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Originally Posted by imfallenangel
How much does it cost? Plastic prices are at a very low point at this time. Technology has made mold production a LOT cheaper than ever before with much better precision than how they were done just 10 years ago (so less testing and redos of molds due to defects). If anything, prices should be the same, of even lower at this point... but supply and demand has made them to simply pull more money in but doing less.
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I work in manufacturing and deal with plastic parts somewhat similar to what are in Transformers and I can tell you there are some extra costs involved that you are perhaps not considering.
While the amount of plastic in the newer releases remains similar, the increased articulation adds a lot more cost. Each mold needed has a fixed cost to produce/use/store.
You may be able to machine a mold in half the time now, but you need to machine 3-4 different molds for an arm for example, where you used to use 1-2. Also, all those molds now take up more setup time and cost more to store (storage/shipping of molds can be a considerable cost).
Each arm now takes double the assembly time, add increased paint apps like the most recent bots and the cost can increase significantly.
Not saying they're not making more money off us rich collectors rather than dumb kids but I don't think they're COMPLETELY evil. They certainty need to amortize the setup/design costs over fewer unit sales to collectors. Maybe the Vietnamese workers are demanding better wages these days as well.
