jenius

Do transformers fans really call them "tranny toys?" That sounds just wrong on every level.

Probably, when in doubt send an email although there might be several people in the same boat as you doing the same thing so even emails might have a delayed response.

Toyota executive reads this thread... looks over at LFA.... d'oh!

Ugh... please, let's not have people posting shallow economic reviews of issues of significant depth on a forum dedicated to cartoons. Also, Valkyrie Addict, you sound like a nut job. I think ya need to tone down that rhetoric a bit. The Toynami MPC was $79.99. That's roughly the price of the V2 VF-1. Is Yamato's price really that offensive to you? Hey, if it is, just make sure it's not your money they're using to pay for the groceries they feed their children with (or re-invest so that they can build more and better toys).

Make no mistake though, Robotech allowed Macek to cash an AWFUL lot of real checks. Robotech WAS a runaway hit in the 80s. It's not remembered for being the runaway hit that it was because it was so brief. One season isn't quite enough to build a legacy but at the time it was HUGE, warts and all. We can say things like "My buddy says Macross was cool but the Masters sucked" but the whole thing got watched by LOTS of people. I also remember hating the Masters arch but I loved New Gen. Ya know, maybe it was watching the New Gen after the Masters that made it seem so much better to me. I'm gonna have to disagree with anyone who says SDCSC was good before Macek butchered it. Yes, it is BETTER in its original form but it's a LONG way from good. I do think HG deserves some credit if you're an SDCSC or Mospeada fan... in the pantheon of great mech shows those two would have vanished into obscurity long ago.

So.... you could spend $2000 for the new ultra rare SDF-1 model they're making.... then next year you'll get to see Yamato release a nicer version for the same price with bonus extra pieces. Gotta love that business model.

Graham can't talk to you right now, he's busy on the phone with his friends at Yamato trying to negotiate a discount for one for himself.

Then I take it all back, worst of all worlds. It's an exclusive AND a finished product... at least they were nice enough to mark it down a little bit. Still, wish they just put it in a plain brown box and didn't assemble it and charged less. c'est le vie EDIT - I don't know what mark-up OD will charge, and what's reasonable is up to you, but I've used OD on a TON of exclusive items now and I can definitely vouch for them as being extremely trustworthy.

You know, the flaws inherent in Robotech I think are a big part of its charm. 1) The show hooked you with its strongest arch, the Macross Saga, and it existed like a carrot there throughout the other sagas. You watched eagerly through Robotech Masters and The New Generation hoping for residual threads of coolness and references to the previous sagas. You saw the potential of Robotech and you hoped there'd be more of that potential surfacing throughout (and each arch does have its really good moments to satisfy occasionally). In this respect Robotech for me is a lot like golf. It only takes one really good swing or one really good hole to get me to want to play again. Your desire for it everyday to live up to the coolness you had seen previously and those occasional payoffs really sticks with kids who can't remember much of anything else from their childhood viewing. 2) Like that feeling of anticipation every day that the show would pay off as big as you knew it could came a LOT of let downs that also stuck with us fans. It's all the failures in it that people seem to have clung on to more than anything else. It was the fact people wanted Robotech soooo bad to be something more that really got under their skin. Look at all the debates on Robotech.com about all those BAD elements. Where was the SDF-2? Why doesn't Dana look the same? Why would M&M ditch Dana? Does Dana have a brother? Do the three mounds really make sense? Etc. etc. People would fixate on Robotech (after they were done seeing the show into many years after). Sure, those peaks of awesomeness made us love it when it was on but all the failures made us obssess about it later. "Oh man, only if I had had some say in how they wrote THIS aspect or THAT." "Oh man, if only they had bothered to pay for some unique animation to feel in THIS gap." etc. 3) The failure to get really kick ass toys also resonated with us early fans. We wanted Jetfire to be Rick's veritech. We wanted veritechs for everyone. For me, being brought into Robotech by my brother watching the VHS tapes, I didn't even have the joy of owning the 1/35 Alphas because they were long off shelves by the time I would have wanted one. I used to daydream about how a better Jetfire toy should be made. Heck, I even remember having dreams about being in Toys R' Us and finding old toys buried in the back. Yep, that's how much I wanted sweet Robotech toys growing up and I got just about zilch (I think I found some models at some Longs Drugs). In summary, much of what made Robotech great to me was how much it failed to deliver. If you get everything you want you consume it and move on. Sadly, HG's many failures have taken this premise too far. They had chances to start satiating that old hunger in fans and cash in big but instead they bloated us with mediocre.

Dear Toynami executive(s), There is demand for an SDF-1 toy of true masterpiece quality at a reasonable price point. Spend $2000, buy this kit, then simplify it, change it slightly, make a toy out of it. Clearly you don't care if people think all your company does is rip off existing designs so why stop now?

Well, if Yamato decided to do this rather than scrap the project entirely then I think that's cool of them. I wish Beagle would have done something similar with their Fuke toy.

See, if they hadn't even bothered assembling it and put it in a plain brown box it would have definitely been even cheaper. It seems like this is not an exclusive, the advertisement there says Shop Yahoo so it's a winning situation for everyone. Cheaper valk + no "finders fee" mark up = win for everyone who wants one.

Then, next year, will be the newest version that comes with unpainted Hikaru with unpainted Minmay on lap.... then the next version will be the damaged one.

So does this mean there will be one version sold in December 2009 and another version (hopefully cheaper) sold later? For $2000 I'll enjoy another holiday in Japan before I'd buy a quasi-toy.

Got a new post up: Mostly information I'm sure you all expect but with a few pics you may like. Go to www.anymoon.com

I don't think you can say Bobby was influenced by the hairdresser in MacII because the hairdressing aspect of both characters is playing up on an existing stereotype.

Hey, the Sentinels may suck, but that scene where the Regent walks into a room of captured Tirolians and then rewards them with a bomb that kills them all was pretty sweet. That was a very bad bug man.

Well yes, if we move my idea of a partially assembled toy aside, and instead consider an "arctic VF-1S" completely made and finished toy, there's no doubt that would cost a ton more as a web exclusive than as a regular release. I wouldn't be surprised at all if we see that really happen. I still think it'd be more likely Yamato will just release a completely finished all white valk as a regular release and make customizers pay full retail.

No one would be able to sell my fake valk at a huge mark-up because everyone would do what you're saying you would do. Why would you or anyone pay MORE for this blank valk then you would a completely finished valk? It doesn't make sense. So, the customizers in Japan could get the toy on the cheap and the people who would usually mark-up these web exclusives will quickly find that they can't mark them up very much at all. Inevitably some customizer in Japan who does things for their passion of customizing would help people outside of Japan get these toys for a much more modest mark-up just to cover everyone's costs. The same thing goes for Yamato's own asking price. Yamato couldn't possibly ask the same MSRP for an unfinished valk that they charge for their polished final product. People would line up in droves to pay full MSRP on finished toys, no one would line up to pay full MSRP on some unfinished toy thrown in a plain brown box. It doesn't make sense. They would HAVE to lower the asking price. I think the $70 mark makes sense because that tends to be the sale price of completed Yamato v2 toys (so honestly, it's probably a little high for what the unfinished toy would cost). There's no way that you have to worry that Yamato would go to a completely web-based purchase system. It makes no economic sense. Exclusives are good for selling toys that appeal to a tiny fraction of the fanbase (like unfinished toys in a plain brown box). Exclusives are TERRIBLE for selling toys with broad appeal. There's a good reason stores exist and it's not just because they existed before the Internet.

It's not that I'm arguing FOR Yamato, I'm arguing for the existence of the toy. I don't think the toy could sale at the volume necessary for non-exclusive retail sales. Since Yamato couldn't possible sale this blank and not totally assembled toy for the same price as a fully assembled toy (because potential consumers have the option of buying fully assembled toys and would typically choose those over a blank unassembled toy) the web exclusive price would probably be at most 70% of a standard release available at your local supplier. So, to you, in the end, since you're outside of Japan you'd still end up paying about the same price as a traditional release. This means your argument that you would have bought more as a traditional retail item doesn't really make sense (unless you see a large amount of value added by having Yamato finish the toy and use a fancy box). I'm sure the majority of customizers for macross products live within Japan so it's not a big loss to you (since you'd be essentially paying the same price) and it's a bigger benefit to the majority. Here's the math: Yamato Exclusive "Customizer Edition" partially assembled all blank valk at Yamato members price $70 Mark up for finders fee: $20-$30 Shipping: $20? You pay: $110-$120 Yamato Retail "Arctic Edition" fully assembled white VF-1 $90 Shipping: $20? You pay: $110 So, the "web exclusive" route would be about the same price but wouldn't come in a cool box, would not be fully assembled, would allow Yamato to make much fewer and still have it be a viable product, and would cost the Yamato's major market $25 less then standard releases.

I understand the gripe with the common website exclusive. If it's a product that could be sold successfully through retail channels then making it a website exclusive does seem like a money grab when the manufacturer goes the direct sales route. It makes matters much worse for people outside of Japan because they then pay the mark-up and two shipping fees. The only reason I would argue FOR the website exclusive on the unfinished pure white valk is because I can't see it ever being a successful toy through standard retail channels. Retailers wouldn't want to stock this model-like toy (outside of the mega model/toy retailers) and as such the orders to Yamato would be tiny. If Yamato gets rid of those retailers and keeps the mark-up themselves then they can theoretically stay profitable while producing roughly HALF the number of units through the exclusive channel. Since I don't live in Japan the exclusive channel would only benefit me in that I would rather see this happen and be an exclusive (even if after 'finders fees' the toy costs about the same as a finished VF-1 for non-residents) then not be made at all. Again, Yamato could complete the toy, put it in a fancy box, and charge full MSRP. Price-wise you'd definitely have to pay full MSRP and then take the toy apart. It's kind of a six of one, half a dozen of the other argument with me saying that I just think in the six of one approach there's more likelihood of it actually happening.

I don't get what middleman I'm introducing? Yamato's website is not a middleman, it's their direct sales channel. I'm going to keep this all in the context of my original suggestion which I'm not sure you're doing. Obviously it doesn't HAVE to be in a brown box... it doesn't HAVE to be made in any way. We're also talking about a toy that would NEVER EVER IN A MILLION YEARS succeed in large quantities. A partially assembled all blank valk isn't the kind of thing that is going to fly off the shelves... it's something a very tiny fraction of the hobby would want for customizing. Most customizers probably wouldn't even be interested since they're usually also modelers. Soooo... Yamato could offer this tiny niche product to retailers and would likely be snubbed by the vast majority of them. "How many orders do you want of a partially assembled, no frills quasi-toy packaged in a plain brown box and aimed at .05% of the fandom? Each case comes with at least six." By keeping it a web exclusive they get to roll out tiny production runs at a time, throw them in the cheapest box possible, and dictate the price that that .05% is going to have to pay. Obviously they're competing with their already made toys that regular retailers are selling so the price they could charge would be extremely limited. The can't charge you $90 for a partially assembled toy when you can buy the fully assembled and painted toy for the same thing. The other option is to make it a regular release, completely finish it, paint the pilot, give it a nice box, and charge you the same MSRP as every other toy but make it readily available. It would probably sell pretty terribly and the customizers will have spent more money just to tear the toy apart anyway. Granted, that's the much more likely way it will go. I think the problem here is that you think a web exclusive HAS to cost YOU more money (and if you live outside of Japan, you may be right) but if you look at it from Yamato's perspective, they could easily charge much less for their Japanese customers and cut out middlemen entirely on a product that with middlemen likely is an immediate failure.

Toy companies almost never make official announcements of toy lines dying. Usually what they'll do is just allow employees to say "we don't plan on making more of those" at toy shows. There's still no "official announcement" of the Beagle Ride Armor line being dead so you can hold out hope on that too.

because it wouldn't work as a retail package. I can't imagine stores carrying incomplete toys in plain brown boxes right next to their normal toys at twice the cost... except maybe your Hobbylink Japans of the world. Also, if you introduce a middle man you introduce one more person who is going to want a take on the profit.

If they do do an all white valk, I think they should get hardcore about it. They should make it a web exclusive (hear me out). The item should cost about 50% of a normal valk, should come only partially assembled like a model kit, should have an unpainted pilot figure and gun, and should be shipped in a plain brown box, as small as possible, with paper instructions in Japanese about how to finish constructing the toy. The toy should come shipped with a TV VF-1A head with alternate heads and accessories also available through the Yamato website. Yamato should make a section of their website into the Macross Factory where you could buy all the items customizers could want. You want to buy 12 unpainted VF-1S heads? Sure. You want a bag full of different colored visors for those heads? That should be available to. Am I dreaming a bit too much? Yeah, probably.