WEEK IN REVIEW

• This Friday Q&A with Chocks and A #51 is the last Friday Q&A for 2017 and F4F's 2017 Christmas Special.
• Brenda has sent e-mails out with regards to Majora’s Mask just to confirm if everyone’s shipping address is correct.
• It was nice to see people from the F4F community giving and receiving F4F gifts for Christmas. Their PVC figures are doing what they’re intended to do – give people a taste of First 4 Figures before serving them their F4F main course.
• Alex is looking forward to this week’s week in review from Chockles because Alex doesn’t know what’s been going on as well. He’s been very busy this week trying to address some issues with Facebook with regards to their Google AdWords.
• Final payments have been taken this week for certain statues (depending on your location).
• Official Collectors Club admins received F4F hoodies for Christmas from First 4 Figures, and they look pretty cool.

• This week’s hashtag is #F4FXMAS.
• December 21-27, 2017 Weekly Stats Hall of Fame (#F4FFamous):

ON FIRST 4 FIGURES’ TEMPTATION THURSDAYS (TT) POLL

• Last week’s Tsukasa from the .hack//SIGN anime series TT Poll #81 Results: 118 YES votes / 320 NO votes. The franchise could always be revisited later on by picking a new series or character. (BLOG)
• This week’s Squad 7 from Valkyria Chronicles series TT Poll #82 Results: 86 YES votes / 159 NO votes. (BLOG)

• Three winners for #F4FVALK 500 points (IAN TAVIS CASIMIR, ELEANOR MERINO, and NICK SMITH)
• Next TT polls will be (in this order): PUYO PUYO ➔ DIGIMON

MORE ON SAMUS VARIA SUIT CHANGES & LAST CHANCE WEEKEND

• There is one more minor change that they forgot to include in their Varia Suit Comparison Video. It has something to do with the rifling on the inside of the Varia Suit’s arm cannon. They changed it from straight lines to corkscrew-like lines.

BEFORE

AFTER

• The arm cannon light only looks green in the comparison video because of the barrel’s reflection, but in reality, they are using a white LED bulb with an orange cover, so Alex is 100% confirming that it will, indeed, be orange. They are also considering changing the LED bulb itself to orange.
• The booster lights are green, and they will change it to orange for accuracy's sake since it really is orange in the game they based it off of (Metroid Prime 2).
• Varia Suit pre-orders could possibly have referral links.
• They’ve already begun working on the Varia Suit packaging but Alex doesn’t know its dimensions as of yet.
• They don’t know the exact waitlist numbers are for Varia Suit but ALL waitlisters PRIOR the Last Chance Weekend will be converted.
• Varia Suit was double in difficulty in terms of design and production when compared to Light Suit, and they’re still saying Q3 2018 for shipment, but they’ll have to see how things go down the road.
• Those under the old payment plans for Varia Suit will resume together with those in the new payment plans.

VARIOUS CHARACTER UPDATES

• SPYRO UPDATE: (more painting)
• A new batch of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Link PVC figures is currently in production. (LINK)
• PHOENIX WRIGHT UPDATE: Coming along nicely
• BERSERKER ARMOR UPDATE: They have decided on a pose, and it is tight.
• COWBOY BEBOP UPDATE: Jet and Spike will be revealed early this year in C3 Hong Kong if everything goes smoothly.
• CRASH BANDICOOT UPDATE: Classic Crash is looking super sweet, and the next ones on this line are also in development and are also looking very nice.
• BANJO PRE-ORDER UPDATE: Banjo will go up for pre-order first sometime Q2 of 2018, followed by Conker 2-3 months after.
• MAJORA’S MASK AND SPYRO SHIPMENT UPDATE: The shipment schedule for these is very tight if they want to try to get these out before Chinese New Year. They already have approval for the packaging of Majora’s Mask, while Spyro’s packaging still hasn’t been approved. They may just intentionally delay the shipment altogether just so everyone gets their statues at the same time because they could possibly do just one batch of shipments if they push for it before Chinese New Year.
• TRUE FORM MIDNA UPDATE: She is kicking Alex’s a** right now. “You think I’m easy? I ain’t easy. I ain’t like your other girls.” – TRUE FORM MIDNA. This could possibly go up for pre-orders Q1 2018.
• SHEIKAH SLATE UPDATE: Could possibly go up for pre-orders Q1 2018
• SONIC 25^TH UPDATE: This should come out before Chinese New Year.
• ALPHONSE UPDATE: Updates that the community may finally see will be available come 2018. The Full Metal Alchemist licensors want them to be secretive so no further news on the Full Metal Alchemist line in general just yet.

FIRST 4 FIGURES’ 2017 CHRISTMAS SNEAKS

• Sorry guys, no Legend of Zelda-related sneaks for this year.
• 53:48 – FIRST SNEAK: PYSCHO MANTIS FROM METAL GEAR SOLID IS COMING TO FIRST 4 FIGURES! This will most likely go up for pre-order 2-3 months after Solid Snake pre-order.

• 1:53:43 – SECOND SNEAK: AMATERASU PVC FROM OKAMI IS COMING TO FIRST 4 FIGURES! Because F4F won’t receive much support from the retailers for this one, they can now see how a PVC project performs based off of just direct marketing to the members of the Official Collectors Club.

• 2:20:38 – THIRD SNEAK: META RIDLEY FROM METROID PRIME IS COMING TO FIRST 4 FIGURES! This has already been revealed last year, but this is a significantly updated reveal compared to last year. This will be in scale to their OG Varia Suit back in the day.

• 2:31:15 – UNEXPECTED ANNOUNCEMENT: ORNSTEIN FROM DARK SOULS WILL BE THE FIRST PRE-ORDER FOR 2018!

• 2:36:26 – We all know what’s up once DMX’s Party Up (Up In Here) starts pumping during the live stream! SURPRISE SNEAK: GRAVELORD NITO FROM DARK SOULS IS COMING TO FIRST 4 FIGURES!

OTHER TOPICS

• There’s a secret licensor coming over to Hong Kong on the 5^th of January 2018. I wonder who it could be.
• Things move in F4F time. Old school people know what this means. (I’m unfortunately new to the team so I cannot expound any further on this.)
• Both the Modern Metal Sonic poll and the Modern Amy Rose poll are not receiving much traction for reasons that Alex and Chocks could only speculate. Hopefully, these results improve over time.
• Sonic 25^th edition size was about 825, and Alex is worried that their future Sonic pieces (especially the Modern ones) won’t do as well because he thinks that only about half of this edition size are hardcore Sonic fans, while the other half only wanted one signature piece for their collection from the Sonic line just to satisfy their nostalgia, and Sonic 25^th is supposedly that piece.
• How often do you visit the club? Alex and Chockles visit it every day.
• When dealing with Nintendo licenses, because they’ve been working with them for 10-12 years now, it isn’t about what is or isn’t included for each license contract; it’s about an overall line plan that depends on their discussion with Nintendo.
• They haven’t been looking into the My Hero Academia license but Alex has been keeping an eye on the TT poll results. There are certain licenses that they’ve been looking into that are still in the air, so they’ll first have to see what is up with those.
• Bowser’s outcome was Alex’s biggest surprise for 2017, and maybe Shovel Knight; Chockles is difficult to surprise.
• Alex’s biggest obstacle for 2017 was the efficiency with regards to production.
• Happy Mask Salesman is NOT in the Vault.
• Alex and Chockles enjoyed some turkey for their Christmas meal.
• Alex presented too many things all at once to Nintendo a very long time ago, which is why 1:1 scale Metroid is in the Vault. If Varia Suit and Meta Ridley do really well, they will absolutely consider taking this out of the Vault.
• Alex received a Christmas present from his wife, Kanako, which is something he’s always been wanting, something that’s full of “moe”.
• There is no need for a poll just yet for Samus Helmet Life-Sized Replicas. Alex has always been interested in making this, and he wants to talk to Nintendo first about this idea.
• Alex is not 100% convinced that the market can afford a more expensive Okami line like the other brush gods that aren’t dogs. They’ll have to wait and see how Shiranui does.
• If they do make F4F gift cards, it will not come in the form of reward points because that will also gear towards people’s loyalty levels.
• Anything from the Metroid line is insanely difficult engineering-wise.
• Through the Warpstar Kirby release, they now will be able to compare its TT poll results to its actual sales and see if TT results should be taken with a grain of salt, a whole bag of salt, or no salt at all.
• Combo packs for saving niche lines should only be within the realm of the same character involved, not the combination of two niche lines into one pack. The latter method will not demonstrate the maximum potential of each license.
• For their meeting with Sega this January 2018, Alex already has an idea as to which Persona 5 characters he wants to go for and how to execute each.
• Alex’s personal New Year’s resolution is to go on a diet, same as always for every year, which basically means he hasn’t been successful in the past if he keeps on having to renew the resolution.
• If Zero does well, you can maybe expect one more Mega Man release for 2018.
• If Alucard does well, you can easily expect two more Castlevania releases for 2018.
• If they’re lucky, it could just take about six months from initial design to pre-order.
• Donkey Kong statues will fall under the Mario line (if they made one).
• Expect a minimum of 15 pre-orders for 2018.
• Initially, Player 2 Green Shovel Knight was only on select platforms while the Ornate Plate Armor was available on all platforms, which is why Player 2 got Vaulted. Though, if Yacht Club Games does approve, they could possibly open pre-orders for this version during Shovel Knight's Last Chance Weekend.
• Alex and Chockles got each other “bromance” for Christmas.
• With the recent announcement of Soulcalibur VI, Alex is unsure if they’ll continue with Soulcalibur II designs or the latter Soulcalibur VI designs.
• One improvement for their website come 2018 will be the addition of information to help members monitor their loyalty levels.
• WHO DAT WHO DAT: Because Christmas is the season of giving, Alex selected 3 players for tonight’s WHO DAT WHO DAT, and Chockles is okay with it for as long as they don’t win any points. The answer was SNOOPY! The winners are VINCENT WINDISCH (0 F4F reward points), JAKE MEYER (1,000 F4F reward points), and JOHNNY DEJESUS (0 F4F reward points).

REMINDERS

• Shovel Knight pre-orders will end right after this stream and will re-open for Last Chance Weekend in two weeks time, 12^th of January 2018.
• Following the closing of Shovel Knight pre-orders will be the Last Chance Weekend for Samus Varia Suit!
• With the re-opening of Samus Varia Suit pre-orders for Last Chance Weekend, First 4 Figures will also be giving away one (1) Samus Varia Suit (Exclusive). (LINK)
• The Shovel Knight (Exclusive) giveaway contest is still ongoing. (LINK)
• The Aku Aku Mask (Exclusive) giveaway contest is still ongoing. (LINK)

To view everyone's questions from the Q&A portion of this episode, please click HERE.

If you want to have your questions answered by our very own Chocks and Alex, simply search "Chocks and A" in the F4F Official Collectors Club Facebook group and leave your questions in the comments section of the most recent thread prior the upcoming live stream. This thread is posted every Thursday of the week.

If you wish to watch the entire video: