jenius

It's a misconception that Toynami marked up the toy from $79.99. Here's what happened: 1) Toynami developed a kinda crappy Cyclone toy they were going to call an MPC and charge $79.99 for it. 2) Right before Toynami was to begin production on this toy they saw what Beagle was cooking and realized they'd look retarded selling their toy as a "masterpiece" when a Japanese company was putting out such an obviously superior product. 3) Toynami scrapped their idea to make their own crappy toy (for $79.99) and instead offered to buy several thousand units from Beagle of the toy they had designed. 4) Beagle's toy, being absolutely amazing in comparison to the crappy Toynami design, was ALWAYS going to be a $200+ toy. Never, ever, not once, did Beagle imagine their toy would be under $100 and never ever did they say so. 5) Toynami notified retellers that they would be supplying an MPC Cyclone, but not the $79.99 one but an improved $200 one. A better way to think of it is that Toynami notified retailers that the $79.99 MPC Cyclone was CANCELED. Then, they announced that a new vastly superior toy, going by the same name, would be made and cost quite a bit more. Anyone who handles the Beagle/Toynami Cyclone that eventually was released and thinks "This toy should only cost $80" is straight up insane.

NP, buy the Beta.... buy the Beta... buy the Beta. It's sweet.

I think you're reading the problems he had with his previous ALPHA and you're thinking he had problems with a previous BETA.

Is that what you're going to use to indict him? I just watched that whole video and I almost feel like you're making your complaint up because you want to have people watch your video. It's like when Kevin Smith made anti-Kevin Smith websites and said "OMG, look how terrible his next film is going to be" and then would show legitimate behind the scenes stuff that looked pretty cool/funny and then added "See how horrible he is!" All I saw there was a grown man rough housing with children just like how children rough house with each other. High pressure water? I pee with more pressure than that. I've seen a bunch of videos now from SDCC and when I was there I didn't see a single one being made. That place is immense on a ridiculous scale. EDIT - I'm certainly not saying I think his schtick is funny, or that I think he's a good parent, I'm just saying that looks a good way from abuse to me.

WANT!!!!

On a less depressing note, my MPC Cyclone is number 1302 so we know they must have made at least 1500 of the 3000 Scott Ride Armors. EDIT - by the way, I think the stat that Toynami cut their order into a third comes from Toynami's original 10K limit on the toys. Before anyone gets angry at Toynami for cutting their own order way down, I'm pretty sure Beagle also produced way fewer for themselves also. The economy took a crap.

I definitely think $200 was a fair price for the Beagle Ride Armor. The classic Gakken used to easily fetch that much and more and it isn't even in a league anywhere near the Beagle. I now own both Beagle releases and a Toynami Scott... I will definitely pick up a Toynami Rand at some point... hopefully at a good price . You know would be sweet? If a really talented person on these boards (that does not describe me) was able to come up with a Rand to Rook conversion kit using the prototype shots from the Beagle. The hardest part might be the figure but you could probably cheat at that by just creating a new head (maybe only the helmetless one) and new boots. There was some talk earlier of what an "appendix" kit for these toys should come with. Even if the MPCs are off the table, and an appendix is now even less likely, what did we think were good items to include? Here are my thoughts: 1) Scott's pendant. I would like it so that it could be flipped open and there would be a little peg in the middle where you could attach a little plastic Marlene figure so you could make it look like Scott was looking at the hologram. 2) Saddle bags, accessory bags, etc like those recently sold at Wonderfest 3) Annie/Mint figures just like CMs did them, one standing and one crouching... Hell, they could sell these separately for like $5 each. 4) Now that they're not making them, Rook, Yellow, and Jim figures would be cool too like CMs is doing. 5) A headless helmet so you could make it look like Rand or Scott was about to put the helmet on or just taken it off. 6) ?

I flipped through this book at Comic-con... absolutely gorgeous high quality stuff... but they wanted $60 for it and that's too rich for my blood.

Ignacio pretty much nailed it right on the head. I have no idea how many MPC Cyclones Toynami ordered but I would guess that if they capped their production at 3,000 then they've probably only produced about half that and would wait until demand warrants the second half to be made. Remember the MPC Alpha is capped at 15K and they haven't made that many of those. Does anyone have a high serial number MPC Cyclone? I'd venture Beagle and Toynami probably only made like 1500 each and they didn't manage to sell out... that's bad news. I did hear that the Stick version was a solid seller for Beagle though. I imagine sells of the MPC Beta line haven't been all that phenomenal either but since the only thing changing between each is the head and the paint it would make almost no sense at all for Toynami not to produce at least a thousand of each variant.. all costs with that line are essentially sunk at this point. I believe the delay with the greeny has to do with Aoshima getting the orders filled for their Japanese release which I believe is due any day now. My guess is that there will be a standard Shadow Beta release and they are debating on doing a Shadow Chronicles Maia Beta release with Synchro cannon. I don't know that things look good for Shadow Chronicles merchandise though, there's no longer talk of a Marcus Rush MPC Alpha and the superposeables and I-men haven't been shown since the Comic-con after Shadow Chronicles' release. I'm guessing Tommy is pressuring for a Maia Beta with Synchro and Toynami is reluctant to the idea... the dead silence at Comic-con regarding interest probably didn't help Tommy's case. EDIT - there is still interest in Mospeada and I would be surprised if all the merchandise for it dries up, even in these tough times. Still, I think if we get anything more it will be expensive with small releases.

I suck on my Macross history, but if there was another colony ship sent out not long after the Hikaru/Misa ship that would be cool. I'd love to see the VF-4 in action. There could be references to Hikaru's colony ship as nods to the fanboys dying to know what happened to it and maybe a Supervision army tangle so we can learn more about them.

Whoa, thanks for reminding me, I updated my Robotech Panel post to include the following bit:

Visit my blog for my summary observations from the last couple days. I've included some cosplay pics. For those of you wondering "Where the hell is this guy's blog" just click the linky in the sig.

If anyone here thinks Robotech is just an edited version of Macross* then I think you're not much of a Macross* fan. EDIT - * insert the name of any of the three shows there.

That makes sense and wouldn't conflict with what Carl said at all. The "mashed together" version are my words, he said they had "put together a very rough cut that didn't even have audio yet." That was precisely my thought as well. Carl implied that Macross' popularity made the rights to DYRL too expensive to obtain. Thus, HG at that point in time, understood they did NOT have the rights to DYRL? The problem is in that contract that HG has with Tatsunoko and the wording that HG has gotten very greedy with many years after this all happened.

Very doubtful, this is going to be a very low-end toy... it's vinyl. It should be cheap though!

Carl mentioned Do You Remember Love several times and elaborated quite a bit on Robotech the Movie which I condensed in my post. He said a couple big wigs from Cannon (Canon? Sorry, I probably should know that spelling) were watching the TV and saw a report that compared the popularity of Robotech (currently shown on TV) to Disney's upcoming film, the Black Cauldron (crap, I'm probably spelling that wrong too). The news report seemed to suggest that Robotech would be even more popular as a feature film. Later, while in a hot tub with a couple of lady friends, they started boasting that they had inroads with a property that could be more popular than Disney's next film. They picked up the phone and called the head of HG and said "Hey, we want to make a movie." The head of HG then called Carl some time after 10PM and said "Hey, can you make a Robotech the Movie?" and Carl thought of DYRL? and said "Sure, I think we can do that." They went to Japan to make it happen but Macross had gotten too popular for Carl to secure the rights. From there he started making RT: The Movie using Megazone23. He had mashed together a very rough cut taking place while the SDF-1 was in deep space, before it returned to Earth, but a Cannon/Canon exec flew to Japan, watched it, and HATED it. He flew back to the states, told the other execs about it, and they called Carl back to the states to discuss it. Carl was told to do something different with the film so he essentially made the plot up to the current RT: The Movie film while on the spot. He said he really sold the new plot hard, making it sound much more exciting, and they let him finish and release the film. Then, when the film was later put out, it was released the same weekend as Aliens and that was that. He said it didn't do all that horribly bad compared to some other flops at the time but that it was clear nobody knew how to market it. Crap, I should edit my post and include all this.

There already is one roughly 1/60 scale Battlepod toy

We know from Toynami's MPC Alphas that they were releasing production in waves. While Toynami capped production at 3000 I'd guess less than 1500 have been made so far. In no way does that mean they won't ever make the remainder though. The line might be dead in that there won't be a Rook or Yellow but it's not dead in some way where they've tossed out the existing materials.

On a tangental note, since it was mentioned earlier, the Stealth VF-1S toy is actually not very similar to the 25th anniversary Yamato toy at all. It actually has a lot of navy blue in it, some flat grays, and the obvious gold trim. In most pictures you've seen all the dark colors mesh and all that stands out is the gold on what appears to be black... I'll try to have some really good pictures on my site for my next post.

According to RT.com the basic Battlepod stands 17.4Meters and it doesn't say if this is to top of head or top of cannons. We should probably hold off on deducing scale until we have them out or better pictures actually beside other toys.

If you haven't been following my Comic-con posts, here's a pic of the battlepod from a distance to give you an idea about scale: I'm of the impression they're 1/100 scale.

The 1/100 toy is a Robotech Veritech, not a Macross Valkyrie, there is no mislabeling. Toynami has the rights to either name and they chose to make the Stealth a Robotech toy. That's not a mistake, that's a decision. As the stealth didn't appear in either Robotech or Macross there's no reason to argue it should be one instead of the other. To be fair, Yamato made a "Stealth" nearly all black valkyrie. So, you should say "Robotech and Macross names can seem so generic at times.

C'mon guys, if you're going to talk about pictures of the Toynami Battlepod at least get the pictures from my site! Jeesh (alright, I guess I could have posted them on MW but this thread didn't exist back then). Anyway, I'm now writing my piece on the Robotech panel.

Tonight's panel is by HG, I wouldn't be surprised if ther's almost no toynami discussion. Toynami still seems hesitant with the news, I doubt hg would be in a better spot to talk about it

Toynami did say they were "kicking around the idea" of a cheaper all plastic Alpha/Beta combo. That's as far as I've ever heard it go with them. EDIT - I'm off to eat breakfast and get back to the con.