The Energon Pub

Does the pic of the Constructicon heads remind anyone else of the US comics, when Circuit Breaker took guys like the Aerialbots, Blaster, Perceptor, and hung their heads on the wall?

Yeah, that was a pretty good comic. I´m kinda curious to see the quality of KO Mirage.

where are the pics? I havent' seen any in this thread at all

Exulted Unicron wrote:where are the pics? I havent' seen any in this thread at all

They are talking about the pics from the news page: http://seibertron.com/news/index.php

I'd post them myself but I'm too lazy right now, and they are mainly just random pieces anyways so they really aren't worth it either.

interesting pics..but I wouldn't pay 150 for it still

Basketball Jones wrote:I'd consider it for $50, but $150 is laughable.

It's not worth that much money. There's an acceptable margin of profit a vendor can make with a product, and it begins to grow increasingly amoral when the margins spiral to these heights.

Isn't it amoral to steal something from someone else and sell it as yours to begin with?

I hear you on the greediness of these companies charging near G1 prices for there KO's. I think it is completely wrong because I would guess that these KO's are probably pretty cheap to make once the mold has been created.

It really bothers me that neither Hasbro or Takara are trying to pursue these people that are basically stealing their properties. Then again, it isn't like they are taking money away from Hasbro or Takara as neither company will likely try and remake these figures anyways, which brings me to my other complaint.

We've been told by these companies that the molds are lost, damaged, or whatever and they can't make them anymore. Everyone has suggested reverse engineering, cast a mold from an existing figure, digitally scan and remake an accurate mold using computers, etc. and it seems every appologist has come up with it is too expensive and there is not enough interest to make money off of this. Then we see these KO companies do just that and clean up. You know they didn't spend a lot of money to get this stuff made because in the KO market, if the cost was too great they wouldn't make it to begin with if they knew they wouldn't make make a decent profit from it. If only Hasbro and Takara could do it right, they could make it out of much better materials and at a better quality.

Agreed with Swerve. How good quality is the Swoop KO, BTW?

Nice debate.

Personally I'm surprised that Hasbro/Takara aren't pursuing these knock offs with the authorites. I'm concerned that the funding of these figures could be going towards piracy/terrorism/other nasty things.

I wouldn't pay the asking price for the KO. It's a waste of money. People could argue that fact with originals, but it just feels like you're cheating. Where's the fun in tracking down a hard to find digure when you can get a not so cheap KO?

Also these products are inferior to the original. I've heard horror stories that KO Optimus Primes had no heads and seen a Swoop with no face.

Ultimately people will do as they do, but I won't get one. It almost makes me want to track down an original in protest!

I do own swoop and the cassettes. I did find them to be superb quality and near enough orignal quality through out. My swoop does have a face and all his weapons

I'm sorry for those who've bought these supposed good quality KOs with parts missing. However, i found mine at xybertoys which had a more reasonable price for them than the £75 quid region that these makers are asking

JBrock wrote:

Burn wrote:

Vile MK III wrote:Tomy Takara should step in and stop these KO and release both of em them self. Now that would worth the money.

For starters it's hard for TomyTakara or even Hasbro to step in and stop these KO's as they're often produced in China where there aren't many laws on copyrights for toys.

Secondly, it would be bad business for TomyTakara to produce their own genuine articles to compete with KO's.

Yes, there are collectors who will buy genuine TT over cheap knockoffs, however a company can't survive solely on collectors, they also have to target the general public, and the general public would rather pay for a cheaper item with less quality rather than shelling out extra for a genuine good quality product.

These knew KO's however with the G1 packaging are simply a bunch of, for lack of a better term, pirates, producing cheaply and selling pirated material at inflated prices.

Anyone who willingly buys them knowing all too well they're KO's and adds them to their collection as genuine articles are fools.

These new knockoffs are advertised as such 85-90% of the time. They are made in China along with every other Takara Transformers toy. They are satisfying the consumer who was left to either spend 50-75 for a beat up original or drop 400+ for an unused or sealed toy.

You are the fool for thinking that anyone adding a boxed G1 figure to his collection would pass it off as vintage. Most people that will purchase these probably don't have many if any original boxed or sealed TFs.

Weren't they already competing against the KOs with their re-issues???