Quoted Text
Quoted TextQuoted TextHas anyone told the resin manufacturers that? TMD make some nice and low cost parts. The PzIII engine decks are excellent.Quoted TextBegs the question 'who is to be first to market with a low cost resin upgrade to Mk2, and stick it to Dragon'?
Probably no one. "Low cost" is the first hurdle they'd have to jump but there are more significant ones:
1. The pace of new releases is so fast that a resin company would be a high risk of being "stuck" by a new Amusing kit.
2. Correcting errors doesn't make the weathering look better after painting so most modelers are happy to do without.
KL
I think that the resin manufacturers know this, at least those that manage to do good business
Item 2 above: Many modellers build the kit out of the box, or if the faults are too big they pick another kit instead. Some modellers choose to buy various aftermarket sets to correct and update the original kit. This group of modellers keep the aftermarket firms in operation but update sets will never sell in the same quantities as ordinary kits (if they did then we might see the big producers actually spend some money/resources on getting the kits correctfrom the beginning, sort of include the update set in the original product ...)
Item 1 above: Miniarts SU-85 could be used as an example. First they release an SU-85 and now they are advertising the SU-85 model 1943 early. If an aftermarket company had decided to do a backdate set to convert the first kit into the 1943 early then they would now be stuck with masters, maybe moulds and even unsellable resin castings.
Tamiya and to some extent Italeri didn't exploit their toolings and make variants of vehicles and that provided a market for conversion sets. The newer manufacturers have realised that variants is a clever way of getting more return on the original investment. Some reviews of new kits mention that sprue X has gates included so that it is possible to make variant Y by switching out part Z.
Aftermarket companies need to consider this when doing their investment calculus.
/ Robin
All very true BUT the modeller has choice. Mini Art has not corrected their Pz III's AND TMD are still producing their correction parts, though I do not know in what quantities. I will continue to buy such items.
