[Freekazoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by webz

I only shop at smaller mom & pop type places, so I don’t know anywhere with “loads” of brown suits.

BBTS has it for sale, still and Amazon has 15+ seller for the X-Force and Brown Suit Wolverine going for retail, plus or minus 10% (about what it would be directly from Mezco). While "loads" may be a slight hyperbole, this indicative there are a lot available from distributors.

Quote:

Originally Posted by webz

lukewarm? Overall I’ve seen nothing but positivity towards the suit in the game. Toys is another matter. I’ve never known a single wave of toybiz or Hasbro where wolverine was a shelf warmer. Brown suit, yellow suit, blue suit/yellow x, grey suit, weapon x,.. always sell out.

I admitted that you are likely the the expert on the Marvel Legends collecting, and it seems you do have a lot of experience. I appreciate you providing some background on your collecting experience with the line.
I'll let you do the digging on the PS4 suit reception, obviously some people loved it and some hated it with some articles even highlighting the lack of universal appeal(hence my choice of the word "lukewarm"), and the kind of mixed reception does translate to the desirability of merchandise. Is it possible that the GameStop 2-pack it came with sold better than expect and saturated the need for the single figure? Did they produce too many outright? We not enough people interested in a non-classic Spider-Man look and didn't want to buy it from GameStop? There are definitely a few things from your example that can be speculated, but ultimately it's a case of supply well exceeding demand, at least at the GameStop you mentioned.

Quote:

Originally Posted by webz

if you grew up in the 80’s, the brown suit is his main suit. Yellow with Stripes was brought back for the fox cartoon in the 1990’s. It’s like James Bond actors. The stripes is most used in marketing, but the cartoons have been very flexible with his costumes as well.

I personally love the brown suit, as well, but globally and for the majority of collectors, their exposure is just to what is in the marketing: Tiger Stripe. There is an understanding from Disney/Marvel and the manufacturer that THIS look will sell and appeal to the majority of people. Brown is still popular and companies that want a license for a Wolverine figure knows what sells the best by a wide margin (See Kaiyodo and Medicom). Mezco should have swapped the Tiger Stripe as a standard release and had the Brown as the exclusive (I suspect this was done intentionally). A bit more prohibitive in your being the figure you would prefer, but that aligns better to the market demand.

Luckily, there are some groups willing to go the opposite direction and do the Brown without the Tiger Stripe like Sideshow in 1/6th scale, though I do not know how well that figure sold or if there are plans to release a different version as they have done with other figures like Ghost Rider and Batman.

Quote:

Originally Posted by webz

It’s a well documented fact that hero toys and collectibles outsell villain toys 10+ to one as a rule. Just look at SH Figuarts, for example. The toys are easily 80% hero characters. Very few villains. It’s that way with the mass-released toys too. I’ve had many conversations with fellow collectors who have lived overseas.

Never argued this point and I'm well aware of the merchandise disparity between heroes and villains in Japan, especially. With the Figuarts example, villains will be low-volume exclusives more often than not. I was just diving into why that is and some exceptions to the rule.

Thinking of it now, Char from Mobile Suit Gundam (multiple series, cross promotion with Toyota, "massagers") may be the biggest exception to this rule and it is a result of how the narratives of each series he has been in treat the character and his interactions with the protagonists. Mobile suits, especially model kits, fly in the face on the popularity paradigm in the modern era, but that's a completely different market regionally and globally with significantly different motivations and product expectations.