e-Hobby Announces Partnership with TFCC

This bodes well

That is a very, very smart move. Both for the TFCC and for e-Hobby.

Interesting. I really hope this brings us some cool figures.

Good move for both parties. I hope this partnership extends to the club's new subscription service, and the "flat rate" for shipping which was mentioned for the international members.

This will be awesome. Hopefully e-Hobby will set TFCC a little straighter on what the fanbase wants for exclusives. Not that I've been disappointed, because I haven't. But I like this.

That is all.

I don't expect the US market to be flooded with normally Japanese exclusive figures, or vice-versa, but I agree this bodes well.

What happens when you cross a company that does black coloured exclusives and a company that loves Bumblebee? You get a Dark Classics Bumblebee.

gavinfuzzy wrote:What happens when you cross a company that does black coloured exclusives and a company that loves Bumblebee? You get a Dark Classics Bumblebee.

If they used the Classics mold................I would probably buy it.

gavinfuzzy wrote:What happens when you cross a company that does black coloured exclusives and a company that loves Bumblebee? You get a Dark Classics Bumblebee.

I wouldn't say TFCC "loves Bumblebee", we usually liken that to Hasbro. However, if going with your logic, I'd say not only a Dark Classics Bumblebee, but also a Ghost Bumblebee would also be expected. Hooray for clear TFs!

*oh no, I've lost a clear missile!*

This will probably be the Club subscription figures are sold via e-Hobby for the Japanese market. Hopefully the reverse opportunity for future e-Hobby figures to become "club" exclusives happens as well.

oh boy.. could we possibly get some new g1 ehobby reissues? I would love to got some for less than ebay rape price.

Seibertron wrote:This will probably be the Club subscription figures are sold via e-Hobby for the Japanese market. Hopefully the reverse opportunity for future e-Hobby figures to become "club" exclusives happens as well.

This is what I'm expecting only without us getting anything stateside. I can just see it now...

"We only made 5,000 Super Awesome Black Drifts and were opening it to Japan first because of the international date line and... Whelp, looks like it sold out! Hope everybody doesn't mind importing an American exclusive!"

This is going to be a thing now.

I hope this gets us some new figures over here.

gavinfuzzy wrote:What happens when you cross a company that does black coloured exclusives and a company that loves Bumblebee? You get a Dark Classics Bumblebee.

I know Hasbro has a thing for BB, but TFCC doesn't.

zodconvoy wrote:

Seibertron wrote:This will probably be the Club subscription figures are sold via e-Hobby for the Japanese market. Hopefully the reverse opportunity for future e-Hobby figures to become "club" exclusives happens as well.

This is what I'm expecting only without us getting anything stateside. I can just see it now...

"We only made 5,000 Super Awesome Black Drifts and were opening it to Japan first because of the international date line and... Whelp, looks like it sold out! Hope everybody doesn't mind importing an American exclusive!"

This is going to be a thing now.

One thing that you're not accounting for is that with two companies resources going in and more sales avenues for the product it's less risky to produce larger production runs without the worry of ending up sat on a mountain of unsold items. Also, if I understand the theory behind the subscription service correctly, the numbers produced will be the number of subscriptions placed in the month that they are available plus a certain allocation to be sold at a higher individual price in the club store and now seemingly an allocation for ehobby and the Japanese market, so the option is there for anyone to ensure they get the set by getting the subscription in by the deadline. I only see a problem for folks only wanting a couple of the figures, and even then it'll probably be worth taking the subscription and selling whatever you don't want from the set. Greater numbers of toys produced in the first place and less excusivity in how they're initially available may actually help to keep aftermarket prices down somewhat.

maybe if they could send stuff to the UK for less than twice the cost of the original items I might be interested.

I've never bought anything from e hobby, what kinds of products do they sell and from anyone who has purchased from them what is their service like?

njb902 wrote:I've never bought anything from e hobby, what kinds of products do they sell and from anyone who has purchased from them what is their service like?

Most of their exclusives consist of redecos of existing molds. - http://tfwiki.net/wiki/e-HOBBY

This could be very good. Also, it kinda explains how FunPub plans to pull off the subscription service and addition of four more figures produced next year. Hopefully this will also mean increased availability and decreased import fees of club figures in Japan and e-hobby figures in the States!

njb902 wrote:I've never bought anything from e hobby, what kinds of products do they sell and from anyone who has purchased from them what is their service like?

They've done various repaints of G1 reissues alongside their main Japanese release (anime/catalogue Astrotrain, Diaclone/Clone Army Insecticons etc) and some Classics recolours (Henkei Crystal Convoy released at Wonderfest for example) but only sell directly within Japan, so there's a mark up getting them in the West through online retailers or aftermarket sales.

Superb. Since the whole credit card incident, TFCC seems to be really pulling their head out of their ass. Bravo!

Hoitytoity wrote:Superb. Since the whole credit card incident, TFCC seems to be really pulling their head out of their ass. Bravo!

Yep, I think Hasbro saw that they were in trouble and decided to lend them a hand. I really like the idea of the subscription service and more figures and partnering with eHobby like this. All these moves combined seem like a big corporate assist on how to do things, and it's a big move in the right direction in my opinion.

Getting Has/Tak involved when the club was floundering with the fandom was the right thing to do, so I'm glad the club is doing it and I'm glad to see Has/Tak getting involved instead of disregarding their problems and our complaints.

what worries me is the recent cancellation of dotm stuff stateside and it "exclusivity" here.
they start up a partner ship with funpub and ehobby but cant be bothered to offer these figs at the club site

im wondering if theyre seeing more profit in asia and are planning to market over there more i.e. this is meant to benefit the asian market moreso than us. just putting it out there.

Should I be joyous or should I be scared out of my wits?

damn, this could get interesting real quick!
looking forward to the monday info reveal

Detritus.... seriously... why am I collecting !)(&)(^& classic toys if there isn't any EHOBBY charecters other then BUGBITE......


......................................................................................................................Ehobby....................I love you........................

El Duque wrote:

gavinfuzzy wrote:What happens when you cross a company that does black coloured exclusives and a company that loves Bumblebee? You get a Dark Classics Bumblebee.

If they used the Classics mold................I would probably buy it.

I would hit it nine times.

People nitpick on the TCC all the time for their mold and character choices, but if there is one area where they legitimately have fallen short, it has been with G1 molds.

EHobby has knocked those out of the park, let's see if this partnership helps that.

Savage wrote:This could be very good. Also, it kinda explains how FunPub plans to pull off the subscription service and addition of four more figures produced next year. Hopefully this will also mean increased availability and decreased import fees of club figures in Japan and e-hobby figures in the States!

Decreased import costs would be nice, but my gut feeling is that we won't see that.

The first offering from the recently announced e-Hobby/TFCC collaboration will a limited amount of the BotCon 2012 "Invasion" box sets. e-Hobby will be offering 150 of these sets (one per customer) for ¥ 35,900. Hopefully this partnership will also result in some of those popular Japanese exclusives coming our way via TFCC.

As cool a start as this is, I cannot help but feel that The Club just gave their leftovers to eHobby and said "Here, you sell them"

I'm hoping for good things to come from this deal.

I still want one... But at least the Japanese will have a cheaper way to getting one.

yeah, i suspected that there would be a lot of these sets left over and this feels like tfcc's way of getting rid of them...japan, beware of exclusive bad repaints!!!!

So it looks like this partnership is basically just that they sell each-others leftover stock.
Which means everything stays the same for non US/ Japan fans. Just that getting e-hobby figures will become more complicated and crappy for US collectors while Japanese collectors can get Botcon stuff cheaper and easier than before.
Oh well.

i don't care just as long as shattered glass stops. I'm sick of seeing them.

Dead Metal wrote:So it looks like this partnership is basically just that they sell each-others leftover stock.
Which means everything stays the same for non US/ Japan fans. Just that getting e-hobby figures will become more complicated and crappy for US collectors while Japanese collectors can get Botcon stuff cheaper and easier than before.
Oh well.

I don't think it's fair to jump to such conclusions at this stage.

Mkall wrote:

Dead Metal wrote:So it looks like this partnership is basically just that they sell each-others leftover stock.
Which means everything stays the same for non US/ Japan fans. Just that getting e-hobby figures will become more complicated and crappy for US collectors while Japanese collectors can get Botcon stuff cheaper and easier than before.
Oh well.

I don't think it's fair to jump to such conclusions at this stage.

Why not, FunPub haven't got a very good track record as it stands, and this is the first thing that comes from this "amazing" partnership, the leftovers of one of their exclusive sets through e-Hobby?

I'll say something nice about FunPub when they actually deserve it and not out of goodwill and wishful thinking.

You know, the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced the partnership is not two-sided. You see how only e-Hobby has announced the partnership, but the TFCC hasn't given a single peep yet?

Dead Metal wrote:

Mkall wrote:

Dead Metal wrote:So it looks like this partnership is basically just that they sell each-others leftover stock.
Which means everything stays the same for non US/ Japan fans. Just that getting e-hobby figures will become more complicated and crappy for US collectors while Japanese collectors can get Botcon stuff cheaper and easier than before.
Oh well.

I don't think it's fair to jump to such conclusions at this stage.

Why not, FunPub haven't got a very good track record as it stands, and this is the first thing that comes from this "amazing" partnership, the leftovers of one of their exclusive sets through e-Hobby?

Actually, this is exactly what I predicted to be the first thing mentioned from this partnership. I don't expect eHobby to get anything from The Club that I don't already have. As for what The Club gets (if anything) from eHobby, while I'm hopeful to see something interesting from all this, I will believe it when I see it.

150 units is a number the Club could easily move so this was definitely a planned on step on their part. And imagine how much more of a hit Metalhawk will be over there? I think the Club has really tried to make up for what happened with the security breach and some people just want to take it out on this overall really good set. Plus, it's not like they're offering attendee figures on eHobby.

Are they getting the standard comic with it or a Japanese language version? Probably not, but it would be cool.

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:I still want one... But at least the Japanese will have a cheaper way to getting one.

Is it cheaper?

Stormrider wrote:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:I still want one... But at least the Japanese will have a cheaper way to getting one.

Is it cheaper?

I would imagine, no import costs for starters.