There is a rumor about MP combiner these 2 days

[canprime]

Originally Posted by xueyue2

According to the source on TGFC, it's way more than that. Let me translate the details here of what he said (I'm just doing translation here, I can't validate any he said is true or not, take this with a grain of salt).

1) 先是放图恶心竞争对手，
When the competitor makes an new product annoncement, FT will also announce with pictures to show same character in FT's pipeline too.

2) 但是背后给其 他家的工厂砸价，让其产品值崩，惹了众怒。
FT secretly bring down other factories' price, make the the competitor lose money, which piss off a lot companies. ( my comment: I don't even know if my translation here is accurate or not, since I don't understand how or what FT did Secretly, what is "砸价" action).

3) 和FT仇恨最大的就是dx9，badcube，tw这几家。dx9的惊破天和badcube的 昆虫都被FT 背后给工厂砸价或给经销商砸价弄得血本无归，导致dx9现在基本生产量只看预定量，tw更是大 幅收缩战线， 还要盯着淘宝商家，看是哪家被收买砸价。据说和MT也有点问题。
The biggest haters of FT are dx9, bc and TW. FT's 砸价 action caused DT9's Galvatron and BC's Insecticons losing big money. It was so bad that DX9 now only produce based on pre-order numbers, TW shrink a lot and has to watch Taobao shops all the time to avoid 砸价. It was said FT has problem with MT too.

4) 在mt和dx9威震天上市前夕，FT泄露了官方的威震天灰模。玩家肯定觉得无所谓，甚至庆幸， 那么同行里基 本是臭了。

Right before MT and DX9 releasing their version of MP Megatron, FT purposely leaked the grep mold picture of Takara MP36 Megatron. It's a good thing for normal collectors but basically destroyed FT's reputation among all 3rd party companies.


5) FT现在已经被彻底孤立，几次国内的展会都没人邀请FT去，MT，dx9，badcube三家已经 联合准备 恶心FT，有个不明来历的弹簧，就是针对FT弹簧的，价格极为便宜，而且是三家设计师共同设计 。

Now other 3rd parties don't like FT, for example several toy shows in China, nobody invited FT to join. And 3 designers from MT, DX9 and BC decide to make a non-Springer together to compete with FT's non-Springer, and it will sell at a very low price, like 300 RMB (44 USD), the only purpose is to stop FT's springer selling.

And so it begins.......

The 3P implosion.

[predahank]

Interesting read, thanks for sharing xueyue

I'm totally down for a cheap revenge springer

[Crobot91]

My preference is still the FT version; scales nicely with other MP figures. I like my Springer being a bit bulky, like a brawler.

[xueyue2]

Originally Posted by Crobot91

My preference is still the FT version; scales nicely with other MP figures. I like my Springer being a bit bulky, like a brawler.

If there is a Hasbro/Takara version, I go for official one for sure. Otherwise if they are all 3rd parties ones, and similar quality/design, I would go for the cheaper one....there are so many good stuffs and I need to save money for them.

[Chigimus]

Originally Posted by xueyue2

According to the source on TGFC, it's way more than that. Let me translate the details here of what he said (I'm just doing translation here, I can't validate any he said is true or not, take this with a grain of salt).

1) 先是放图恶心竞争对手，
When the competitor makes an new product annoncement, FT will also announce with pictures to show same character in FT's pipeline too.

2) 但是背后给其 他家的工厂砸价，让其产品值崩，惹了众怒。
FT secretly bring down other factories' price, make the the competitor lose money, which piss off a lot companies. ( my comment: I don't even know if my translation here is accurate or not, since I don't understand how or what FT did Secretly, what is "砸价" action).

Thanks for sharing that post with us Xueyue2, those are interesting rumors to read. "砸价" translates to "price". That whole 2nd point translates to "But behind the factory to the other home price, let the product value collapse, provoked outrage". So from the context that I get from the rest of Xueyue's translation, it sounds like FT allegedly has been price fixing the market when they don't have a comparable product yet.

So let's say competitors like BC, DX9, MT, etc. makes an announcement for a new upcoming product. If FT already has renders of a comparable design on the same character, then they announce their version shortly afterwards, but more to the point it sounds like FT deliberately holds onto their upcoming designs to purposely curb pre-order interest for competitor products. That's probably what the "let the product value collapse" comment is about: announce their versions later after the competitors do and try to force them into a position where they are losing interest from prospective buyers and/or force competitors into a lower profit margin as they may have to undersell their product for a lower price than originally intended.

Regarding the rumor that FT leaked Takara's MP-36 photos ahead of Takara's plans to make an official announcement, it seems like FT doesn't have a comparable design for this character in their cupboards. So instead, they tried to screw over competitors by leaking Takara's photos in lieu of announcing their own product. The hate that FT is receiving from DX9 and Maketoys sounds like it's because it was a low ball move to mess with their own sales of Mightron and Despotron respectively. If MP-36 photos didn't get released until Takara's official announcement, that's just how the game goes sometimes, but if the rumors are true, then FT leaked Takara's photos for no other reason than to hurt DX9's and MT's sales results....which obviously isn't fair business practices.

Like Xueyue said, it's just a rumor, but the timing of FT's announcements, aside from their dinobots, does seem to be conveniently AFTER other 3rd parties try to offer a product for a character that wasn't already previously on the market. Haters gonna hate of course, but if that's true, the hate is warranted. It's one thing to hate the player or the game, but it's a different argument if the player fixes the game unfairly against your favor.

[timcrook]

All this rumoured hate against FT, I can believe it.