bigkid24

I just picked mine up but haven't opened it yet. I'll post and compare as soon as I do. My one thing is that I'm pissed that they released the microman pilot figure first. I assumed the Scopedog wouldn't come with Chirico so I bought one but since it comes with one I have an extra. Punks!

Hell if I had know it was you I wouldn't have bid. I thought you said you were only going to bid $300

Haha, he was bidding against me. I drove up the price on him.

That looks sweet but I somehow doubt the finished product will look that good.

Okay, seriously what ass backward companies are you talking about? The video game industry is the closest thing that I can think of but that's still comparing apples and oranges. Console makers sell the console at a loss in order to get the revenue from the games. Without them sinking the money into the console, that whole revenue stream would not exist. Yamato didn't create the 1/48 at a loss so they could sell gashapons. If you think that there is so much demand for gashapons for them to bring in more revenue at their price point than the 1/48s at their price point then I don't know what to say to you. And I'm talking at this point in the game, after Yamato has made practically every variant of the VF-1 vs all the gashapons they have made since the 1/48s were introduced. Here's a real world example for you. Toynami started with morphers and keychains. Then they went to the MPCs. I talked to someone that used to be in the toy industry and he said that Toynami was basically flipping the money from the morphers and keychains in order to manufacture the MPCs. Given your logic they shouldn't have bothered with them since they'll sell them at a loss. Yet we've seen numerous MPCs both VF1s and Alphas and Toynami is moving into even higher end products with their Cinemaquettes. Why bother if they're going to sell at a loss. Oh and when was the last time that they sold a morpher? Sure they sold Voltron Imen but they stopped and then sold an MPC Voltron. You can point to their various figure lines like Chobits and Inu Yasha but even those lines are moving towards higher end merchandise. Basically toy lines are like monopolies. They pay for a license and have exclusive rights to create items based on the rights they received. Simple economics tells us that in a monopoly situation you limit supply and jack up price to be the most profitable. Who else is making a 1/48? What's the price on those? Hmmm.... How many companies make computers? How quickly is the technology outdated? They have no choice but to live on low margins.

This is a stupid side discussion but you're getting away from your argument. We're talking about the manufacturer and not the retailer. We're discussing Yamato's success (Dell, Apple) not the success of say a retailer like Valkyrie-Exchange (Best Buy). So what's the point of bringing up a retailer's sales tactic? The manufacturer is making their money regardless of what the retailer sells it for. Anyway, computers are probably an exception to this but a higher end item usually has a bigger profit margin than low cost one. I can get a bigger discount on a 42" plasma TV than 13" TV. What were we talking about again?

I go to AnimePunch. I keep forgetting to go to RT.com so I can get points to up my rank.

This thread is waaaay OT. Can a mod please lock this thread? Oh wait, they're all buddy buddy so they won't.

Man that's sweet. One of these days I'm going to actually pay for a custom.

Okay, first I'm going to respond to the topic's question. No, Yamato would not be as successful without out us...meaning the USA. They wouldn't be bankrupt or anything but as a whole I'm sure their sales would not be as strong. Even if we only make up 5% of their consumer base there is no executive on earth that would not be happy with increasing sales 5% without much effort. No, Yamato does not cater to us. Technically they can't sell to the US but distributors can and do. Yamato sells to distributors. Distributors sell to us. We still fatten up Yamato's bottom line. Japan's consumer base is basically Walmart and the US is TRU. Yamato is going to listen to Japan first because they'll get more sales out of their own country probably. I think this has already been refuted. As far as I know, Yamato is a Japanese company while Toycom is the US branch. It wasn't the company's intent to merely sell to the US. It was their intent to sell their product through their US subsidiary to the US. Actually, I wholeheartedly believe that Yamato was very dependent on Macross. I don't know the whole history but the first time that I've really heard of them was with their Macross line. They got a license that the owners enjoyed and that they could milk. I think Yamato would have been more successful if they had started with the VF-1 rather than M+ valks. Think about the line. They make one VF-1 sculpt and produce a ton of variants. The initial investment yields huge revenue over the course of the entire line. This is basically the same formula they are following for their Votoms line with the Scopedog. Between the Macross valkyries and their gashapon sets, I believe, that's where they got their money to pursue the other licenses you talk about to expand their product line as their Macross possibilities were dwindling. I think the timeline of releases will support my claim. Don't confuse the amount of money made with profit margin. The computer company will earn a higher return with the cable but make more profit on the computer. If they made that much money of a cable then why not just be a cable manufacturer? I don't even know what your point is on the $1.50 toy so I'm going to stop here.

Me three for free! I'm all for meeting anyone who'll be there.

Dude that's crazy. Even if that's as far as the project goes it's pretty cool. Aside from the head it doesn't look like it really transforms. Oh wait, I know how to transform it. TIMBER!!!

That looks like a Kaiyodo Eva. I doubt those ball joints would be able to support the metal of an SOC.

Yeah, the FX sets have everything for M7. The TV series, OVA, movie and the shorts shown at the end of every three or four episodes.

I like the art but the story is progressing at the same speed as the Spider-man comic strip.

I prefer realism because they are supposed to be in disguise. All the Cybertron/GF stuff is too futuristic and weird for me. I think a real world design can take plenty of imagination to make a good bot form. Gobots showed a real lack of imagination in transforming to robots but TFs I think has usually done a good job where they don't look too much like cars standing up on end. My problem with non-real designs is that they tend to look too goofy in their alt mode. Then they don't look much better in their robot mode. I think the movie era transformers are some of the worst: Hot Rod, Blurr, Kup. I don't know how they were actually designed but it seems like they made the robot form first and then shoehorned them into random looking futuristic vehicles. In my opinion that takes less imagination than shoe-horning it into a real world vehicle.

Congrats, xstoys.

Yeah, the FBI warning thing sucks. I usually try the menu button, then skipping it, then fast forwarding through it. One of those three will ususally work.

The 11B w/FPs has better hip joints and a little Isamu pilot. The VF-19A has knee caps that cover some of the gap in the knees over the YF-19.

Yeah, I need to register. I'll be sure to bring a lanard from home though since last year they cheaped out and gave us stupid shoelaces. How ghetto is that?!

I remember Yoshinol. I should have saved some of the pictures too. Ah well. Yeah, actually someone did a very limited run of them for some TF convention. There's actually one on ebay right now that I just saw, but it looks like crap. The sculpt and recasting is very very VERY rough. It also doesn't help that whoever painted it was very skilled either.

Don't forget that the store front that the kid is working on is called Schumaker. Mad Love was good but I think my favorite was Over the Edge. The story is great and the animation is amazing. It seems that a lot of my favorite episodes had Japanese directors.

Heh. I remember that story. I thought it was great. My thinking is this: if they're trying to make a living out of it then they should get a business license and do it right. How the heck can you manage to make a living buying toys at retail to resell?!

May be recent for youtube but it's been around for a while.

Since we're being this specific I'm not sure what duplicates I have.....I think these are my top three in no particular order 6 x 1/48 CFs 4 x Lego Tie Fighter 3 x tie (too many to name)