Sony should buy a company like Sideshow Collectibles or Kotobukiya

[Bryank75]

I think it would be a good idea for Sony to lean into their 1st party output and movies, along with their good relationships with other movie companies and buy a statue or toy company that focuses on collectible pieces.

They could offer statues with every one of their collectors editions and higher end statues that are available separately. It would reduce costs overall for CE manufacture and adds another business avenue and higher possible profits to gaming.

They could even integrate a store into the online PS Store or possibly PSN. While browsing / purchsing games, people could be offered the related statues or collectibles.

This would also be great for Bungie and other possible cross media acquisitions... Square or CDPR for example.

Kotobukiya is for instance is currently making collectibles for Armored Core at the moment....

Do I have a good point here or am I way off?

 

[Zzero]

Do I have a good point here or am I way off?

I lean towards way off. Or, at a minimum, it doesn't actually add anything to Sony's core business and would thus be an unneccissary headache. These companies rely on working with a broad stretch of partners to make their money and if you restrict it to just first party stuff you lose out on the economies of scale you get from having the same people working on more projects.. Or you don't restrict it to the PS ecosystem in which case why bother.

For what its worth, the only games company that owns a business like this is Embracer, and its ran independently of specific game publishing and does deals with lots of outside groups.

edit: Actually, Epic might own one too. But once again, they also do third party deals there.

 

[anonpuffs]

Nah, too niche. There's no reason to bring that production inhouse either.

 

[ksdixon]

I think it would be a good idea for Sony to lean into their 1st party output and movies, along with their good relationships with other movie companies and buy a statue or toy company that focuses on collectible pieces.

They could offer statues with every one of their collectors editions and higher end statues that are available separately. It would reduce costs overall for CE manufacture and adds another business avenue and higher possible profits to gaming.

They could even integrate a store into the online PS Store or possibly PSN. While browsing / purchsing games, people could be offered the related statues or collectibles.

This would also be great for Bungie and other possible cross media acquisitions... Square or CDPR for example.

Kotobukiya is for instance is currently making collectibles for Armored Core at the moment....

Do I have a good point here or am I way off?

I've long said, using Mortal Kombat as an example, that pre-order shit should be something valuable to a game-fan, like digital codes for corresponding digital comic, or movie purchase of related film from PStore/Bravia XR library, if they sort that out once again. More valuable than 6 upgrades tokens or an early/special weapon.

Doing it/similar with an actual collectable toys/model company would be really smart.

 

[ksdixon]

I lean towards way off. Or, at a minimum, it doesn't actually add anything to Sony's core business and would thus be an unneccissary headache. These companies rely on working with a broad stretch of partners to make their money and if you restrict it to just first party stuff you lose out on the economies of scale you get from having the same people working on more projects.. Or you don't restrict it to the PS ecosystem in which case why bother.

For what its worth, the only games company that owns a business like this is Embracer, and its ran independently of specific game publishing and does deals with lots of outside groups.

edit: Actually, Epic might own one too. But once again, they also do third party deals there.

There must be enough PS IP, or PS related iconography like the PS logos or buttons logo, to make such a merchandising business arm fruitful? Even if a game isn't modern, someone would buy a plushie of this or a statue of that just for their old fandom. Don't Sony also have at least one themepark? They don't need merch to stock those shops?

 

[Muddasar]

Didn’t Sony buy an online collectable store?

Edit - Crunchyroll purchased Right Stuf.

 

[Bryank75]

Didn’t Sony buy an online collectable store?

Edit - Crunchyroll purchased Right Stuf.

I must look into that.... see what it does exactly.

 

[anonpuffs]

Didn’t Sony buy an online collectable store?

Edit - Crunchyroll purchased Right Stuf.

Rightstuf is more for comics and importing weeb shit from japan.

I used to buy some manga from them, but haven't since sony bought them. Will probably do it again when this thing comes out(best manga ever).
I don't think they actually manufacture anything, they're a distributor/online storefront

 

[Zeroing]

Nah, too niche. There's no reason to bring that production inhouse either.

I agree, didn’t anyone heard about that toy/collectible company dumping millions of stock in a landfill because they cannot sell?

Want to know what Sony should be focusing on? The engine from Dreams and making it available to indie devs… we would have a ton of new games.

 

[KiryuRealty]

I think it would be a good idea for Sony to lean into their 1st party output and movies, along with their good relationships with other movie companies and buy a statue or toy company that focuses on collectible pieces.

They could offer statues with every one of their collectors editions and higher end statues that are available separately. It would reduce costs overall for CE manufacture and adds another business avenue and higher possible profits to gaming.

They could even integrate a store into the online PS Store or possibly PSN. While browsing / purchsing games, people could be offered the related statues or collectibles.

This would also be great for Bungie and other possible cross media acquisitions... Square or CDPR for example.

Kotobukiya is for instance is currently making collectibles for Armored Core at the moment....

Do I have a good point here or am I way off?

You're WAY off. Sideshow is a shit company on a level with Microsoft for bullshit business practices.

 

[Kokoloko]

Maybe build a close relationship with a similar type company. A high quality one

 

[Yurinka]

It would be a good idea to have a top tier merchandising company to sell very high quality statues, figurines or toys of their gaming, movie or music IPs and artists.

Bandai Namco is too expensive, but as I remember they were the 2nd or 3rd top grossing toy maker in the world and I think the top 1 in Japan. They also have the rights for game or toy adaptations of a ton key manga and anime IPs (Dragon Ball, Naruto, Gundam, One Piece...) in addition to their own game IPs like Pac-Man, Tekken, Dark Souls, Elden Ring, Soul Calibur, Armored Core, Ni no Kuni and so on.

There must be enough PS IP, or PS related iconography like the PS logos or buttons logo, to make such a merchandising business arm fruitful? Even if a game isn't modern, someone would buy a plushie of this or a statue of that just for their old fandom. Don't Sony also have at least one themepark? They don't need merch to stock those shops?

Sony has many iconic IPs from gaming, movies, tv shows or music and make merchandising of them but outsourced to external companies. I think it would be a good idea to own a top tier company to handle all of them internally, would be more profitable and they have potential to push it more.

As I remember, Sony has stores but not theme parks.

 

[Bryank75]

It would be a good idea to have a top tier merchandising company to sell very high quality statues, figurines or toys of their gaming, movie or music IPs and artists.

Bandai Namco is too expensive, but as I remember they were the 2nd or 3rd top grossing toy maker in the world and I think the top 1 in Japan. They also have the rights for game or toy adaptations of a ton key manga and anime IPs (Dragon Ball, Naruto, Gundam, One Piece...) in addition to their own game IPs like Pac-Man, Tekken, Dark Souls, Elden Ring, Soul Calibur, Armored Core, Ni no Kuni and so on.


Sony has many iconic IPs from gaming, movies, tv shows or music and make merchandising of them but outsourced to external companies. I think it would be a good idea to own a top tier company to handle all of them internally, would be more profitable and they have potential to push it more.

As I remember, Sony has stores but not theme parks.

Yes, my thinking was along these lines.... and if they bought a merchandising company or statue company, it doesn't mean that they would be limited to Sony IP's. I think it's only logical that they would be in high demand by other studios if their quality was very high.

 

[KiryuRealty]

Yes, my thinking was along these lines.... and if they bought a merchandising company or statue company, it doesn't mean that they would be limited to Sony IP's. I think it's only logical that they would be in high demand by other studios if their quality was very high.

It’s smarter to license to a quality company. The licensor makes guaranteed money, and the manufacturer takes on all the risk.

Owning the whole stack just exposes a company to more risk. One bad product could cause huge damage to the company in financial and reputational terms that isn’t necessary to take a chance on.

 

[Yurinka]

Yes, my thinking was along these lines.... and if they bought a merchandising company or statue company, it doesn't mean that they would be limited to Sony IP's. I think it's only logical that they would be in high demand by other studios if their quality was very high.

Yes, people like Bandai Namco or Kotobukiya could continue doing statues and so on for the IPs they already work with, and on top of that to work with the Sony IPs.

In addition to get cool merchandising and revenue from them, it could also give Sony awesome statues for the collector editions of the games. And obviously, regarding Sony games/movies/IPs that also includes their anime IPs.