Sunday, January 10, 2010

Jazwares Discouraging Sonic Buyers?

The updates return to schedule!
After the skipped update last time, everything should be back to normal. This update contains some info fixes around the site and tries to clear up some of the mail that piled in during the missed week. Skip to bottom for update recap & "bottom line" on the issue below.

Major Topic:
IS Jazwares discouraging fans from buying Sonic stuff?

With the way they've been going lately, it seems so! There are just SO MANY of their items that are released and then have to be 'fixed'. Look at this list of all the items you'll have to re-buy if you accidentally or purposefully bought a figure right away when it appeared:

Tails - upside-down tails that break off so easily!
JUVIS - all except MS have faces on the bottoms of their heads making them mutated!
Comic 2 Pak - many are enclosed with upside-down comic lowering the value!
Werehog 3in figure - 'bum knee' won't allow the figure to stand/wrong parts used!
Tails 2 - right-side up tails that don't spin and still break but not as easily!

ALL of the above have now been re-released with total fixes except for the 3in Werehog...which you know will get one in a couple of weeks once everyone yells loud enough that he's literally a flop. Oh but what about:

10 Inch Metal Sonic Shoe Stripe? (he didn't make the list because they didn't fix it...yet!)

This really makes anyone wary over buying anything by them right away. It could be defective right out of the package, even if you don't see missing details (ie the flawed Silvers etc) thus forcing you to buy it again. I mean, on little things like the 3in line, they're ONLY 5 dollars...so it's not a big deal if something happens. Also, to keep the price-point that low, you can't expect 100% performance out of everything. But to re-buy all JUVIs thats THIRTY BUCKS!

If I had bought them, I would be mad.
The facial fix isn't just some small thing either, they do look markedly better, so I'd be furious if I had to drop another 30 to have 'normal' looking figures. I didn't get them at all the first time because I thought they were just too 'out there' in design and the price point was high for something that bizzarre looking. These new ones though, I'd seriously consider picking up because they are more "Sonic Like". It's the same with 10inch metal. IF they fix his shoe stripe he'll be game accurate, but that's another 18 dollars you have to spend because someone else made a mistake!

The problem is the buying cycle there always is on figures and merch:
Figure released > fans grab for it right away in fear of not getting it/sell outs > ebay scalpers buy up figures emptying shelves in hopes of forcing everyone on earth to pay triple price > fans buy from ebay & stores fearing a sell out and having to buy from online stores at 5x price later (as in the Toy Island Eggman & etc) > majority ends up with nasty defective figure

Normally it ends there...but then JW adds another ">" with > everyone forced to re-buy fixed figures. So what are you supposed to do? Ignore all figures on the shelf disregarding sell-outs in fear of getting a bad figure and having to buy another? Buy the figure anyway and keep it MIB while waiting some guinea-pig to open theirs up and see if it has something wrong with it? Who knows!

The Bottom Line:
FIXED figures/re-buys are still BETTER than them just shoveling out stuff and telling anyone who buys it to take a hike like ToyIsland did. That they're fixing it shows they care about the figures/fans. Be glad they're fixing them! It's made to seem a hassle here, but it is certainly 100% better than any alternative.

The update didn't look like much, but the box was packed with questions, multi photos that needed combined (always takes a while) and things to sort as well, so while a super lot didn't go on, a lot of people in the mail should be satisfied. Likely going to do a part 2 to the update to try and make it a little better during the week. There's sure no shortage of stuff, it was just a shortage of time.

Item of interest:
Finally we see the cookie crisp box that the Sonic bowl item appeared in. That thing's been so many years in coming, its a wonder anyone kept an old cereal box around all this time.

Up Next:
FANTASTIC doll modification. This is seriously going to be a must-see. Stellar job for sure.
Hopefully virtual items too, but we'll see what happens