jenius

This largely should be in another thread and your understanding of the matter is fundamentally flawed. Unfortunately any discussion of licensing and the history of the Big West, Tatsunoko, Harmony Gold relationship is one that requires more than a few sentences and is highly unlikely to be productive.

I vaguely recall an interview with George Sohn where he was bragging about the MPC boxes. He contended that they were fantastic boxes and the price per unit was tiny so it wasn't really a detriment to the price of the toys. I really like the boxes so while I agree they have a ton of progress to make on the toys I'd like them to keep doing a good job in the one place where they seem most capable!

No, the plastic being used shouldn't be affected in any way by transit. It looked to me like the culprit was a pin placed in the shoulders upside down but I don't know if we ever got a definitive answer on that.

LOL, a few people disagree with you and you equate it to that? A touch defensive. Sorry you don't like Netflix charging an extra $12 a year, I hope your not renting Blu-Rays works out great for you.

http://www.macrossworld.com/macross/toys/_toys_arii.htm

You should also consider the diminishing returns on a rental. In the first month of a release there are a bunch of people wanting to rent a movie. In subsequent months the number drops off precipitously. So, Netflix needs to have enough fo a title to meet all the demands in the first month and is then left with a bunch of stock that barely gets rented. There's lots of variables but it only makes sense that the Blu-Ray industry is more expensive than the normal DVD industry.

Why exclusive suck: Lower sales figures. The toys aren't in B&M stores so you don't get that random pick up. Also, the toy never goes on sale because there's no excess supply lying around and everyone ends up having to pay MSRP (or more for the sad folks outside the range of exclusivity) Why exclusives rock: Toy companies are guaranteed to make more money per unit sold so they can take a risk and make something in smaller quantities. This could be great for collectors because it means a toy not worth the risk of a large production run can still be made by a company (not really the case here). I know Japan and the Far East have a different way of doing things but I know here in the states almost no one buys collectibles from B&M stores. So, if you're a toy manufacturer and everyone is buying their toys online, why not give yourself the monopoly and reap all the profit? Sure, sales are smaller, but you have to imagine with more companies making more exclusives they're coming to the conclusion that the greater profit outweighs the lost sales.

I'm pretty sure there hasn't been a stand alone 2nd edition VF-0S yet. There's supposed to be one soon though, in December. If Yamato keeps to their recent ways of doing things there should be a MacZero toy following the Spring release of the VF-11 Mac Plus toy. If six months after the VF-11's release there aren't any MacZero rumors then you can presume the line dead (save maybe some repaints and reissues).

Overdrive always advertises that if you want a Japan only exclusive that they're willing to help. It certainly never hurts to shoot them an email.

The reviews seem to say that this film is more a wannabe Jason Bourne film than a Bond flick. I hated the Pierce Brosnan Bond films so I'm not sure if getting more Bourne isn't a good thing. Still, I heard this film is devoid of womanizing and has almost no gadgets which doesn't sound promising.

Ah you have to love repaints... they're almost instantly profitable so production runs can be TEEEEENy. Hmm, now I got to decide if they're worth transforming when I get them or should I leave them forever in bike mode? I think these ones will be transformed. PS - I also heard something from a vendor that sounded like he already had the black ones in stock but it may just be a misunderstanding.

I'm pretty sure it's normal but Yamato's toys don't hit the shelves at the same time everywhere so they may not be shipping just yet.

You are alone.... these delays began long before anyone knew the economic crisis. Having a finished product and shelving it indefinitely and abruplty is odd. Edit - That sounds rude so I'll clarify. Toynami had a simple distribution deal. Bandai has completed a production run of the toy (generally they'd just make more and give Toynami some to sell in the states). The preorders indicated that this would be how things were done with the original US release date being only a short time after the Japanese one. The Japanese release date has come and gone, Japanese people own the toy, Toynami never managed to get any of them or sell them in the states. This is odd. It would be odd that Bandai would plan a second manufacturing run to meet an order that was available at the time of the first manufacturing run (it makes no economic sense). If you want to bring the economic landscape into this, the delay is even MORE odd. One production run would have been way cheaper than two. Also, both companies knew they wanted to do this like back in June, that's plenty of time to make Christmas deadlines. Why would a company willing choose to miss xmas? Again, it doesn't make sense.

On the Bandai/Tamashi/Toynami relationship it very well could just be a random and long delay (Do you not think it's odd to take preorders for a finished product in June and then not deliver said finished product until some unknown date in the following year?). I've been nay-saying that we'd ever see anything from it for a long time so far and wouldn't mind being proven wrong. Still, the random and long delay seems to be the precursor to the cancelled preorders followed by the official announcement that, for whatever reason, Toynami won't be bringing chunkies stateside after all. That's my guess. I have no doubt a lot of people will manage to beat me to the Alto and Ozma reviews . Still, I'll try to get it up quick enough to be relevant still. I really hate placing preorders like 5 months in advance of a toy's release... here's to hoping the next five months go well!

The VF-1 is way too big to have a 1/18 scale toy. No one would be able to put that thing anywhere. Don't get me wrong, it'd be really cool to see but I can't imagine enough households would have a spot for it ot make it worth the effort.

I've put in a request for all of these toys and will be doing full reviews, hopefully not long after they're available in Japan. I'll also be trying to get my grubby little hands on all these exclusive armor parts and extras.

I'm still doubting the original Bandai Toynami deal will ever happen. Seems a very odd delay going on. I can understand if Bandai doesn't want to steal focus from their Frontier stuff but I suspect they hit a legal hurdle and that was that.

I got an email from Overdrive earlier, they're around and will respond. You have seven days to figure this out, why worry? Contacting your credit card company is ALWAYS the wrong move if there's no fraud involved. It costs a minimum of $15 for the people you bought the item from (and some hoops to jump through) when you over-react.

Shameless PLUG, the VF-0S with ghost is the latest review on anymoon.com

website exclusives are not hard to get, they just suck because you pay more for them because no one wants to mark them down below the website price. You end up having to pay full retail, plus a mark-up that covers shipping the item once, plus a mark up for profit.

How can we answer until the new Yamato VF-0S and Bandai VF-25S are released? What if either one proves to have huge problems?

Still might make Xmas... I'll be pretty surprised if they pull that off.

I figured they'd save the black male ride armors for event exclusives but maybe since Mega House did there Dark Ride Armor as an exclusive CMs didn't want to look like they were copying the idea... That and it's probably more economically sensible not to make them 100 a piece exclusives like just about everything else they made has been. Needless to say, I'll grab one of each. I hope they reissue Stig and Ley with their 2nd edition improvements also (sturdier wind screens and metal swing arm locks).

Yes, that full page scan totally needed to be quoted. Now, ZOMG That thing doesn't even resemble the VF-25!!!!! FTW!!!!

Well, except these come from outside sources from the means in which they're supposed to be available and come with packaging that isn't 100% correct...