Sideshow 1:6 Lando as Skiff Guard Figure

[asgardianboy]

Something like that... Sideshow would have went public. You just don't loose for good a very important segment in a top-2 franchise without saying something.

But then again, why didn't they solve any eventual issue behind the curtain, before no-shows happened and people started realising and talking?

Weird.

RfC
m.

 

[asgardianboy]

They haven’t it lost it yet. Just still in negotiations. And no...the negotiations aren’t short.

Sources.
Or you didn't say it.
m.

 

[Mike86]

Something like that... Sideshow would have went public. You just don't loose for good a very important segment in a top-2 franchise without saying something.

But then again, why didn't they solve any eventual issue behind the curtain, before no-shows happened and people started realising and talking?

Weird.

RfC
m.

I don’t think they’d necessarily go public with something like that. Why would they want to advertise that they lost a license, especially one as popular as Star Wars? It would likely cause people to lose faith in their brand and products to an extent by doing so.

 

[CrankbaitJon]

Exactly, I don't think they will do that. They are not a public company so bad news like that won't be disclosed. If the renewal their license, they will disclose it.

 

[Travis Baumann]

They would not tell me anything at SDCC when I asked multiple people. They were not at the Star Wars Collector's panel this year for the first time in like 10 years that I can recall and even if they just ditched the 1/6th, their presentation in the past was 90% statues and other items anyway.

It looks like they are out of 1/6th altogether as their newest figure from Court of the Dead is a collaboration with TBLeague and not even their own output (other than the character conceptual design).

Someone else on here who has way more interaction with various companies said outright they lost the license. I would tend to believe that as they had no new offerings in the statue department either.

 

[slikkerias]

It does look like they lost the license completely. I don’t see why ‘negotiations’ would drag out as they apparently renew licenses every year.

 

[Hoody999]

If it is true about the Sideshow Star Wars license it makes you wonder if it is also affecting the SW releases by HT. I just scrolled a loooong way back on the FB webpage. Anyone recall what the last SW pre-order was ?

Seems it was Qui-Gon, back in March ! Now I know Avengers has been the flavour of the year, but March to August for their second largest franchise is a bit too long....

 

[Tee-Kay]

We got Maul from "Solo" last month and Sith Trooper got a "early release" version during SDCC. I don't see HT loosing the STar Wars licence anytime soon.

HT are clearly putting most of their efforts on the hot licence that is Marvel right now but will eventually return to Star Wars comes december. Besides, there were a few prototypes based on OT and PT on show floors this summer and, even though some will never see production, we'll likely see a few offered in the coming months.

 

[TurdFurgusonsHat]

Star Wars. As in OT Star Wars. It's been way too slow.

 

[DarthAlias]

HT doesn’t fall under the SS license. I know people under the LFL umbrella. SS flat out won’t say they lost the license. They’re still negotiating. Nothing official but I’m 99% sure they haven’t lost it. They’d be foolish to not renew.

 

[davejames]

As much as we like to pile on Sideshow, I'd be bummed not to see any more SW 1/6 figures from them after their long history with the franchise, so hopefully it will get renewed.

 

[TonTon]

Yeah, would be good news if they managed to hold on to the license. But it would be nice if they carved out a different niche/deal that complements rather than competes with Hot Toys. I don't need ROTJ Luke figures from both companies. If they were relegated to 2nd-tier characters, their licensing fee (however that stuff works) should reflect that.

 

[Mike86]

As much as we like to pile on Sideshow, I'd be bummed not to see any more SW 1/6 figures from them after their long history with the franchise, so hopefully it will get renewed.

Honestly why should anyone care at this point? They haven’t put forth the effort in a long time. They’ve released a few figures a year tops for a while now, and they’re never all that impressive and are always incredibly overpriced with the most bare minimum accessories possible.

Sideshow fell into trying to release figures almost seeming like they wanted to compete with Hot Toys, but they never really delivered. A case could be made for them more if they actually released unique things that Hot Toys likely won’t do or won’t do as much (more aliens and creatures), but releasing second rate figures of characters is just a waste of their time and our money (for those that still are sucked into buying their stuff).

 

[DioramaMaker]

I would even be willing to go as far as to say they didn't "lose" the license, rather they very likely chose not to renew it.

They can't compete with HT. They just can't. And for them to charge in excess of HT prices for figures that don't compare to 10 year ago HT quality, they're not going to sell product. I would be willing to bet that they will be giving away that ROTJ Luke eventually because it'll simply be languishing stock.

That might be out of their hands for a lot of reasons, but I do know that US figure companies have a hard time competing for manufacturing space in China, with preference given to home grown and Eastern countries. This absolutely raises costs and development time.

So in reality, SS might have just weighed out that with HT making a significantly superior product, they are better set letting the market go. Their Marvel 1/6 will suffer the same if HT begins to do comic-esque stuff (through avenues like the Spidey game).

All that to be said, I think SS is oblivious to what the market wants. Dioramas, environments, and accessories are all things they not only do, but do pretty well. Furthermore aliens and creatures is a sorely needed part of 1/6 SW. A line focused to flesh out the SW world at a price around $190 +/- $20 a figure would have been a killer market.

 

[Mike86]

I think if Sideshow would have produced more things like the Cantina aliens or various Tatooine aliens they’d have been in a lot better shape. That’s the stuff that we likely won’t get from Hot Toys that they could have found their niche with. Heck even if they had just updated some of the old releases like Greedo, Hammerhead, and the Tusken Raider. A lot of people seemed to want a Ponda Baba too. They did the Jawas and finished the bounty hunters. I’m not sure why they didn’t keep going with more characters like that.

 

[dukefett]

I think if Sideshow would have produced more things like the Cantina aliens or various Tatooine aliens they’d have been in a lot better shape. That’s the stuff that we likely won’t get from Hot Toys that they could have found their niche with. Heck even if they had just updated some of the old releases like Greedo, Hammerhead, and the Tusken Raider. A lot of people seemed to want a Ponda Baba too. They did the Jawas and finished the bounty hunters. I’m not sure why they didn’t keep going with more characters like that.

Yeah exactly, I half with they wouldn't have even tried to up their game that much. If they had just kept releasing sub-$100 figures that aren't HT quality, and most aliens don't really need to be, that would've been great.

 

[TaliBane]

I think if Sideshow would have produced more things like the Cantina aliens or various Tatooine aliens they’d have been in a lot better shape. That’s the stuff that we likely won’t get from Hot Toys that they could have found their niche with. Heck even if they had just updated some of the old releases like Greedo, Hammerhead, and the Tusken Raider. A lot of people seemed to want a Ponda Baba too. They did the Jawas and finished the bounty hunters. I’m not sure why they didn’t keep going with more characters like that.

Yeah, the aliens were where the money was but Sideshow just never seemed to comprehend that's where their strength was.

 

[TonTon]

Yeah, the aliens were where the money was but Sideshow just never seemed to comprehend that's where their strength was.

The volume for those has to be way lower than a main character. They need a 2nd-tier contract if they're just going to do 2nd-tier characters. But now Hot Toys is dipping its toes in there as well (droids, Jawas). Don't know how these licenses work but it doesn't make sense to have two companies with the exact same license (ROTJ Luke).

They should clearly figure out some way to separate it out in such a way that still incentivizes a company to make the lesser-known characters and hit a profit. Basically they should just give them that old Kenner card back and negotiate what figures each has rights to.

 

[Mike86]

Yeah, the aliens were where the money was but Sideshow just never seemed to comprehend that's where their strength was.

Yeah, it’s like they kept trying to make something happen with their crappy human figures. Instead of a bunch of subpar releases (Red 5 Luke, Snowspeeder Luke, Hoth Luke, Hoth Han, Jedi Knight Luke) they would have been a lot smarter to just have let Hot Toys handle that aspect of the license. Had they turned their focus to the aliens/creatures or droids that Hot Toys won’t touch it would have made more sense.

It kind of seemed like for a bit they were doing that to a degree, but then they stopped. They released the rest of the bounty hunters that were previously missing along with updating the few they had done previously. They put out the Jawas, which while not the best I at least give them credit for trying. They put out various droids such as R5-D4 and various repainted versions of both that and R2 to make the Imperial versions. Jabba was a decent effort, but much too big and expensive for a lot of us.

 

[TaliBane]

The volume for those has to be way lower than a main character. They need a 2nd-tier contract if they're just going to do 2nd-tier characters. But now Hot Toys is dipping its toes in there as well (droids, Jawas). Don't know how these licenses work but it doesn't make sense to have two companies with the exact same license (ROTJ Luke).

They should clearly figure out some way to separate it out in such a way that still incentivizes a company to make the lesser-known characters and hit a profit. Basically they should just give them that old Kenner card back and negotiate what figures each has rights to.

It's a different era I know, but some of the earlier aliens like Bib Fortuna were 5000 pieces, and they probably made 3500 Gamorreans. Not sure what a fig like say Tarkin would have been, but I'd guess it wouldn't be much above that. And the aliens I mean are ones like Ackbar and Greedo - those would sell in numbers that would start to approach lesser heroes (I'd guarantee Greedo would sell close to as many as Lando for example.)

Yeah, it’s like they kept trying to make something happen with their crappy human figures. Instead of a bunch of subpar releases (Red 5 Luke, Snowspeeder Luke, Hoth Luke, Hoth Han, Jedi Knight Luke) they would have been a lot smarter to just have let Hot Toys handle that aspect of the license. Had they turned their focus to the aliens/creatures or droids that Hot Toys won’t touch it would have made more sense.

It kind of seemed like for a bit they were doing that to a degree, but then they stopped. They released the rest of the bounty hunters that were previously missing along with updating the few they had done previously. They put out the Jawas, which while not the best I at least give them credit for trying. They put out various droids such as R5-D4 and various repainted versions of both that and R2 to make the Imperial versions. Jabba was a decent effort, but much too big and expensive for a lot of us.

Other than the headsculpts, I would say that each of those figures (other than Jedi Luke) you list are every bit as good as a HT fig (though Hoth Luke has a few issues with the outfit.) Yeah, I get that "except the head" is a pretty massive thing to sidestep but other than bodies and human heads, SSC was pretty much on par with HT in terms of weapons, outfits and accessories.