I am not saying it will fail, but there is a lot more to it than saying it's Star Wars. It's very expensive for a "toy" and it's very expensive for a "model." In fact, it's very expensive for what it is--and I mean something that has a bunch of cool gizmos and something that is as big as it is. Did you ever once look at a monthly shipment for the MF (4 issues) and think if you spending $60 on a model, that's what you would expect? Whip open anything in your stash that cost $60, or a couple $30 kits if you need to , then compare it to a month of the MF. I got this (two of them) simply because it was the only game in town for getting decently sized MF that was reasonable in accuracy. And if the FM MF were more accurate, or if Bandai had come out with what I imagine they could do with a 72nd or 48th scale MF, I would never have thought about the DeAgo kit at that price (and the SS nature of it was just a bonus for me). The gizmos and features are neat, but they are still parts, and when you compare those gizmos--as parts--to the parts of other kits, it's simply overpriced. There are gizmos in the Bandai 48th scale X-wing, by the way, and even though it's more than $60, you could some kind of math comparison where you say this much model and this many gizmos for $60 of Bandai (majority of the kit) compared to $60 worth of parts and gizmos from DeAgo.
All of this is why I think the size is where DeAgo might be shooting itself in the foot. It makes me sympathize with what I have heard about people in Japan: that homes are soe small there and that's why Bandai has a such a focus on small SW kits. I don't know if it's exactly true (about Bandai) but at least i can sympathize with people in Japan. (Is the MF for sale in Japan? If so, what do the sales numbers look like?) Where would I put a 1/18 scale X-wing? This is why I have said DeAgo started with a price point and then started developing a kit that would (kinda, sorta, and not really except they did sell all those MFs) fit that price. Now they have a product that too many people didn't want even without considering the price. The 1/2 scale R2 might be similar but at least it seems to have some cool features, like it's more of a RC robot that takes pictures or video and maybe could be part of a home security system. I think of that robot in one of the Rocky movies--panache. (Not that I'll get one.)
And now I wonder how they decide. Do they sell the first few issues for a few bucks/pounds/Euros and see how many people want it based on that? As much as rail against this whole idea of this kit, I would buy the first issue that I've seen for a few bucks as a curiosity. Do a lot of people do that? I guess they might have a formula for that, the way when a person on a forum like this says he might create a kit or AM set and 60 people say "yay" and 11 people eventually buy it.
Mike Todd