The above pics you've probably seen before of Max Factory's Dancouga Nova, which rumors are that it's still going to happen. The current update on CM's Dancouga Nova on the other hand is that production has been suspended indefinitely due to lack of interest. For me personally, I would rather have Max Factory's hand in the production than almost any other company, but most especially over CM.
Frankly, the interest has always been there for a Dancouga Nova figure, but who had $600 (not including shipping) to shell out for CM's version. It was scheduled to be a limited edition of 1500 figures, but reports estimate that there were only roughly 250 takers. On the robot forums it seemed that everyone agreed it looked nice, but haveing no takers was no big surprise with such a high price tag, online orders only from within Japan, and CM's less than stellar reputation of quality.
The last three figures CM has released have been severely criticized as being under sized, over priced, and having bad engineering, not to mention low die cast content. It's a recipe for failure in the robot figure market. Many collectors had high hopes that CM was really going to step up to bat after the quality seen in their Ingram figures, but I've mentioned this before and I'll say it again here; a company should stick to what they can do well, and for CM that means staying far away from complex engineering. Their standard action figures have been fine, even exceptional in the case of the die cast infused Ingrams, but these figures had little to any engineering. Their DX line on the other hand has been a rocky road, and in the case of the DX Genesic Gaogaigar being a complete and utter failure. Even their Brave line of die cast figures have often been marginal in content and value for price. I bought the DX Baangaan, which wasn't too bad, but it's also far from ideal. The one thing they did right on Baangaan was keeping it a parts swapper instead of trying to be a full fledged transformer. Why you ask? Because at least it worked with plausible execution, or in other words, it was something they could do without screwing it up. But again Sure I would rather have a transformer than a swapper, but I'll take an unbroken parts swapper over a defective transformer any day.
Speculating about the future of CM would seem to spell out doom for the company, or least a fade into obscurity. With CM's recent failures combined with a history of poor execution, I'm not sure CM will ever fully be able to recover back into an acclaimed robot figure company. My guess is that CM will stay around making the cheap plastic female figures that currently glut the Japanese figure market, but whether CM will ever be able to sell the public on their ideas for high end robot figure packages again seems unlikely at this point.
Frankly, the interest has always been there for a Dancouga Nova figure, but who had $600 (not including shipping) to shell out for CM's version. It was scheduled to be a limited edition of 1500 figures, but reports estimate that there were only roughly 250 takers. On the robot forums it seemed that everyone agreed it looked nice, but haveing no takers was no big surprise with such a high price tag, online orders only from within Japan, and CM's less than stellar reputation of quality.
The last three figures CM has released have been severely criticized as being under sized, over priced, and having bad engineering, not to mention low die cast content. It's a recipe for failure in the robot figure market. Many collectors had high hopes that CM was really going to step up to bat after the quality seen in their Ingram figures, but I've mentioned this before and I'll say it again here; a company should stick to what they can do well, and for CM that means staying far away from complex engineering. Their standard action figures have been fine, even exceptional in the case of the die cast infused Ingrams, but these figures had little to any engineering. Their DX line on the other hand has been a rocky road, and in the case of the DX Genesic Gaogaigar being a complete and utter failure. Even their Brave line of die cast figures have often been marginal in content and value for price. I bought the DX Baangaan, which wasn't too bad, but it's also far from ideal. The one thing they did right on Baangaan was keeping it a parts swapper instead of trying to be a full fledged transformer. Why you ask? Because at least it worked with plausible execution, or in other words, it was something they could do without screwing it up. But again Sure I would rather have a transformer than a swapper, but I'll take an unbroken parts swapper over a defective transformer any day.
Speculating about the future of CM would seem to spell out doom for the company, or least a fade into obscurity. With CM's recent failures combined with a history of poor execution, I'm not sure CM will ever fully be able to recover back into an acclaimed robot figure company. My guess is that CM will stay around making the cheap plastic female figures that currently glut the Japanese figure market, but whether CM will ever be able to sell the public on their ideas for high end robot figure packages again seems unlikely at this point.
Now we'll have to wait and see if Max Factory will jump back into the game and release their version of Dancouga Nova. The big criticism of Max Factory robots has always been that they don't transform, but comparing Max Factory and CM figures in retrospect, it's obvious that Max Factory knows what they are doing and they do it with exceptional quality of materials, sculpt and paint. It seems that Max Factory has bowed out for awhile, but the rumor is that they have things in the works. Let's all hope and maybe we'll see those Dancouga Nova prototypes come to fruition.
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