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Post by S_Gokin on Feb 19, 2017 10:02:09 GMT -5
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Post by S_Gokin on Feb 19, 2017 10:06:31 GMT -5
im seriously thinking about skipping it after seeing this photo is it hard to pose figures ? or is it hard to pose THIS figure, such award pose man unless the bros who is getting it recommend it or i will only get the 5pro version who knows maybe Bandai will do one since the license is available
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Post by chogokinabdul on Feb 19, 2017 10:38:04 GMT -5
it looks funky !!! Skip for me
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Post by S_Gokin on Feb 22, 2017 10:34:25 GMT -5
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Post by locidm on Feb 22, 2017 11:24:58 GMT -5
The 5Pro is at least one inch taller with better sculpt and paint, but 5000 yen more. Me going with 5Pro since I won't be getting more than 1 representation of Astroganger.
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Post by S_Gokin on Feb 22, 2017 19:20:24 GMT -5
same here 5Pro all the way hope they release it soon tho
one day Bandai will make one and it will be awesome
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Post by greengetterguy on Feb 22, 2017 21:54:57 GMT -5
Yeah, Bandai is not one to take it lying down. (There were many instances it stole other companies thunder by releasing far FAR superior figure at smiliar or even cheaper price point at about same release window)
They could be reading the market reaction, 5 Pro needs to get this out before Bandai the giant make a sudden move!
And when it does, it will have a certain outcome and it wont be a pretty for other companies.....
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Post by faelon on Feb 22, 2017 23:25:51 GMT -5
same here 5Pro all the way hope they release it soon tho one day Bandai will make one and it will be awesome While nothing is impossible, especially in business, it may pay to remind us all that there are a number of robots Bandai has never made as toys. Often these choices were business/political. Remember Japan never had the US Television regulations that kept toy companies and cartoon producers at arms length. Bandai had money directly in Mazinger Z and Toei from the begining. They paid for the show. Astroganger was the direct competitor to Bandai's investment. So it's probably not ever going to be high on their "to do list". Granted you never know, but it's not one that they would likely ever just pull out of a hat and go for. There are a few other classic robot properties that fall into similar obscure producers or were directly competing with Bandai at some level. Dai Apollon (whatever the shows name was) is I believe another of them. Bandai has deep ties to and long term licences with Toei, Sunrise, Tsuburaya and Toho in particular. They were one of Toei's principle investors back in the day. They now own 30% of Tsuburaya (Ultraman). Sunrise, which created most of the robots Bandai does such as Gundam, Dougram, etc. The bulk of the more modern stuff, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bandai Namco holdings. So, yeah Bandai's choices of robots can be predictable from looking at their partnerships and business dealings. When they step outside those backend business dealings is more unusual, and normally is reserved for some real A list properties. Neon Genesis Evangelion, Gurren Laggan etc (Gainax). (remember Bandai is largely the Big Dog in the room and typically can pick and choose what properties they work with.) Most of Yamato's catalog of robot offerings was from those studios that Bandai did not have close ties (or money) in. As far as Bandai doing a deliberate release to step on a producer such as HLPro? Honestly? Probably not. Bandai likes companies like HLPro or Fewture or Sen-Ti-Nel. They by and large produce licensed product. Steer clear of direct competition as such. They are big enough to look to when seeking skilled employees, and to show up on industry balance sheets to make the anti-trust regulators go away. But they otherwise have little to no impact on bandai's bottom line or operations. If Bandai were to step on one of them in a release date or window, it would likely be unplanned. Just because there would be no benefit to doing so. Heck HLPro is the perfect example of the type of company Bandai wants around. (They are small enough to have no financial impact, and their product makes the consumer look more favorably on Bandai's offerings.) Business is a bit more complex than Conan the Barbarian's finest things in life. You want and like competition. You just don't want competition that is better than you. Competition like Fewture or HLPro is fantastic to have. Because pretty much everyone that is buying their product is unquestionably buying much much more of yours as well. (This is also why Takara does not bother to squash most Third Party Merchants. As far as Takara is unofficially concerned they are almost free advertising. The only times they overly get b*tchy is when they start doing 3p or bootlegs of the main star characters. Optimus Prime and Megatron.) So yeah I would not count on seeing a Bandai Astroganger in any of our lifetimes. Not unless they buy out a studio for something else and inherit the property. Edit: Now 5Pro Studio's? Them I could see Bandai doing a release to step on. "Taekwon V" would not have put them on Bandai's happy list. That is a subject Toei and Bandai are resentful of to this day. But I would expect that to show up with different robots. They wouldn't bother to license Astroganger to piss off 5Pro. But they might decide to release DC Getter 2 and 3? Or they might do a Gataiger? Something like that.
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Post by faelon on Feb 22, 2017 23:32:16 GMT -5
same here 5Pro all the way hope they release it soon tho Sorry to quote you twice, but this wasn't part of the daily business lecture. (cut them out and mail them in for a free MBA!) Am I alone in wishing that we were getting this guy in 5Pro's quality and finish, but at HLPro's size or scale? The one nice thing about HLPro's stuff is it is scaled to GX-01R. WHich makes it look good on the shelf.
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Post by S_Gokin on Feb 23, 2017 7:52:02 GMT -5
lol yea it will be weird if i log in and dont find (faelon quoted you in ..... thread) its fine tho i enjoy constructive conversations first thing, i dont speak out of the blue i already have a bachelor degree in business administration and im working on my MBA, so trust i dont need lecturing the thing is we all know Bandai had a hard time getting a license to do Voltron from WEP, but they made it eventually, how? we dont know for sure, did the KOB speed up things or did WEP officials woke up one day and said hey Bandai is the only one will do Voltron justice so lets give them a license, we might never know for Astroganger its kinda popular in Japan but why we didn't see him in SRW games or in figures ? according to one of my friends who works in Japan, he had a meeting with the company who own Astroganger rights, and they told him they had alot of financial problems with the Yakuza that's why we didn't see anything related to him, but thankfully all of these problems got solved recently and they started giving licenses to people, we might even see him in SRW games my point is Bandai will make anything that make them ton of money disregarding if Toei was the studio behind it or not, im not saying they will do it next week but one day, just like the Megazord and Bandai need HL Pro, Toynami and Revoltech in the market to show how good they are ,i wont mention Fewture because their recipe is kinda different from them, they do a limited run modern look with quality (i know some people have QCs but recently they are rare) while Bandai recipe is accuracy with quality about size and scale for me when i really love the character i dont mind getting different variety from each company the 5Pro Astroganger will look amazing next to the DX Mazinger and huge SOCs, while HL Pro will looks good with GX-01R, worth to mention the HL Pro version joints locations made it really awkward looking figure specially those in the knees it looks broken, i might wait until reviews to decided is it worth getting or not crazy thought what if Fewture do Astroganger just like the way they did Juohmaru ? oh yea
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Post by faelon on Feb 23, 2017 20:28:33 GMT -5
Actually the Bandai path to GoLion/Voltron is one of the better known and easier to understand ones. Bandai originally had the license back when GoLion was wholly owned by Toei. Hence the classic Popy. WEP sort of inherited them as a result when their license partner Matchbox licensed Bandai's toys. The relationship probably soured following the infamous Taiwanese Lead Paint recall. At some point after that WEP assumed full ownership of the IP. GoLion wasn't a wildly popular show in Japan and Bandai wasn't really targeting the US market, so they went their separate ways for years. Finally a few years back Bandai made a bid for it, but they got beat out at the last minute by Mattel. It's easy to understand why. Bandai was seeking to make a nice SOC. Mattel was promising a retail line with Action figures and broad North American distribution. Plus Mattel was doing business with WEP in English and on US time. That alone can often make a huge difference in negotiations. In hindsight I think WEP soon realized they should have gone with Bandai, and when the opportunity came up they granted the license to them much to everyone's satisfaction.
I think Astroganger will qualify as abit more niche than Bandai has been going for lately. The main exposure areas for him were Western Pacific and Middle East. A nice profitable region to have, but not generally a core target area. Besides I kind of suspect that licensing problems with the Yakuza don't ever really go away...
I can see Fewture doing a nice modernized Astroganger.
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Post by S_Gokin on Feb 24, 2017 8:56:25 GMT -5
from my point of view, in order to see other companies doing Astroganger, will depend highly on how successful 5pro version is and that might include the success of HL Pro version as well, from the feedback and the reaction i see on forums and on Instagram 5Pro will be a winner and a huge hit unless there is some QCs which i dont think will be any, HL Pro version will be bought by hardcore fans who already got the 5Pro and those who cant afford the 5Pro
hopefully the release will be early next month
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Post by faelon on Feb 24, 2017 15:15:52 GMT -5
from my point of view, in order to see other companies doing Astroganger, will depend highly on how successful 5pro version is and that might include the success of HL Pro version as well, from the feedback and the reaction i see on forums and on Instagram 5Pro will be a winner and a huge hit unless there is some QCs which i dont think will be any, HL Pro version will be bought by hardcore fans who already got the 5Pro and those who cant afford the 5Pro hopefully the release will be early next month Honestly I don't think 5pro is really used that much as a gauge by anybody else. Don't they do fairly small limited runs? Small enough that the only real data that could be gleaned by an outside observer would be if a given run or subject doesn't sell out, or shelfwarms at select retailers. So 5pro could show you a lack of interest, but can't really be used to gauge strength of interest otherwise. Similarly HLPro is a hard one to use to measure anything beyond some cursory interest. They don't have a ton of large scale direct retailers, so their stuff take a little longer to filter through the channel and start showing up at easily accessible retailers. Yeah we dedicated collectors know when and where to find it, but many others won't encounter their new releases until they make their way to Amazon. It's not a knock on their sales, it's just harder and takes much longer to see any useful patterns. At least to anyone that can't see their in house numbers. They will have a more graceful sales curve than the typical day or week one sales spikes you would see from some of the larger players. You would honestly likely get better data on consumer interest by posting a social media poll than by tracking some of the smaller niche or limited run companies.
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Post by S_Gokin on Feb 25, 2017 8:00:14 GMT -5
actually yes they did, the social media platforms are perfect tools if you wanna see how many people are interested in your products, just like MT and the KOB they actually made us choose between two face plates prototypes back then and 5Pro got an overwhelming respond about Astroganger in both FB and Instagram, not just in Korea (surprisingly Astroganger is famous there as well) but from all over the world, according to an interview with Typhoon Kim head of 5Pro Studio Astroganger is their first home made figure, they did prototype figures before but not under their name it was for other Japanese companies about HL Pro they have this bad reputation of blocking people and been really rude toward customers not to mention their products are not an A class figures (except for Gattaiger), so they dont get a real data about their products, in every business you must accept both of the negative and the positive feedbacks in order to improve
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Post by faelon on Feb 25, 2017 14:43:57 GMT -5
I'm just saying with 5Pro, they are essentially releasing limited run art pieces. Purchased as much for their fit and finish and artistic quality as for their specific subjects. Selling out a short fixed number limited run is baked into their business model. It makes it hard to gauge any actual outside interest in a specific subject, based simply on 5pro's results with it. Their facebook community is enthusiastic, but a small quantity. I'm not saying that there is or isn't interest specifically in Astroganger, just that 5pro's offerings and results are not a good metric for another company to use for measuring that interest. X-Plus would be a similar example of a short run art piece maker that isn't a good metric for gauging broader interest in a specific subject (I'm thinking we won't be seeing an SHMonsterArts Gabara ever, even though X-Plus made and sold one. For example.)
HLPro doing a subject might actually be a reflection that a subject is not one that would spark the interest of a bigger player. They are actively seeking "blue water" subjects or markets, instead of dwelling in the red waters where the sharks swim. Subjects like Astroganger, Z Mazinger, and Gataiger have just enough interest to support what they are doing and get them a decent return, especially in select non traditional markets. But they won't attract the attention of the bigger players who could get a better return on factory time with other subjects. This is likely why a lot of HLPro subjects seem to be things better known and more popular in the Asia Pacific and Middle Eastern regions. An area not deliberately or directly serviced by the bigger players.
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Post by S_Gokin on Feb 26, 2017 16:35:27 GMT -5
as far as i know Astroganger wont be a limit edition figure, according to 5pro there will be a metallic version & there is a fake color version that didnt get the green light yet (they are waiting to see how well the figure will sell) also i forgot to mention that 5pro got helped by MEDICOM TOY to distribute the figure and thats another measuring tool read here and HL Pro recently is targeting the Middle East and Italy with their recent releases but i think all of Asia included in their plan anyways man lets not spam this thread any longer, other members will shoot us we can talk more about this in thread under the break time section
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Post by greengetterguy on Feb 26, 2017 19:08:33 GMT -5
Let "ME" have the last word on this..
When 5Pro Astroganger was first available for preo at AmiAmi, it was one of the top figure ordered for few days. So there def is a pent up demand for B characters.... Who doesnt want SRC Garada, SRC Bossborot, or even SRC "scaled" Taekwon V gokin? ....o man, posing Maz fighting TKV would be so epic.
If its done right we are going to gobble it up and reward the company for doing it right.....at right price of course.
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Post by S_Gokin on Feb 27, 2017 8:30:05 GMT -5
its not about having the last word bro, we were just sharing knowledge and point of views lol but we end up spamming the thread you mentioned a good point that reminded me of something back in the days 5Pro said they got Medicom Toy to help them for a "professional distribution" of the figure and the numbers were great i guess mainly because its the first modern figure for Astroganger in ages along with 5Pro reputation and the price is very reasonable so its a case of win win win im in if Bandai do SRC Garada, boss or even Doublas M2
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Post by faelon on Feb 27, 2017 13:13:21 GMT -5
Here's another of those sad toy industry truths. With the exception of three very very specific toy lines, bad guys sell incredibly poorly vs the hero subjects. The three exceptions are Star Wars, Transformers and the 3 1/2" GIJoe line. What little balance in sales between hero and villain is mostly in North America. Japan and China it is mostly Hero, except for Darth Vader, Megatron and Stormtroopers. The problem with Garada is he takes the same effort, cost and factory time to make as Mazingers, for a guaranteed half the sales or less. It really is depressing. Sometimes they will do it as something of a loss leader, to flesh out the line. Just to provide for the desired conflict play. The adult collectors market will be a bit more forgiving of the bad guys, but you lose the casuals and the bad guys will almost never be someone's "entry point".
This is why we can't have "not very nice" things.
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Post by greengetterguy on Feb 27, 2017 16:14:53 GMT -5
Aw....i dont like that. No me gusta.....
Tho i did like the nice post explaining the whys and why nots.
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