1/4 DC Comics line - Prime 1 Studios

[HeubertMichael]

The fan in me wishes that Miller Batman would be comic-based 1/4 and not game-based 1/3, but my wallet wishes otherwise.

 

[Asdf]

No more PO on SS DC for sure now until I see what P1 is offering.

 

[SuperJ300]

I guess the will be action pose in the dc line and that will be kool

???

The screen shot is on the first page from their Facebook collectors group.

 

[El Mule]

Someone is going to get pushed out of the market and it won't be Sideshow

Nobody is getting pushed out. Let's look at the situation:

-XM, one company with Marvel license and a limited DC license, plus licensing restrictions on distribution. They pretty much only sell their stuff in their areas now, where their statues cost as much as a Sideshow PF (so, no brainer). They're focusing on secondary Marvel characters that nobody ain't doing so they have their good amount of buyers. Very limited ES, just a few people, they don't really affect US market and already have a small but loyal following.

-Prime1, a company that came out of nowhere and started pumping out expensive stuff like crazy. Most of their stuff doesn't even sell out (exclusives does, regulars not) and yet they've been buying licenses on licenses all this time, apparently they have unlimited resources. They're already in the 1:3 DC market (with awesome pricing) and now just got their hands on a worldwide distribution for DC and Marvel in 1:4 scale. And they have pretty much never failed a statue in terms of QC, along with quick turnaround times. They have piled some of the best licenses, other than DC and Marvel, they're in the market for Transformers (new and old gen), videogames (Witcher, Bloodborne and others), Terminator (a license that Chronicle couldn't grab because it was too expensive AND another license that was suppose to be exclusive to Sideshow).

So, who's competing with who, for real? Let's pick the average collector, someone in the US, since that's the core of the market. Someone that really likes the 1:4 Prime1 pieces, say. He will have to make choices now, and what will he drop? An XM piece that he doesn't even have on order? Or a Sideshow piece that he might have on order? I'd say the latter is a more likely scenario.

 

[Asdf]

Well there are collectors here already canceling SS Po to make fund for 1:3 Prime1 stuff.

 

[ACalica917]

More Competition just might decrease prices of SS pieces, if ever so slightly.

 

[GeneralZodLives]

I'd love to see that, but I doubt SS will lower their prices. They may lower the ES though so they don't get stuck with stock since there will be more options for collectors.

 

[Josh-A-Tron]

Nobody is getting pushed out. Let's look at the situation:

-XM, one company with Marvel license and a limited DC license, plus licensing restrictions on distribution. They pretty much only sell their stuff in their areas now, where their statues cost as much as a Sideshow PF (so, no brainer). They're focusing on secondary Marvel characters that nobody ain't doing so they have their good amount of buyers. Very limited ES, just a few people, they don't really affect US market and already have a small but loyal following.

-Prime1, a company that came out of nowhere and started pumping out expensive stuff like crazy. Most of their stuff doesn't even sell out (exclusives does, regulars not) and yet they've been buying licenses on licenses all this time, apparently they have unlimited resources. They're already in the 1:3 DC market (with awesome pricing) and now just got their hands on a worldwide distribution for DC and Marvel in 1:4 scale. And they have pretty much never failed a statue in terms of QC, along with quick turnaround times. They have piled some of the best licenses, other than DC and Marvel, they're in the market for Transformers (new and old gen), videogames (Witcher, Bloodborne and others), Terminator (a license that Chronicle couldn't grab because it was too expensive AND another license that was suppose to be exclusive to Sideshow).

So, who's competing with who, for real? Let's pick the average collector, someone in the US, since that's the core of the market. Someone that really likes the 1:4 Prime1 pieces, say. He will have to make choices now, and what will he drop? An XM piece that he doesn't even have on order? Or a Sideshow piece that he might have on order? I'd say the latter is a more likely scenario.

Okay let's make some corrections.

XM has a limited Batman license, with no access to the rest of the DC Characters, and Has a regional Marvel license.
Prime1 didn't come out of no where, they've been around for quite a few years but only had a small number of licensed products mainly, move based. Of which, there is still some question to how they will handle a non-movie based license since they use scans from the films/games for their sculpts, which is why they are so accurate. We're now dealing with a comic license with no scans and artistic styling will come into play. So we will actually see how good they really are.

As for the 1/3 DC market the 1/3 license was only for the Arkham Games, and only for Origins and Knight. So they really don't have a complete license and only have a small share of what a total 1/3rd market could be if they had a complete DC license at 1/3rd for the entire catalogue of characters.

Now they have a World Wide license for 1/4 DC and 1/4 Marvel, which includes their own region of South East Asia, where another company, that starts with x and ends in m is trying to carve out a market for themselves. The also now have a share of the North American market, however all of their past distribution in N.A. has been through Sideshow Collectibles.

Now, since N.A. is such a large market and shipping from S.E.A. to the US consumers would cost the consumer a huge amount, on top of Prime1's already higher price for 1/4 scale statues, their 1/4 scale Ninja Turtles were quite pricey if I remember correctly, who's to say they won't Distribute through Sideshow again. Which gives Sideshow not only their own Statues to sell, but a cut of a new company with a lot of hype behind it.

Mean while in S.E.A. and Europe, Prime1 can distribute for themselves, and keep more of the profits. And cut right into smaller, just now getting popular companies profits with similar pricing.

So let's take the average U.S. collector, and basically say they now have three options for Marvel. 1. Sideshow, who is still priced lower than both the other companies by about $100 before shipping and after shipping from XM, by about $300. But still has QC issues but has gotten much better. 2. Prime1, who if distributed by SSC still gives money to them and the customer gets a choice of characters and styles, Amazing Sculpts we think, and has Switch outs and nice presentation or 3. XM, which gives you a small ES, switch outs, but is probably going to cost you a lot more and has issues with head sculpts.

I'd say the Average N.A. Collector will probably welcome Prime1, still buy Sideshow and maybe, maybe think about XM if it's something stellar.

 

[Josh-A-Tron]

More Competition just might decrease prices of SS pieces, if ever so slightly.

Doubtful since neither of the "Competition" is priced lower.

 

[BurningRage]

 

[El Mule]

Okay let's make some corrections.

XM has a limited Batman license, with no access to the rest of the DC Characters, and Has a regional Marvel license.
Prime1 didn't come out of no where, they've been around for quite a few years but only had a small number of licensed products mainly, move based. Of which, there is still some question to how they will handle a non-movie based license since they use scans from the films/games for their sculpts, which is why they are so accurate. We're now dealing with a comic license with no scans and artistic styling will come into play. So we will actually see how good they really are.

As for the 1/3 DC market the 1/3 license was only for the Arkham Games, and only for Origins and Knight. So they really don't have a complete license and only have a small share of what a total 1/3rd market could be if they had a complete DC license at 1/3rd for the entire catalogue of characters.

Now they have a World Wide license for 1/4 DC and 1/4 Marvel, which includes their own region of South East Asia, where another company, that starts with x and ends in m is trying to carve out a market for themselves. The also now have a share of the North American market, however all of their past distribution in N.A. has been through Sideshow Collectibles.

Now, since N.A. is such a large market and shipping from S.E.A. to the US consumers would cost the consumer a huge amount, on top of Prime1's already higher price for 1/4 scale statues, their 1/4 scale Ninja Turtles were quite pricey if I remember correctly, who's to say they won't Distribute through Sideshow again. Which gives Sideshow not only their own Statues to sell, but a cut of a new company with a lot of hype behind it.

Mean while in S.E.A. and Europe, Prime1 can distribute for themselves, and keep more of the profits. And cut right into smaller, just now getting popular companies profits with similar pricing.

So let's take the average U.S. collector, and basically say they now have three options for Marvel. 1. Sideshow, who is still priced lower than both the other companies by about $100 before shipping and after shipping from XM, by about $300. But still has QC issues but has gotten much better. 2. Prime1, who if distributed by SSC still gives money to them and the customer gets a choice of characters and styles, Amazing Sculpts we think, and has Switch outs and nice presentation or 3. XM, which gives you a small ES, switch outs, but is probably going to cost you a lot more and has issues with head sculpts.

I'd say the Average N.A. Collector will probably welcome Prime1, still buy Sideshow and maybe, maybe think about XM if it's something stellar.

I agree with most of your points but allow me to make some corrections to the corrections:

-I used an hyperbole for "came out of nowhere", I know Prime1 since they started. What I meant is that they have piled a ton of relevant licenses in a very short span of time, and most of their statues don't even sell out so far. The exclusives do, the regulars don't. Which is to say, they have some serious resources.

-Prime1 is located in Japan, they sell their exclusives only in Japan so far and through Sideshow. Other asians customers either buy the regulars or have to buy the exclusives through Sideshow or selected retailers, like SimplyToys. Both cases, they have to pay a very high markup for the exclusives. Check this out, a breakdown of pricings on SimplyToys, to compare the companies:
XM Mysterio: 890SGD/623$
Captain Marvel PF Regular: 738SGD/516$ for Elite Members, 753SGD/527$ for Members
Prime1 AK Batman Regular: 1460SGD/1022$
Prime1 AK Batman Exclusive: 1700SGD/1200$

As you can see, the difference between an XM piece and a Sideshow piece is less of 100$. Prime1 pieces are imported with a certain markup (100$ on the Regular, nearly 300 for the Ex). Now, this ties to the next point, which is the most flawed imho, you said:

Now, since N.A. is such a large market and shipping from S.E.A. to the US consumers would cost the consumer a huge amount, on top of Prime1's already higher price for 1/4 scale statues, their 1/4 scale Ninja Turtles were quite pricey if I remember correctly, who's to say they won't Distribute through Sideshow again. Which gives Sideshow not only their own Statues to sell, but a cut of a new company with a lot of hype behind it.

-I guess you're located in the US, here in Europe we always had to purchase imported stuff and I can grant you that shipping by boat is dirt cheap. There's plenty of importers/distributors in the US, Prime1 only needs a good hook with big chains like BBTS and have everything shipped in bulk. We don't know yet how much would it cost to order directly from Japan to the US, it might be crazy expensive as you say, it might be much more bearable.
And there's another thing: in the US, customs/import fees are much much lower than, say, Asia or Europe, which is a huge incentive for ordering direct. US customers wouldn't end up paying 200$ in customs fees like asians and europeans do for Sideshow statues.

-Another point, you're implying that Prime1's prices will be sky high, without proof. The Turtles are huge and complex maquettes, they cost 1k for the same reason why some bigger Sideshow pieces cost that same amount. A fair comparison is in their 1:3 pieces, let's be honest here, 900$ for those 1:3 scale pieces with all those switch outs is an awesome price.
They will surely want to make the price point between 1:4 and 1:3 different enough, otherwise it would be pointless. Considering that a standard PF is now at a firm 500$ and growing, I can't see this crazy high difference in pricing between P1 and SS.

Now, in conclusion... refer to the prices above and you can already see that, in their area, XM is not that far from Sideshow in terms of pricing. Prime1, still in XM's areas, will probably have more or less the same pricing of XM pieces or slightly more. XM is focusing on secondary but popular characters (She Thor, Lady Sif, Black Panther, the Spidey villains), their DC redesigns are already a niche market plus they have Star Wars and that odd manga license I can't recall.
Prime1 will most likely focus on the usual main characters from the start, so I can't see their markets collide too much. Asian customers will be able to pick one or the other (or Sideshow) without too many differences, XM is a small company with just a few people and they already proved they can easily survive without grinding out tons of stuff.
On the other hand, even if Sideshow distributed Prime1 pieces, we don't know what would be their slice of the pie. We can safely assume, tho, that Sideshow makes more money on a sold statue of their own than a distributed statue of someone else.
It's pointless to pretend that P1 and Sideshow won't compete... they will. Prime1 has also shown they're not shy in terms of edition sizes, and right now there's only one company that's sitting on thousands of unsold 1:4 Supermen and Batmen and Iron Men and Spider Men... that's Sideshow. Not XM, not ECC, not PCS, not Chronicle, not Hot Toys or whatelse.
XM's influence in NA is pretty much non existent, it's been like that since their orders were checked by Disney and so on, so the real match will be between P1 and SS. Which is great. Competition is always good.

Oh and this wasn't to bash Sideshow. For me, I hope SS distributes P1. SS has great shipping rates and reward points, it would be gold for me. I was just "bashing" all those that are boasting around that this or that other company is in trouble and getting pushed out of the market with absolutely no points in their favor, like Ink. People that talk with their mouth plugged to their a--.

 

[Uncle Bingo]

Since I don't do Facebook, I can't follow the Prime 1 collector's group. Who is Kelvin Loke? Is he a Prime 1 employee? I still haven't seen this news 100% confirmed from Prime 1 anywhere.

 

[ACalica917]

Doubtful since neither of the "Competition" is priced lower.

Granted but hopefully basic economics comes through - Supply Goes Up, Demand Goes Down. Demand Goes Down, Prices Go Down. However, I'm inclined to agree with GeneralZodLives, Sideshow may just lower their production runs and keep the prices the same. End Result: More Limited Runs make the Secondary Market Go Up.

 

[Josh-A-Tron]

I agree with most of your points but allow me to make some corrections to the corrections:

-I used an hyperbole for "came out of nowhere", I know Prime1 since they started. What I meant is that they have piled a ton of relevant licenses in a very short span of time, and most of their statues don't even sell out so far. The exclusives do, the regulars don't. Which is to say, they have some serious resources.

-Prime1 is located in Japan, they sell their exclusives only in Japan so far and through Sideshow. Other asians customers either buy the regulars or have to buy the exclusives through Sideshow or selected retailers, like SimplyToys. Both cases, they have to pay a very high markup for the exclusives. Check this out, a breakdown of pricings on SimplyToys, to compare the companies:
XM Mysterio: 890SGD/623$
Captain Marvel PF Regular: 738SGD/516$ for Elite Members, 753SGD/527$ for Members
Prime1 AK Batman Regular: 1460SGD/1022$
Prime1 AK Batman Exclusive: 1700SGD/1200$

As you can see, the difference between an XM piece and a Sideshow piece is less of 100$. Prime1 pieces are imported with a certain markup (100$ on the Regular, nearly 300 for the Ex). Now, this ties to the next point, which is the most flawed imho, you said:




-I guess you're located in the US, here in Europe we always had to purchase imported stuff and I can grant you that shipping by boat is dirt cheap. There's plenty of importers/distributors in the US, Prime1 only needs a good hook with big chains like BBTS and have everything shipped in bulk. We don't know yet how much would it cost to order directly from Japan to the US, it might be crazy expensive as you say, it might be much more bearable.
And there's another thing: in the US, customs/import fees are much much lower than, say, Asia or Europe, which is a huge incentive for ordering direct. US customers wouldn't end up paying 200$ in customs fees like asians and europeans do for Sideshow statues.

-Another point, you're implying that Prime1's prices will be sky high, without proof. The Turtles are huge and complex maquettes, they cost 1k for the same reason why some bigger Sideshow pieces cost that same amount. A fair comparison is in their 1:3 pieces, let's be honest here, 900$ for those 1:3 scale pieces with all those switch outs is an awesome price.
They will surely want to make the price point between 1:4 and 1:3 different enough, otherwise it would be pointless. Considering that a standard PF is now at a firm 500$ and growing, I can't see this crazy high difference in pricing between P1 and SS.

Now, in conclusion... refer to the prices above and you can already see that, in their area, XM is not that far from Sideshow in terms of pricing. Prime1, still in XM's areas, will probably have more or less the same pricing of XM pieces or slightly more. XM is focusing on secondary but popular characters (She Thor, Lady Sif, Black Panther, the Spidey villains), their DC redesigns are already a niche market plus they have Star Wars and that odd manga license I can't recall.
Prime1 will most likely focus on the usual main characters from the start, so I can't see their markets collide too much. Asian customers will be able to pick one or the other (or Sideshow) without too many differences, XM is a small company with just a few people and they already proved they can easily survive without grinding out tons of stuff.
On the other hand, even if Sideshow distributed Prime1 pieces, we don't know what would be their slice of the pie. We can safely assume, tho, that Sideshow makes more money on a sold statue of their own than a distributed statue of someone else.
It's pointless to pretend that P1 and Sideshow won't compete... they will. Prime1 has also shown they're not shy in terms of edition sizes, and right now there's only one company that's sitting on thousands of unsold 1:4 Supermen and Batmen and Iron Men and Spider Men... that's Sideshow. Not XM, not ECC, not PCS, not Chronicle, not Hot Toys or whatelse.
XM's influence in NA is pretty much non existent, it's been like that since their orders were checked by Disney and so on, so the real match will be between P1 and SS. Which is great. Competition is always good.

Oh and this wasn't to bash Sideshow. For me, I hope SS distributes P1. SS has great shipping rates and reward points, it would be gold for me. I was just "bashing" all those that are boasting around that this or that other company is in trouble and getting pushed out of the market with absolutely no points in their favor, like Ink. People that talk with their mouth plugged to their a--.

While I'll agree, more choices are always good, and as long as pricing is around the same then we have no real issue with costs this should be an amazing thing.

Like I said in my previous post however, the one thing I am a bit worried about is how their sculpts will turn out. Up to now we've seen what Prime1 can do with scans from films and games, which is great, but it's not like sculpting from scratch. So I will take a wait and see approach to this even though it is fairly exciting.

After all, I'm fairly sure some of us have holes in our collections and there's no real way to know when the current companies might visit characters we need.

 

[G6DDS]

There are a few employee's on the Facebook page with regular updates on everything happening. Lots will be revealed next week at wonderfest

 

[SuperJ300]

Since I don't do Facebook, I can't follow the Prime 1 collector's group. Who is Kelvin Loke? Is he a Prime 1 employee? I still haven't seen this news 100% confirmed from Prime 1 anywhere.

He is one of the P1 team. They are busy right now with the Wonderfest that's coming up. Maybe we will get more info then.

 

[El Mule]

While I'll agree, more choices are always good, and as long as pricing is around the same then we have no real issue with costs this should be an amazing thing.

Like I said in my previous post however, the one thing I am a bit worried about is how their sculpts will turn out. Up to now we've seen what Prime1 can do with scans from films and games, which is great, but it's not like sculpting from scratch. So I will take a wait and see approach to this even though it is fairly exciting.

After all, I'm fairly sure some of us have holes in our collections and there's no real way to know when the current companies might visit characters we need.

Agreed. My first thought was the same, they've never done a full statue from scratch that I can think of, surely they had to rework the CGI/3D files for what they've done so far but it's not exactly the same thing as sculpting from the ground. Wish we knew more about the process they've been using until now, for example The Witcher bases they've shown with dead creatures are really promising but I guess that they've sculpted only the base, environment and then used the game files for the killed monsters, still somewhat of a shortcut.

 

[filip629]

It's pointless to pretend that P1 and Sideshow won't compete... they will. Prime1 has also shown they're not shy in terms of edition sizes, and right now there's only one company that's sitting on thousands of unsold 1:4 Supermen and Batmen and Iron Men and Spider Men... that's Sideshow. Not XM, not ECC, not PCS, not Chronicle, not Hot Toys or whatelse.

I agree with pretty much everything you and josh are saying except the quote above. Not a chance in hell SSC is sitting on thousands of unsold items in their warehouse due to high edition sizes. This is a common misconception posted here by many members. SSC produces merch with high edition sizes in batches. Batch production allows SSC to accumulate a reasonable number of orders and then fill those orders in batches. There's no way SSC is going to produce thousands of unsold REGs and just sit on them. With batch production, they won't (and don't) have to.

 

[Josh-A-Tron]

I agree with pretty much everything you and josh are saying except the quote above. Not a chance in hell SSC is sitting on thousands of unsold items in their warehouse due to high edition sizes. This is a common misconception posted here by many members. SSC produces merch with high edition sizes in batches. Batch production allows SSC to accumulate a reasonable number of orders and then fill those orders in batches. There's no way SSC is going to produce thousands of unsold REGs and just sit on them. With batch production, they won't (and don't) have to.

I'm just hoping with the announcement of the Marvel license with prime1 we both get the characters we need. I highly doubt we see SSC go back and do yet another Cap for the both of us and I believe another Hulk is a long long way away for you as well as the other few miscellaneous characters we're both looking for. And think, they'll be fully sculpted

 

[El Mule]

I agree with pretty much everything you and josh are saying except the quote above. Not a chance in hell SSC is sitting on thousands of unsold items in their warehouse due to high edition sizes. This is a common misconception posted here by many members. SSC produces merch with high edition sizes in batches. Batch production allows SSC to accumulate a reasonable number of orders and then fill those orders in batches. There's no way SSC is going to produce thousands of unsold REGs and just sit on them. With batch production, they won't (and don't) have to.

Allow me to articulate on that (english is not my main language so my posts often end up being too long): what you say is true, but it's also true that, as any business out there, Sideshow needs sales projections and they must plan ahead of time the expected profit they make, so that they know what kind of projects they can afford later on. Even if they don't actually lose money thanks to the sales in batches, they still end up with a lower than expected profit when an edition size is not completed.
Right now sideshow has the original Batman and Superman PFs in stock, Batman, Supes and WW Red Son PFs in preorder, Spidey PF in preorder, Brown Wolverine in preorder, plus a bunch of other projects that easily stack up to some thousands of pieces, even if produced in batches. Direct competition might (in theory, since we don't know any detail yet) put a dent into sales and thus it can easily end up with a lower profit margin for the company (due to lack of sales, not overproduction/remaining stock).
That's pretty much what I was saying, one way or another direct competition can easily lower the sales (which is entirely different than implying that the company will lose money or that "the XY company is about to burst" like some people claim so lightly).