jenius

Okay, so Toynami was having a problem moving MPC Alphas so they sold a bunch of them to Aoshima who then modified them? Interesting. The reference to the hips makes me think you'll be able to angle the legs outward. I wish they would have added a swivel at the knee and a ton of other improvements. It's wait and see time!

So, besides weight/metal (which causes chipping), what does the 1/60 have going for it? Price I suppose. Then you have amputee pilots, useless landing gears, screw covers that flake off, swappable parts including the heat shield, and far less detail.

I still haven't gotten around to my comparison post but I did get this one in just for size:

This is good news but honestly, while I did very much enjoy Orguss, I can't really see myself paying more to have a better copy. I watched it, I understood it, I've moved on.

Go to the website in my sig and marvel at the toys and the reviews... it'd make me happy

OMG, your dog has hands??? What are you doing talking about toys, your dog is the real story here! I had a Jetfire when I was little, then got a Max MPC VF-1J the moment I graduated college. My initial impression was a total let down and then someone told me about Yamato's 1/60s which seemed even worse to me. Eventually I scored some really random great buys off eBay and then found a local collector with a HUGE Takatoku Macross and Gakken Mospeada collection and the rest is history. Several thousands of dollars later I'm really beginning to wonder what the hell I was thinking.

If I'm not mistaken the VF-1 MPC was also going to be 1/65 scale & 30% diecast (which sounds like a kinda cool toy to me). Then Toynami scratched the whole thing, redesigned it at the last moment, upped the production volume, and dumped the thing on the market. The VF-1 is a series of miserable mistakes which I optimistically excused in some degree as learning experiences. What's happening here with Aoshima seems a bit more slimey to me but hey, if everyone here is cool with that I'm definitely cool with being in the minority.

I was up early this AM so I decided to get a Wii. I swung by Kmart about 20 minutes before they opened but apparently they had already sold all their Wiis to people who had been camping at 6am. People are still camping for this thing? Wow, either Nintendo is having production problems or this thing is one hot pancake. I don't really mind waiting though, but I'm impressed.

Precisely. As soon as you start saying "Well, I guess it's okay that companies I do business with don't honor their own promises" you find yourself on a terribly slippery slope. It's easy to dismiss here 'cause we're talking about a mediocre toy at a relatively small price and that's why I'm arguing for the principal. I don't own any Alphas as investments but I bought them under certain pretenses and those pretenses should be honored.

Apples vs. oranges..... FIGHT!

No, you guys are right, Toynami seriously has no obligations here and anyone who bought their products has no right ot expect them to really mean what they say. After all, Toynami did say that the initial VF-1 MPCs would only be 10K and then upped that number to 15K after receiving a bunch of pre-orders (which obviously de-values what the people who pre-ordered before the number change had paid for). F-that, you guys are wrong. People absolutely have a right to be pissed that their collectibles are being devalued by a company looking to make more money no matter how logical that search for more money is. What would people say if Yamato re-released the VF-1A LV1 as a mass production run with a different name? When people say something is limiited they're expected to live up to that, don't be apologists of some sort and give them an easy way out. For my own part, I am far more upset with the principals being pissed on here than anything to do with value. If I tell you something is one of a kind I mean that it's the only one in existence, I don't mean that it's the only one that I'm calling by a particular name.

You musta bought a different MPC than the one I bought. Mine says it's limited to a production run of 15K. Apparently yours has the additional small print that says "In the American market." Making something limited only in a certain geographic area in a society that has things as miraculous as airplanes makes that "limited" term meaningless.

Seconded... Toynami is about to destroy the value of their own products and reputation if all is as it seems. What might be cool is if these are versions of the MPCs without diecast (or less of it) or something.

This may seem like a silly criticism but the destroids here seem more top-heavy than need be (with exception of the rail gun one). I do like the hints of the old destroids in them though.

I think that's a pretty cool idea, except the YF-19 shirt would say Shinsei. Hmm... I kinda want to get a Shinsei Industries polo shirt now to have the ultimate obscure reference going everytime I golf. That said, I also like the first design plenty also.

The partial painting probably renders this thing very difficult to sale. You could always eBay it to find out

I kinda disagree on CAD. Continuing to use Yamato as an example there's the teh sux quality of the 1/72 products vs. the CAD 1/48s. I'd say that's a pretty instant jump in design, quality, and fit. Is it perfect? No. It is the future though and it's a good thing. Companies will still have to make $$ decisions on materials and there will always be issues the computer must not have seen coming (VF-0S' floppy midsection) but as the companies gain more experience they should be capable of overcoming these issues. Pen & Paper makes it a whole new ball game with whole new problems on every new design.

It's all in the economics Fit For Natalie. Yamato has a budget for failure (as all companies do), be it goods that are destroyed in shipping or goods that are unsatisfactory and returned. Yamato also has a name it needs to keep in the consumer's minds and so they rely on fairly prompt delivery of toys (scheduling of releases has multiple variables). The bare minimum amount of time that is deemed necessary is used to pressure test new products because, in today's environment, extensive design testing is done via computer on computer models. So, Yamato accepts that some products won't be up to snuff, accepts that they will spend very little time actually handling prototypes and first-runs, and anticipates that their computerized evaluations would have revealed any significant issues. Sometimes they're right, sometimes they're wrong. I think their audience has also proven to be quite patient which can't be a good thing. Any situation like this is a bit of a gamble but believe me, they've done the math to determine what they feel is the most profitable amount of effort to invest in every step of the process and the most profitable route rarely coincides with the perfect route for the end consumer.

My email went directly to Garner and was extremely basic, it just said "Hey, my shoulders broke but I liked my Garland otherwise. I heard you can get me new and improved shoulders. My address is blah blah blah." I'm guessing Ginrai that he got several emails in, put in requests for shoulders, and yours either got erroneously checked as having been a request that was satisfied (since he apparently doesn't respond via email) or that he actually did send a request and a shipping person sent yours to some other address.

Looks like these customs are making appearances at all the Japanese toy shows.

While I don't imagine these will be much different from the Toynami MPCs I am also starting to really doubt they are just reissues of the Toynami products. Toynami sales its products based on them being limited editions and if they turned around and produced more for other markets they would be burning their customers. I am much more inclined to believe they will be extremely similar to the MPC but with the improvements any moron would have made to that line after inspecting one or two samples. Now, Toynami's Ride Armors, those might get sold in multiple markets simultaneously. I could see that happening so long as Toynami sticks to the production numbers they announce (something it's already too late to do with the Alphas).

It's going to make me feel old to type this but... You know what else I loved about that game? The PHYSICs! Yeah, shut-up, I know. Anyway, remember that level where you were constantly being sucked into black holes? Even the bullets and missiles would get sucked away into them. That was nifty for a kid like me. It probably wasn't the first game to do it... but it may have been the coolest shooter to do it (up to that point). PS - I'm not sure, am I derailing with the Gaiares chat or was the premise of this thread to talk about old favorite video games so we could all queue up our emulators again?

I LOVED Warsong... absolutely LOVED it. I was so bummed when I heard it was but one game in a series that never ever got ported over to the US. Obviously any Shining game (Shining in the Darkness or Shining Force), World War III on the Sega CD, and anything Phantasy Star (even the so-so Phantasy Star III). It always bums me out that more of my friends don't remember the Phantasy Star games, especially Phantasy Star II, soooo many hours of my life in that game.

May I recommend the shooter Gaiares? That game was fantastic but it seems to be a gem not everyone knows about. It ranks as EASILY the best shooter that ever appeared on the Genesis in my book.

Chowser might be onto something if you believe Toynami would actually do any re-tooling to come up with a new MPC Alpha for the Shadow Chronicles. If they re-tooled the Alpha, improved upon it, and made it with the foresight of a future Beta release that might be something truly awesome (except for the vocal few who ONLY bought an Alpha once they saw that Toynami was CONSIDERING making a Beta). I don't see that happening though. Toynami looks to be doing simple repaints for their Shadow Chronicles lines. If they do a MPC Scott SC version they better give it metallic paint or something to differentiate it or else fans will probably scream bloody murder.