And that's the point of contention. Iron Man. Nobody is refuting that it sells well. It doesn't make it any less annoying that that's where their focus is. It's not balanced or spaced well at all and Hot Toys is completely unabashed in their pursuit of the almighty Iron Man shekels.
No, I'm not kidding you. Hot Toys is an obnoxious company when it comes to what they announce along with their horrendous turn around time. I know I'm not the only one that is completely turned off by their throw away lines like "coming soon" and "stay tuned". No company has had a worse track record of this than Hot Toys.
Dutch was their first figure planned. This is their words, not mine,
"Moreover, we will be bringing the collectible of Dutch featuring our beloved actor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1/4th scale too!
Fans, please stay tuned!"
5 years later, not a single 1/4 Arnold in sight, not even the "coming soon in 2012 Police Shootout T-800!" Hindsight is 20/20 and Hot Toys is full of ****. The 1/4 Iron Man 3 and AoU suits didn't even exist when figures like Dutch, the Predator, the Terminator and Batman were in development. It's clear as day that the customer and fan base of classic licenses aren't really on their radar anymore. In fact, all those announcements from 2011 to 2012 just seemed to be a ******** contest with Enterbay, who was having a small, humble success with their 1/4 figure line. Hot Toys being the huge, successful corporate business couldn't have that though. To me, Hot Toys is a huge turn off. They buy up licenses that they have no intent on pursuing or producing to their full potential, and if they do do them, they half ass them. They've abandoned their monthly QnA's for about two years now and have awful communication outside their Facebook announcement page. They've platued in what they can achieve in sculpting, paint and tailoring (if Iron Man wasn't evidence of this enough), and they're just not pushing the envelope. Unless of course you count those silly, 1:1 Batman v Superman statues they've committed to from one of the most disappointing blockbusters of the year. We're talking sales and what sells? I'd love to see their yearly reports for those. It's bad enough some of their over produced 1/6 figures sit around, don't even want to think about warehouses of 1:1 imported scale crap that few people are interested in. Now imagine if those had been the 1/4 figures they intended to produce years ago? Hmm.
So by this logic based on sales data, we can expect to see mostly quarter scale Iron Man figures from here on out, with the occasional Star Wars character thrown in because they sell more. Perfect.
Surely you can see why other collectors would be cynical when it basically boils down to "sure, we could produce those figures we planned on selling before, but why do those when Iron Man sells more!" It's gross. Sure, it's business and profit for them, but it doesn't make it any less obnoxious.
Fact of the matter is, they haven't put a Predator up for sale so they don't know how well it would do, period. Using 1/6 Predator sales as the bar is silly when you consider the past couple of years have been nothing but AvP redoos. When was the last time they produced the classic Predator or Dutch? 2009? 2010? That sales data is different from figure to figure and they haven't tested the classics market for about 6 years. I guarantee had their alleged Dutch and Predator had come into fruition, they would have sold better than their random 1/6 AvP Predator 2.0s.
Hot Toys isn't going to last forever, this I can tell you. They only dominate the market in one area. Meanwhile these hungrier companies are rising up in quality and affordability.
Best analogy would be Rocky III. Hot Toys is Rocky and all these other smaller companies are Clubber Lang. The funny thing is, Hot Toys announced a new line of Rocky and Rambo figures years ago, (even documenting the license acquisition with a cheesy Sylvester Stallone and Howard Chan photo-op
), and those are no where to be seen. Sure, we all know why (Iron Man/Marvel/Disney = more profit), but that doesn't make it any less uninspiring.
The question that remains is, what is Hot Toys currently when they're not taking risks, when they're reissuing old and new figures, when they're doing gaudy repaints that would make Hasbro smile, when they're focusing on Iron Man exclusively because "he sells more" and what does this mean for their future. You can't be sustainable forever when you go this route where the easy business model and current trends clear the way for a quick buck.
View attachment 274123
I want one for a pet...
