Ravage XK wrote:As far as I know Masterpiece Prime took 3 years to develop. I doubt that this was 3 years of solid development. Chances are they knew the anniversary was approaching and wanted to get something ready, so it was 3 years of knowing it was needed.
Subsequent releases have been announced and released much faster. Masterpiece Megatrom is way more complicated than Prime and his turnaround time seemed very short.
Your assuming that the figure's design work starts at the announcement point. Most likely they already have at least early prototype work done by the time they announce a figure. After saying that they are going to put out a figure in three to four years would end up with anticipation over kill. People would stop caring. Part of advertising is ensuring that you get just the right amount of build up to keep people interested without long lapses in information that cause them to forget and stop caring about the product.
Personally I'm going to guess around a two year production cycle from the original sign off on a project through design sketches, prototyping, Q/C and correction work, to actual full runs for shipping.
Figure the average time spent on main stream lines is roughly six months to a year the Masterpeices are going to take longer.