jenius

You came to this thread with news no one else was privvy to (an email from BBTS) and then mocked several of us for having taken the BBTS price at fair value (coincidentally, the value of all previous RT MPCs so it's not like it was a crazy number). You place your trust in a man of questionable repute (Toycom?) and who is guilty of repeatedly mistating his company's position. You base your own cost estimate on a trivial matter (the cost of plastic?) rather than more significant expenses like complication of design (1/48 VF-1 is LESS complicated to you?) or other materials used (what if it has no diecast?). If you want to be judged by your words and your actions, I think you should know what to expect. You do alter people's perceptions of reality through your choice of rhetoric. I'll elaborate on my thoughts a bit though so it doesn't seem like I'm just discussing you instead of the Beta. I believe the Beta's price range could vary by a lot depending on decisions likely still being made by Toynami. Here are some variables I see: 1) Production volume. They probably don't even know yet if they're doing 10K of each or some other figure. They probably also don't know what paint schemes they're going to do. Maybe there will be a repaint of Scott which would necessitate a repainted Beta. Are they making 20K or 60K. I have no idea but the price they can asks shifts a lot depending on numbers sold. 2) What percentage of the toy will be diecast? My personal thought is this toy will have to be REALLY light for this to work combined to the rock heavy Legioss. If the toy will be really light without any diecast they're going to have a hard time convincing people it's more than a $79.99 toy. 3) Intricacies of the design. Have we seen a pic with the cockpit open? I think I saw a pick of a Tread with the cockpit open but it was a CMs. I'm guessing though from the slop in various pics the cockpit does open. How does Toynami handle the wheels? Did they take the "eh, screw it" CMs model or did they actually try to do some engineering? We also don't know how they're handling what happens to the cockpit in soldier mode. In some prototypes the cockpit just folds downward, in others it gets concealed within the chest. The BBTS pic showed it concealed... I would pay more for one that gets concealed. So, that should also explain my reluctance to place a bet on this toy. If you told me it was no diecast, snap on landing gears, and the cockpit just folded down in battroid I'd be a lot more inclined to believe it'll clock in at $79.99. If you told me it had diecast, concealed the chest, and had some form of functioning landing gear then yeah, I'd probably expect it to cost more. I will wait and see. I'm hoping for the best combination of price and features.

This was really good stuff. The only thing I might change would be to have it not extend to a moment of Macross F at the end and just end with the ending glory of Zero. Still awesome as it is.

LOL, I'm sure I'll be enjoying that Beta while I'm flipping through all that rare Mospeada line art right? I'll pass. Unlike you, I'll be hoping us fans are made happy by a reasonably priced toy instead of hoping Mospeada fans continue to get screwed by greedy folks with poor business sense.

I just don't understand how your pricing speculation is smart while everyone else's is silly. Are you saying we can't find toys comparable in size to an MPC Beta that cost $80? The posted price was $80 and came from a more reputable source than George Sohn... boy is everyone here an idiot but you! So sure, it ended up being *potentially* wrong but then you talk as if it is *definitely* wrong because what? George Sohn has your back? The fact of the matter is you don't know the final price, no one does, so step off your high horse and wait like everyone else to find out. If you're right, congratulations, but try not to gloat about a toy being more expensive than everyone wants it to be, it just makes you look like an ass.

All Robotech Masterpieces have cost $79.99. Keep quoting twice the size of the Alpha but really it's about the same size of the VF-1. Toynami has long been saying $150 to get people off their balls while they try to figure out what they're doing. All I'm saying is that you have no better idea than anyone else here. George's original quote was $200, now it's $150, maybe it'll be $180, maybe it'll be $100, maybe it'll be $80. If they knew how much it was going to cost they'd tell the people selling it.

' Forgive my ignorance in phsyics but isn't this not true? The star is 8000 light years away right? Or did they estimate it has another 8000 years to live? If the estimate was we have 8000 years to live because of the distance from here I think that'd be wrong. After all, the explosion could have happened 7999 years ago and we just wouldn't see it until tomorrow. I suck with physics though so maybe I've got that wrong.

Well, thank God Toynami has never mislead anyone. Why do you think it's NOT an $80 toy. It stands about as tall as an MPC VF-1 and doesn't have a light up visor. The transformation is pretty straight forward and the only reason I could think of it NOT being an $80 toy is because Toynami keeps complaining about how it'd HAVE to cost a ton without ever giving a convincing reason why.

Roger, did you tell the BBTS guy that Toynami said it'd be $150? From what it sounds like he's just saying "i don't know what the actual cost will be, I'll make the adjustment when we know." This may very well still be an $80 toy.

I'm gonna have my blue one in hand before I figure out how to go about getting a red and green one.

RT.com charges actual shipping through UPS ground IIRC.

The "rock on" tiles are specifically designed for Yellow Belmont.

I dunno, I thought the moment you got named you were no longer a CF... 'cause you could be referred to by name. If you have a distinct valk that's even less CF.

The Beagle toy is just CAD. The likelihood of that thing becoming an actual toy before the end of this year, with Toynami being involved, seems impossible. There's also still a possibility it will never come to be and Toynami will just stick to the toy they've already designed. I'm not going to preorder the Cyclones or Ride Armors until I've seen a picture of one in the box... which at this point I'm pretty sure won't be until next year.

Wow, take a look at the back of the knee on the CAD. That's a very interesting looking joint area.

didn't you make this same thread yesterday? I think people also responded to you. There's also an existing thread for a Yamato parts and exchange service.

CAD looks good but it's going to have balance issues. The line art always gave the soldiers fairly oversized boots and it looks like Beagle is going for a more realistic look.

I'm checking out Overdrive when I get home from work. Thanks SR for the pics and the info! Any chance they'll be going out and getting some green and reddies to sell too? I guess I'll have to ask in my email.

Why would future Alphas cost less? I think Toynami is just sticking to their normal pricing structure. We've just been all so beaten up by Yamato's and CMs pricing structures it seems like a miracle. All MPCs so far have been $79.99... this is just the first one we think might be worth it! That said, the MPC Alphas have been retailing for $59.99 in most places for a long time now so I wouldn't be too shocked if that becomes the norm.

SR, your Blue MPC is number 14K?? That blows my "hidden inventory" theory out of the water! Also note, the first 3K of Scott's MPC are different from the last 12K. As you noticed, the biggest difference is the color of the chest intakes.

This makes more sense to me than the GNU line but still, that'd mean Yamato vs. the model industry and inevitably people would just talk about how much better detailed the Hasegawas were.

Well we know they're not going to make more than 15K of the MPCs... what we don't know is how many MPCs they've already sold. It's been so long since they were issued though... My old theory was that Toynami held onto like 5K of each one and would only offer them as giftsets with the MPCs and then there'd be another number of MPC betas that were sold separately for people who already owned one of the first 10K Alphas that got sold. If I were Toynami, that's how I would have done it (or some number variation there of). EDIT- IIRC someone said they had an alpha in the 11K region though so if Toynami has more it'd probably be only like 3K more (again IIRC). Something else to consider, and something someone else brought up before, Scott shows up in TSC with his blue Alpha which means we might see a Blue Alpha TSC MPC at some point (with Aoshima improvements I'd presume sans shoulder missile). If it were the exact same blue paint scheme though that might irk a lot of people...

You gotta also figure that Toynami did make some money off Aoshima even if Aoshima isn't sticking around for a Tread. That money reinvested into the Beta project might have helped drop prices lower. Their initial price point always seemed more like an excuse for why things were taking so long rather than a truthful estimate of cost.

I imagine something will be done to meet the need of the many people in your boat. Toynami would be a fool not to have something to be able to sell you at some point. Still, it takes them forever to put out anything so you might be Alpha-less for like a year. ... there still might be more blue Alphas in their warehouse somewhere just waiting for a Beta release...

I really wouldn't mind if that were true... that's 3x $80 less I'd have to spend (or ALMOST enough money to buy a CMs Legioss Tread). Even if Aoshima isn't coproducing I wouldn't be too terribly surprised if some day some deal gets worked out for repaints. It makes too much sense for everyone involved especially if they learn what NOT to do the first time around.

I'm not sure if the shadow Beta shows up in the assault in Reflex Point. I do know it is shown before that in the Synchro cannon episode VERY fleetingly. I think you see a combined Shadow Alpha/Beta losing altitude and exploding in a cut scene. Tommy Yune and George Sohn later refuted that story though. I would think it makes sense Aoshima cancelled the deal after that quality control debacle but George said they were simply changing factories. Time will tell....