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New images of the iGear PP01C Clear version Miniature Master Piece Optimus Prime has surfaced at iGear website.
According to iGear, this version need to be purchased through a Chinese Toy Magazine "Art Collection". No details on the release date announce at the moment.




We would like to remind readers that this is not an official product from either Hasbro Inc or Takara Tomy. Thus there are no guarantee on the quality of the product.

Boo!!! Hiss!!!!

I'll admit it's a cool idea. But these people are just ripping off HasTakTom, they need to stop riding other people's coattails and get original. Will Not Buy This.

you know what, this is really different than fansproject's works. they clearly do not mention Hasbro projects, work only on their own toys without copying older models, and their toys are there to compliment HasTek's toys. this, i'm afraid, is a clear cut rip off, even though it appears to be an extreme high quality one.

one must consider WHY these 3rd party products are so popular nowadays. I think, that Hasbro has brought it on themselves - half baked products, needless repaints, poor QC, ridiculous concepts (combiner robots that don't combine at deluxe\voyager size yet work perfectly at the legends scale - as opposed to over sized and priced, underwhelming non transforming Zord like combiners - still pissed at that), have all made fans very unhappy - and willing to pay appropriately for high quality products of their favorite characters.
add this to an expanding global market with easier access of smaller companies to factories in china, and global communication (video calls etc) that make it possible for developers to be scattered all over the place and still produce incredible concepts - and you have a booming 3rd party market.

Looks pretty awesome.

I just wish the mini MP Prime was cheaper as it would be the perfect "play" thing.

dr_n00b wrote:you know what, this is really different than fansproject's works. they clearly do not mention Hasbro projects, work only on their own toys without copying older models, and their toys are there to compliment HasTek's toys. this, i'm afraid, is a clear cut rip off, even though it appears to be an extreme high quality one.

one must consider WHY these 3rd party products are so popular nowadays. I think, that Hasbro has brought it on themselves - half baked products, needless repaints, poor QC, ridiculous concepts (combiner robots that don't combine at deluxe\voyager size yet work perfectly at the legends scale - as opposed to over sized and priced, underwhelming non transforming Zord like combiners - still pissed at that), have all made fans very unhappy - and willing to pay appropriately for high quality products of their favorite characters.
add this to an expanding global market with easier access of smaller companies to factories in china, and global communication (video calls etc) that make it possible for developers to be scattered all over the place and still produce incredible concepts - and you have a booming 3rd party market.

While I do agree Hasbro has dropped the ball on some figures recently, I wouldn't call this mini MP Prime "high quality". Look at the wheels on his legs. They don't exactly line up like they do on the real one. Unless they've remolded that too. Even so, I can see gaps where plastic is joined together. Not indicative of "high quality". I have a feeling this guy would shatter if you were to accidentally drop him. I'll wait till Peaugh or someone gets him before I think of getting him.

"dropped the ball" is an understatement.

but that's not the only thing i meant - I basically said that if MP-03 and MP-08 weren't so freakin' petite - no one in their right mind would consider grabbing this.

besides, i've been hearing a lot of prospective igear products but has any come out yet? has anything shipped? i don't know anything about their products' quality, but i'm guessing their business would sink like a stone if they put out anything thats not as good as FP or TF club.

dr_n00b wrote:besides, i've been hearing a lot of prospective igear products but has any come out yet? has anything shipped? i don't know anything about their products' quality, but i'm guessing their business would sink like a stone if they put out anything thats not as good as FP or TF club.

iGear has shown a lot but produced very little so far. I recall reading some feedback on the Grimlock crown set for MP Grimlock. It wasn't terrible but it wasn't a great product.

I think the concept of a scaled down MP OP is great. I have the 20th Anniversary DVD Edition version of the figure and it's wonderful but fairly cumbersome. The scale, the weight, they're both great but I don't have a lot of room available for posing my Transformers so a large figure like that takes up a lot of display real estate. The weight of the figure can also make posing limited. The figure itself has a great range of articulation but the weight restricts how far you can really go with posing.

I'm not a fan of basically copying an existing design. More than anything, it's mainly because I'd rather see something new. With respect to Mini MP OP, it looks fine at a glance as a copy of the MP OP figure but I'm curious about the quality of the product. If it has the solidness and stability of the Classics Voyager Optimus Prime figure, I'll be impressed for sure. As much as I'm not a fan of this product, I think that it would be outstanding if the actual production figure has the looks of the current prototypes and the solid construction of Classics Voyager OP.

Now, unfortunately, iGear has no real track record. It advertises a lot but as far as I know, there has been no solid release of any of its products. If there has been a product of theres that has been shipped out to a fair amount of customers, I'd like to see more reviews to get a bearing on what level of quality they deliver. To be honest, at this point, I'm very dubious about iGear.

...is it needlessly snarky to point out that even if it WAS from HasTak there'd STILL be no guarantee of the quality of the product?

It wouldn't be snarky at all, as I already mentioned it.

Heckfire wrote:...is it needlessly snarky to point out that even if it WAS from HasTak there'd STILL be no guarantee of the quality of the product?

Well, if HasTak did release it, we'd have the original MP OP/Convoy figure to use as a basis for expectation of quality, which would mean it's reasonable to expect a scaled down version of the mold to be of good quality.

As far as guarantee of quality, I think Hasbro/TakaraTomy's higher end products(Leader class figures, Binaltech/Alternators, Alternity, Human Alliance) have delivered consistently on good quality. I may not like the design or aesthetics(RotF Leader Megatron) but I've had no issues with quality and haven't heard of anyone(mainly online community members and online Transformers figure reviewers) mentioning significant issues with the quality of their Transformers figures of that range of products.

Quality and QC issues seem more common at the Voyager and lower classes of figures. The RotF Scout figure, Scalpel/the Doctor, is the most recently produced figure that comes to mind when I think of consistent quality issues(the legs).

I've never understood the appeal of clear/crystal repaints. outside of Mirage (invisibility) and Starscream (ghost).

If someone pumps out a crystal version of Masterpiece Starscream you can color me interested....

I also have no interest in the inevitable Ultra Magnus repaint of this mold. I'm thrilled to death with the Classics Magnus/City Commander combo, and I kind of like how Magnus and Nemesis Prime wearing the FP armor are about the same height as the mini-MP Convoy., mirroring Magnus' relative size to Optimus in animation while retaining similarly-sized truck modes.