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Thread: Masterpiece Convoy 3.0 Revealed

  1. #411
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    Quote Originally Posted by MEEEGGGAAATTTRRROOONNN!!! View Post
    If you think MP-44 is "the best", then congratulations, give yourself a cookie!
    Consider it done.

  2. #412
    bowspearer Guest

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tha_Phantom View Post
    I'm not.

    Official superior, 3P inferior.
    And while you're entitled to your opinion, I can genuinely see a shift on the horizon where your opinion becomes the minority.

    It was one thing when you had, say, a 10-20% difference in price, and you had sufficient QC issues where you you could argue that the price difference comes from materials quality and QC. Then you had an argument where you could easily justify ignoring the 3P design for an official TT design. Plus you have other things like brand loyalty for example. I'm not even going into the KO situation because they're absolute leeches whichever way you slice it.

    But now we're not talking about a 10-20% difference in price, but a 69.93% (135/449) difference in price.

    As for what you get on MP-44 that you don't get on MS-01, you get:

    • Electronic Voice Clips
    • Trailer
    • Removable Combat Deck
    • Rover (Roller)
    • Spike
    • Sparkplug
    • Carly
    • Jet pack
    • Energy spikes (x2)
    • Starscream head
    • Starscream's shoulder parts
    • Energon pump with hose and nozzle


    With that price difference (issues like QC aside), you're essentially paying $314USD (or $435.52USD based on current real time exchange rates) for those extra features.

    It should also be noted that the battle damaged windows MS-01 is said to include, may not just even out the battle damage feature, but actually be a point to MS-01.

    Now even if you were to argue that materials differences and QC differences account for $100USD (or $138.72AUD) of that price hike, you're still talking about a $214USD (or $296.52 AUD) price difference for those features. Even then, comparing MS-01 at $234 USD for the sake of equivalency, to MP-44 at $449USD, you're still talking about a 47.88% (234/449) difference in price in other words, practically double the price.

    Tha_Phantom, you're clearly a die hard Takara fan and hey, more power to you for being one - normally they have their finger on the pulse and they do right by their fans; heck, up until the shared global branding thing, I happily paid more for the Takara version of a figure and only bought Hasbro when there wasn't a Takara version. The problem is that being in the "die hard fan" category, you're in one of the two extremes and your position isn't where the moderate majority will be.

    This massive gulf in pricing wont affect you personally, however it is going to affect the moderate mainstream. Many who aren't so die hard are going to go the third party, costing Takara tens of thousands, and possibly even hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales (1000 units of MS-01 sold for example, are $134,000USD in turnover for example), while those who have previously defended Takara are having an increasingly difficult time doing so. All of that means less of the moderate majority giving Takara their business, which makes the line less profitable.

    If Takara were trying to differentiate themselves from 3P brands and take sales from 3P, this was honestly about the worst way they could have gone about it.

  3. #413
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    I am sure Takara are well aware of the elasticity of demand for its products, we have no idea. It's being strategic with its pricing, it obviously thinks it will maximize profit even if units for this and future figures are lower.

    How about we wait until these figures are in people's hands before definitive statements are made?

  4. #414
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    Quote Originally Posted by bowspearer View Post
    And while you're entitled to your opinion, I can genuinely see a shift on the horizon where your opinion becomes the minority.

    It was one thing when you had, say, a 10-20% difference in price, and you had sufficient QC issues where you you could argue that the price difference comes from materials quality and QC. Then you had an argument where you could easily justify ignoring the 3P design for an official TT design. Plus you have other things like brand loyalty for example. I'm not even going into the KO situation because they're absolute leeches whichever way you slice it.

    But now we're not talking about a 10-20% difference in price, but a 69.93% (135/449) difference in price.

    As for what you get on MP-44 that you don't get on MS-01, you get:

    • Electronic Voice Clips
    • Trailer
    • Removable Combat Deck
    • Rover (Roller)
    • Spike
    • Sparkplug
    • Carly
    • Jet pack
    • Energy spikes (x2)
    • Starscream head
    • Starscream's shoulder parts
    • Energon pump with hose and nozzle


    With that price difference (issues like QC aside), you're essentially paying $314USD (or $435.52USD based on current real time exchange rates) for those extra features.

    It should also be noted that the battle damaged windows MS-01 is said to include, may not just even out the battle damage feature, but actually be a point to MS-01.

    Now even if you were to argue that materials differences and QC differences account for $100USD (or $138.72AUD) of that price hike, you're still talking about a $214USD (or $296.52 AUD) price difference for those features. Even then, comparing MS-01 at $234 USD for the sake of equivalency, to MP-44 at $449USD, you're still talking about a 47.88% (234/449) difference in price in other words, practically double the price.

    Tha_Phantom, you're clearly a die hard Takara fan and hey, more power to you for being one - normally they have their finger on the pulse and they do right by their fans; heck, up until the shared global branding thing, I happily paid more for the Takara version of a figure and only bought Hasbro when there wasn't a Takara version. The problem is that being in the "die hard fan" category, you're in one of the two extremes and your position isn't where the moderate majority will be.

    This massive gulf in pricing wont affect you personally, however it is going to affect the moderate mainstream. Many who aren't so die hard are going to go the third party, costing Takara tens of thousands, and possibly even hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales (1000 units of MS-01 sold for example, are $134,000USD in turnover for example), while those who have previously defended Takara are having an increasingly difficult time doing so. All of that means less of the moderate majority giving Takara their business, which makes the line less profitable.

    If Takara were trying to differentiate themselves from 3P brands and take sales from 3P, this was honestly about the worst way they could have gone about it.
    Hey if you want to argue that MP-44 is overpriced, then sure I can accept that argument. I'm sure I heard my wallet shriek when I hit that preorder button.
    However, price aside, I do believe it is the best version of a Masterpiece Prime to date - at least if cartoon accuracy is your thing and clearly these other 2 3P Primes are going for that goal as well.

    I never said MP-44 was good value for money, I never said it wasn't overpriced, but I will happily argue it is better than the competition.

  5. #415
    bowspearer Guest

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    Quote Originally Posted by DaptoDog View Post
    I am sure Takara are well aware of the elasticity of demand for its products, we have no idea. It's being strategic with its pricing, it obviously thinks it will maximize profit even if volume for this and future figures is lower.
    In a long term brand health sense, I would suggest that the use of the word "strategic" by you is ironic, regardless of whether you intended it to be used in that manner. In fact I might even go so far as to suggest that its use in this context is an oxymoron (as in a contradiction in terms in and of itself - not to be confused with oxmoron for anyone reading this who might have done so).

    The strategy of maximising profits on a smaller production run makes sense in the short term, but in the long term, it's a lousy strategy that skates dangerously close to financial suicide.

    If Third Party offerings weren't around and HAsTak were the only game in town, then sure, you're talking about a monopoly and so monopoly based business strategies will have no long term effects on the health of the brand.

    Unfortunately for HasTak, this isn't the case. Third Party offerings do exist and every single time someone buys a 3P offering over an official HasTak one, that's revenue lost, but more importantly, it's loss of brand loyalty.

    It's now not even an open secret that it costs companies money to gain a customer and so that is lost money when they lose one, not including the extra money spent if they get them back.

    Previously HasTak has balanced this out well - making the costs of figures higher than 3P, but keeping the price difference low enough that people internally justified it with things like QC issues and materials quality. In movie terms, they maintained a suspension of disbelief enough that they were able to sell their product at a higher price and maintain brand loyalty.

    This price jump destroys that suspension of disbelief, harms brand loyalty within the customer and sends someone on the fence off to buy the 3P offering, where the 3P company then has a chance to retain them as a customer.

    That's a terrible way for a business to do business, from any perspective which looks at the long term profitability of a business.

    Quote Originally Posted by DaptoDog View Post
    How about we wait until these figures are in people's hands before definitive statements are made?
    Except that we don't need all the figures figures in hand to make a call, unless heaven forbid, MP-44 turns out to be a QC trainwreck and nightmare, which I highly doubt. The only question which needs to be answered to make a definitive statement, is whether the 3P offerings are a QC nightmare and made of dodgy quality plastic.

    We wont have to wait that long at all. MS-01 is already in some people's hands already and at least one well known online retailer has it slated for release this month (I'm not sure what the release date for the other offering is). In the next few weeks we'll know what these figures are like and if the QC and quality of plastic are up there with recent MP releases, then it puts TT in a very precarious position with the fan community and one where serious questions need to be asked of and answered by them.

  6. #416
    bowspearer Guest

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tha_Phantom View Post
    I never said MP-44 was good value for money, I never said it wasn't overpriced, but I will happily argue it is better than the competition.
    To be clear, I wasn't saying you were saying this, my comment was more to do with how common this sentiment is going to be as this trend continues:

    Quote Originally Posted by Tha_Phantom View Post
    I'm not.

    Official superior, 3P inferior.
    "Superior" arguably implies value for money. Say there's a 2% difference in quality between 2 near identical products, but a 20% difference in price - no one is going to say that for all intents and purposes the product that costs 20% more is superior, because par for par, they were 18% more expensive for the same level of quality, meaning they were less effective and therefore inferior.

    You're saying that it's superior to the competition, but what if it isn't? What if when, say, Magic Square release their offerings (which is happening this month), the plastic quality, QC and engineering are on par with recent Masterpieces and therefore presumably MP-44? What makes it better then? Features that come with it? If so, are those features worth paying 333% more for the Takara version? You might make that call, but given how divisive the price has been, do you honestly think that the more moderate, less invested fans in Takara will?

    I'll mention something at this juncture. I met the guy who designed Omnigonix Spinout in person one day in a chance happening. He told me that a fair chunk of the Third Party designers, are either current or former HasTak employees who moonlight. That means that the engineering and design of Third Party figures is in many cases, on par with that of HasTak in house. Iirc he also mentioned that the big issue was with QC in Chinese factories, but even that has been something which has been steadily improving.

    The days when HasTak could trade off the argument of "Official superior, 3P inferior," are increasingly coming to an end. As others have noted, while they can wipe out KOs easily, unless they trademark every single likeness of every single TF in every media they have officially appeared in, which has been argued to be more of a headache than it's worth for them, then HasTak cannot shut Third Party companies down.

    If HasTak aren't careful, their own hubris is going to bite them in the butt in a very damaging way.

  7. #417
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    Those numbers on tfw don't mean anything as the numbers of voters are soo low! At the end of the day we're the minority posting on the net.

    The other offerings are far from perfect and 3rd parties will try to one up each other and the official, so there will be plenty of options later.

    I have a feeling that MP-44 will end up like EVA prime/Beast wars Dinobot.

  8. #418
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    Quote Originally Posted by DaptoDog View Post
    How about we wait until these figures are in people's hands before definitive statements are made?
    You dare bring logic and reason into this discussion?! *shakes fist at you*

  9. #419
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    Oh look! Generalisations, jumping to conclusions and arguing with people that have different collecting preferences.

    I must be on TFW.


    And speaking of, I love that TFW poll. You people are ready to burn MP-44 at the stake because a poll, located in the 3rd party sub forum with 600 votes has only half going to MP-44?

    You guys are hilarious. You could do polling predictions for the Liberal Party
    Dovie'andi se tovya sagain

  10. #420
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    One thing about both the 3rd party offerings is they are not unique transformations like MP44. They just use MP10 as a base and improve on it, they didn't design a new Optimus from the ground up like MP44.

    Takara already put the work in to make MP10 years ago and these are just minor upgrades to Takara's own efforts. I feel praising their efforts on copying something Takara already did is a huge dis-service to Takara.

    As everyone has said yes MP44 is expensive and that is a valid concern but price aside MP44 is superior in every other aspect to both 3rd party primes.

    Magic square prime also has larger legs which translate to a large trailer hitch to the point where mounting MP10's trailer makes it sit askew.

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