Masterpieces - are we spoiled?

[drifand]

My problem is now the QC has dropped. If MP Hound had no breakage reports, I am actually just on the okay to support but is not.
I had friends who are aware of issues, transformed carefully and the door hinge broke.

Things I do like about new MPs are is properly painted, no diecast is an accepted form > I moved on as it is what it is.

The Engineering is questionable, while it can be a Wow factor it also caused a lot of breakage on the products. MP44 knee joint for example, I have seen nerd post justifying all of Takara's why it was like this and started to tell people off that we as normal customers have no clue as such. Is this really a dick statement to the rest honestly? I believe it was totally unnecessary to over complicate a joint. Let alone a $500 figure should not have such issues. I am not one that buy the "You do not know how to bend the knee, hence it broke" statement. Come on, in all honesty, something simple should not be looking at how you need to bend the knee.

For Hound, the piece looks great, those who had no issues are definitely happy. But for the rest who broke their toy receiving out of the box? Broke within 3 days of playing?
Look back to the rest of your MPs and let me know if there were such issues back then.

Price? Hound looks no more than a Sunstreaker MP price. The New Bee bee is worse considering the size.

Extra accessories? I dont use them at all < and here is what adding the cost.

My concerns about MP line - Takara is moving way too slow for the market, overthinking the product making a lot of unnecessary accessories, poor choice of characters when reveal being made.

There are many G1 that do not require licensing and yet Takara choose not to do. Opportunities wasted as the 3p line fill the gaps as they are listening to feedback.
Years ago, I would not even touch a 3p company, now I am finding I am more excited for them then what Takara is offering due to
1. Quality
2. Price point
3. Release date

The one new MP by Takara a year is not going to cut it, you will die before you complete your collection.

I am not a Takara fanboy or 3p fanboy, rather just someone who loves g1 TFs and people decided to make a masterpiece of the old.
If people actually dig into Takara toys they be shock to see how high quality they were back in the days.
I honestly feel they should be stripped of the Long life award for how Hound is. But is only my opinion.
It is rather sad I am seeing fans defending the quality.

[Tha_Phantom]

It is rather sad I am seeing fans defending the quality.

I used to be one of them, but I'm done. I transformed my Hound numerous times safely, but then he broke over the weekend (rear panel of Jeep mode) and I wasn't even being rough with it. I'm done with MPs until these QC issues with every release stop. I'm aware that MPs have ALWAYS had QC issues, as will any toyline, but not to the magnitude we are seeing now.

In regards to the design of MPs I'd say we are absolutely spoiled, some of the things I see people criticise in that regard are just petty. However, QC is definitely a valid criticism, especially for what we are paying now.

[DELTAprime]

I recently got an MP Blackarachnia. She's not a bad figure, but given the price, I felt let down. At least there's no QC issues on her like with Optimus 3.0.

[dirge]

I feel some replies have missed the point of my post. It’s not about Hound (he happens to be the most recent & so is topical).

My point is that with the last few years of Masterpieces, it’s a far cry from the “dark” days when there was one line, no G1 character toys & no realistic vehicle modes. Etc.

Given that we’ve had several years of Masterpieces, are we right to be unsatisfied? Or should be be happy that HasTak are giving us classic characters in such a format? For me, despite the flaws we nitpick and and the price tags, I’m happy & consider myself fortunate. In 2000, I’d have given my left arm for a single G1 Masterpiece toy. Let alone 30+. Even if some do have flaws.

[Tha_Phantom]

Apologies Dirge. I did get around to answering you in my second paragraph and I stand by what I said. Yes we're spoiled in terms of design and the number of characters we have. We are right to be unsatisfied in other aspects, though.

[Sinnertwin]

I'm in the unsatisfied camp. My enthusiasm for the line is actually waning.

Barring left field repaints ( Anime + / Diaclone ) and off chops exclusives (Atmos Lebron Screeching Duck MP10) TT have been moving at a glacial pace as far as core releases go over the last 17 years. You want to finish your '84 & '85 cast? Here, have another Optimus. Is your Grimlock feeling lonely? I've got a new Bumblebee that'll fix that etc etc

[dirge]

I'm in the unsatisfied camp. My enthusiasm for the line is actually waning.

Barring left field repaints ( Anime + / Diaclone ) and off chops exclusives (Atmos Lebron Screeching Duck MP10) TT have been moving at a glacial pace as far as core releases go over the last 17 years. You want to finish your '84 & '85 cast? Here, have another Optimus. Is your Grimlock feeling lonely? I've got a new Bumblebee that'll fix that etc etc

You raise a valid point. The G1 characters have certainly slowed down and yes, we don't need 47 Optimus Prime MPs. I'd much rather an obscure character like Skids than 3 Optimus Primes...

My pace of collecting has slowed, and really I'm only waiting for certain things I'm interested in (remaining cars & minibots, Astrotrain & Blitzwing - though any 1984-85 cartoon character I'll probably grab).

Fast forward to today and the line does not give me as much joy. Part of that is redoing characters that already had fine representations (Prime, Bumblebee etc) rather than tackling new characters. Part of that is the reduced number of G1 releases. Then you have more significant QC issues. And finally the prices have ramped up substantially, partly driven by the increased number of accessories that I don't have any interest for.

Yes I'll admit the accessories don't interest me either. That said, I still feel a $200 Hound with a bunch of random accessory crap (maybe it appeals more to the Japanese collector mindset? I don't know?) is a better deal than ... well almost every Beast Machines toy back in that era. Very few of which satisfied me for the price I paid. Hound is expensive but I am satisfied. It's a poseable G1 Hound that appeals to the nostalgic in me.

[Omega Metro]

I'm in the unsatisfied camp. My enthusiasm for the line is actually waning.

Barring left field repaints ( Anime + / Diaclone ) and off chops exclusives (Atmos Lebron Screeching Duck MP10) TT have been moving at a glacial pace as far as core releases go over the last 17 years. You want to finish your '84 & '85 cast? Here, have another Optimus. Is your Grimlock feeling lonely? I've got a new Bumblebee that'll fix that etc etc

Agree. Definitely not spoilt. I would be 84 years old if was waiting for TT to release the full G1 cartoon cast in MP form. Thank goodness for 3P.

[DaptoDog]

G1 centric collectors like me were really spoiled through 2015-2016, for me that was the peak of the line. Almost every month there was breaking news of a new Masterpiece release. The sheer number was amazing. I was able to enjoy the best version of characters that I never had as a child. Also, while there were the odd QC issues (chrome etc), they did not put me off. Finally the prices were somewhat affordable for many collectors.

Fast forward to today and the line does not give me as much joy. Part of that is redoing characters that already had fine representations (Prime, Bumblebee etc) rather than tackling new characters. Part of that is the reduced number of G1 releases. Then you have more significant QC issues. And finally the prices have ramped up substantially, partly driven by the increased number of accessories that I don't have any interest for.

With official MPs slowing down I've begun to (dangerously) dabble in 3rd party. These fit well enough with official MPs and help fill out the shelves of both factions. Those I have purchased have been very well made overall.

So yes to some extent I do feel a little spoiled but don't think I've been overly critical of recent figures. Hound looks great (anxious to receive it) and I was really happy with Prime 3.0.

Regardless, I can see myself continuing to collect MPs for many years to come.

[GoktimusPrime]

We are definitely spoiled in terms of sheer numbers. Here are the number of MPs released by both Takara and Hasbro since the beginning.

2003/4 = 3
2005 = 1
2006 = 3
2007 = 3
2008 = 1
2009 = 5
2010 = 6
2011 = 5
2012 = 7
2013 = 11
2014 = 14
2015 = 14
2016 = 13
2017 = 15
2018 = 15
2019 = 18

So looking at 2003/4 to 2019 that's 16 years worth of MPs. If we look at the first half of this period, we can see that the average number of MPs released per year was 3.38. The average number of MPs released in the second half is 13.38! So we can see that the average number of MPs released per year is nearly quadruple (x3.95) the average annual release from the first half.

That's a lot. So yeah, the early years of MPs may seem to have fewer QC issues but that's because there were fewer MPs being produced. And when I say that 2003/4 had 3 MPs, I mean that we had:
* MP1 Convoy (Takara)
* 20th Anniversary Optimus Prime (Hasbro)
* Lucky Draw MP1 Convoy (Takara)
Most collectors would've only gotten just one of these, so in reality most of us were probably collecting maybe 1 or 2 MPs per year during the early years. One reason why the number of MP QC reports may have risen may simply be due to there being more MPs existing these days. Even if you're an MP completist, if you're only collecting 3 MPs a year in the beginning, there's going to be fewer chances of encountering a dud MP. When you're collecting 13 MPs a year, then suddenly the odds of encountering a faulty toy has greatly increased. If you collected 18 MPs released in 2019 then that's 3.6 times more than the measly 5 MPs that you collected 10 years prior. The chances of you encountering a faulty MP is higher.

What I'm curious to know is how many dud MPs people have encountered VS the number of MPs they collected in each of those years. For me it would look like this:
[MP Year] = [No. w/ QC probs] / [No. of MPs acquired]
2003/4 = 1/1 <---this means 1 out of 1 MPs that I collected had a QC issue. My MP1 came missing a panel.
2005 = 0/0 <---I never got MP2 Ultra Magnus and thus never had one with a QC issue.
2006 = 0/1 <---the only MP I got this year was MP3 and I had no QC issues with it.
2007 = 1/3 <---I got all 3 MPs released in this year and one of the tiny panel tabs on my MP5 broke during first transformation.
2008 = 0/1
2009 = 1/1
2010 = 1/1
2011 = 0/2
2012 = 0/4
2013 = 1/7 <---my MP15 Rumble came w/ 2 of the same side piledriver arm.
2014 = 0/4
2015 = 0/7
2016 = 0/9
2017 = 0/5 (unless you count some minor paint chipping on MP36)
2018 = 0/2
2019 = 0/2
↑So that's how it works. Feel free to copy, paste and edit this for your own MP collection. But yeah, the only QC issues I've really had was with MP1 (missing panel), MP15 (missing 1 piledriver arm) and MP5 (snapped panel tab).

Also note that I've counted the MPs the same way that tfwiki has, which is counting releases, not individual figures per se. So I've counted MP15 Rumble & Jaguar as one release, and the Hasbro release of MP Soundwave (with a whole bunch of cassettes) also counts as one release. It's counting releases, not figures... just for the purposes of this discussion - don't get your panties in a knot. And of course, if there are any years where you didn't get any MPs, then just submit 0/0 (as I did for 2005).