BeastProwl wrote:I never really will understand the logic behind why they can't release this kind of stuff here in the states. i mean, why not? Better paint apps kill kids now? I really want to look inside these guy's heads, just to see the reason why, wether it's law or the toy makers, or otherwise. Is it just cost? I mean, if they can do it, why not us? All these bumblebee re-paints prove wev'e got the material...
OK HASBRO
No more Re-paints! Just paint what weve got!
I wish that was the case...
Japan and the US have very different Action Figure markets. Where Japan's market is nearly completely made-up of collectors willing to spend more to get nicer looking toys. The US market is made of children and parents who don't care about the minor details, they only care that the price is low. Paint, if you can believe it, is very expensive. Especially when you're talking about the hundreds of thousands of units hasbro is producing. Adding a few small paint apps means adding quite a bit of cost to the entire run. Hasbro could either do two things there. They can either raise the price, which they will not do as it is established the main market for TFs in the US is price sensitive children and parents, or take what might be a fairly significant profit hit. It's likely the paint they give us now is in the sweet spot of enough to make the toys look alright, but still give them a nice profit. As for why they can't do small run collator oriented repaint lines, it's likely the market for that is too small to justify a new production run.