So, I mentioned this in the Silverhawks thread - but since it's really a meta topic concerning ALL of Super7's Ultimates products - the current BBTS sale on all S7 Ultimates lines worries me about the fate of Ultimates as a going concern.
Currently BBTS has figures from TMNT, MMPR, GI Joe, Thundercats, Silverhawks, Disney, Simpsons all at either 50% off or 20% off. Liquidating inventory with a half off sale is serious and I imagine will mean BBTS will be ordering far less Ultimates product in the future. If that's the case - then I think it threatens the viability of Super7's business model with Ultimates.
Why will people commit to pre-orders if they think the product will be available a year from now at half price? If the pre-order numbers tank then Super7 doesn't go into production and the various lines die where they stand.
I know there are some who will view such a demise as well earned - and I understand the sentiment - but man it will be a bummer for me if that happens before we finish off the Thundercats, Silverhawks and Tiger Sharks in this format at a minimum.
I have a huge soft spot for the Ultimates - though certainly not in every property they've done, I don't care at all about Disney, Warner Bros toons or 2001.... but I don't feel bad at all buying the Ultimates lines I like at full price and will keep my fingers crossed that that will still be possible.
@panthercult Yeah, this sale surprised me. BBTS doesn't go the 50% off (or more) route all that often it seems to me. I hadn't thought about your point of it undermining the line.
I thought maybe Super7 was clearing out their inventory as BBTS have at least 24 units in stock of many of the ones I checked. But some of these are still full price on the Super7 shop. I would be surprised that BBTS was sitting on this many for so long, so wonder if they were given a deal on some excess inventory from somewhere.
As an FYI, I did like the 2001 set if anyone was on the fence about it.
Did anyone get the Itchy and Scratchy Robots and have thoughts on their quality?
I bought more Hyancinths, just because having all 7 Hippos from the scene in Fantasia is the sort of stupid display I like...
Despite my griping, I'm actually not prone to doomsaying on lines like some people do. But even I think this is a very bad sign, and looks terrible even if it doesn't turn out how it looks. This isn't just a straggler here or there finally being cleared out. It's entire waves of product. That's, well, pretty rough.
Part of me wants to say that I can't see how this won't hurt Super7 going forward. But another part of me wants to say that I can't see how their reputation could actually get worse so....
After all, we all kind of saw this coming, right? And if that's the case then it actually happening isn't really worse for Super7 than the expectation we already had that it would happen. The Ultimates business model hasn't been viable, not really, for a while. It depends on an ever-shrinking group of hardcore fans willing to overlook ALL of their many, many failures while also being willing to pay higher and higher prices, for more and more niche characters. That's not a viable business model, if you ask me.
But to the point; how does Super7 sell full price figures after this? Honestly, I'm not sure how BBTS justifies keeping some figures at full price after this when all this does is encourage us to just wait it out.
It sucks for people really into these lines. It really does. But all those people, and I'm sure there's still plenty, should really be quite angry with Super7 over this, because it's Super7 and no one else that's destroying Ultimates. With shoddy quality and inflated prices to satisfy Brian Flynn's ego that he's making some kind of artisanal product that appeals to the truly cultured toy collector, or whateverthefuck.
He needed a reality check a long time ago. Maybe this will be it. In reality, it probably just spells the end of Ultimates because Brian's ego likely won't allow him to ever admit that he was over-charging and producing low quality product. So instead of doing better on both fronts, there's a good chance the whole thing gets scuppered and he'll whinge online about fickle toy collectors and all that other bitch-energy nonsense he gets on about.
After all, isn't that what Funko did when they were making 6" figures that shattered at the joints when you opened them? People BEGGED them online to just not use clear, brittle plastic for the joints because otherwise they were great figures that we all really wanted to buy. What did they do? Cancelled all the lines and complained about toy collectors being impossible to please. Because some people that make toys don't even like toys, or understand toys, and are also complete fucking dipshits.
I picked up 4 figures that were on sale. I usually try to get these at a discount anyway. I like the look of a lot of them, but the price is usually too much to justify (especially with the hit or miss quality).
Did anyone get the Itchy and Scratchy Robots and have thoughts on their quality?
I have the pair and they're fine. I wish the bodies were fully painted as my only real complaint is that they have a very plastic look. The articulation also doesn't work with some of the accessories really at all, but Scratchy comes with a BORT license plate! https://thenostalgiaspot.com/2023/02/26/super7-the-simpsons-ultimates-robot-itchy-scratchy/
I've been kind of waiting for this Super7 bubble to burst, not out of joy or anything, but because it was easy to see coming. The early success of TMNT with its sell outs and high after market prices basically caused a lot of places to over order on not just the TMNT waves to follow, but a lot of other Super7 product as well. With all of the production delays that company has, it's taken awhile for the damn to burst, so to speak, but it clearly has. Last year we had a similar situation, but some of that was being caused artificially by Dorkside going under and clearance pricing brand new stuff and some retailers responded with less drastic cuts. Now there's really no other factor to blame except Super7 making products that a lot of people just don't think are worth the price they're being sold at. And with all of the discounts we've seen over the past year, there's really no incentive to buy at full price outside of a moral obligation from those who want to pay full price to see the line succeed. When you're business is basically relying on people to give you more money out of the kindness of their hearts then you know you're in a bad spot.
Probably a lot of the product solicited last year was still ordered in fair enough quantities to keep things from getting really bad in the short term, but six months from now we may have a much longer list of cancelled figures and waves from Super7 than we do now. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of Ultimates get shelved and they stick to Thundercats and TMNT for current brands, and then try to do more new licenses. It seems whenever they find a new license that's been underserved, there's a lot of early enthusiasm which probably leads to strong Wave 1 sales and basically any other wave they put up before the first delivers. Then that enthusiasm wanes and the line fizzles out (MMPR seems like the perfect example of that right now, though that brand could hardly be classified as underserved previously). Perhaps Ultimates as a brand can stay afloat that way for a bit, but eventually those licenses dry up and if the product has a bad reputation some licensors may even say "No thanks" to their money. And TMNT is hardly a safe bet going forward since they started having problems with Playmates and getting approvals from Viacom/Nickelodeon for some of those designs. It will be really interesting to see how their 2003 TMNT figures are received. It wouldn't shock me if they flop.
The sale has caught me off guard as well. I have been wondering if/when the Super7 Ultimates model would implode. I'm not sure if it is here... but this is not a good sign. Especially with a lot of the newer product like wave 2 of MMPR being included in the sale. I am actually considering doing a purchase on the MMPR product as that is an INSANE price for Goldar.
Does anyone know how long the sale will go for?
And yesterday while I was at Wal-Mart I saw the GI Joe Ultimates BAT (blue version) and Snake Eyes. Total surprise! That was my first real good look at the BAT and dang - does it look like a fun toy!
All production flaws aside... I honestly think Super7 shot themselves in the foot a little bit by trying to roll out Ultimates the same way they do Reaction - just shotgun approach to as many properties as they could access.
I legitimately believe that the Ultimates approach could have continued to work very well if he had stuck to properties that meshed well with the existing Mattel Classics lines - Thundercats, Silverhawks, Tiger Sharks, Blackstar, Thundarr.... Maybe also building on TMNT too.... but then stopping there and concentrating on making those specific lines as good as possible. Was there anyone out there that was legitimately eager for 2001: A Space Odyssey deluxe figures?
I've cut S7 alot of slack because I really like the style and aesthetic of the Ultimates product they started with - MOTU first and then Thundecats. And I've always enjoyed talking to Brian in person - I never got the sleazy car salesman vibes that others get from him.
But there's no denying that the approach to both product development and actual production has been scattershot, lazy and borderline incompetent.
I don't want Ultimates to end because there are still a ton of characters I want in this scale and format. But the writing may be on the wall here. I'm just bummed because when Ultimates does finally die I don't think there's anyone that will pick up the baton and make figures in this MOTU Classics style that I love. And I'm going to miss it.
Like clockwork, The Fwoosh First Friday interview with Brian went up today and at about the 51 minute mark he starts to talk about some of this stuff. Not the sale directly, since it was recorded last week, but cautioning people that the stuff rolling out now wasn't ordered in big numbers and that going forward there's going to be more scarcity as a result. In other words, he's trying to encourage people not to wait for these sales if they want something. Good luck to him convincing people of that though (and currently, the new wave of TMNT that just dropped two weeks ago is available everywhere).
I didn't realize the MMPR Wave 2 Ultimates were out. I found some video reviews of Rita and Kim and Rita seems to have come out pretty well. Is that a general consensus, that she might be worth it? I've only ever really been tempted by Rita, Goldar and the throne.
I took advantage of the sale and got some I've been watching.
I grabbed:
Captain Dreadstar
2 BATs
Yakko, Wakko and Dot
Itchy and Scrathy robots
Dreadstar is a nice looking figure and I'm glad to have him on my shelf, but he's also a bit of a treatise on the limitations of Super7's choices for articulation and playability.
If any of the Silverhawks other than Bluegrass go to 50% off I could be tempted to get more even just for fodder.
I have the pair and they're fine. I wish the bodies were fully painted as my only real complaint is that they have a very plastic look. The articulation also doesn't work with some of the accessories really at all, but Scratchy comes with a BORT license plate!
Thanks, I read that review, I am tempted...
Was there anyone out there that was legitimately eager for 2001: A Space Odyssey deluxe figures?
I was actually, Dr Floyd was a new figure, and getting the Monolith was fun. I have the Mafex figures but they did not have un-helmeted heads, and now go for over $100 on eBay. So this was a nice line, and was actually an example of a property that made sense to me, as one wave and you are done.
Maybe one way Super7 counters any problems is not to get rid of the shotgun approach to licenses for Ultimates, but instead keep that approach going. Maybe there's only so deep any line can go when every figure has premium pricing. Customers may be more likely to get only a few figures from any one brand when each figure has such high pricing. So just not as many waves for specific lines. Customers waiting for numerous waves of each line probably doesn't garner too much goodwill.
I imagine lines like Thundercats and Silverhawks have some kind of end in sight. TMNT may already be getting there, hence the shift to 2k3 designs to start over with heavy hitters again.
Didn't Super7 get a new owner/CEO a couple of years ago? Maybe their strategy was to increase the shotgun blast of product. See what sticks. I imagine they're happy as long as retailers order product. Retailer interest is what could wane. All kinds of lines get marked down (Marvel Legends, Classified, Star Wars, McFarlane), so the fact Ultimates are getting marked down isn't necessarily super worrisome. Maybe retailers don't order as much and reduce the risk of markdowns. Apparently, this may be happening with Marvel Legends (some waves not being at mass retail). Maybe there's just a bit of a pullback with certain lines. Doesn't mean there isn't a market for them or the lines are doomed.
Despite my griping, I'm actually not prone to doomsaying on lines like some people do. But even I think this is a very bad sign, and looks terrible even if it doesn't turn out how it looks. This isn't just a straggler here or there finally being cleared out. It's entire waves of product. That's, well, pretty rough.
Part of me wants to say that I can't see how this won't hurt Super7 going forward. But another part of me wants to say that I can't see how their reputation could actually get worse so....
After all, we all kind of saw this coming, right? And if that's the case then it actually happening isn't really worse for Super7 than the expectation we already had that it would happen. The Ultimates business model hasn't been viable, not really, for a while. It depends on an ever-shrinking group of hardcore fans willing to overlook ALL of their many, many failures while also being willing to pay higher and higher prices, for more and more niche characters. That's not a viable business model, if you ask me.But to the point; how does Super7 sell full price figures after this? Honestly, I'm not sure how BBTS justifies keeping some figures at full price after this when all this does is encourage us to just wait it out.
It sucks for people really into these lines. It really does. But all those people, and I'm sure there's still plenty, should really be quite angry with Super7 over this, because it's Super7 and no one else that's destroying Ultimates. With shoddy quality and inflated prices to satisfy Brian Flynn's ego that he's making some kind of artisanal product that appeals to the truly cultured toy collector, or whateverthefuck.
He needed a reality check a long time ago. Maybe this will be it. In reality, it probably just spells the end of Ultimates because Brian's ego likely won't allow him to ever admit that he was over-charging and producing low quality product. So instead of doing better on both fronts, there's a good chance the whole thing gets scuppered and he'll whinge online about fickle toy collectors and all that other bitch-energy nonsense he gets on about.
After all, isn't that what Funko did when they were making 6" figures that shattered at the joints when you opened them? People BEGGED them online to just not use clear, brittle plastic for the joints because otherwise they were great figures that we all really wanted to buy. What did they do? Cancelled all the lines and complained about toy collectors being impossible to please. Because some people that make toys don't even like toys, or understand toys, and are also complete fucking dipshits.
When EE cancelled a load of preorders, THAT was a downer for Super7.
I don't get why people would think that BBTS selling this stock likely at a loss would hurt for S7.
BBTS refusing to stock future waves would hurt. But this doesn't look like that.
And there are a wide range of steps between this and BBTS dropping S7, including requiring a 10% nonrefundable deposit -- which might be smart and which I'd pay for some things.
Connect the dots for me. How does this teach S7 a lesson or hurt them?
If anything, I figure they've spent the last 18 months saying, "Yup. I bet our vendors ordered about ten times too much of the next 5 waves. They're probably going to liquidate them. If they're good to us, they'll handle the liquidating. If they absolutely have to cancel, let's get ready to dump them at Best Buy or Walmart or Macy's. That's how business goes sometimes."
I can't see where this stings. If anything, they're probably thanking God that BBTS didn't beg to cancel and is handling the liquidation. That probably indicates BBTS has a good relationship with them that they didn't cancel like EE did.
If things with BBTS were bad, BBTS would have spent the last 9 months refusing to pick up crates. BBTS is doing Flynn a solid here.
I don't get why people would think that BBTS selling this stock likely at a loss would hurt for S7.
Connect the dots for me. How does this teach S7 a lesson or hurt them?
I think others have already kind of gone over it, but sure; The issue isn't "BBTS is going to stop carrying product and that hurts Super7." The issue is that deep clearance (and no one can deny 65 percent off isn't deep clearance) on what Super7 idiotically claims are 'made-to-order' items hurts consumer confidence. As many have said; if this causes people to not pre-order items (something Brian Flynn has outright stated is important to Super7), then that hurts them in the long term. If this causes people to simply not buy Ultimates figures at full price, that hurts Super7 even more.
And if we're extrapolating from there - people not pre-ordering and not buying at full price WILL eventually make BBTS either carry fewer figures, or stop carrying them altogether. And that definitely hurts Super7. Particularly if we can accept BBTS as a stand-in for 'all toy retailers that carry Ultimates.'
I think it would be absolutely wild to approach this from the perspective that the biggest e-tailer deep-discounting entire waves of product, from probably the most popular license Super7 has, isn't a problem for Super7. I don't get the logic there. If nothing else, then lines like this, and companies like Super7 catering specifically and ONLY to collectors (with this expression, at least) heavily depends on consumer confidence and willingness to put down the dollars being asked of them. Not 40% of those dollars after one or two years of the product not selling at full price.
And it's not like this is all hypothetical either. There are people in this very thread, right now, and in the TMNT thread, either questioning whether or not they should pay full price for figures anymore, or outright stating they -won't-. In no universe is that not a problem for Super7, right?
Can they course correct? Sure. Almost any problem is solvable. Can Super7 solve this problem? We won't know until it happens or doesn't. Certainly, if Super7 can hold their current prices while producing less product (something most toy companies are pretty adamant that they cannot do) and thereby decrease the amount of stock that just sits around waiting for sale prices - then they can possibly drive confidence back up that you won't be able to just wait for clearance. Possibly.
OR too many people will use the current situation as a reason to take the gamble, miss out on a bunch of figures when they realize too late that newer waves really do have smaller production runs, and then just abandon the line because they missed a bunch of figures and don't want to pay eBay prices.
There ARE ways this can be fixed. But there's a lot of ways this is problematic and can remain problematic as well. Surely that's not a controversial statement.
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Maybe one way Super7 counters any problems is not to get rid of the shotgun approach to licenses for Ultimates, but instead keep that approach going. Maybe there's only so deep any line can go when every figure has premium pricing. Customers may be more likely to get only a few figures from any one brand when each figure has such high pricing. So just not as many waves for specific lines. Customers waiting for numerous waves of each line probably doesn't garner too much goodwill.
My concern with this approach is that it sounds a lot like turning all of Ultimates into Disney Ultimates. And that, famously, has not gone well. Totally anecdotal, but it seems like plenty of people so far have been willing to entirely drop collecting certain segments of Ultimates specifically because they're not going to get whatever figure they want. If you're into Turtles just for the Turtles then a scattershot approach works, but I have a feeling ThunderCats, TMNT, MOTU (when that was going) - have all done as well as they have because of the world-building aspect that you don't get from a scattershot approach. And it certainly can't support Cat's Lairs and Party Wagons, I expect.
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I legitimately believe that the Ultimates approach could have continued to work very well if he had stuck to properties that meshed well with the existing Mattel Classics lines - Thundercats, Silverhawks, Tiger Sharks, Blackstar, Thundarr.... Maybe also building on TMNT too.... but then stopping there and concentrating on making those specific lines as good as possible. Was there anyone out there that was legitimately eager for 2001: A Space Odyssey deluxe figures?
But there's no denying that the approach to both product development and actual production has been scattershot, lazy and borderline incompetent.
I don't want Ultimates to end because there are still a ton of characters I want in this scale and format. But the writing may be on the wall here. I'm just bummed because when Ultimates does finally die I don't think there's anyone that will pick up the baton and make figures in this MOTU Classics style that I love. And I'm going to miss it.
Snipped the bits relevant to my response. No shade to any of the rest of your post.
I agree entirely - on every point above. It's not so much that Ultimates couldn't be all those other properties eventually, but I certainly think there was a 'too big, too fast' thing happening. But it's also still really important to point out that it doesn't seem like the drive to make better toys is really there. When you're this deep into a line and still having a lot of the same problems and getting the same complaints - it can't say much beyond that you just don't actually care. The biggest thing that's been holding Ultimates back this whole time is just.. Super7. Or Brian Flynn, if you like. It's the attitude of 'this is good enough, I guess.' At these prices, good enough probably isn't.
And that BURNS me. I cannot possibly overstate how much I want to love TMNT Ultimates. It's basically one of my dream lines. And ALL they had to do to make it borderline perfect for me and what I expect from it is so incredibly minor in the grand scheme of toy making. That sucks. And one of my most-wanted toys on my entire 'I'd like this to happen' list is a GOOD, well-made TMNT Ultimates King Lionheart and let's be honest here... if this line ends in a couple more waves, that has less chance of happening than it already did. And that kills me.
While it may not sound like it sometimes, I want 'Ultimates' (particularly TMNT Ultimates) to carry on until every possible thing is made. I just want them to be good enough to be worth buying, and it feels like that shouldn't be as big of an ask as it apparently is. So I feel for you, even while we may be on opposite ends in terms of the vitriol for Super7/Brian Flynn... we're two peas in a pod with hating the idea of it all just ending.
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