I’m up late, and if you’re wondering why, it’s because I couldn’t wait to share the news of finding the Iron Man Legends Titanium Man available on ToysRUs.com. Earlier this week, Buzzy had left one on the shelves at his local TRU because of the price – and I’ve gotta admit I was a little bitter. I only had one chance this week to stop by my local TRU, only to find a remnant – a single War Machine, previously a Wal-Mart exclusive.
So, tonight, before heading to bed, I decided to check the old standby. And here it is:
I checked remaining stock – there’s only a couple dozen left, minus one. So don’t miss your chance to get this long-awaited figure.
For those of you unfamiliar with its history, 6-inch versions of Titanium Man and Crimson Dynamo were shown during the Hasbro Marvel update at Toy Fair in 2009(!). By San Diego Comic-Con, though, the line had slowed down somewhat, so Hasbro made the decision to pull the prototypes from their display case – but not before one of the toy sites had seen them and taken pictures.
Last year we saw a bunch of test shots of Titanium Man and Crimson Dynamo show up on ebay, but still no official word from Hasbro. It wasn’t until Toy Fair a couple of weeks ago that the Marvel team at Hasbro confirmed we’d finally be seeing Titanium Man and Crimson Dynamo on retail shelves.
It’s been a long wait – and I hope it’s not too much longer before Crimson Dynamo is released.
My TRU had the whole set, but $18 is ridiculous. Really, in person Titanium Man didn’t look that impressive, with awkward proportions and a mold that didn’t seem to have any more detail than the 4″ figure. I don’t know if the price at TRU is MSRP, or if that’s just their standard mark-up. Considering G.I. Joes are listed at $6.99 on hasbro’s website, but TRU has them for $8.49 I would bet that it’s the latter.
yeah, with shipping and tax, my order was $25 – it’s steep, but I felt compelled to get one.
I haven’t seen the final figure in person, but I had been impressed with what I saw when the test shots came out. and I think the 4-inchers are getting more detailed as time goes on, and I did like how Titanium Man came out in that scale.
TRU has really been testing what they can do with collector-oriented products. everything is marked up in that section of the store, and for stuff that is exclusive to them, I think they’ll see some drop-off in sales, but I don’t have a sense for how the die-hard collectors (am I one? maybe…) will react.
Not sure I’ll be buying many marvel legends at 18 bucks a pop. DCD sold nearly completely original figures with new sculpts and lots of paint apps for 16 dollars a pop. As soon as Mattel’s prices match, suddenly DCD start reusing parts like crazy and are on their way out. Suspicious…and crappy. I’m not sure, as a community, why we are programmed to pay more for less, but i’m willing to pass up sub-par figures at inflated prices, regardless of what the BAF pack in is…and I love Marvel. I’ve got three cases of figures that prove it. I bought every odd sculpt and warped legged figure from toy biz and when we asked how they can still charge 10 dollars for a figure and a comic and accessories that should all total 13, they said they are in toys r us, so they can afford to do it. How has that changed? Honestly, I’d like a good excuse other than the toy industry unilaterally deciding 6 inch figures are now between 16 and 18 dollars a piece.
I cant believe the price theyve upped these to. If they had the accessories that old Legends had, maybe, but they simply dont.
Well, this definitely answers the question of whether or not this is an outrageous TRU mark up, try a 64% increase over msrp according to hasbro’s website. The only thing that keeps me going into TRU nowadays are for Matchbox cars (their selection is better than any other store in my area), and because of the horrible distribution of certain figures.
http://www.hasbrotoyshop.com/iron-man-armored-avenger-legends-series-titanium-man?BR=861&ST=PR&PG=3
Already sold out. So I guess that price wasn’t so ridiculous after all.
The economics of the situation is pretty simple. If you make fewer of them, you can charge more. The more casual buyer passes, but there are plenty left who just have to have it, even at the higher price.
I can see why people are not thrilled about the higher price, of course. But I’ve got this shelf full of Iron Man, and he is pretty darned light on the villains. So yeah, I would have paid the higher price if any were left.
I understand the economics of supply and demand, but Toys R Us is not making these figures, Hasbro is mass producing these to be a tie-in line with the onslaught of Marvel movies that are on their way. It’s not that there are going to be fewer of these things out there, it’s that TRU happens to have them first and does a massive price hike over what the manufacturer advertises.
Obviously there are people out there willing to pay for them anyway, I’m worried it will put ideas in Hasbro’s heads thinking that they should just charge $20 anyway.