New Toys Prices Discussion

[protoform_ironhide]

Originally Posted by RNSrobot

I disagree with this. Some of the engineering is tops. Some is garbage. JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER LINE SINCE CLASSICS STARTED.

Just because something is more "complicated" doesn't make it "better." Movie leader Prime, step up! Now, does Earthrise Prime look pretty great? Yeah, although, the trailer, not so much.

I think the current datsun is mediocre. Those feet are terrible. The CHUG datsuns are fucking great toys. Voyager Jetfire remains a great toy even if Siege is an amazing size we never had before. Not so impressed with a lot of the Siege toys. It is what it IS. The engineering/paint is not suddenly ten dollars more toy. Not a chance. There are still widespread QC or design issues. FOr ten bucks more a small deluxe, come on. For forty dollar voyager, why are Grapple and Apeface entirely prone to snapping pegs?

Because it is "more G1" I get why that appeals to fans. I'm not necessarily super into G1 toon accuracy. T30 Springer remains the superior toy to me, both engineering and aesthetics. That's also subjective, but siege Springer does little for me, and almost every friend who kept theirs has had something break or go loose immediately, or is terrified during transformation.

Meh.

The price increase is stupid and dumb.

Yes, there is always good and bad figures in every line, but overall Siege is a lot better than classic in my opinion, especially how they look. The Classic Datsun that I have falls apart a lot and I don’t like the proportions, plus they also have more empty space in between in robot mode, so there is pros/cons on both versions. It really depends on which ones you prefer. There are some that I rather keep the original classic, Hound for example... but most will be replace by Siege with obvious reasons. If price is a concern to the collector, they can just keep the original classic and avoid buying the new ones like how I react when the line just came out in the beginning.

[bqpetn]

Good design or bad design does not matter.

Because it does not effect the cost of the production much.
It cost the same to make the mold, similar amount of plastic, same assembly line, same printing and packaging.
Actually the new toy lines, you can tell that they try to simplify the parts and joints. It is actually cost less to produce.
But they selling much much higher than before. It doesn't make any sense.

[protoform_ironhide]

^Only Hasbro can answer those questions. I feel that Hasbro isn’t here to ripe us off. Who knows how much it costs them behind the scene right? Don’t think anyone want to lose customers looking at how hard it is to run a business nowadays, plus there are competitions now from lots of 3rd party out there. Perhaps they don’t produce that much anymore due to many reasons, hence drive up the price? That could be one of the main factor and why the figures are so much harder to find in these couple years. They may not make the toys themselves instead find factories to make the toys for them, so making less could cost them more.

[imfallenangel]

Originally Posted by protoform_ironhide

^Only Hasbro can answer those questions. I feel that Hasbro isn’t here to ripe us off. Who knows how much it costs them behind the scene right? Don’t think anyone want to lose customers looking at how hard it is to run a business nowadays, plus there are competitions now from lots of 3rd party out there. Perhaps they don’t produce that much anymore due to many reasons, hence drive up the price? That could be one of the main factor and why the figures are so much harder to find in these couple years. They may not make the toys themselves instead find factories to make the toys for them, so making less could cost them more.

Like all capitalist company it's about maximizing profit.

They do not care to lose 100 customer, if they get to produce 1/3 of products and still have 30 customers that are paying multiple times the actual value and still making more money than if they sold at lower prices to more customers.

Their target audience are the ones that has the most money and to take as much as these peoples will accept to give them, it's as simple as that.

Look at the fundme for Unicron.. people lines up to bend over and were shouting how great it was to overpay... I don't aim to offend, but to be honest about the fact that this was a social experiment to see if they would have the numbers to justify such a price, and those that threw themselves on the pile, did just that.

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.

When you see a lot of figures being produced dirt cheap that ends up as "KOs" that are just as good but at 1/2 or even as much as 1/4 of the "original" price and still making a decent profit, when you see 3rd parties able to make excellent original figures (or other toys) at still a much lower price, and many times, much better quality than Hasbro does, when you see that Hasbro is making huge profits on their quarterly/yearly reports, then at some point, you have to realize that Hasbro is absolutely in it for the money and it overpricing these figures by a lot, simply because they know that they will sell enough, even in smaller numbers but larger prices, to make money by the truckload.

To think otherwise is to not understand these points that are quite a reality.

At this point, if the Siege and ER figures hadn't been done with better plastic and improved engineering, if they didn't go with the characters that would appeal the most (and they keep measuring responses and activity about what people are still asking for), only to ensure interest, there would have been a huge decline in their sales as for the kids, most that's out there now, it expensive and not that great to be honest, but they do manage to do figures that has just enough appeal to draw people in.

Siege and ER has a few amazing figures, but as I've repeatedly stated, they do act with the "this is good enough, it'll sell" for almost all figures.

The gaps, the lack of decent accessories, being my main pet peeve for just about every of these figures.

I've never had to buy as many 3rd party add-on kits, never had to paint or customize as much as I have with my figures as I've done in the last year... all because they are all missing that little extra that would make the figures "too good" I guess, for Hasbro.

Every figure that I find amazing but lacks that little "extra" push that should be there, pushes me further and further from future purchases... and that's on Hasbro.

[RNSrobot]

. Look at the fundme for Unicron.. people lines up to bend over and were shouting how great it was to overpay... I don't aim to offend, but to be honest about the fact that this was a social experiment to see if they would have the numbers to justify such a price, and those that threw themselves on the pile, did just that.

This x1000.

[protoform_ironhide]

That Unicron...it's just a big chunk of plastic. I have to agree with you on that one... Not worth the money and shelf space at all... LOL

[alternatorfan]

Originally Posted by protoform_ironhide

That Unicron...it's just a big chunk of plastic. I have to agree with you on that one... Not worth the money and shelf space at all... LOL

Although it would be nice to have.

[Zenith27]

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.

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.

[bqpetn]

agree 100%

Originally Posted by imfallenangel

Like all capitalist company it's about maximizing profit.

They do not care to lose 100 customer, if they get to produce 1/3 of products and still have 30 customers that are paying multiple times the actual value and still making more money than if they sold at lower prices to more customers.

Their target audience are the ones that has the most money and to take as much as these peoples will accept to give them, it's as simple as that.

Look at the fundme for Unicron.. people lines up to bend over and were shouting how great it was to overpay... I don't aim to offend, but to be honest about the fact that this was a social experiment to see if they would have the numbers to justify such a price, and those that threw themselves on the pile, did just that.

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.

When you see a lot of figures being produced dirt cheap that ends up as "KOs" that are just as good but at 1/2 or even as much as 1/4 of the "original" price and still making a decent profit, when you see 3rd parties able to make excellent original figures (or other toys) at still a much lower price, and many times, much better quality than Hasbro does, when you see that Hasbro is making huge profits on their quarterly/yearly reports, then at some point, you have to realize that Hasbro is absolutely in it for the money and it overpricing these figures by a lot, simply because they know that they will sell enough, even in smaller numbers but larger prices, to make money by the truckload.

To think otherwise is to not understand these points that are quite a reality.

At this point, if the Siege and ER figures hadn't been done with better plastic and improved engineering, if they didn't go with the characters that would appeal the most (and they keep measuring responses and activity about what people are still asking for), only to ensure interest, there would have been a huge decline in their sales as for the kids, most that's out there now, it expensive and not that great to be honest, but they do manage to do figures that has just enough appeal to draw people in.

Siege and ER has a few amazing figures, but as I've repeatedly stated, they do act with the "this is good enough, it'll sell" for almost all figures.

The gaps, the lack of decent accessories, being my main pet peeve for just about every of these figures.

I've never had to buy as many 3rd party add-on kits, never had to paint or customize as much as I have with my figures as I've done in the last year... all because they are all missing that little extra that would make the figures "too good" I guess, for Hasbro.

Every figure that I find amazing but lacks that little "extra" push that should be there, pushes me further and further from future purchases... and that's on Hasbro.

[Mumps]

All prices are high. Just look at 3P. Yeah, I know, smaller production runs and all that, but... we pay $30 for a deluxe, a toy that is quite good. Now let's look at NewAge, who BTW are producing masterpieces. Their products are damn near unaffordable. If you were to scale up their incredible engineering talent to MP sized figures, they would cost damn near as much as Unicron!


Not exactly sure where I was going with this... I want to be able to afford NewAge toys...Right now, I can only afford Hasbro.