Just saw this on Twitter:
Pacific Rim Series 3 news will drop today. 2 different assortments of Jaeger and Kaiju offered at once. 4 new figures coming in March!!
— NECA (@NECA_TOYS) November 20, 2013
I know I’ve got a number of Pacific Rim junkies around here, so keep an eye on NECA’s Twitter account today. (Update: news after the jump.)
UPDATES:
2 ALL NEW Jaegers.. Cherno Alpha and Coyote Tango make up the Jaeger assortment. Almost 8" tall and loaded w detail and articulation
— NECA (@NECA_TOYS) November 20, 2013
The Kaiju require their own assortment as they getting bigger & badder & in turn cost a little more. S2 Leatherback gives you an idea…
— NECA (@NECA_TOYS) November 20, 2013
We we want to stay true to scale as much as possible so a deluxe Kaiju assortment was the way to go. Bigger, more deco, more articulation!!
— NECA (@NECA_TOYS) November 20, 2013
Trespasser will be one of the Series 3 Kaiju, in concept stage it was known as Axhead and you still might see that version at a later date..
— NECA (@NECA_TOYS) November 20, 2013
Aside from what we are showing/telling today as it relates to Pacific Rim Series 3, it's worth mentioning 2 more Kaiju are done beyond this!
— NECA (@NECA_TOYS) November 20, 2013
monkey boy
i'm not really sure if it's a previously untapped way to increase profits or just something companies have to do to survive in a changing market, but it's just a fact of life now in toy collecting: adult collectors with more disposable income are being tapped to part with more of that income. it's not just about buying a figure, but "supporting a line" whether it's mattel's subs that require dropping a ton of money on figures sight unseen just to "keep the line going" or NECA's model of getting licenses people love and then milking the crap out of them with minor variations and making you purchase a new figure every time. it's really annoying but as we've been told many different times, in many different ways, that these are the only ways to keep these lines going. is it true? well, yes, these lines won't exist if the companies decide it's not worth their while. is it necessary? maybe not, but it's the way things are. it may, in fact, be necessary for certain lines which have a decidedly niche market attached to them. would a line like ALIENS or Predator really appeal to enough people to support it if they weren't counting on return customers buying multiples of the same character or updates of prevous figures? maybe not. it's not like you can count on figures of movies from 20, 30 years ago to be the hottest toys on the shelves. i think as the audience changes, companies have to adapt accordingly. as infuriating as mattel's model may be, it's an adaptation to having to market to a non-traditional audience. it's not necessarily the best solution, but we're still in this adjustment period where toy companies are realizing that big, bang, pow, toys aren't just for kids anymore. it's a slow process.
knoted
What a bunch of wall of text whining.
No one's forced to buy battle damaged Knifehead. And I've already seen complaints about the battle damage deco itself. In fact, no one was forced to buy Knifehead v1 in the first place.
Wave 1 Knifehead & Gipsy are still decent imho. Crimson Typhoon is still the STAR of the wave together with Striker Eureka ; both fantastic figures. Even if one thinks Knifehead v1 totally sucks, it simply took watching 1 video review to draw a conclusion to NOT buy him.
The emphasis in the here & now, is and should be, the new additions of wave 3 : Cherno Alpha, Coyote Tango and Tresspasser.
Upgraded & battle damaged Knifehead is more like an "oh btw, IF you want, you can also get this updated version"
dayraven
you know… i'm trying really hard to be the optimist here, i am… i'm trying to learn from that pesky noisydvl5 chap, who thinks in terms of "well, i bought the first wave, which provided money to create the second wave, which is in every way an upgrade from wave 1" mentality…
but that's very hard for me. i HATE trying to sell figures, especially when liquidating a figure who's bigger, better option is easily available… i bought in on NECA's robocop in series 1, and then, they release the version with the leg holster, the ONLY feature missing from the one i bought that i would have liked. now that one, it was a gripe, but sufferable, i like my murphy, i really do, so i didn't buy the upgrade. but now we're getting a bigger, more articulated knifehead and i feel like i get stuck holding doug pitt after prom instead of brad… and i'm more than a tad pissed. so what do i do, keep my sucky knifehead and refuse to buy the cooler version? buy the upgrade and just eat up the sucky one cuz the new one is soooo cool? what kind of message does that send NECA? i'm essentially telling them, "by all means, cheap out on the initial wave, cuz i'm one of the ass clowns who will buy that and keep you in production capital so you can make the really cool toys for the cool kids" that's how it feels to me at least…
i could take the other tack, the noisy tack, and just sit here and be glad that i'm getting the new, bigger, more articulated figure at all, the kaiju i wanted in the first place, and i could play, and buy, and buy and play, and i'd have the smile so all i'd need for true nirvana is the coke… and i'm trying to be that guy. right up until i have anticipate having to explain to my wife why i'm rebuying the same character i already bought, another 25 bucks down the hole, "cuz babe, THIS is the toy i wanted" and wait for her to ask, "then why did you buy the one you already have?"
i guess what i'm saying is, if NECA wants me to be a happy, loyal consumer, i'll need a written note i can give to my wife about why i should buy the new figure when i already have one, and why they didn't just make the right version the first time. i live in a world with a budget too NECA, and consequences… explain to my wife why your budget is more important than my consequences.
Ridureyu
Weren't they forced to cheap out on the initial wave because they were trying to sell to Wal-Mart?
Barbecue17
I've heard the same thing. I thought they were working with Wal-Mart for awhile and then Wal-Mart backed out.
Bigbot
I agree with dayraven in the sense that this does screw everyone over who bought the first release. They probably should have released a different Kaiju (maybe that crab like monster to go with Coyote Tango).
Poe Ghostal
I don't really see how this is different from what pretty much every other toy company does – as does NECA itself. It was what, a year after buying the first masked Predator that I bought a new version with double-jointed knees and ball hips? How many times has Hasbro reissued the same character, often improved in some way? Aren't toy allowed to evolve? If so, does it matter how quickly it happens after the first one?
And NECA has done some other lines well right out of the gate, like Prometheus. And it may have been being burned by that experience – or perhaps the Walmart thing discussed by other commenters – that caused them to go cheap on the first wave. They had no idea whether Pacific Rim would sell, so why break the bank on the figures? Fortunately they did sell well, opening up the budget for better figures down the line.
NECA doesn't even have to make another Knifehead – the line appears to be selling well enough they could just keep reissuing the first one. And given what you get with a typical NECA figure these days – incredibly detailed sculpt, great paint (lately, at least), and good articulation (lately, at least) for a very competitive price compared to other similarly-sized action figures lines – I just can't get my dander up over this.
I understand the frustration of something better coming out right after you've bought something, but you're never under any obligation to buy it (I, like you, never picked up the Robocop with the holster) and a company certainly has no obligation to not improve their products solely so they don't disappoint the consumers who purchased earlier ones. If that was the way things worked, everyone would still own the original iPhone.
dayraven
my issue is largely with how quickly we're back at the same character, but upgraded. to use your comparison with the iphone thing, firstly, i do think the rate of cell phone releases is already stupid, but imagine if we were talking about 6 months to a stretch between phones, and the difference was more substantial… iphone g1 buyers would be livid, and rightfully so.
so, like, compare this to the recent titan class metroplex. no one who owned the original that they're feeling ripped off by the new one. plenty of time passed, the upgrade makes sense, everyone who wanted a better metroplex now has access to one. every one wins. i'm not griping about that. i'm not griping about variants either, so like, prometheus engineer comes out, then injured engineer with trilobite comes out, great, awesome, no problem. and this knifehead is battle damaged, so maybe he should fall into the category of variant, but that's not where my brain is taking the connection.
i don't feel like, for me, for my toy budget, a long enough time has passed to justify the substantial upgrade that this represents (50% bigger alone would draw most fans to the table, because v1 knifehead is just flatly too small) so i feel like in essence i'm paying 45 dollars for him. (the cost of both figs) and yes poe, i thought it was a dud move when NECA did this murphy, and i think it was a dud deal with the preds too… slow down, do it right. the preds almost hit my psychological sweet spot where i felt a new upgraded buck was OK. the gears of war line, i think they waited sufficiently into the line where, when they upgraded the buck, i think consumers could feel confident that they had a great collection of v1 figs, so the upgrade was totally optional.
for the record, i don't buy into every re-release for any line, from any producer. this is not something exclusive to NECA for me, so please don't think it's that kind of gripe. this release just feels very soon for me (it may not even be that soon, it just feels that way… pac rim feels very recent and i feel like i haven't had a lot of time with the figs i do have yet) it also falls that this figure answers a number of gripes i launched at the v1 figs, which i felt a little ripped off on… so again, the love/hate emotions run strong here for me.
as for the walmart thing… i kind of don't care. if NECA had a contract or not, or had to change funding and scale at the last minute, that's not really an excuse, it's their lawyer's fault for not making a more balanced contract (should have secured a payout if walmart bailed on the deal) and honestly, doing the proto right the first time is WAY cheaper than doing a second proto. if their defense is "well, we were gonna sell this new upgrade to collectors the entire time, the small, POS knifehead was for the rubes anyways," that is a cop out…. that version would have been bought by a ton of consumers would could have been lured to NECA with an awesome toy, or wrecked on toys for life because it was a dud, and they released the dud… it's decisions like that that are killing the industry. if you roll the casual consumer over and put sand in the motion lotion from day 1, they aren't coming back for day 2. on the other hand, spoil them a tad, and you win a new repeat consumer. no excuses for half-assing the mass market release.
Jester
So who won Boba Fett?
Poe
The winner has been contacted, I’m just waiting for a reply.
tornado
I'm very excited about this, here are some more pictures and info from fwoosh http://thefwoosh.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=91&…
Mark
Coyote Tango is my favorite so that’s awesome that he’s getting a figure. I’m also hoping for Otachi as one of the two new Kaiju after Trespasser (I’m sure everyone else is as well).