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Post by mrclean08 on Sept 3, 2011 10:28:41 GMT -5
I really wish there were more Mospeada products out there. The Toynami/Aoshima Legioss were of horrible quality, although the Beta's and Masterpiece Cyclones/Beagle Mospeada's and were actually quite good. CM's Brave Legioss were pretty good, but their Treads were not on par. And CM's Cyclones were pretty bad.
So that brings me to my question. Can a company like Yamato ever acquire the Mospeada license? An all plastic re-engineered 1/35 Legioss would be simply awesome! Continuation of the Masterpiece Cyclones like Rook and Yellow Dancer would be great.
If any company could pull it off, I think it could be them. What do you think?
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Post by Chen on Sept 3, 2011 12:06:07 GMT -5
I wish it would but the fact is there just isn't that many Mospeada fans out there. Toynami used the whole Robotech angle to sell their products but Yamato couldn't do that and would have to rely on the Mospeada name to sell their version. I'm also pretty sure any company besides Toynami would want to start with a clean sheet design and not borrow someone else' work to make their own fighters. The basis for multiple versions of a single mold is there but I think the time isn't right for yet another company to release Mospeada fighters, the Cyclones on the other hand I could see a company trying to make the rest but they would pretty much have to start from scratch and the simple fact is it would be a very expensive toy for a limited market with low returns on investment. But if any company could do it I can see Yamato pulling it off.
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Post by xiombarg on Sept 3, 2011 12:33:45 GMT -5
I wish it would but the fact is there just isn't that many Mospeada fans out there. Toynami used the whole Robotech angle to sell their products but Yamato couldn't do that and would have to rely on the Mospeada name to sell their version. I'm also pretty sure any company besides Toynami would want to start with a clean sheet design and not borrow someone else' work to make their own fighters. The basis for multiple versions of a single mold is there but I think the time isn't right for yet another company to release Mospeada fighters, the Cyclones on the other hand I could see a company trying to make the rest but they would pretty much have to start from scratch and the simple fact is it would be a very expensive toy for a limited market with low returns on investment. But if any company could do it I can see Yamato pulling it off. I agree with Chen on this. Considering the whole Cyclone market: I think the "idea" of the cyclone still has a lot of profit potential with collectors, BUT it's an engineering nightmare and it's never going to happen. After seeing three different companies try their hand at the Cyclone, with none of them being an ideal balance between practical user friendliness, solid engineering design and aesthetic, I'm fairly convinced that the days of Cyclone toys are over. The Beagle/Toynami was arguably the best version, but the transformation process is so complex that it's not even really a toy. The fourteen page manual that had about a dozen pictures on each page to show the process was still not enough to easily explain the process, and if you've watched Atom's video explanation from CollectionDX.. let's just say it was a valiant effort. Considering all of this, I just don't see any new Cyclones ever happening. |
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Post by quinjester on Sept 4, 2011 11:03:57 GMT -5
the Cyclones on the other hand I could see a company trying to make the rest but they would pretty much have to start from scratch and the simple fact is it would be a very expensive toy for a limited market with low returns on investment. The Beagle Cyclones/Ride Armors were exactly this, and it was the limited market and low returns on the high investment that resulted in the whole company going belly-up after just two releases. The engineers behind the Beagle Cyclones were also ex Yamato designers, so the Beagle Ride armor is literally as close as one is ever going to get to get to a Yamato Mospeada product. |
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Post by Chen on Sept 4, 2011 18:25:23 GMT -5
True, there isn't a design to complex that a engineer could not figure out a way to make it happen, just look at the SOC Gunbuster or the SHE Getters it's just a matter of selling enough to to make a profit so your not losing money or just breaking even. Also the fact that following releases in the same line tend to go down in sales doesn't help, the Scott version sold pretty decent while the Rand one sold less. I could see where the Rook and Yellow version could sell well just based on the color and actual design differences but it's tough to increase sales or at the very least maintain sales when the "leader" Cyclone was your first release. Personally I would have released Rook first followed by Rand, Scott, and probably the most wanted one, Yellow last.
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Post by xiombarg on Sept 12, 2011 0:08:32 GMT -5
What the Cyclone could really use is being part of a high profile series such as SOC. That way it gets a lot of press, and a lot of purchases by completists.
Beagle being the last in line for the Cyclone releases was also unfortunate. If they were first I'm sure they would have fared much better. If CMs made it all the way to making a Yellow release, then Beagle would for sure have.
Chen, I think you've got some good points.. But, I don't think the Cyclone can be compared to the Gunbuster or the SHE Getters, although for different reasons.
Engineering-wise, I see the Cyclone as more complex than the Gunbuster - mainly because of the interdependency of parts being dependent on parts, being dependent on parts..etc. and it all had to conform to an animation design.
SHE Getters (I'm assuming we are talking about the 3in1), while amazing, certainly makes rather drastic stylized allowances in order to achieve end results, and it allows itself to be taken apart, which makes things possible that couldn't be otherwise.. This is every bit as complex as the cyclone, but being a resin cast, probably means the prototyping process would be fairly inexpensive, yet more expensive on the production end, which is why it cost more than twice as much as the Beagle Cyclone yet was only maybe half as big (in volume of content).
So all in all I still see the Cyclone as a tougher venture. But of course this is just my half baked 2 cents of observations, probably wrong, but that's how it seems to me anyway..
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Post by Chen on Sept 12, 2011 5:32:25 GMT -5
I agree I wasn't trying to compare Gunbuster or the SHE Getters to the Cyclones just saying that just because a transformation is tough doesn't mean it's impossible to figure out. It's just a shame though, I could see why CMS succeeded and Beagle failed, the Beagles were vastly superior but also vastly more expensive. This is where I think the main problem lies, Toynami was trying to sell to your typical Robotech fan who honestly is probably not used to paying high amounts for their hobby while "Japanese Robot Collectors" on the other hand are quite used to it. Plus the fact that fighters seem to be the main priority to Robotech fans probably didn't help when the Cyclones were the most expensive masterpiece released. This doesn't explain the Japanese release but I think if Toynami actually sold out the supposed "limited" production run then there was no reason to not make the rest since Rook was already in the prototype stages.
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