A British WWII tank or more Soviet WWII armor would sell, but no one is listening to the market place. Instead they blindly plow along giving us things no one needs or wants, and claim dwidling sales and lack of interst as the reason. A T-34, IS2, Comet, Cromwell, Valentine, Hellcat, Hetzer etc would outsell another KT release. Nope, no one listens and they just plow along until the sales number justify them abandoning the line.
The market wouldn't support a huge dearth of tanks. Smaller tanks are also avoided because they require a complete overhaul of all electronics which adds to the cost which is the problem we are having with designs for the Hetzer.The Tiger is the best seller, whatever way you look at it the market wants Tigers. So Tigers they make. There is already a very good T-34 on the market.
I wonder how many Hobben T-55 are kicking aorund unsold??? Not many would be my guess...
Well I've had 50% of my T55 stock sitting static (no pun intended) for over a year now I believe. Shops in Europe gutted the kits and sold off the tank itself at cut price. Other retailers grew desperate and broke the kits for parts. The only reason I've haven't cut the price by 50% to get rid of shelf grippers is because I am stubborn.
I am not denying it is a pile of money to produce one of these things. All the more reason to listen to the market and produce something they want.
Except the market doesn't want it, nor could it support it. If you want these tanks make them. Most would only complain that they were not 100% up to standard anyway.
Tamiya is still king with ships, but that's where they started so it's important.
Not really, Trumpeter have been steadily throwing out new ships that are very good for years now, surpassing the limited number of large scale ships Tamiya has with no problems. Every large scale ship they have released was also released at a smaller scale 1:700. They also released a number of ships Tamiya never thought to do such as American WW2 carriers. They should have a 1:200 Bismarck soon.
Dragon have also released a number of very good ships generally better than Tamiya. Tamiya re-released their Yamato with a price tag that has tripled but also released a few other Japanese ships.
Most of Tamiya's ship line, like a lot of their model tanks including their "new" releases stems back to the days when a core of Japanese model makers shared moulds. Most of the companies have move on, Bandai for example or sold out to the Chinese Gunz Sangyo as an example with really only Tamiya and Hasegawa left.
In a nutshell the markets you speak of don't really exist. It would be like playing russian roulette in world of tanks picking some random tank in the hope it would sell. Only to realise after you invested everything that it doesn't sell because the people who keep companies like Heng Long afloat didn't really want or have heard of a fugly British tank.