1/4 DC Comics line - Prime 1 Studios

[Josh-A-Tron]

Well the other thing, that someone on the other forum brought up, and I am actually going to agree with is that this has to be a sublet license for Prime1.

If we follow the time line correctly, Sideshow resigned a World Wide exclusive contract for DC Comics in a great many scales back in 2014. This was supposed to be a 3 year deal if I remember the announcement correctly which would have taken their exclusivity sometime into 2017. Now, we all know the DC license has been selling pretty well, most pieces except for a few that had a high Reg. Edition size have sold out completely. However we do not know how much this license cost for the exclusivity. So, we can speculate that perhaps, either Sideshow has not made as much money as projected over the last two years or perhaps they think they can double dip as it were, both subletting he license to Prime1 while making their own pieces and having their cake and eating it too.

Mind you this is all speculation but the announcement was made that they would have the Exclusive rights to the DC characters for a further 3 years, so the only way Prime1 gets this license in 2016 is either Sideshow gave up some of their rights, or Sideshow leased part of their rights out.

 

[Thundercleese]

 

[Asdf]

Full sculpt 1;4 Marvel... woo hoo. P1 only does full sculpt right?

 

[-jay-]

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.

You have no idea how much **** i've taken for saying this on Facebook. People are acting like i'm saying what they've done up until now is nothing special. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying now they have no scans to work from, we'll see what they are really made of. I'm sure they will be great but until we see something we don't know if they will blow SSC or XM out of the water. I was also kicked from the P1 group. Damn.

 

[Spidey976]

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

Yeah, this really feels like a maneuver by SSC to encourage and reward a company that has done well by them, and who can put pressure on anorher company in their home turf

 

[Spidey976]

You have no idea how much **** i've taken for saying this on Facebook. People are acting like i'm saying what they've done up until now is nothing special. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying now they have no scans to work from, we'll see what they are really made of. I'm sure they will be great but until we see something we don't know if they will blow SSC or XM out of the water. I was also kicked from the P1 group. Damn.

I think Batman Noel might be an entirely new sculpt... It doesn't really look like the skin from the Arkham games. However I agree up until now I haven't thought they had done anything really creative. I can't wait to see what they bring though

 

[sexy1575]

So after all this interesting discussion, my question is what will really be their restrictions on these licenses? Even though they have said that they have the licenses, we know nothing about what DC or Marvel has said they can do. i.e.. Eras, regions to sell, etc. I am just curious to know whether this will become another XM situation where they can only be sold direct from Asian market or whether distributing still through Sideshow.

It would seem strange to me that they are competing with Sideshow directly and still distributing through them. Will this become another XM distribution situation?

 

[El Mule]

Sideshow subletting the license to Prime1 and making money out of it makes sense, might be.
Sideshow subletting the license to Prime1, thus making P1 a direct competitor, just to damage XM (who already sells little to none outside of their area) is simply dumb thinking. Any benefit coming from cutting off XM (which would be, really, minimal) would come back amplified by the amount of sales that P1 would take off from the Sideshow markets, when people won't need backflips and secret contacts to purchase.
We don't know the details yet. For what we know, the one who slaps enough money on the licensor can grab the license. Chronicle paid for an exclusive license on Cain, but MGM granted the same license anyway to ThreeZero for a Cain figure. Prime1 also got the Terminator license, too... another subletting from Sideshow?
Let's not get naive here.

 

[dan350zr]

IMO any Marvel License is gimped without being able to do X-Men.... If Prime 1 gets the same restrictions as XM then I don't see it going anywhere. The Market is already flooded with Avenger statues (both comics and movies), and other then Spider-Man and few females like Mary Jane and Gwen I don't see a lot of prospects for the Marvel License.

Bottom line is people only have so much display space and they just want the Tier one Characters, I think XM is seeing this as you can easily still buy Ms. Marvel, She Hulk, Mysterio and Kraven for close to retail. I think XM over estimated the demand for 2nd tier characters, they should of all had a 500 ES instead of the 800-999 ES XM gave them.

Only Marvel statues I would buy from Prime 1 in 1/4 are the X-Men....

 

[Josh-A-Tron]

Sideshow subletting the license to Prime1 and making money out of it makes sense, might be.
Sideshow subletting the license to Prime1, thus making P1 a direct competitor, just to damage XM (who already sells little to none outside of their area) is simply dumb thinking. Any benefit coming from cutting off XM (which would be, really, minimal) would come back amplified by the amount of sales that P1 would take off from the Sideshow markets, when people won't need backflips and secret contacts to purchase.
We don't know the details yet. For what we know, the one who slaps enough money on the licensor can grab the license. Chronicle paid for an exclusive license on Cain, but MGM granted the same license anyway to ThreeZero for a Cain figure. Prime1 also got the Terminator license, too... another subletting from Sideshow?
Let's not get naive here.

It actually depends on the type of License a company has. You can a non-exclusive licensing agreement. In other words, You have rights to produce, but you did not pay for the exclusive rights to be the only one producing. Such as Terminator, multiple companies are currently making Terminator merchandise. Licensing can also be split by certain films in series, or just certain characters. There's a million ways to split licensing agreements.

But what was announced for DC by Sideshow was a worldwide exclusive license for at the minimum 1/4 scale statues for a like I said, a further 3 years. The Money making thing I can see, the XM, well XM has nothing to do with the DC license, so probably not, the Marvel License well, that may not be exclusive, as matter of fact I doubt it is because from what I've heard a Marvel exclusive license after the Disney take over is more money than it's worth. Honestly it's all speculative based on what we were told. Unless Sideshow wants to come out and give us a nice little tutorial on it's inner workings.

 

[Josh-A-Tron]

You have no idea how much **** i've taken for saying this on Facebook. People are acting like i'm saying what they've done up until now is nothing special. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying now they have no scans to work from, we'll see what they are really made of. I'm sure they will be great but until we see something we don't know if they will blow SSC or XM out of the water. I was also kicked from the P1 group. Damn.

You were kicked just for stating that they use scans? wow, I'm in that group but I wonder how fast I'll be kicked if I don't like one of the sculpts

 

[El Mule]

Well, I agree, it's just that, as above, people are loving to pick extreme scenarios. Like, X company will blow away Y company, or P1 and Sideshow will jump together in the flowers singing and laughing. It's more likely it's something in between.
Sideshow rewarding a company with a portion of the license (that worths a ridicolous amount of money on itself) is laughable at best. A crappy 1:6 scale Sideshow figure goes on preorder and they give you a Facebook announcement, Twitter announcement plus they send you an email. A Prime1 piece goes on preorder and you don't know until next newsletter, I always found out about P1's orders here on the boards and their stuff is kinda well hidden in the website. So they must have a cruel sense of humor if they're "rewarding" P1 with the license but not taking the minimal care to advertise their stuff properly.
As you say, it could be an endless number of reasons, maybe DC wants more merchandise pumped out, another thing that was confirmed back then is that DC seems to push a lot for high edition sizes and some of the recent Sideshow pieces (like Darkseid) didn't really have a big run.

 

[-jay-]

You were kicked just for stating that they use scans? wow, I'm in that group but I wonder how fast I'll be kicked if I don't like one of the sculpts

You'll be outta there fast.

 

[BurningRage]

These better not be new 52 versions.

 

[Rulk]

Sideshow subletting the license to Prime1 and making money out of it makes sense, might be.
Sideshow subletting the license to Prime1, thus making P1 a direct competitor, just to damage XM (who already sells little to none outside of their area) is simply dumb thinking. Any benefit coming from cutting off XM (which would be, really, minimal) would come back amplified by the amount of sales that P1 would take off from the Sideshow markets, when people won't need backflips and secret contacts to purchase.
We don't know the details yet. For what we know, the one who slaps enough money on the licensor can grab the license. Chronicle paid for an exclusive license on Cain, but MGM granted the same license anyway to ThreeZero for a Cain figure. Prime1 also got the Terminator license, too... another subletting from Sideshow?
Let's not get naive here.

The only one "subletting" the license would be DC Comics. What does Prime 1's license even have to do with Sideshow?

Every time something happens in the collecting world, it's Sideshows fault. My butt itches, blame Sideshow!

 

[kryptonianmutie]

I would love to see them do some statues based on Alex Ross' art. It probably won't happen though.

At least I'll have a chance to get a Frank Miller Dark Knight that actually looks like he did in the graphic novel.

 

[Thundercleese]

I would love to see them do some statues based on Alex Ross' art. It probably won't happen though.

At least I'll have a chance to get a Frank Miller Dark Knight that actually looks like he did in the graphic novel.

I hear ya....I would love a DC or Marvel or Battle of the Planets line based on Alex Ross' art. That I would invest in the entire line.

 

[El Mule]

The only one "subletting" the license would be DC Comics. What does Prime 1's license even have to do with Sideshow?

Every time something happens in the collecting world, it's Sideshows fault. My butt itches, blame Sideshow!

Your reading skills have failed you. It's all based on what Josh said, that is, Sideshow has an exclusive license for 1:4 DC. This means, if true, that DC would need some kind of agreement from Sideshow before sharing the license with someone else, otherwise the whole "exclusive license" thing would be pointless.
Not that I was blaming Sideshow of anything, either... if they somehow reached an agreement with P1, it would be awesome. Just seems unlikely to me.

 

[Sweet Rabbit]

These better not be new 52 versions.

Watch it be that

 

[Uncle Bingo]

The only one "subletting" the license would be DC Comics. What does Prime 1's license even have to do with Sideshow?

Every time something happens in the collecting world, it's Sideshows fault. My butt itches, blame Sideshow!

Your butt itching is Sideshow's fault. They charge hundreds for their pieces but yet don't have the decency to include a tube of Preparation H with each purchase. Despicable.