Reynolds, Jason M. wrote:
Do they have the sole license to make new Macross kits? Why couldn't Bandai
take a shot at making the other mecha from that show?
Boaz wrote:
We'll see what happens. The UCHG line is kinds of a confirmation of the need
and potential market of realistic models for a SF show. I'm guessing,
there's no Destroids models is the case that Hasegawa DIDN'T license them
from Bandai with the Valks, and Bandai wouldn't put up that line right now
to compete with their focus (gunpla) nor giving Hasegawa their blessing (as
from the Valks they can tell Macross is still a money tree).
Matthew Robinson wrote:
Of course, the other problem is that it may involve dealing with Harmony
Gold. I can't recall what the current legal status is for mecha that wound
up as part of Robotech -- is Harmony Gold still considered to hold exclusive
legal rights to those designs in the US, or has that finally been thrown out
as invalid?
I am sure it's pretty easy to google out who owns Macross license now.
We know at least in the last few years Bandai was selling Valkyrie,
Destroid and Glaug kits. Nichimo was selling Valkyrie, Glaug kits
(and Destroids?) and Hasegawa was selling Valkyrie kits. So exclusive
license is not an issue at all.
License-owners are usually not the same as the merchandise
makers/sellers. In Gundam's case, the license owner was Sunrise (etc)
and in the past they sold or leased an exclusive license on hobby kits
and toys to Bandai and Poppy etc. Some years ago, Bandai absorbed
Sunrise and now merged with Namco too, the Gundam license is highly
integrated within the same owner and user (a license user being the
one who make and sell stuffs under the license). So plastic kits and
toys are pretty much exclusively controlled by Bandai-Namco; resin
kits are going to be (if not already) exclusively by B-Club and not
sure about games, are there any Gundam games not released under
Bandai-Namco? Even then, a license-user can rarely cover every single
product types, so e.g., the license for clothing and some types of
twinkets (card holders) is licensed to Cospa, and there are license
for cigarette lighters to Zippo etc. I imagine the license sold to
Zippo is either very limited (license to produce X number of products
in this region for X number of years etc) or non-exclusive (i.e.
Bandai can at the same time license another company to make Gundam
themed cigarette lighters. Also you have guitars, guitar picks,
credit cards, underwears etc, I would guess these are also limited
and/or non-exclusive.
In the case of Macross, the license owner, has been very open to sell
non-exclusive license to many toy companies who make similar products.
From this observation, I would guess any toy company can walk up to
the owner, show a prototype product, a mini-business plan and a check
for like $1000 and walk away with a 1-year license for Destroids and
Glaug pods toys and kits. I don't see any reason for Harmony(?) to
want to limit the market to just one design, I mean, who's not jealous
of Bandai churning out products?
In particular, I really have a hard time believing that Bandai can put
up any resistance to Hasegawa or anyone else grabbing more Macross
territory.
--
Dr. Core
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