TFCC Punch/Counterpunch & Shattered Glass Cyclonus Revealed

[griffin]

As I suggested in the Venting topic, the Club don't own the mould or the character of Punch, only the head mould and maybe the exact colour scheme.
Hasbro can do whatever they want with this (their) mould, in whatever colour scheme they want, but they wouldn't have the same head mould (because FunPub produced it themselves), and would likely have a different colour scheme. Making this particular toy different, and still *Exclusive*. Just because FunPub are the first with the idea, doesn't mean Hasbro can't do it as well.

After all, we have Universe Overkill - FunPub did one, and about a year later Hasbro did one as well. No one really complained about that one, despite no new moulding (as opposed to Thrust (and Punch) which is significantly different because of the exclusive parts FunPub created).

[Tetsuwan Convoy]

Oh, yeh thanks Griffin, I was wondering where I read a similar information about the club and various moulds. It dioesnt bother me that much, just as long as Hasbro dont bring out the EXACT same item. A couple of differences and I am happy. Just as with Thrust for example.

[langzixinxin]

link is here:

http://www.seibertron.com/transforme...erpunch/18168/


I hope this photo is not taken from factory. If so I feel sorry how the toys been treated. No wonder I had paint scratch on my TFCC astrotrain.

[Seraphim Prime]

The Collector Club certainly raked it in with that one. A figure that would have cost them no more than US$15 wholesale to produce, and they sold it for US$59. At 1500 figures, that's an easy 60 Grand, in less than a week!

I would argue that it would cost US$15 to produce. There a re quite a few different things happening that need to be considered.
1. A new head. A completely new head needs to be designed and engineered and tested to ensure it will fit the mould. I doubt that Fun Pub has designers on contract for the 6 or 7 new heads (GIJoe included) that they produce in a year, so they need to hire someone to do it freelance (similar I suppose to what Don Fig has done before for Hasbro).
2. Production of the Sunstreaker mould. They need to get Hasbro's factory to do a run of the Sunstreaker in purple and have paint apps applied.
3. Production of the head mould. They need another factory to produce the heads. This includes the production of thr casting mould and the mass production.
4. Production of packaging. They can probably get their contracted graphic designer on this, so the cost isn't that great but needs to be considered. (After all it's profit from exclusives/membership/BotCon that pays their wages). There would be some cost too in having the packaging produced.
5. Putting the new heads on and packaging it. This may or may not be done by the factory that produces the heads. But if done by the head factory, the costs of packaging said figure would only be a little bit less than separately hiring a bunch of people to do it for you.

Many of these costs have both set costs and production costs. For example (and don't use these numbers to disagree with me because I have no idea of their actual price) It could cost $17 000 to have the main Hasbro factory operational, then cost $2-3 per figure in materials. It could cost $13 000 to design and produce a new casting mould for the head, and then another $15 000 to have the second factory operational, and then $2 in materials per head.

We have economies of scale to consider as well. When Hasbro produces a figure they have a few hundred thousand, maybe even a few million figures to distribute the costs of production over. FunPub. has only 1500 figures to distribute these costs over. IE: Let's say Hasbro produces 1.5million figures (I would say they do even more considering 1.5mil.=0.025% of global population) then factory costs are distributed such that they are a fraction more than 3c per figure plus material costs. FunPub distribute these costs over a run of 1500 it costs $30 per figure plus material costs. With profit needed to be considered as well. Hence the prices being significantly higher than a Hasbro release.

You'd think they would produce more to satisfy demand and make more a bit more money from one Exclusive of theirs that has actually paid off. And since these haven't hit the secondary market yet, a second run won't devalue the first 1500 (so no one would be complaining).

Now, in a couple years time when Hasbro decides to do a P/CP figure for whatever the current 'Universe/Generations/etc' line is, then we'll have fans complaining...

I'm pretty sure they said they were looking into the possibility of getting more produced, yet made no promises. And again Hasbro won't be able to release the exact same thing as the mould is FunPublications' property, and the demand from their target market (children younger than 20 years who didn't see P/CP appear on screen for less than 2minutes) will not be there, and most (not all) fans will have been satisfied by the club release.



Wow, that was longer than I intended it to be. Congrats if you made it to the end! You win a fabulous noprize!

[griffin]

Production costs are slightly higher with a smaller run, but FunPub wouldn't be paying for R&D costs, so should only nave to pay for the necessary materials.
Keep in mind that regular Deluxe figures have a wholesale cost of about US$6-7 (including packaging), so it is unlikely that FunPub's figures would cost more than double that.
As for the new head, in the past they've produced their own cheap mould, which doesn't last long, and usually destroyed once used. Once the toys arrive from Hasbro, they attach their exlusive parts, and package them. The exclusive parts wouldn't cost more than a few cents each to produce.
Packaging costs for FunPub would actually take up a fair bit of their expense, as it is usually fancy, limited run, solid boxes.
Compared to the regular Deluxe cost of about US$6, I just can't see FunPub's deluxes costing more than 2-3 times that.
(They were able to give away 'free' their deluxe sized Membership toy last year which also had a new head - Heatwave - so can't cost them too much to do)

[MV75]

I'm pretty sure they said they were looking into the possibility of getting more produced, yet made no promises. And again Hasbro won't be able to release the exact same thing as the mould is FunPublications' property, and the demand from their target market (children younger than 20 years who didn't see P/CP appear on screen for less than 2minutes) will not be there, and most (not all) fans will have been satisfied by the club release.

The car would be replicable by hasbro, they just need their own head and colour scheme.

I don't really understand what else you are saying though, as the kids today never really saw any of the universe characters in shows, or really know their characters, yet those toys sold.

Punch would be a pretty good toy with a solid appealing gimmick for hasbro to release. And I wouldn't care, even though I'm getting this one, I'd still have a version that wasn't available in the shops.

[griffin]

Visually, it is a strikingly beautiful blue, and if labelled as a triplechanger, I think it would sell quite well in stores.