WHO is this Happy Mask Salesman chap that people haven’t been rallying hard for lately?
WHAT extras could a Classic Crash Bandicoot Definitive Edition statue have come from?
WHEN will the next Reservation Friday take place?
WHERE does Earthbound slot into the queue of upcoming TT polls?
WHY might Definite Editions be the savior for niche lines and characters?
HOW many snacks will Chocks consume during one three-hour stream?

Find out the answers to all these questions and many more in this week’s (slightly belated) F4F Q&A #71 Recap!

The Week in Review:

• This is going to be a short Q&A this week–under 3 hours! Chock has three snacks–one for each hour!
• No one is as nutter-ish as Alex and Chock, to be working from 10PM to 1AM or 2AM
• This is going to be the last show for two weeks, as Alex will be in Las Vegas next week for the Las Vegas Licensing Expo–Q&A #72 will take place on June 1st, 2018
• Pre-orders for True Form Midna Exclusive and Definitive Editions will be open until Tuesday, June 12th
• Pre-orders for the Exclusive Shiranui statue close on Tuesday, May 29th
• Pre-orders for the Guts Exclusive will remain open until production starts in a few months or until 1000 orders are reached (although Alex and Chock think it’s unlikely orders will reach 1000)
• “Happy Mask Sales WHO?! WHO?!”: It seems like no one wants Happy Mask Salesman anymore! Alex is pretty surprised he hasn’t seen any rallying for Happy Mask Salesman and that everyone seemingly wants Mipha now!
• Happy Mask Salesman was the architect behind F4Fundays, so Alex is quite surprised there’s been no noise about him after a full week of undiluted, unlimited hyping
• Alex is scared of heights–there is “no chance whatsoever” that he’ll be cajoled into riding the Stratosphere during his Las Vegas trip
• The F4F OCC group has hit 47K members now–only 52,999 more members until Chock can post his Streets of Rage TT poll!
• The next Reservation Friday will likely be on June 1st, but not confirmed at this point
• New Ocarina of Time statues would either be the original scale in PVC or larger in resin–nothing to announce right now
• One of the questions to join the OCC could be changed to “Would you vote ‘Yes’ on the Streets of Rage TT?” as the group membership approaches 100K [Good plan! Maybe this needs to be adapted for poor Aika and Reala as well…]
• Last week’s stream was the biggest ever
• When Chockles is your son, every day is Mother’s Day
• Old statues are a one-and-done thing and will never be reissued–sorry to those needing the original Zant, Wolf Link & Midna, etc.
• Breath of the Wild Character & Props Poll: Mipha at the top of the list, with Zelda in hot pursuit and Urbossa much further down the list; Link, Sidon, Cass, Revali and Guardian further down the list; Alex is most surprised and flabbergasted by Zelda being below Mipha and Link ranking so low
• Orange boosters have been added to Varia Suit Samus, which is the last piece of the puzzle to get Varia Suit Samus through production
• Three ‘Tee-Hee’s this week: a chess board pattern, Grayfox’s arm and a thing with a skull
• Some mistakes have been made with the cancellation rate lately, which can’t continue–F4F has to be more bullish to make sure that those with guaranteed orders have to get their products as soon as possible; however, it is the end of the world if there are a lot of lot of excess statues leftover to store
• Upcoming F4F “Royal Rumble/King of the Ring” Tournament where 16 statues will be pitted against each other in brackets over the course of 8 weeks–Rewards points will be given to club members who can correctly guess the order of how the tournament will go; This is being done to spice things up a bit and add more excitement to the club again
• Alex Davis used to play Mr. Perfect all the time back in the WWF WrestleFest Arcade Game [I used Demolition in this game back in the day! Great game!]

 On Definitive Editions:

• Definitive Editions allow F4F to flex their creative freedom and not be tied to MSRPs
• First 4 Figures truly believe that they are the first for a lot of people to come into the resin game, and absolutely welcome that perception–but this is also makes F4F feel they have to be price-sensitive as the entry-point for most people to get their first figure
• Now F4F is at the point where they want to service more sectors of the market: both those buying their first figures with a financial budget at a certain level (the Regular and Exclusive Editions), as well as for those who have a higher budget (the Definitive Edition)
• Example: Classic Crash Bandicoot Resin — Many collectors complained that Crash didn’t come with resin boxes, but with acrylic standees instead. Having an optional Definitive Edition would have allowed F4F to create resin crates without having to worry about the price-point. The Definitive Editions are “not essential, but nice to have”–extras, like when buying a car.
• F4F welcomes collectors of all different budgets–wants to keep the MSRP as low as possible while providing the most value and as much as possible; lower price-point in order to generate more sales
• The problem comes when statues have a low price and low orders, as those niche lines come at a high opportunity cost and can become nonviable; however, selling 300 items at $600 is the equivalent of selling 600 items at $300–Definitive Editions could really make the more niche characters and line more interesting to F4F; DEs could be the savior of some lines
• First4Figures doesn’t have an 18-month payment plan because that means F4F would possibly be having to sit on and store stock for an extra 6 months after the statues hit the warehouses–an 18-month plan would lead to practical real-world problems
• Shipping costs can’t be split up into Flexipay payments right now–the system doesn’t work that way; Alex will raise this point with the IT team, however
• Would go back in time and make a Definitive Edition Crash if they could; another example would be One Punch Man Saitama vs. something/someone; tons of different things could be done with the financial freedom of not being constrained by a certain MSRP; looking forward to being able to flex creative styles more
• Future DEs are planned, but nothing for the niche lines just yet
• No change on Samurai Champloo Jin status, but would never be made in a million years as just a regular statue like Mugen–would have to have a Definitive Edition
• Lights in True Forma Midna DE display case should be replaceable; bulbs will have to be standard so they can be replaced; case and Midna should be shipped out at the same time
• Definitive Edition of Kiryu will have to happen in order to warrant making it
• F4F is absolutely planning more Definitive Editions beyond True Form Midna, although there isn’t one for Banjo-Kazooie
• Looking at future statues: “Does this statue warrant a Definitive Edition and if so, what would it be?”

On Temptation Thursdays (TT Polls):

• TT #101 Shulk from Xenoblade Chronicles: 377 ‘Yes’, 205 ‘No’ Votes — Can this get more votes before Alex’s meeting with Nintendo in Las Vegas this coming week?
• TT #102 Villagers from Animal Crossing: 188 ‘Yes’, 145 ‘No’ Votes — Neck-and-neck vote; ‘Yes’ votes are overtaking ‘No’
• TT #103 Earthbound Next Week!
• TT #104 Vagrant Story in 2 Weeks!
• This week’s hashtag to win reward points during the next Q&A on June 1st: #F4FKOTR (King of the Ring–not Knights Of The old Republic)

The Q&A!:

• Could have a blog post with sculptor Q&A on the blog
• A sneak from the Vault could be possible as the 50K reveal instead of a license announcement
• Replacements for Fighter Kirby are being made right now, and a new bracket system is being tested to try to combat the Death Lean
• No progress on Modern Metal Sonic
• Got some feedback on Sonic & Tail diorama
• F4F needed approval from Nintendo for the True Form Midna Display Case
• Will have to look into how prices will be converted for selling items at GamesCom
• Milestone announcements may go away, as it’s hard to predict when the F4FOCC will reach specific numbers of members
• No plans for a Bloodborne license–market too crowded right now
• Alex was impressed with the votes for Mipha, but 1000 votes on its own doesn’t mean anything for Zelda–but to see Mipha ranking higher than every other BOTW character in Alex’s poll definitely makes her more interesting
• Chocks doesn’t want any confusion for new members: the render included with Kei’s poll is just an unofficial render and not an official in-development statue
• Alex will be accompanied by his partner John at Las Vegas Licensing Expo meetings this coming week
• Shout-out to Jake Meyer on his amazing Alex Davis on All Might’s Body video
• Solaire SD Pre-order should be soon, there may be a Praise the Sun variant–“we’ll see”
• Rider Link Pre-Order is more likely to be early next year than late this year
• Customers on payment plans can pay in full for a statue by contacting CS
• Second batch of Majora’s Mask statues should still hit the US in late June 2018
• Alex has thought about doing busts of characters
• We’ll see if there will be more than two Zelda POs in 2018 (True Form Midna was #1)
• F4F decides what ideas to throw at the big N with their polls in the F4F OCC
• Batteries can’t be shipped to Australia with F4F statues
• Alphonse updates–changes still being made
• No Yakuza update
• Wolf’s Rain anime TT? Will go on Chock’s list for future TTs. (Alex isn’t familiar with the anime, so he doesn’t realize the characters aren’t just regular wolves.)
• Nothing to report on Yu-Gi-Oh
• Alex can’t say if the Twilight Princess line is complete now or not–will know more after Vegas
• If F4F was to redo Imp Midna, Alex has no doubt in his mind she would be 1:1 (life-size)
• Meta-Ridley is going to be huge and very expensive–start saving up now; Meta-Ridley came out of the Vault
• Not all men from the future are loud-mouthed braggarts
• Okami Amaterasu Life-Size Bust isn’t encountering any production difficulties just yet
• Varia Suit Samus statue is getting into production now
• Nothing to report on Jin and Fuu
• No news on Dracula PO date–face needs to be worked on and finalized
• Katamari Damacy series will not be continued–no King of the Cosmos
• Meeting for the Yu-Gi-Oh license went “interestingly”
• Sneaks of an upcoming statue at 50K? Something that could be looked into.
• UV lights in TF Midna display case will not fade statue paint–not as strong as the sun
• Wolf Link & Midna PVC could possibly be considered–Alex doesn’t know how he feels about that
• Zant PVC? Alex isn’t sure how he feels about that just yet.
• No consideration for longer payment plans right now such as 18-months, as there’s an issue of having to pay for storage of stock for extended periods
• The Sonic Boom8 series is doing well and more figures are coming from that line; F4F saw the new resin piece in physical form in their office and really liked it; Keep an eye out, Sonic fans!
• More information on Spyro PVC feasibility after Vegas
• Chocks tried to open his third and final snack early, but Alex cuts him off for jumping ahead of the queue 10 minutes early. Chocks has to settle for smelling his snacks for 10 minutes.
• It’s looking more likely than not that F4F will create a whole range of display cases in the distant future
• Alex has plans for the numbering system–not ready to discuss it right now
• Alex doesn’t recall speculating about Castlevania SD
• F4F Plush won’t debut for a while–still working things out
• Warp Star Kirby is almost ready to be painted
• Midna display case was worked on by First 4 Figures themselves, not a partnership
• Future display case range will probably include small, medium and large display cases to fit a variety of statues
• Warp Star Kirby will absolutely be in scale with Meta Knight and previous Kirbys
• If there is support, F4F will make everything in the Modern Sonic line
• Varia Suit Samus will hopefully be shipped in August/September
• Alex could possibly be convinced to open up pre-orders on a 3-D render of a statue in both 1/4 and 1/6 scales–more thought is needed to go into this
• Tons of anime statues to go up for order this year still: Cowboy Bebop, Alphose, etc.
• Next PO will possibly be on 6/1
• Alex expects Conker to be up for order by the end of the game–statue is pretty much done already
• Nothing to report on the next Soul Calibur statue pre-order
• No updates on Aika–maybe a new poll after Las Vegas Licensing Expo
• 1/4 Twilight Princess Link statue: Alex agrees this is very important.
• Alex doesn’t have any resin statues on display in his own. His living space is very small in Hong Kong and he has 3.5 kids and a doggy.
• Chocks has stuff out of the box and in the box all over the place. Every single room has a focus. He has some display shelves, but it’s never enough! [I understand!!]
• Alex believes Spike will be up for order before Jet; nothing is being considered as one big base to hold all the characters together
• Alex and Chocks have been talking about 1/6 statues a lot this week
• F4F has talked about doing action figures sometime in the future, but nothing that wasn’t cursory
• Starfox TT sometime in the future for characters
• The new anime pre-order system won’t be used for video game statues–only 20 additional orders for Guts in the last two weeks; leaving the POs open for longer doesn’t really move the needle–the extra pre-order time isn’t making a huge amount of difference
• Alex still feels Aika is touch-and-go and needs more spotlight and another poll to prove her viability
• F4F tried to get the Neon Genesis Evangelion license years ago but didn’t get anywhere

…And that’s it for this week’s Q&A! For those who haven’t ordered their Shiranui yet, don’t forget that pre-orders will close before the next Q&A! Tune in in two weeks for the next edition of the Q&A: Same F4F Time, Same F4F Channel!