They are not going to flop, so proactively ordering more than the usual inventory would help people be able to get their hands on it at whatever price they think acceptable.
On paper I would have said that about the super-articulated 12-inch line Hasbro started back in 2015, but that one certainly flopped at retail much to my ongoing chagrin given that their last Wolverine figure is by far the best Wolverine figure I've ever seen in any scale.
Those figures were excellent, but the market seemed to decide that $50 for an action figure at retail was just too much a decade ago. We'll see what the price point does to this line...
100%. Hasbro is afraid of that lower ball joint, but it's the way of the future.
They've done it on the GI Joe Classified Series figures since the very first one so I doubt it's Hasbro. Dwight or one of their other designers on the Legends team must have some very specific issue with it.
I'd love to see someone finally ask them about this during one of the many interviews people do this year. I was sure this figure was going to have one when I saw them first announce this during the stream since Bandai and Medicom both use them for Figuarts and Mafex, so I was pretty surprised when we saw in the promos that there's no ball waist joint.
So I don't have numbers but I think you are vastly over estimating the numbers for the high end things you like.
There was a thread trying to estimate this on one of the old iterations of this forum that we could rehash here if you guys like--or even better start another thread about it since the factors that go into estimation could easily be many pages worth of tangent ideas to discuss--but I've been going with one order of magnitude (so 10x) as the difference in production runs for Mafex versus Legends. So most Legends mass retail releases are anywhere from 30k to 60k units, whereas most Mafex releases are 3k to 6k.
I feel pretty good about those Legends numbers because there's so many retail outlets to reverse engineer them from we can review here or in a new thread, but I've never been able to come to what feels like an objectively good estimate for any given Mafex release. It's clearly far less than any Legends figure, but is it really an order of magnitude? It certainly feels that way for the A-list characters because they usually sell out before release or within a week or two of release. Not many retailers carry them either; it's just the Japanese retailers and then a small handful of foreign companies like BBTS, EE, and a few others, none of which have the thousands of physical retail locations like Legends retailers have in the US that makes their production run numbers easier to estimate.
If it is $50, I’m definitely out. Just gonna be happy with the older versions I’ve got. Or wait for a sale if they last that long.
If it is $50, I’m definitely out. Just gonna be happy with the older versions I’ve got. Or wait for a sale if they last that long.
Hard same. I just don't see $50 worth of value in either the sculpt, articulation, or accessories to this thing. I feel like it's nowhere near MAFEX level (granted, I don't own one). To me, MAFEX has style and personality and dynamic posing possibilities that Legends just doesn't approach, and hasn't really in this figure either. Perhaps I'm asking too much. I don't go hard on Legends anymore, really barely at all these days, but if this is reasonably priced (to me) I still might get it because Spidey's where it all starts with me and Marvel.
Unless the price is stupid high, I think there will be enough excitement over this new line that Spider-Man will do okay, sales wise. It wouldn't shock me though if this line is short-lived and joins the ranks of other recent Hasbro failures like Starting Lineup and the make yourself a figure thing they did. My own personal opinion is the average Legends collector is not interested in 50 dollar figures unless they can be sold on the value and Hasbro's way of selling value at that price point has usually been size. Spidey won't have that going for him, but he is Spider-Man and a 90s one at that which seems to be the era with the widest reach in the fandom. If preorders don't get snatched up pretty quickly then I'll be surprised and consider it a bad sign for this subline. They're probably already too far down the line with whatever is next after Spider-Man for it to be impacted, unless they're approaching this in a very cautious manner.
I do think they're probably aiming for 50 bucks though. If they do consider stuff like imports, 50 bucks is basically half what most places in the US would charge for MAFEX Spider-Man. I don't think this one will be as good as that figure, but at half the price does it get some of those collectors to switch over? Is that even a sizable enough market that Hasbro should care? That might be the more important question.
To me, MAFEX has style and personality and dynamic posing possibilities that Legends just doesn't approach, and hasn't really in this figure either.
Could you be more specific by what you mean for style and personality? Is it something in their sculpts and paints?
I REALLY don't know what you mean about dynamic posing, because I have all of the major Mafex Spidey iterations (original, classic, Scarlet Spider, Ben Reilly, symbiote) and they all have pretty much the same articulation that is about the same as the Legends retro Spidey, Renew Your Vows Spidey, or AF15 Spidey but a bit better than all of them. The Mafex advantage in articulation range is minor at this point in Hasbro's engineering design progress, but this Maximum figure appears to blow ALL of the Mafex versions away, and every other figure I've ever seen for that matter. One simple example is bending 180 degrees at the waist--most humans can't do that, but McFarlane regularly drew Spidey folded over in ways most humans can't achieve. Spidey's right leg position in the pic below modelled from Amazing Spider-Man #300 sends it beyond a full 180-degree bend in a way I've never seen any action figure achieve--including Mafex which can't get Spidey's legs anywhere near this position.
None of the ML Spider-Men can pivot at the waist, including the new one. Your mileage may vary, but I consider that a pretty big flaw. I'd happily trade the waist twist for the extra 15 degrees or so the reverse ab crunch provides
Everyone has their own budget ceiling, of course. But I can imagine at least a few of the "at $____, I'm out!" crowd being swayed when the reviews start hitting and the influencers hail this as the "best Spider-Man ever!" (which is already happening in some cases). When that starts up, FOMO will hit, and they'll be preordering despite the price. Not EVERYONE, but SOME. I personally can't declare my "I'm out" price......I don't want to eat my words 🙂
To me, MAFEX has style and personality and dynamic posing possibilities that Legends just doesn't approach, and hasn't really in this figure either.
Could you be more specific by what you mean for style and personality? Is it something in their sculpts and paints?
Y'know, I was about to just chalk it up to a subjective thing, but then I went and took another look at some pics of the MAFEX classic Spidey, and I gotta pull it back a little. I was gonna say something about the way the ML sculpt breaks up when you get it into more extreme poses, but the MAFEX doesn't seem to fare a whole lot better on that metric either, looking at it again. I would still have liked some more imaginative accessories (I can barely tell the difference between the two masked heads, for example, is it just that one can have the spider-sense effect?), but there's really only a 50/50 chance I pick this up in the first place, so I'm not the one that needs to be convinced from Hasbro's perspective. It's still not a $50 figure to me, but I wouldn't pay that for the MAFEX either, so...,,
One thing I will say, for me, that is non-negotiable: if it's $50, quit it with the parts re-use. If it makes sense (like Spidey-to-Spidey), fine. But don't go cutting corners on molds in your supposedly premium line.
Everyone has their own budget ceiling, of course. But I can imagine at least a few of the "at $____, I'm out!" crowd being swayed when the reviews start hitting and the influencers hail this as the "best Spider-Man ever!" (which is already happening in some cases). When that starts up, FOMO will hit, and they'll be preordering despite the price. Not EVERYONE, but SOME. I personally can't declare my "I'm out" price......I don't want to eat my words 🙂
Fair enough! I thought I would be one of those FOMO folks myself, but it turned out that $25 was the line for me with ML. Haven't bought one in years, aside from the occasional deluxe on clearance. There's just too much other stuff coming out for me to keep having to "correct" my ML collection because they put out a "better" version of a character I already have, or to get a new character in a two-pack with one I already have, etc.
I'm hoping for $35, but $50 would be my absolute max.The extra accessories are nice but I know that most will end up in a bin for me, never to be seen again. I just don't swap out heads, hands and such hardly ever.
Based upon the comments made by the team at the beginning of the discussion, it's my impression that they intend to keep this figure in stock long term as an "always available" product going forward.
I'd be willing to pay up to $50 if it's the best and last Spider-Man figure that I ever have to buy, but we all know that there will be a better one within 2 years. That's just the way that it works.
I'm someone who likes to only keep one version of any 616 character, but I've currently got the RYV, Amazing Fantasy and Toy Biz McFarlane Spidey. Ideally this one would replace all 3 of those in my collection, until inevitably the next "best" version comes along....
Yeah... $72 canadian is the equivalent of $50 US. If two extra heads, a couple of extra hands and some webs actually DOUBLE the price then Hasbro can 100% keep all of these.
That is egregious. Honestly for me anything more than a $35 asking price is robbery. I won't consider buying any of them if the price is higher than that
Worth noting, Gamestop Canada tends to price things a little above MSRP and the Canadian price usually isn't an exact conversion - they tend to round up to add a buffer. My guess is $45 in the US.
I can't imagine it'll be $35, that's what they're charging for Electro, and this will definitely be more than a 'regular' deluxe figure. Plus, based on what Ryan was saying in the stream and what Dan was saying on Unparalleled Universe, it feels like they're preparing us for this to be on the higher end of what we're expecting.
I'll buy one when the inevitable classic or Romita version makes its way into existence.
Instead of keeping this Spider-Man constantly in stock, they could eventually switch to a lighter blue for a slight variation. Gets some people to buy it again. Or maybe some people just prefer a lighter blue. Hopefully, they at least try to keep him relatively in stock for a year or so.
I'm hoping this Spider-Man is $35 and hopefully not more than $40. Frankly, I don't see $40 of product with him. Not if an average figure is $25. Hulk will probably be $50-60. I think there's a bit of a ceiling for pricing these things. These are only Fan Channel, right? And won't be at mass retail, brick and mortar stores, so they don't have to worry about any bias Target or Walmart may have with pricing. But I think there's a potential backlash for finally making classic A-listers available but jacking up the pricing of them too much.
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