Current numbers:
The current buy-in is ~3160, an increast of ~100 from yesterday and significantly higher than I expected.
For the last few weeks, daily buy-in has hovered around or below 50. ~100 is still less than needed by any of the metrics I have been using. But, it is less of a deficit than previous. And, there are some ambiguating factors, listed below.
Is it the amount as a hard number? Is it the amount in one purchase? Or, is it just not worth it?How many people can really commit to a $500 dollar figure? But it wouldn't surprise me if they made it anyway.
I easily spend a comparable amount on comics per year. (I am trying not to think too much about that.) But, if I had to make pay the yearly (or even quarterly) total at once, I might think twice or even thrice before buying in.
There are collectors who easily spend more than ~$600 on their toy collections every year. Look at some of the collection pictures that people have on other forums. People have the money. But, $600 is probably a big chunk of the hobby budget.
I remain skeptical that Hasbro is going to squint and say "close enough" about the buy-in. They set the bar at 8,000 for a reason.
But, of course....
That is a significant factor that I have admittedly failed to account for.It is interesting to note that about a month ago Unicron went up for pre-order on TakaraTomy's Mall site, listed as $75,600 Yen, which would be about $696.05 -- $121.06 more than Hasbro is asking for in the crowdfunding. The listing does say "Hasbro's crowdfunding “HAS Lab” project “Unicron” will be accepted at Takara Tomy Mall in Japan!", which makes me wonder if their numbers are reflected on the HasLab website's totals or not.
There are some reports that including Takara's numbers places the buy-in at 4,500+, well over 1K more (in less time than the HasLab posting has been up).
The question (that we simply cannot know the answer to) is if Hasbro's 8,000 limit intended to count global demand, or was intended only to measure domestic demand.
There are also reports that the HasLab number (linked below) is not counting pre-orders from on-line sellers.
BBTS has a mark-up of ~$200. That cannot possibly make HasLab Unicron more palatable. But, ordering through BBTS might make this more accessible for some people.
https://www.bigbadtoystore.com/Product/ ... ails/97919
This suddenly got exciting again.
-reposting link:
https://hasbropulse.com/collections/has ... on-unicron
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Current numbers: (Monday 8/26)
(Based on HasbroPulse.)
-current buy-in: 3160
-needed surge: ~3,850