Wednesday, October 22, 2008

The Mystery of the Lost Command Mission Gashapon Figures

Way back in 2004, Capcom showed off a wide variety of Rockman merchandise at the "Summer World Hobby Fair." As usual, the .EXE merchandise was the center of attention, however, a particular display deserved just as much: the Rockman X Command Mission gashapon figures.

Presumably developed by Takara (now Takara-Tomy), these collectible gashapon figures were planned to release shortly after Command Mission's domestic debut, but ultimately, the figures never saw the light of day and went off the radar.

So, what happened to them? No one knows for sure, though I have a few good educated guesses:

-Command Mission failed to meet CoJ's expectations(150,000 lifetime sales), thus they didn't see any reason financially to release the figures. Interestingly, Capcom did invest in XCM soundtracks, pencil boards and guide books.

-Capcom was more prone to the idea of investing in EXE merchandise production.

-Production costs might have been through the roof.

Still, these would have been a great asset to anyone's Rockman collection. If I'm not mistaken, these figures were molded to resemble the poses of the in-game collectible action figures. Now that's just awesome.

And yet a sole Command Mission figure exists, though not as precise as the ones displayed above. JazWares Inc. briefly produced an articulated Stealth Armor MegaMan X figure. Thankfully, the figure is quite common in online stores, so those interested can easily pick it up.

3 comments:

  1. Hmm. Neat. While I can't say that the EXE figures were the greatest thing in the world, I still like the EXE series better.

    Don't kill me! I know that's just my opinion. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. What a shame, it would've been an awesome addition to everyone's Rockman collection indeed. Those X and Cinnamon figures look so sweet.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Meh, I'm not a huge collector of gashapon.....no big loss to me.

    ReplyDelete

Keep it friendly. Disparaging, belittling and derogatory comments are not permitted.