Forum - View topicNEWS: Kotobukiya Reports Dip in Sales From Last Quarter, Still Predicts Overall Increase for Year
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meiam
Posts: 3442 |
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I like Kotobukiya, they're number 2 to Bandai for snap assembly model. But I'm a bit afraid that with the success of the frame arm girl and the relative pore performance of the actual frame arms they'll move away from mech in general.
Mech kits really do seem to be slowly declining in sales overall, probably tied to mech being less and less featured in show nowaday (and the poor quality of those). I fear the hobby will be gone in 5-10 years, or so changed as to be essentially gone (looking at you bandai with your high resolution line and over reliance on p-bandai). |
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HoboSoup
Posts: 361 |
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I'm not a mech fan myself but isn't Gundam still pretty popular? Also maybe mechs aren't as popular in the main stream lately, but I think in theory you should be able to find a company that still does kits, since there's some passionate fans out there, and it's a market even if it might be a niche one. Also I wonder if the popularity of 3D printing is hard on the market? Since a lot of people can just print the mechs they want at home. |
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meiam
Posts: 3442 |
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Printing doesn't make anywhere near as good a results as injection mold, the surface are rough and unless you have a very nice printer (ie far more than individual can afford) you're very limited in the type of shape you can make. To make a nice mech you also want different type of plastic for different part (some are better for look, other have flexibility). Even printing small parts for a kit you already brought is not that easy (and require you to paint the results).
Gundam is still popular but even it's popularity is waning and it's mostly coasting on legacy more than anything. As far as gundam kits, there still being made, but the number of original kits as gone down and more and more of the kits being made are either re-using older kits or just variation of suits that already have good kits. There will always be some kits being made, but the number will probably keep going down over the years and eventually all we'll get will just be re-releasing older kit for nostalgia. |
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BodaciousSpacePirate
 Subscriber Posts: 3017 |
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Gundam is one of the few shows that still has a decent chance of making back its entire cost through model kit sales, and as meiam mentions, much of that sustainability has been made possible by mecha designers who have made the conscious effort to populate Gundam shows with multiple designs that are capable of being produced from the same molds. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, and you'd be surprised by just how different two kits can look while still sharing 80% of the same parts. In an effort to not clog up store shelves, Bandai has set up a "Premium Bandai" where you can directly order an endless stream of design variations. (The more cynical-minded of us will be quick to point out that this allows Bandai to have complete control over the price of these kits.) This can be a pain for people who don't live in Japan, but has also allowed for the production of kits based on more obscure designs in a way that still turns a profit. Other than that, much of Gundam's releases now take the form of gashapon and shokugan prepainted mini-kit releases rather than full model kits. If you're interested, one of the bigger English-language gashapon/shokugan fansites has posted a translation of an interview with the director of the gashapon line that sheds a great deal of light on what mini-kits have to do to turn a profit these days: http://gundaniumgateway.blogspot.com/2018/05/bandai-gashapon-development-lead-speaks.html For non-Gundam mecha shows, though? Take a look at Darling in the Franxx. In the late 90s, that show would have resulted in a line of model kits for the half-dozen most popular designs in the series. Today, people are much more interested in buying figures of the pilots, not the mechs. |
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