MP Thundercracker vers 2

[spiderken17]

At the current prices of MPs i can pretty much say my MP collection is complete. I cannot afford to drop that sort of money on new MPs let alone ones that i already have a version of. While I think a cartoon accurate cast would look cool on the shelf, i cannot spend thousands to get it. Even selling the old versions (for a fraction of the cost of purchase), its just not feasible for me. Its a shame as they are pricing the average collector out of the market.

[Fungal Infection]

It such a shame that the MP line has come to this - pricing most collectors out of the market. I still haven't got Hound after hearing of the quality issues and Optimus V3 and Starscream V3 prices are not justifiable in my opinion. Even general collecting is becoming hard with all the hard to get exclusives. Maybe it's time to call it in .....

[philby]

$480 is an absolute joke. They know they can get away with charging this much, since no one wanted to miss out on Sunstreaker and Hound. It’s really disappointing.

where did you get that price from? griffin' post suggests $350

[nalops]

It's the EB/Zing price https://www.zingpopculture.com.au/pr...r-ver-2-figure

[Tha_Phantom]

Does anyone know if EB gets their pricing from Hasbro AU or they set it themselves? If it's from Hasbro then something needs to change as it's become damaging to the brand when people write off getting an MP altogether based solely on EB's price.

[griffin]

where did you get that price from? griffin' post suggests $350

$350 was the approximate converted price of the toy in Japan.
$480 is what EB/Zing is charging in Australia.

[griffin]

Does anyone know if EB gets their pricing from Hasbro AU or they set it themselves? If it's from Hasbro then something needs to change as it's become damaging to the brand when people write off getting an MP altogether based solely on EB's price.

Wholesalers are not allowed to set prices in Australia by law... but they can give "recommended retail pricing", but most retailers will set their pricing based on their standard margins, often lining up close to the RRP estimate.

I can't really go into any details, but EB prices are based on what Hasbro Australia sells it to them for... and Hasbro Australia is stuck with the price that Hasbro Asia charges them.
I had this whole argument with them several years ago when they were selling the JP Combiner sets at ToysRUs, and the TRU price was double what they could be imported for, which meant that Hasbro Australia were obviously being shafted... because if Hasbro Asia can sell it to Asian retailers for a wholesale price that ends up being on the shelf for half of what it ends up here, then Hasbro Asia is charging one of their own branches at least double what they were charging local retailers that have nothing to do with Hasbro.
This was an argument that took many conversations, as the local branch is not keen to reveal too much about what happens internally... so they won't come out and tell us how much they are being charged, and I can't encourage the local office to rock the boat on how things are done between the Branches of Hsabro, because getting some of these over-priced expensive imports/exclusives here makes it more likely that we will get the cheaper exclusives here (even if those are also over-priced... but if they are hard to get globally like several of the 2020 Hasbro exclusives, getting them here at all is better than resorting to scalper pricing from overseas).

[Trent]

Wholesalers are not allowed to set prices in Australia by law... but they can give "recommended retail pricing", but most retailers will set their pricing based on their standard margins, often lining up close to the RRP estimate.

I can't really go into any details, but EB prices are based on what Hasbro Australia sells it to them for... and Hasbro Australia is stuck with the price that Hasbro Asia charges them.
I had this whole argument with them several years ago when they were selling the JP Combiner sets at ToysRUs, and the TRU price was double what they could be imported for, which meant that Hasbro Australia were obviously being shafted... because if Hasbro Asia can sell it to Asian retailers for a wholesale price that ends up being on the shelf for half of what it ends up here, then Hasbro Asia is charging one of their own branches at least double what they were charging local retailers that have nothing to do with Hasbro.
This was an argument that took many conversations, as the local branch is not keen to reveal too much about what happens internally... so they won't come out and tell us how much they are being charged, and I can't encourage the local office to rock the boat on how things are done between the Branches of Hsabro, because getting some of these over-priced expensive imports/exclusives here makes it more likely that we will get the cheaper exclusives here (even if those are also over-priced... but if they are hard to get globally like several of the 2020 Hasbro exclusives, getting them here at all is better than resorting to scalper pricing from overseas).

Yeah but at $480, they might as well not have it at all. Hasbro would be better off not bothering because EB/Zing won’t be interested in getting in future stuff because it they’ll think it doesn’t sell.

[nalops]

EB pricing is all very strange considering their Unicron price is/was one of the best in the world. Hope they're able to rectify. Then again, they seem to only order enough to cover pre-orders so they don't really lose money by having these not sell.

[Magnus]

I also don't like it being a + MP toy. That is going to run into problems later. What is Skywarp going to be? A ++ toy? And what happens when they redeco Starscream into another deco, as it is expected to be? Or Thundercracker & Skywarp into toy colours?
It needs it's own number like the first MP versions, or at the very least, a lettering after the number like the 1.5 versions. These are major first year iconic characters, so they deserve their own MP number.

The numbering does seem odd. I wonder if the MP11 derivatives were made exclusives- and this practice is continuing here - because the characters didn't sell as well as general releases the first time around with the original MP3 mould. It's easy to imagine most people would just want Starscream, leaving the colour derivatives to completists.

And why do the MP Seeker jets always have a fold-open nose-cone to reveal the radar that is not something ever seen in the cartoon or comics (that I recall). Even though this mould notes official F-15 trademarks, meaning it must be licensed this time, these are toys for Transformers fans not fighter jet fans (who have much cheaper alternatives that are more accurate to the real thing without robot kibble underneath), so the added gimmick that I don't think has ever been seen in Transformers seems redundant, which I find is a negative element because it adds to the cost of an already expensive toy.

I know that... but that was exactly my point - why include something to make the toy cost more to fans of Transformers, that isn't something actually seen in Transformers (that I'm aware of), but would only interest people (aircraft enthusiasts) who wouldn't buy this toy because of all of the robot kibble under the toy to preventing from looking authentic. If the designers wanted it to be authentic in jet mode by having the opening nosecone, it wouldn't have robot kibble showing.

The original MP3 Starscream had the opening radome, as Shonji Kawamori wanted to make a really good, highly detailed F-15. The MP11 version kept it because a lot of the base moulding from MP3 was still present. It might feel like a step backwards to not include the opening radome on MP52, and it doesn't look like a particularly intricate or complex piece of engineering to include, so it's hard to imagine that it would be substantially driving up the price.

The answer to this question was hinted at in the Figure King interview for MP39 (Sunstreaker):

The popularity of MP 12 Lambor was a success amongst not only Transformers fans but also car enthusiasts. We decided we could not completely ignore the desires and wishes of the car enthusiasts. I wanted to present Sunstreaker as a product that Countach fans would recognize while taking advantage of his animation styling.

Sunstreaker had some great features in vehicle mode, namely working scissor doors and pop-up headlights, and including these details really sells the idea of a high quality, detailed, authentic replica of a car.

I have no doubt that there are aircraft enthusiasts who would appreciate the sort of authentic details of a real plane that were included on MP3/MP11, so why not keep that sort of thing for MP52? Is it any different to the high degree of detail we saw on Binaltech/Alternators figures, or the details on other Masterpiece figures like the Alitalia livery on Wheeljack and the aforementioned doors and headlights on Sunstreaker?