amazon JP, AmiAmi, 1999 etc). These stores order stocks by consignments which can be anywhere from 50-100 units and they do export overseas to the international market. This is hardly a small "limited number" claimed by a few people here who are giving the impression that only smaller brick and mortar specialty stores stock up on Arcadia stuff, and even then they might only order 1-10 units each. The take home from all this is, Arcadia produces more Valks than you think. With that said, we can make a comparison to other smaller companies producing smaller number of toys which are NOT sold in major hobby stores who have better quality, better pricing, and are made in a China factory as well. Conclusion: If factory pricing is what drives these valks to be priced so high, Arcadia has to change its factory which can produce the same expected level of quality if not better for a cheaper manufacturing price. This article is hogwash as far as I'm concerned, and that 65-78% scrap rate is totally unacceptable to anyone in the manufacturing business.
  8. wolfx
    They are great playable updates to the old scramble city combiners. Costs a fraction of 3rd party, and with a bit of investment in 3rd party add-ons, they can look like collector-grade combiners too. I'm happy the kids of today and the kiddults are getting these
  9. wolfx
    I would think yes. Thanks for proving my point. Do you know how much product a supplier needs to provide to Amazon be listed on Amazon? And just to pre-empt you, no, i'm not talking about a hobby store or individual's account on Amazon. I mean Amazon selling the product themselves. I rest my case.
  10. wolfx
    Dude. Why don't we put Target, Hamley's and Walmart into your list while we're at it if you wanna talk about TRU. Does TRU even sell any Macross toys, Bandai or Arcadia, for that matter? How about 3A Toys? I was talking about niche in the collector's market. If BBTS is niche, what is Captured Prey and PlanetSteelExpress? Black Markets? (hmm...maybe one can say so considering all the unlicensed stuff) Anyway semantics aside, i think i've put my point across and it wasn't to argue which retailers are considered niche and which aren't. It was merely to illustrate which toy stores sell valks, which don't, and how big their respective sales volumes are.
  11. wolfx
    My point was you can't get them from local comic/hobby shops (niche), but you can get them from HLJ, Amiami and 1999 (mainstream). The volume and availability is better than comic shops. Its easily accessible and these companies have consignment by crates. Not just 1-2 pieces imported by specialty shops. Granted an Arcadia release probably has 2 pieces per crate, I'm sure HLJ has stocked about at least 10 crates if not more. My local hobby store doesn't bring in any Arcadia stuff. But HLJ does. This means Arcadia (to me) falls in the realm of mainstream distribution channels and they are quite easily available. Amazon is mainstream, right? Regardless of what i meant by niche or not, generally the point i was trying to make was, Arcadia valks are sold by these big online retailers which stock more product. 3P TF aren't, and are mostly sold by smaller/specialty retailers that stock up way less. Going by that, i'm assuming 3P TF is more niche than Arcadia valks....and their production numbers are equal to if not less than an Arcadia valk. I don't have any numbers. But going by availability alone, its much easier to get an Arcadia valk than a 3P transformer as they are being sold by larger online retailers where the latter isn't. Lets not forget, a 3P transformer company (who share toy designers amongst each other) is much smaller than Arcadia. Some even have to resort to Kickstarter or preorders to fund their projects.
  12. wolfx
    Did you try talking to their live staff? Make a new account maybe? I've used them awhile and had no problems. Even got my Soul of Proplica Dominator fixed via their customer service, but that was because Bandai was able to fix it for me.
  13. wolfx
    Finally! Got my UW-02 with upgrade parts. The upgrade parts really help in the overall aesthetic. Will take combined mode later on when I get back from work.
  14. wolfx
    For Yodobashi, its the one in Akiba. Also their online website has some for sale too. The others are major online retailers that serve Japan and international customers, comparable to BigBadToyStore stateside. To me, if these websites have Arcadia products, they are hardly niche. Only reason why BigBad doesn't carry Macross is because of "you-know-who-and-why". Also Amazon Japan carries them. Point is they aren't so niche as how some people mentioned. Niche to me is like stuff you can only get in comic shops, small-time distributors, kickstarter projects, etc.
  15. wolfx
    Arcadias are sold in Yodobashi Camera (a huge mall) , HLJ, 1999, and Amiami they are major enough for me. For comparison, you won't see these places selling 3P TFs do you? These places are hardly "specialty" hobby shops. Hence the comparison. Anyway, seeing that the discussion has gone on for a few weeks now and we can see that there are generally 2 camps. Those who support Arcadia's prices and those who don't. For the record i'm with the latter, not because I can't afford it, but because I can't justify the price with the purported "quality" they seem to promise with their products. Those who support Arcadia's prices, are missing the elephant in the room, which is despite them having purported high QC processes with high scrap rate, sadly their products do not reflect that such stringent QC is in place. And people will make the comparison with other companies that make high-end transforming robots based on manufacturing costs and practices alone. Its unfair to say they are caviar and bananas and should not be compared to each other. Hardly. More like domestic beers vs craft beers (sorry, best example i can think off at this time is beer XD). They both are still beers, and I don't mind drinking either on a hot day. They both cost different due to the difference in production volume and also the niche one of them serves, but that doesn't mean I'll accept and drink a beer that has soured, especially when its a craft beer which purportedly has been made with utmost care and thus the tolerance towards QC issues are less. That's my 2 cents.
  16. wolfx
    I collect some 3rd party TFs...and i can vouch that their quality are top notch, especially from known companies like MMC. They may have a few rare lemons but even those will get replacement parts easily without question. They are also proactive in getting customer feedback by showing prototypes and quite open to fixing the final release if people comment about proportions and colours. Granted I think not many of these toys have much if any tampo printing on them. But their price point does make you want to compare with Arcadia.
  17. wolfx
    License costing aside and based solely on manufacturing numbers alone, where are you getting the numbers that 3rd party TFs number more than Arcadia valk's production numbers? To note that 3rd party TFs are not sold in any major outlets and mostly only distribute from specialty hobby shops, but Arcadia is sold in all major (Japanese) outlets and online stores. I have friends who have factories and are in the manufacturing business, and although not comparable to a high-end transforming toy, they doubt this story when I told them about it. Basically a huge majority of the manufacturing costs boils down to the number of parts. More parts = more injection molds = more costs. More parts = more complex assembly line = more costs. A valk has comparable no. of parts to a high-end transforming toy thus a 3rd party transformer comparison. People kept saying that Arcadia is a small company, which is also comparable to a 3rd party transformer company. Taking that into consideration, i'm of the opinion that their factory is charging too high a cost and taking Yamato, and now Arcadia, for a ride. They should get a new factory. If 3rd Party Transformer companies can change factories for every other release fairly easily without imposing costs on customers, i don't see why Arcadia can't. This eliminates Mr K's argument for not changing factories due to re-training costs.
  18. wolfx
    Overlord is a must get. Gonna prepare for it to cost a bomb though.
  19. wolfx
    The problem I have with this whole interview is Arcadia is justifying their prices due to their supposed high QC standards. And they are serving a small niche market, i.e.: high-end collector's product. But the question is, as Renato (i think) , mentioned in the podcast, is it quality? Did they deliver their alleged high standards of quality? Never got an Arcadia valk so I can't personally comment. But based on the feedback i'm seeing in the forums, it doesn't look like they are delivering even on the QC. This makes their asking price less justifiable. If i'm going to pay premium prices, i will be expecting premium merchandise which should be perfect as far as I am concerned. For example, when I buy stuff from Hot Toys, Side Show Collectibles, Sentinel, Mastermind Creations, etc, I will know that I'll get something that I will be extremely satisfied with and worth every single cent I'm throwing at them. With Arcadia, i'm still not getting this level of consumer confidence. And thus unfortunately i'm still not one of their customers. My 2 cents.
  20. wolfx
    Why is MG Rex's head on everything? Is anything sacred anymore. Next they'll make a chibi rex-head robot..... http://www.hlj.com/product/meg81961 Nooooooo!!!
  21. wolfx
    We don't have Walmarts here. I should be fracking pissed about this, right?
  22. wolfx
    This hasn't been released in my country yet, but quite sad to hear that it only has 5 points of articulation. I thought I could put her together with my ep3 clone trooper collection. http://www.jeditemplearchives.com/content/modules.php?name=JReviews&rop=showcontent&id=2296
  23. wolfx
    I've only watched up till Bakemonogatari season 2. What am I missing? Hanamonogatari and Tsukimonogatari? (5 and 3 episodes respectively?) These went under my radar surprisingly. Must've been busy with work.
  24. wolfx
    Long ago, I read that the YF-29 , (i assume like the YF-30), if anything is just a temporary "Frankenstein" of VF-25 parts and was supposed to be a "one-off". Its original intention was to act as an anti-vajra fold relay fighter to project Ranka's song to the Vajra. It never was meant to be mass produced or past the prototype stage. Then when Macross 30 came in I don't know what happened with that supposed explanation and can't find it anywhere anymore since there is now an Isamu, Ozma and Rod custom. Lol. Seeing that both YF-29 an YF-30 are supposed to be specialised anti-vajra fighters, seem unlikely they will see mass-production. And the fold quartz that come from Vajra corpses will be rarer since the Vajra disappeared from the galaxy after the events of Frontier. The VF-25 being the new mainstay fighter would be most likely. Sorry now back to the 19.
  25. wolfx
    lol gender bent Amy and Ledo as ANN image.
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