Far too expensive

[gsmith]

Why exactly are the new releases so expensive? £15 (including postage) for a single Twinhorn, Helcat, Malder or Snakes! I had been hoping to order four Twinhorns and three Snakes, but their prices and postage costs add up to £105! That's the same price I paid for a huge Lego set with over 2300 pieces. Are Tomy not doing good business at the moment or are they just getting greedy? So maybe the extra cost is for the magazines, but I just want the zoids and not a load of magazines I won't even be able to read.

[Tilly]

Plastic more expensive, bigger boxes with more stuff? I'm betting they're not huge runs, either, since they're more aimed at the nostalgia market. They might have had to fix up molds, too.

As for the magazines, they're part of the nostalgia appeal deal, and...well, they're marketed at people in Japan, who *can* read them. Hiring good translators for something not really intended for export would be silly.

[Big Sazabi]

wow, it has been a while, but back to the subject.
Actually, it is just the company wanting more money. Same thing is happening with Bandai rasing their prices.
I am actually a plastic engineer in training. So to tell you the truth one of these kits cost them maybe .25 or .35 dollars to create, especcialy with zoids. Also since it is an old mold, it probably already made it's money back for them. So it is just them wanting ore $$$$

[Tilly]

I dunno, look at TDP Gojulas Mk.II on versus the late NJR and there's definite "crap, the mold is screwing up, NEED FIX" signs there - and Gildy showed definite signs of having been restored some. I have to wonder what other old critters have needed at least that much attention before being rereleased.

(The Zero is showing some signs of going funny too, or my Hiou does. Same with TDP Great Sabre and Shieldy...)

[Big Sazabi]

the molds could nee retooling, but it is not as espensive as a buying the mold. Our schools frizbe mold costed us around 50000 to 100000 dollars alone. we have a couple of others, but someone actually create one in school and had our machine shop produce it (still cost 10,000 for metal, wiring, and coolent tubing

[gsmith]

A lot of companies, no matter what the product, will start raising their prices for no real reason when the realise people will still buy them anyway. I remember the 'Dizzy' series of computer games back on the Sinclair Spectrum and C64. They started out at two or three pounds each, but when they became a best-selling series there was suddenly a new Dizzy game which cost three times as much as its precedessor.

[Arrow]

There are a lot of factors, although the currency stuff primarily hits statesiders since the dollar's slid against the yen...
There's also the potential for currency wobbles in, say, China and Thailand compared to Japan. That shouldn't have that much of an effect, though. In fact, the British should be seeing unusually low prices for stuff given the exchange rate situation.

Postage is pretty appreciable here as well, it feels like UPS and USPS are charging an arm and a leg for anything larger or heavier than a few compact discs (like Gundam Markers.) $7.95 US just to ship twelve of them from California to central Ohio via ground freight. I remember when you could move a ten-kilogram (22lb) package across the country for only $10 US.

The mold issues intrigue me, and I remember hearing something about how expensive those things are to machine, polish, and at a certain point, repair. Especially volume production hardware like this, it's got a lot of small complex channels and has a harder life than a school's frisbee-maker project.

The issue of corporate profiteering isn't entirely out of the question, but...would Tomy-Takara really try and tick off everyone, including their domestic market? Even if they're trying to push us to HMM kits only (which would be okay, but it's just kind of fun having powered stuff that doesn't take a day to do basic assembly on, much less finishing work.)

Thicker books and such aren't a problem for me in spite of my inability to read them, the pictures are sometimes interesting, and if I ever do get around to learning Japanese, maybe I can get a bit of recreational reading out of them. Especially the stuff in the HMM books, I'm pretty curious about component descriptions and whatnot. (Yay, technobabble!)

[Tilly]

Now that I have the Helcat, I suspect some of the cost is also packaging - big, windowed box with velcro-closed flap, plastic tray, booklet, all that crap. Seriously, the box is a couple inches thick and as tall as a Koenig is long...

The booklet's not very thick, though it is full-color glossy, which costs more than regular instructions. And if you're looking to learn Japanese, go for the fanbooks first, the Graphics take after the Zoids Bible and have no furigana, which will give you a hell of a time D:.

[KAndrw]

My Malder arrived today, and it really is a big box.

I figure it's like the reissue Soundwave I bought - fancy box and massive nostalgia appeal, and not something that you buy every day, so it's not that big a deal that it's expensive.

For a small run and for the amount of work that seems to have gone in to making it a properly satisfying nostalgic experience, it was a price I was prepared to pay.

[Maethius]

When it comes to pricing, you have to have a larger world view. As a manufacturer, here is what I do know (mind you, I deal in books, not models yet!)

1) Cost of plastics is rising, sure, pennies for one model, sure, but every model carries a factor of risk in a recessive market

2) Cost of labor- we think in terms of buying what we want. You are not paying to make a kit as a company, you are paying a full time staff of designers, marketers, rents, ... all that overhead stuff. Not only for this product, for for R&D for products that don't exist yet.

3) Distribution - fuel costs for long haul and overseas freight have increased 25% in a single year... it costs my friend $580 a DAY to fill his rig. It cost me $680 to ship 2 palettes on a cargo ship. TWO palettes! Imagine risking 50 palettes, in hopes that a unit sells?

4) Stockholders! Gotta satisfy them... and they are really touchy.