Quote:
Originally Posted by Lonestar
Frogger
Commercially, if small scale is here to stay, well, I haven't seen it appear as such yet. If the level of "news" in one category is an indication of this category's health, take xray - Juraj's recent column clearly specified "we don't see any opportunity in evolving any of our 18th scale cars as they fit the market needs right now". If you know how greedy the Hudy family is (if only to pay their plants' bills) and you look into how they've expanded their lineup these past 10yrs and how often they release "updates" for their core lines, this is a STRONG signal that they're disinterested from this segment - which is a shame as their stuff is simply BiC.
Likewise, HPI has thrown ridiculous amounts of money at supporting the micro-rs4. There's been a cult following for a couple of years, it's all gone now. If these guys haven't cracked it with their ludicrous marketing firepower, no-one will.
Paul
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Paul:
Just looking at it from a sales point of view over here in the States, XRay's mini's have never sold in part because they were always at the high-end of the price spectrum and never hooked up with a major distributor so there never any replacement parts in any hobby shops Just like their 8th scale rigs, a factory driver here or there, but nobody (the masses) using them at the tracks.
The Micro RS4 was rather short-lived, like seemingly EVERY other HPI release. And it might have also had something to do with it being an on-road car, the smallest segment of the hobby, and the fact that it was superceeded on the track by the M18 so racers stopped buying them.