Whats next for Arcadia?

[no3Ljm]

21 minutes ago, Slave IV said:

If the quality is equal or better than Arcadia, I'm in for M&M. Might buy the official too if they ever come out again.

14 minutes ago, HardlyNever said:

At those prices, I don't see how the quality could match Arcadia, but I'd love to be wrong.  I'd jump at an M&M pair for under $200.  

Hopefully someone will get the first releases and give us an idea of the quality.

Even though I'm looking forward for Evolution Toy's Legioss Figure. I have to say this KO might be in par with their VF-2SS figure. 

 

[wmkjr]

More affordable because of not paying licensing fees plus no research and development costs and not giving 2 Fs maybe? All of them are just reverse engineered Yamato items. If they created their own 1/60 valks and offer them at a cheaper price then I'd be impressed. 

Some of those $10 prices are for deposits only but still, the full payment prices are still cheap. The only thing is the middleman fees and shipping which eat up some of the savings. I ordered a KO just to compare and when I got the item, I couldn't tell any difference.

[no3Ljm]

Wow! The things you see on that Taobao site. Not just Fokker's VF-1S. But also M&M's VF-1J and SSP's PO's. That's just so crazy. 

 

[treatment]

Well, that's just messed up.

Somebody either did an insider-job of stealing and selling the moulds to the bootlegging syndicates, or the bootleggers straight up copied the moulds from existing toys.

Either way, it'll be really interesting in how Arcadia will combat this issue.

Just moaning and whining on twitter and/or other media platforms ain't gonna help.  Premium-pricing their valks to the stratosphere certainly ain't gonna help.

Maybe they'll just put a box sticker stating "Genuine scalper-priced Arcadia product"...

[mickyg]

1 hour ago, wmkjr said:

More affordable because of not paying licensing fees plus no research and development costs and not giving 2 Fs maybe? All of them are just reverse engineered Yamato items. If they created their own 1/60 valks and offer them at a cheaper price then I'd be impressed. 

Some of those $10 prices are for deposits only but still, the full payment prices are still cheap. The only thing is the middleman fees and shipping which eat up some of the savings. I ordered a KO just to compare and when I got the item, I couldn't tell any difference.

What did you get?

Probably not appropriate to ask that, on second thought.

Edited March 15, 2017 by mickyg
edited for appropriateness.

[Pedro2k6]

 

1 hour ago, no3Ljm said:

Wow! The things you see on that Taobao site. Not just Fokker's VF-1S. But also M&M's VF-1J and SSP's PO's. That's just so crazy. 

 

Don't forget the yamato stand

(sorry I cant post the link)

And the YF-19 Fold booster.

(Same here)

Edited March 15, 2017 by Pedro2k6

[Slave IV]

44 minutes ago, wmkjr said:

More affordable because of not paying licensing fees plus no research and development costs and not giving 2 Fs maybe? All of them are just reverse engineered Yamato items. If they created their own 1/60 valks and offer them at a cheaper price then I'd be impressed. 

Some of those $10 prices are for deposits only but still, the full payment prices are still cheap. The only thing is the middleman fees and shipping which eat up some of the savings. I ordered a KO just to compare and when I got the item, I couldn't tell any difference.

Yes, what did you get? More details please.

20 minutes ago, treatment said:

Well, that's just messed up.

Somebody either did an insider-job of stealing and selling the moulds to the bootlegging syndicates, or the bootleggers straight up copied the moulds from existing toys.

Either way, it'll be really interesting in how Arcadia will combat this issue.

Just moaning and whining on twitter and/or other media platforms ain't gonna help.  Premium-pricing their valks to the stratosphere certainly ain't gonna help.

Maybe they'll just put a box sticker stating "Genuine scalper-priced Arcadia product"...

As I eluded to before, it's quite possible the same factories that produce for Arcadia are the ones producing the KOs from the same molds. Seems to be the easiest way to go.

[chaff.g]

I find it incredible that Arcadia would proactively alert their Twitter followers to the availability of these knockoffs. That blog post was essentially an advertisement.

Perhaps the existence of these KOs is well-known among the Japanese fanbase.

[wmkjr]

Don't wanna burst the bubble but just a friendly reminder for everyone so you don't get in any trouble:

• Copyrights and Trademarks - Fan art and Reproduction of original casts/molds
  Discussions pertaining to direct listings, sales, resales, trades, auctions, raffles/lotteries or direct web links to offsite listings, sales, resales, trades, auctions, raffles/lotteries of any recasted items or parts of items without consent of those product originators are not allowed on Macross World. Macross World is not associated or liable for any user-generated artwork or original custom items or parts.

 

[Pedro2k6]

6 minutes ago, wmkjr said:

Don't wanna burst the bubble but just a friendly reminder for everyone so you don't get in any trouble:

• Copyrights and Trademarks - Fan art and Reproduction of original casts/molds
  Discussions pertaining to direct listings, sales, resales, trades, auctions, raffles/lotteries or direct web links to offsite listings, sales, resales, trades, auctions, raffles/lotteries of any recasted items or parts of items without consent of those product originators are not allowed on Macross World. Macross World is not associated or liable for any user-generated artwork or original custom items or parts.

 

Thank you.

[no3Ljm]

44 minutes ago, Pedro2k6 said:

Don't forget the yamato stand

(sorry I cant post the link)

And the YF-19 Fold booster.

(Same here)

I saw that too but decided not to mention it. Don't want other members to get too excited over KO stuff.

 

[sh9000]

If the KO VF-1 came in white, it'd be like the pink Arcadia VF-1 was the KO.

[erizai]

36 minutes ago, sh9000 said:

If the KO VF-1 came in white, it'd be like the pink Arcadia VF-1 was the KO.

[neoexcaliber]

How interesting that many of you lament the unavailability of specific valks yet do not have a problem removing the one incentive the rights holders and licensees have to possibly create them and new toys for you in the future. Macross has such a small market that bootlegs might actually harm the production of new toys in the future.

[jenius]

33 minutes ago, neoexcaliber said:

How interesting that many of you lament the unavailability of specific valks yet do not have a problem removing the one incentive the rights holders and licensees have to possibly create them and new toys for you in the future. Macross has such a small market that bootlegs might actually harm the production of new toys in the future.

I largely agree but it's a two way street. When the legitimate producers can't meet demand this is capitalism's expected conclusion. It is much scarier than third party products for the future of our hobby... why invest in new molds when a knock off will rapidly appear? (Though all these molds are not so new). That said, I've been shocked how the Transformers Masterpiece line keeps plodding along though clearly that line has orders of magnitude more demand. 

Edited March 15, 2017 by jenius

[treatment]

Do the shops in japan buy and sell bootlegs at all?

 

 

 

 

[jenius]

I don't think Arcadia toys appear in many b&m joints... Japanese folks would be buying knockoffs online... if they were the types to do that. 

[jvmacross]

I guess now Arcadia is concerned about the non-Japanese market. 

[jenius]

Maybe Arcadia sold a bunch of molds because they were losing licenses only to find out the buyer wasn't a Toynami employee after all. 

[HardlyNever]

6 minutes ago, jenius said:

Maybe Arcadia sold a bunch of molds because they were losing licenses only to find out the buyer wasn't a Toynami employee after all. 

Are you saying Arcadia might be getting out of the sdf macross/dyrl? line?

But don't they have the Yamato sdf-1 mold?  Arcadia please... 

[SuperSenpai]

I read/heard somewhere (maybe here on MWF?) that the reason why the Masterpiece Transformers KOs are so good is because they are made in the same factory with the same molds as the regular MP Transformers.  The factory is producing extra runs beyond the order and selling them for cheap as KOs, or they are repackaging and selling ones that were rejected for minor QC purposes.  No idea if this is true, but if it is, the MP Transformer KOs might not be the best reference point for what to expect quality-wise from a KO Arcadia toy.  Usually when I think of a KO, I think of something where the molds were copied, bought, or stolen, and they the product was made somewhere completely different.

[neoexcaliber]

52 minutes ago, jenius said:

I largely agree but it's a two way street. When the legitimate producers can't meet demand this is capitalism's expected conclusion. It is much scarier than third party products for the future of our hobby... why invest in new molds when a knock off will rapidly appear? (Though all these molds are not so new). That said, I've been shocked how the Transformers Masterpiece line keeps plodding along though clearly that line has orders of magnitude more demand. 

Then the, 'what's next for Arcadia - Bankruptcy' joke is going to be a reality. It'll be worse than how we treated Yamato when they were still around. I wonder if this'll affect future entries into the franchise.

[mcfly50]

There is a lot going on in the unlicensed Transformers market than just KOs. Third party companies are making better original figures than Hasbro/Takara. For example, takara doesn't makes a Masterpiece Jazz.  Then a bunch of companies come all out with their "unofficial" version and it's great quality and Takara still won't make it. (Supposedly due to a license problem with Porsche).   In that situation, 3rd party companies are filling the gap for the fans.   It would be really interesting to see what 5 competing companies could come up competing for macross fans money. Macross is probably too small a market for that though.

Heres another question, what happens if Arcadia does fold like Yamato and many people still searching for a particular type of figure can only get it on the KO market or some insane price. Even if they do support Arcadia (as I have bought double of everything they've released), isn't that a reasonable choice? Especially if it's good quality. 

[Sandman]

1 hour ago, jenius said:

I largely agree but it's a two way street. When the legitimate producers can't meet demand this is capitalism's expected conclusion. It is much scarier than third party products for the future of our hobby... why invest in new molds when a knock off will rapidly appear? (Though all these molds are not so new). That said, I've been shocked how the Transformers Masterpiece line keeps plodding along though clearly that line has orders of magnitude more demand. 

I agree. I don't think it's an accident that the first Kos of fast packs and max and Mirra Vf-1js. The two items that been requested consistently since Arcadia opened shop

[TheLoneWolf]

Ethical considerations aside, I'm highly skeptical of these v2 1/60 VF-1 KO's. If you look at the v2 assembly kit version that Yamato released, you'll see that it has dozens of small, intricate parts would be difficult to copy on the cheap. Furthermore, the toy has small hinges and locks that bear a lot of pressure during transformation. Arcadia can rely on these small parts due to the high quality plastic that they use. But, if bootleggers opt to use cheaper plastic (eg: Toynami plastic) on their versions, it could result in cracks or outright breakages. Moreover, the Macross fanbase is considerably smaller than the Transformers fanbase, so I find it hard to believe that bootleggers would be willing to invest as much capital in Macross KO's as compared to Transformers KO's.

The Fast Packs would be a different story, since they're much simpler than the main toy. While I don't need any more Fast Packs, I'm curious to see how they'll stack up compared to Arcadia's.

[jenius]

1 hour ago, mcfly50 said:

 

Heres another question, what happens if Arcadia does fold like Yamato and many people still searching for a particular type of figure can only get it on the KO market or some insane price. Even if they do support Arcadia (as I have bought double of everything they've released), isn't that a reasonable choice? Especially if it's good quality. 

There's a huge difference between knock-offs of toys that are long out of production (especially if the company is out of business) and knock-offs of a company still trying to sell that product. There's also a huge difference between third-party "original" works and straight knock-offs.

2 hours ago, HardlyNever said:

Are you saying Arcadia might be getting out of the sdf macross/dyrl? line?

Nooooooooo, I was just making a joke. I mean, it's a possibility, but Arcadia has a product currently in production for DYRL. 

[barurutor]

3 hours ago, treatment said:

Do the shops in japan buy and sell bootlegs at all?

 

 

 

 

There were a few DX chogokin frontier valks listed on mandarake without the big west sticker recently.

[no3Ljm]

22 minutes ago, barurutor said:

There were a few DX chogokin frontier valks listed on mandarake without the big west sticker recently.

Even though there's no Big West stickers, are those 'official' bootlegs? Or it's just some random boxes that doesn't have the stickers?

[chyll2]

I dont think that is considered bootleg. We are also talking about Mandarake so the previous owner might have removed it.

[mcfly50]

2 hours ago, jenius said:

There's a huge difference between knock-offs of toys that are long out of production (especially if the company is out of business) and knock-offs of a company still trying to sell that product. There's also a huge difference between third-party "original" works and straight knock-offs.

I agree completely.  It seems to me some folks in this community haven't seen what unlicensed companies are able to do these days.  The improvements made in Chinese reverse engineering/manufacturing just the last year made an impression on me. I think some folks are remembering a bad KO MP-10 or cheap 1/55 copy KO and that's what they have in their mind for what a Yamato/Arcadia 1/60 v2 KO will be. It very well could.  But I've also been blown away by companies ability to make figures with better quality, better paint, and even improve on flaws from the original design. Some original toys having much more complexity of a VF-1 v2.

I support Arcadia. I supported Yamato before that. I have everything purchased from Bandai or on pre-order. We all spend a small fortune collecting these.  But a Chinese company can and probably will make this figure, with a great paint job, with great/equal quality, include more accessories, and sell it to you for probably a hundred bucks to include shipping. If that does happen, I'm just saying I understand why someone wouldn't want to buy a M and M set for 200 vice 1200. I guess that's another capitalism point you were trying to make early Jenius.  

[Sluff]

Remember, a KO painted as Jetfire will sell more units than any official Macross livery, and upscaled like the oversized KOs would fit in the MP line.

[Mazinger]

The Arcadia tweet really seems like another example of the Streisand effect to me. Making the mistake to denounce something relatively unknown and in the end drawing more attention to it.  I, for example, had never heard of the LEGO clones coming out of China The Lego Group filed a suit to stop one of them. These weren't really an issue till they opened a factory in a China, then all of a sudden you could get discontinued Ultimate Collectors Edition sets which can go for almost a thousand MISB on eBay, for about a hundred. There are some quality differences with the LEGO knock offs. The studs don't say LEGO. Some pieces are weaker, cheaper. Some cloners are almost 98% of the quality though, which indicates to me that they got ahold of discarded original molds. That's my hypothesis.

[Mechapilot77]

gee guess I (well arcadia's twitter really) opened up a can of worms that seems likely to backfire (unless JP fanbase already widely knows).  I think arcadia should get out in front of this and reissue SSP and some fan favorites near their original prices (adjust for inflation of course) assuming they can do so and make money (ie, if they ain't super bloated as a company...they already own the molds, know how to make them, own the licenses...why can't they if they can't? it should be a cash cow).  

 

FWIW, as a point of reference....i don't remember the JPY prices but including shipping i am pretty sure i go the M&M sets combined from overseas for under $300 USD.  Also, i picked up SSP on sale at one point for ~$30 (not including shipping).

[jenius]

I honestly don't think Arcadia has the rights. I think either Bandai has the rights and they have some deal with Bandai that let's them put out a couple SDF toys a year or BW only gave them a very limited license. That would also explain the inflated prices... there's one more party getting a cut or they're paying more to BW per release. 

Arcadia did say they weren't doing a super parts release because of licensing issues (as someone interpreted from Twitter).

[Mechapilot77]

12 hours ago, TheLoneWolf said:

Ethical considerations aside, I'm highly skeptical of these v2 1/60 VF-1 KO's. If you look at the v2 assembly kit version that Yamato released, you'll see that it has dozens of small, intricate parts would be difficult to copy on the cheap. Furthermore, the toy has small hinges and locks that bear a lot of pressure during transformation. Arcadia can rely on these small parts due to the high quality plastic that they use. But, if bootleggers opt to use cheaper plastic (eg: Toynami plastic) on their versions, it could result in cracks or outright breakages. Moreover, the Macross fanbase is considerably smaller than the Transformers fanbase, so I find it hard to believe that bootleggers would be willing to invest as much capital in Macross KO's as compared to Transformers KO's.

The Fast Packs would be a different story, since they're much simpler than the main toy. While I don't need any more Fast Packs, I'm curious to see how they'll stack up compared to Arcadia's.

expensive plastic vs. cheap plastic....its all still pretty cheap, especially if you are not dealing in huge quantities where material cost differences really are pronounced.  material cost is way smaller than any other investment here so i don't think that is a barrier to entry here.  they will just spec the same or similar to yamarcadia.  still who knows if they will try to squeeze the last several pennies out and opt to cheap out where they shouldn't?