1/6 Hot Toys - MMS 249 - The Joker (Bank Robber Version 2.0) - 1/6 - TF Exclusive 2014

[DiFabio]

Just read it Jeff.

We don't have the numbers, so we can't assume what's going on behind the scenes. Back in 2008 and 2009, there were several batches of the original Bank Robber Joker. I don't recall an instance where Hot Toys had one hand tied behind their back and were only allowed to produce a limited allotment. Certainly not by Warner Bros. or DC. By 2008, there weren't any limited edition numbers. They did away with certificates of authenticity and limited production. Hot Toys produced as many of the original Bank Robber Joker (and V1 Joker, TDK suit Batman and the Batpod) as retailers and distributors ordered. In fact, the ONLY Dark Knight figure that didn't see wide distribution was the Original Costume Batman. By Bank Robber Joker, they were churning these suckers out. Bank Robber Joker is literally one of the reasons so many people were attracted to 1/6 collecting and this very site. It wasn't some small, humble release.

While it's hard to determine how many they made, we do know there were several batches. Asia had two and DC Direct (the distributor before Sideshow) had atleast two. 2009 and 2010 had a lot of Bank Robber Jokers circulating for $140-$150 MSRP. There were so many in fact that if you went on the secondary market, it could be had for as low as $100, same with Two-Face. That doesn't sound like a small amount to me. You say 3,000 or 6,000 when it was probably a whole lot more.


The bottom line is, Hot Toys (and Sideshow) know that Iron Man, Predator and Nolan Batman are their best selling products, so they gouge the prices to meet the popularity. That's all there is to it. They're testing the waters to see what the average collector's threshold is and keep pushing and pushing it. The quality and cost of these plateaued about a year ago (back when they raised it to about $210 average). Now, they're just rising it arbitrarily. I highly doubt there's some mandate where WB/DC or Disney is coming in and saying, "hey license holders, we see you're making a ton of dough off our characters, we want a bigger cut". There are plans and contracts to these deals, you know that right?

All this is is, "hey, Iron Man, Predator and Joker sells, let's see if these guys will pay $300, if they do, let's go higher". Not "oh man, these guys that we did before are too costly to produce even though we mass produce a ton of them now to meet demand!" or "the license holders want our funds and are taking our cut!" Also, explain why over in Asia, the three of these guys amount to $216 (HKD 1,680), the same price as last year's Toy Fair figures? Someone in charge is price gouging, it's that simple.

 

[DarkMagic]

YES!

Fox just ordered, then cancelled. Smart man.

Haha, that's a good interpretation.

 

[hokietwo]

Better paint apps+Better tailoring+Better Base=Superior figure.

Do you have this in hand yet? Hard to make those comparisons. Also that base is ****. I would rather have the standard crotch grabber.

 

[Bustajesse]

Yea you lost me after superior. Try this pose with the new one......oh wait........

 

[hokietwo]

Well said Difabs. This is all about raising the floor for the new toys.

 

[The Clown Prince of Crime]

What's your source on this?

There was interview a while back about Nolan not giving the ok for the nurse figure and it was posted by Difabio on this thread not too long ago. However, I was curious about why Nolan was against it. So I asked a friend of mine on One Sixth Republic (1/6 scale facebook page) who happens to be one of the administrators, and he told me that he was told by someone (I know who it is) who has met with Howard Chan and he knows some of the people responsible for those HT interviews that come out every now and then, that it was Ledger's family who said no to the nurse version. Is it true...who knows? I believe them, since they have been right about other rumors about upcoming figures and other behind the scenes issues regarding HT and other 1/6 companies. I don't know why they are against the nurse costume, is it because the costume had Ledger's daughter's name on it? Is it the dress? Who knows?

 

[DiFabio]

And you're right about the in hand comments hokietwo.

If it's anything like the original Bank Robber Joker or TF 2011 Begins Batman or DX 12 Batman or most of their products, the final product for this won't match the pics of the prototype. Not the paint, not the tailoring.

Everyone was obsessing about Toy Fairs Batman, myself included. What did we get with the final product? A Bruce Wayne portrait that was a far cry from the beautiful prototype, a crappy, peeling suit with indents, broken legs and broken boot ankles.

 

[Mike86]

The bottom line is, Hot Toys (and Sideshow) know that Iron Man, Predator and Nolan Batman are their best selling products, so they gouge the prices to meet the popularity. That's all there is to it. They're testing the waters to see what the average collector's threshold is and keep pushing and pushing it. The quality and cost of these plateaued about a year ago (back when they raised it to about $210 average). Now, they're just rising it arbitrarily. I highly doubt there's some mandate where WB/DC or Disney is coming in and saying, "hey license holders, we see you're making a ton of dough off our characters, we want a bigger cut". There are plans and contracts to these deals, you know that right?

All this is is, "hey, Iron Man, Predator and Joker sells, let's see if these guys will pay $300, if they do, let's go higher". Not "oh man, these guys that we did before are too costly to produce even though we mass produce a ton of them now to meet demand!" or "the license holders want our funds and are taking our cut!" Also, explain why over in Asia, the three of these guys amount to $216 (HKD 1,680), the same price as last year's Toy Fair figures? Someone in charge is price gouging, it's that simple.

I agree with what you've wrote here to an extent, but I think the reasoning behind what Hot Toys is doing does make sense. Any business wants to make money it's as simple as that. Hot Toys would be stupid to not notice that there's a demand for certain licenses, namely Iron Man, Nolan Batman, and Predator like you've mentioned. However I still don't think that's accounting for the entire increase in price. We don't know the numbers so it's really impossible for us to say how much costs have gone up but I'm sure they have just like any other item you buy. Now granted that doesn't account for it all and with certain bigger licenses they probably do take advantage, but really how can you blame them? When they see the original Bank Robber Joker figure going for a considerable amount in the secondary market and even a knockoff set of the clothing and whatnot to make a custom version of the figure it shows them that the demand is still there. I understand not liking prices being high, I know I don't exactly love when I see higher prices for something I want but it's a simple fact of doing business and delivering the supply to meet the demand. I think another thing to remember too is that the bigger licenses that pull in more money also help other smaller or more niche lines get made or at least make up for some losses they take on them. As much as I love them stuff like Adam West Batman and Burt Ward Robin for instance probably don't pull in the best numbers as they're still sitting in stock. The same can be said about a lot of the other lines too.

 

[DiFabio]

Yeah I agree Mike. It makes sense from a business perspective for them (no doubt about that, I never denied it) but it still blows.

Ideally, MMS would have their own uniformed price like they used to. That's how all toy lines are. MMS used to be one price, while DX was the premium. Now, they have this hodge podge of different prices. One character is $190, and another character just like it from the same license is $209. One DX costs this, another one is almost $60 more. Look at their Iron Man figures, there's no rhyme or reason to what they cost when there should be a uniform price to them.

It'd be like if DCD or Hasbro charged $10 extra for their more popular figures (like Boba Fett), regardless of what they came with. Or if Lego made an overpriced set just because it contained a popular minifigure. That isn't how it should work. Hot Toys shouldn't even be looking at secondary market prices, especially after they claimed that they wanted to combat them and scalpers supposedly.

 

[bonestockbrz]

When I factor shipping, CA tax and the packout, I'll pay more for this figure than my Enterbay 1/4 joker

 

[karamazov80]

I don't think this will sell out anytime soon.

 

[The Chev]

I don't think this will sell out anytime soon.

How long did it take for the DX11 to sell out?

 

[hokietwo]

I agree with what you've wrote here to an extent, but I think the reasoning behind what Hot Toys is doing does make sense. Any business wants to make money it's as simple as that. Hot Toys would be stupid to not notice that there's a demand for certain licenses, namely Iron Man, Nolan Batman, and Predator like you've mentioned. However I still don't think that's accounting for the entire increase in price. We don't know the numbers so it's really impossible for us to say how much costs have gone up but I'm sure they have just like any other item you buy. Now granted that doesn't account for it all and with certain bigger licenses they probably do take advantage, but really how can you blame them? When they see the original Bank Robber Joker figure going for a considerable amount in the secondary market and even a knockoff set of the clothing and whatnot to make a custom version of the figure it shows them that the demand is still there. I understand not liking prices being high, I know I don't exactly love when I see higher prices for something I want but it's a simple fact of doing business and delivering the supply to meet the demand. I think another thing to remember too is that the bigger licenses that pull in more money also help other smaller or more niche lines get made or at least make up for some losses they take on them. As much as I love them stuff like Adam West Batman and Burt Ward Robin for instance probably don't pull in the best numbers as they're still sitting in stock. The same can be said about a lot of the other lines too.

But the part that we do not see since Hot Toys is a privately held company is how effective they are at acquiring the licenses. They could be operating on **** margins making bad licensing deals as well for these other niche lines and forcing the rest of the collectors to absorb their poor deals as pass through. Ultimately they are the only ones that know, but there is obviously higher costs being passed to the customers through price. Whether that is through poor licensing or "greed" is unknown.

 

[karamazov80]

How long did it take for the DX11 to sell out?

I don't know, but it was there for awhile. I think the DX-11 was pretty much made to order, though.

 

[hokietwo]

Yeah dx 11 was avaiable into the spring like april or may it sold out after releasing in like nov 2012 maybe? It had the big split shipment fiasco as well and it was like January 2013 when the other half of the lot showed up at sideshow. Man time flies.

 

[Mike86]

Yeah I agree Mike. It makes sense from a business perspective for them (no doubt about that, I never denied it) but it still blows.

Ideally, MMS would have their own uniformed price like they used to. That's how all toy lines are. MMS used to be one price, while DX was the premium. Now, they have this hodge podge of different prices. One character is $190, and another character just like it from the same license is $209. One DX costs this, another one is almost $60 more. Look at their Iron Man figures, there's no rhyme or reason to what they cost when there should be a uniform price to them.

It'd be like if DCD or Hasbro charged $10 extra for their more popular figures (like Boba Fett), regardless of what they came with. Or if Lego made an overpriced set just because it contained a popular minifigure. That isn't how it should work. Hot Toys shouldn't even be looking at secondary market prices, especially after they claimed that they wanted to combat them and scalpers supposedly.

I think the hodge podge of different pricing is a lot like I was talking about though with how certain smaller or niche licenses won't make them as much and may sit for a while. It's a matter of gains and losses really. They know that their certain bigger lines like Iron Man, Predator, Nolan Batman, etc. are going to sell but a lot of the other stuff is a shot in the dark.

But the part that we do not see since Hot Toys is a privately held company is how effective they are at acquiring the licenses. They could be operating on **** margins making bad licensing deals as well for these other niche lines and forcing the rest of the collectors to absorb their poor deals as pass through. Ultimately they are the only ones that know, but there is obviously higher costs being passed to the customers through price. Whether that is through poor licensing or "greed" is unknown.

I think that they're smarter than that by now. They've been around for a considerable length of time. You don't make a business that's fairly niche making high end action figures work for as long as they have without figuring out what you're doing. Obviously I can't say this for certain but I think they've got the licensing down pretty well. I think it's more when it comes to the smaller or more niche licenses that people want they have to come up with a way to even out what their gains and losses are. That's why the big licenses are important and why for instance Iron Man will remain forever their cash cow. It's pretty much a guaranteed money maker no matter what.

 

[Jeff12burq]

Do you have this in hand yet? Hard to make those comparisons. Also that base is ****. I would rather have the standard crotch grabber.

No I don't, but I'm willing to bet there is going to be a noticeable difference between the 2008 version compared to this one and only makes sense. And you don't have the base in hand either. It's just your personal preference to have the standard black base, but there is no doubt the 2.0 base costs more to produce.

The only thing that the 2008 version has going for it is the removable mask, like you already mentioned. But everything else about the figure is (will be) much more superior than the V1. Now if you're trying to make the argument that it is better than the V1 but not at that pricepoint, then yeah, you have a valid argument there.

 

[hokietwo]

But is this such a hard business? They have thrived because most companies have either done due diligence and decided the profits are not worth the time or straight out licensed with them. My guess is that the DC and Marvel licenses are at the very least a 2-3x on their operating costs. I find it very hard to believe larger companies cannot go grab some paint artists on the cheap the same way Hot Toys does and not make just as good of a product.

They havent because someone did the math, and it is more profitable to farm it out to HT based on the money they get from licensing. If it was worth more then HT would have been bought out or another competitor would have popped up by now.

 

[hokietwo]

No I don't, but I'm willing to bet there is going to be a noticeable difference between the 2008 version compared to this one and only makes sense. And you don't have the base in hand either. It's just your personal preference to have the standard black base, but there is no doubt the 2.0 base costs more to produce.

The only thing that the 2008 version has going for it is the removable mask, like you already mentioned. But everything else about the figure is (will be) much more superior than the V1. Now if you're trying to make the argument that it is better than the V1 but not at that pricepoint, then yeah, you have a valid argument there.

I am not trying to argue anything. I am just trying to correct the joker goggles you are using to justify this is the better one because you missed out on V1. Just because something is new does not always make it better.

 

[DiFabio]

But is this such a hard business? They have thrived because most companies have either done due diligence and decided the profits are not worth the time or straight out licensed with them. My guess is that the DC and Marvel licenses are at the very least a 2-3x on their operating costs. I find it very hard to believe larger companies cannot go grab some paint artists on the cheap the same way Hot Toys does and not make just as good of a product.

They havent because someone did the math, and it is more profitable to farm it out to HT based on the money they get from licensing. If it was worth more then HT would have been bought out or another competitor would have popped up by now.

Hot Toys,