I got my snake eyes today from sideshow. I'ts pretty damn cool.
Well, I put in a pre-order, decided to just put it on the Visa and pay it off later!
Doing that a lot lately...
A lot of you are probably unfamiliar with the 12'' figure field.It is not all about Hasbro and what Mattel and all them put out there. The 12'' figure realm has grown by leaps and bounds in popularity, detail and licenses thanks to companies like Hot Toys, Sideshow and Medicom. Take a look at all those products... Hot Toys' figures retail between $99-$150 on average with a few rare higher-priced piece (1:6 scale Power Loader) and $150 is a common price for Medicom figures. Sideshow was cheap before...but they won't be anymore.
Keep in mind that the body designs underneath the suits also cost money to make and offer a wide variety of poses.
Sideshow JUST RECENTLY announced a new figure body called the "Prometheus". Their previous body, the "Art S. Buck" was TERRIBLE and crappy and the ONLY way they could compete with Medicom and Hot Toys with that body style was their low prices. To give you some detail, the Buck body had limited poses on top of poor joint construction that made a lot of poses look "unnatural". It did not hold a candle to the Hot Toys' TRUETYPE body and Medicom's RAH Model.
Because this new figure body has much more to it, it of course will cost more to produce and that cost will also be added to Sideshow's figures. Sideshow's Indiana Jones will be the FIRST figure to feature the Prometheus body, Snake-Eyes is obviously looking to be the second. Keep in mind too that Snake-Eyes has TONS of accessories that have never been seen with a Sideshow figure before. I believe no SS figure has EVER had this much stuff...and that costs money to develop as well.
To stay afloat in the 12'' figure market, Sideshow had to develop a new figure body. They have some amazing licenses, but they would always fall short with that damn Buck body... now with Prometheus, they can step up their game but unfortunately that comes with a step up in prices as well.
I'm glad someone pointed this out. I just recently got into 12" collecting so I've grown accustomed to the
very high prices especially with Hot Toys and Medicom products. Its apparent that with all the complaints coming from
this thread regarding SS prices that not to many people on these boards collect 12" figures, $120.00 isn't bad considering that
many Hot Toys figure will cost you nearly $200-$300 dollars easy. People are expecting SS to keep their prices at a mere $60-$70
while still keeping top notch quality products. Personally, if SS ups the quality of their 12" lines then increased pricing should
be expected, not to mention it helps keep them in the 12" game.
Just some info for everyone:
A friend of mine who does reviews directly for Sideshow has passed along to me that only about 6000-8000 of these figures ( per character) are getting made, which accounts for the price point.
Hasbro routinely has runs in excess of 100,000 per for their cheaper price points.
A kitbash with a sword and visor a 7 year-old can sculpt, all for $120. Sideshow is not Hot Toys, or Medicom, and upping their price to try to put themselves on their level is false posturing and laughable.
What Snake Eyes is this supposed to be? A weird combination of the first and second, with the gun from the third. If you're going to make an iconic character, at least try to make it look like people expect, not some funky lot of parts trying to make it some realistic gear version.
Well I think you can rationalize it several ways, but the bottom line is that $120 is $120.
I do think Snake Eyes has the ability to have that "wow" factor when seen in person. That's something true of many things - collectible or otherwise. Seeing it in person tells the tale. There is more likely to be a bit more "hmmmmm" when the quality is sitting (or standing) right in front of you.
Well no doubt about that ARROW.
If I didn't have the knowledge and insight into the 1:6 high-end figure field that I had then I probably would've balked at the price as well. Like I mentioned before, that focus is like seeing a far, distant island from TNI. You can see it, you sometimes hear about it, but you really don't know what it's about until you're there and you can study it a little bit more.
Speaking of which, I'm only 25 but I've been able to afford my high-end stuff by actually getting rid of a lot of my previous stuff (aside from SOME GI Joe stuff, I also had other "retail-store" figures, some of which luckily fetched some nice prices on eBay).
For those interested in Snake-Eyes, Sideshow sells "bulk sales" to various online retailers who actually sell Snake-Eyes for less (an amount negotiated and agreed upon between the store and Sideshow). In this case, the following sites have Snake-Eyes for $107.99 but Regular Edition only (Sideshow Exclusive is sold exclusively at Sideshow):
CornerStore Comics
AlterEgo Comics
I was referring more to the items in terms of "collector popularity" and what I've seen throughout my experience in the field. I have seen a jump in popularity for those items that I collect and I know at its price point and target audience, they will NEVER be a Wal-Mart selling item.
Well, they really are directly-targeted items now. Sideshow knows exactly where to find its audience and addresses them specifically, and they are very good at that. Unlike so many other kinds of "collectible" toys, this are designed from the get-go to being nothing but collectibles.
With the case of these GIJOE figures, it'll be interesting to see how this line does--if it can reach over into the usual Sideshow customer based on what this property is.
The reason why you'll find so few forums that discuss 1/6th scale stuff is two-fold: the toys are expensive, and collectors in forums like TNI are cheapskates.
Now, that's not a slur against anyone, its just a supportable observation. Hearing people talk about spending more than $50 for a single figure of almost any kind is not common. Add to that the demographic here skews somewhat younger ( under 30) so the associations to 1/6th scale toys are often far less because, as children, those collectors grew up in the 80's where 1/18th scale stuff was king.
Its just a different focus, really.
Now it terms of popularity, there's no chart or whatever we can pull up to look at that. However, I've been in the 1:6 figure realm more recently and I've seen a certain up-hill trend. Yet that may be a matter of my own perspective as you have your own. Actually there is such a HUGE LACK OF 1:6 FIGURE DISCUSSION here on TNI that it's "foreign territory" to a lot of people here. They may know OF IT, they may know WHAT IT IS, but they don't know all the players, they don't know all the products, etc. etc. I speak from experience because I had to find another forum where that discussion was much more plentiful. You don't really know what's going on with it from just being on TNI.I've been a 1/6th scale collector since the mid 80's, I have several hundred figures in my collection, and I have paid attention to the trends and offerings over the years even though I collect far less than I used to. I've been involved in many of the on-line 1/6th scale communities since 1995, and TNI isn't one I count amongst them.
The stuff that Sideshow is producing, in terms of unit numbers is single-digit percentages compared to what Hasbro, Mattel, 21C, Formative and a few others were making just under a decade ago. They profit because they make enough to address a niche audience, not a mass one. The popularity you speak of is limited to those folks that wander into a specialty store (or on-line venue) to buy these, not a mass-retailer.
Yes, Hot Toys, Medicom and Sideshow have diversified, but they are not addressing a clientele that is any larger than the military figure collector base used to be--and it was discovered that collector base is a LOT smaller than people thought.
Sideshow is not selling these things in hundred units-per in collectible stores, they are selling maybe a dozen-per store. Hasbro still sold far more 1/6th Star Wars figures at TRU and Walmart but virtue of accessiblity.
I think we were going two different directions here as I wasn't even speaking of the collectibles in stores like Wal-Mart, Target,etc. That's quite obvious that there are massive sales once those items hit that market.
I was referring more to the items in terms of "collector popularity" and what I've seen throughout my experience in the field. I have seen a jump in popularity for those items that I collect and I know at its price point and target audience, they will NEVER be a Wal-Mart selling item.
