From KOs to fan designed toys: Is CHMS entering the 3rd Party market?

Man that magnus figure looks amazing!!!!

not gonna lie. that ultra magnus video made me nerdgasm.

At first when I looked at it I thought, WOW, that outdoes city commander! Large by not having to work around Hasbro's own product. But the more I look at it, that weird shoulder configuration really bothers me.

In armoured form it looks ridiculous. I cannot 'not' see it now when I look at it. If the cab is a masterpiece-esque figure like Faith Leader, the Shoulder assembly should be able to telescope away from the body a little, surely enough to make room for the armour. That arms sticking out sideways look, giving him ridiculous wide shoulders just looks silly.

I would not be surprised if Igear come out with a Magnus repaint of Faith Leader and a trailer to match.

Also, I got one of CHMS's early mould seekers, it was super floppy in places, and dangerously tight in others, and it has two left rear stabilisers... I seriously don't trust their QC.

Looks impressive. It's funny too, I JUST preordered a re-release City Commander set from BBTS and just today received a DIA Commander set for my Henkei Prime that I ordered from ebay (very awesome by the way ).

I have a question to the anti-KO folks:

What about G1 Shockwave? If I want a G1 Shockwave I have 2 options:

1. Purchase a disgustingly overpriced (and very likely yellowed/worn out) real G1 Shockwave from a seller on ebay, the sale of which provides exactly $0.00 in profits for Has/Tak
2. Purchase a KO Shockwave from CHMS or whoever makes it for a far less expensive price, and as above, Has/Tak gets exactly $0.00

Does it make any difference if a toy is not KO'ed until it is no longer available at retail? Assuming the KO is sold as a KO, so that it can't be passed off as the real thing to unsuspecting collectors, but that depends on seller honesty/integrity, it should be fine as I see it. They aren't competing with Has/Tak because Has/Tak got out of the G1 Shockwave business many years ago, and from all I've read, they never plan to return to it (because they can't as I recall, either due to legal issues, a lost mold, or both).

I understand from a collector's point of view why it could be bad; their previously rare and extremely sought after figure can now be purchased at a very cheap price (comparatively speaking) where they may have had to pay a lot or go through a lot of trouble to get their own.

That brings up one catch-22 that I see with some KO's, and that is when they make every mark on the toy (copyrights etc.) as well as the packaging itself identical to the original. Again, if the legit/original Has/Tak figure is no longer available at retail, it cannot possibly hurt Has/Tak in any way, but it has the potential to hurt a collector who paid a high price for what they thought was an original Has/Tak product from a dishonest seller who ILLEGALLY represented the figure as an original and not a KO. I have a big problem with that, because it is fraud and a total ripoff.

Other than that, I have no problem with KO's or third party products of any kind. I only have a problem with people being ripped off (and as I said, in this case Has/Tak don't count because they see no money from the purchases of vintage figures that they no longer produce because they saw that money LONG ago when the figure was purchased by the seller from retail).

Anyway, back on topic. I'm loving all the third party stuff we're starting to get now. It's awesome and is giving us a lot of options which should eventually lead to some of these third party companies getting bigger, allowing for falling prices and more variety (and hopefully faster production so we get new stuff quicker instead of waiting for many months or even years for them to complete a project they've announced/hinted at).

That's insanely complicated for a voyager sized toy. I'm skeptical.

Primus Yess! Let it be true!

A G1 voyager sized cartoon accurate Optimus Prime which looks like it's going to be produced in a good ammount. I hope the quality will be fair. And of course hope it will get the Optimus Prime deco with some diaclone trailer deco.

If I finally get my G1 cartoon accurate "toy" and into scale with other Hasbro lines version, this will be my first 3rd party purchase.

Fingers and eyes crossed.

From the video it's look like they maintained the original G1 design and gave the character a new transformation as well. Very nicely done.

Blackstreak wrote:From the video it's look like they maintained the original G1 design and gave the character a new transformation as well. Very nicely done.

From the video it's look like they are the second company to KO Masterpiece Prime!

The trailer rocks hard! seriously!

As far as the scale concerns: Hybrid Style Convoy had nearly the same transformation (with the headlight and wheels folding into the chest and what not) process in a scout/deluxe design. Granted they are notoriously weak, but double the size and the fact that this figure has been redone so many times (My Grandmother has a Masterpiece Prime minicon that will be up for preorder this month, release date 2013) I'm sure they can handle production.

Can anyone say Prime Repaint?

Seriously, does anyone here NOT want that cab in Prime colors?

D-340 wrote:

Gauntlet101010 wrote:

I do understand the facts that one of them is being passed off as an original in an attempt to get your money disingenuosly. However, I counter with the other one is using fanboyism against the collector to get your money disingenuously

I can agree with just about all of the rant except for this part. Can't see what's so disingenuous about the 3rd party products. The price may be overinflated, but nobody's forcing anyone to buy it.

Same as KO's, no one's forcing you to buy them. That's why I don't get why everyone gets worked up about KO's, but is ok with 3rd party stuff. I look at my CHMS Sunstorm and my Fansproject DIA Commander the same way, unofficial products. There's no difference. And Has/Tak isn't loosing money because of either, that's way they are allowed to exist. Do you think for one second if Has/Tak felt their property was in any harm of loosing money that they'd allow KO's and 3rd party stuff to be sold, I doubt it. They'd go all gangbusters and wipe them all out. That's why I find those who decry KO's while praising 3rd party products as hypocritical, to me they're the same thing.

The only disingenuous thing about KOs is when they're passed as the real deal. Which does happen, sadly.

I can understand people getting worked up about them because they "pollute the waters". If you're buying off ebay it's tough to tell a (say) KO Swoop from a legit Swoop. You might want to avoid ebay altogether, really. Some people don't have this luxury.