The Energon Pub

Here's a rundown of what was discussed during Hasbro's Transformers Brand Panel during today's Toy Fair event. Enjoy and join our discussion on our forums!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fan Media Day - NYTF

Hasbro Pulse
Tasty Pre-NYTF Reveals
New Titans Return artwork reveals
My Little Pony Guardians of Harmony press release
X-Men Marvel Legends series 6 inch Deadpool revealed

Transformers Fan Media Day - NYTF
Transformers Brand Team
Ben Montano and John Warden

Titans Return Titans voting: Trypticon
Showed a Toy Fair 1986 throwback pictures
Showed a rough preview of him called a "breadboard", a little shorter than Metroplex but length wise makes up for it thanks to his tail

Transformers Robots In Disguise
Showed a Season 2 trailer this morning
Season 2 of Robots In Disguise begins February 20th
New version of Warrior Class Windblade revealed
New reveal of Warrior Scorponok
Power Surge Optimus Prime, comes with exclusive Mini-Con Aerobolt, combines with larger robot ("powers-up")
IDW RID Season 1 comic not canceled, series returning fall 2016
RID Platinum Edition with detailed RID Warrior Class Bumblebee and Generations Voyager Class Grimlock (Takara version basically)

Transformers Prime Wars Trilogy
Transformers Earth Wars Mobile Game from Space Ape, showed us a trailer of the game
Transformers Roll Out album discussion

Transformers Titans Return
Fall 2016 - 2017
Showed us a cool Titans Return promo
Fortress Maximus is tall, stands about as tall as Metroplex's shoulder guns in upright position
Has lights and sounds when Cerebros transforms, eyes light up
Nearly 2 feet tall
Leader class figures combiner with Fort Max in city mode
Blurr with Hyperfire
Scourge and Fracas
Deluxe Class Wave 2
Showed a Valentine's Day picture of Chromedome and Rewind from IDW comics
Chromedome comes with Stylor
Mindwipe and Vorath, Vorath hangs upside down inside of Mindwipe
Legends Wheelie LOOKS AMAZING, very G1 focused look in vehicle mode and head
Wave 2 Legends - Rumble (repaint of Rewind with Rewind's head - urgh), Laserbeak (repaint of Buzzsaw)
Cyclonus Platinum Edition Cyclonus with Scourge and Sweep, Cyclonus has a new gun?)

BotCon Louisville, KY April 7th - 10th

max looks awesome he will be mine. the site has been down a for a few days its not just me right?

griftimus prime wrote:max looks awesome he will be mine. the site has been down a for a few days its not just me right?

We were very much dead.

Hardware RAID drive failed yesterday. Process to rebuild new drive failed around 75% yesterday afternoon. Situation was escalated last night with our dedicated server hosting company, 1and1.com. Work began on fixing drive and rebuilding from the 2nd and 3rd RAID drives this morning. The drive has been rebuilt and they are currently doing a drive integrity check. Hopefully we'll be up soon, at the latest after today's Hasbro Toy Fair 2016 event. Worst case scenario, we'll post pictures and videos here to share with all of you.

I'm surprised they didn't reveal Computron, Alpha Trion or Astrotrain, but I guess they're probably being saved for BotCon in April. Fort Max, Chromedome and Mindwipe sound great, and RID Scorponok has piqued my interest. Looking forward to pictures!

So are there going to be any more reveals or is this it? Kinda weird they didn't say anything about Computron or Liokaiser since those two will most likely be out before the titans return stuff.

Glad to see the site's back up! Now, on to business...

FORTRESS MAXIMUSSSSSSS!!!!!. That is all.

Looking at official renderings of the following;

-Relieved to see that Chromedome is happening. Definitely a buy. Looks gargantuan for a Deluxe for some reason. Can definitely see a little bit of Dead End in him, particularly the forearms.

-Scourge actually looks decent, almost compelled to get one myself despite already owning the Deluxe from five or so years back.

-Mindwipe looks cool, seems to have a really cool way of having his legs form the bat mode's wings.

-Meh on Blurr. Will wait for the supposed Brainstorm retool.

-Wheelie is a must have. Never thought I'd ever want Wheelie... *shudder*

Looking at the Warrior-class Windblade too makes me really sad that it looks to be a whole lot better from the Generations Deluxe by a long mile.... *sigh*

Rumble... whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy????? What a missed opportunity. At least give him a new head, dammit!

Also, the new weapon Cyclonus has is actually a translucent version of Generations Sergeant Kup's weapon. The Sweep that isn't Scourge also looks to be a brand new tooling that resembles Devcon, but isn't the BotCon tooling, but seems to improve on it.

Any images of the Trypticon mock up? I'd be interested in that.

An image from the display room revealed that Rumble Frenzy does indeed have a new head.
EDIT: This is what I'm talking about:

Decepticon Sunstorm wrote:An image from the display room revealed that Rumble Frenzy does indeed have a new head.
EDIT: This is what I'm talking about:

Thank freaking Christ. That's more like it. Faith in Hasbro restored!

In that case, he's also a must have!

I'm so glad you're all back! I missed you!

I just saw the full Titans return display turn up on my facebook feed! Everything looks incredible!


It looks like Max is a much heavier retool than I'd imagined, the base mode looks like a completely new toy compared to metro

Hm. Powermaster Prime still appeals to me. Not much else does. Maybe Hardhead but I wish he was bigger.
Fort Max does nothing for me. Giant blocky bot turns into 'city' which doesn't really look like anything. Yeah I was never much into that even as a kid. At least Scorponok had a cool scorpion form to attack with.

I so wanted to like Blaster but he just seems another wasted opportunity from everything I've seen of him and I really wish he didn't have a base mode cos it seems like it screwed up his bot proportions, in the legs at least. If I could afford it I'd go with one of the much cooler third-party attempts.

Wouldn't mind a closer look at Scourge but again he's probably too small for what I want.

continues to ignore the Masterpiece line, I see.

Ironhidensh wrote::HASBRO: continues to ignore the Masterpiece line, I see.

Wait until BotCon, it's literally two months away. If nothing shows up, then you can say that.

Mindmaster wrote:

Ironhidensh wrote::HASBRO: continues to ignore the Masterpiece line, I see.

Wait until BotCon, it's literally two months away. If nothing shows up, then you can say that.

Yeah what MM said. Hasbro rarely if at all shows off Masterpiece figures at Toy Fair. They usually show those at BotCon since they are more collector oriented figures.

From the Wiki:

Transformers fans got to ask questions of John Warden.
From that Q&A...

• The head-only Titan Master characters are not off the list for possible Deluxe-or-larger toys with full bodies later. The 1987 Headmasters just took priority out of the gate for bigger toys.
• All-new characters are harder to slot into Generations than for the kid-aimed lines due to the expectations of older fans; it's not as difficult to get people worked up for a new version of even a lower-tier character like Skullcruncher because people already know Skullcruncher. New characters generally need a strong fiction-led story behind them to really make them work in well. So new characters are not off the table, but not super-likely.
• Getting the Unite Warriors Groove and Blast Off toys to the US is a possibility, but no plans announced. Both of those toys were done on TakaraTomy's initiative with zero Hasbro input, long after the Combiner Wars Defensor and Bruticus had been designed and put into production.
• Combiner Wars was very retool/recolor heavy as it was a bit of a gamble and had a harder time selling to the top-office folks. Being able to put out a lot of product on fewer steel molds helped ease concerns. Titans Return will not be as heavy on the recolor/retool front.
  When planning the molds, "pretool" heads are sometimes put in without actual, concrete plans to ever use them. Call it a bit of insurance; the cost is minimal to do so, and if a retailer wants a new exclusive, then that new head is waiting to be used nice and easy.
• Speaking of insurance, the Robots in Disguise toyline was partially so main-Autobot-cast-heavy to secure its footing in the younger-aimed audience. Younger kids want versions of the main good-guy cast more, so the line was tilted to provide. Now that the show and toyline have proven themselves and are doing well, they have more freedom to explore more of the show Decepticon cast.
• Titan Trypticon will not have the more horizontal modern tyrannosaurus profile. He also won't have a walking feature, as they felt including that would likely cost out more impressive gimmicks. Whether or not he includes Full-Tilt and Brunt is up in the air.
• Victorion's green got de-saturated due to feedback from the fans. John noted that they talked with the IDW colorists to nail down a shade of green that would work better with the bright red and evoke the comics coloring a bit more.
• Beast Wars isn't getting the big Anniversary push this year so as not to pull away from the Titans Return series. Hasbro is worried about stretching too thin across too many lines, and both Generations and Robots in Disguise have really strong momentum they want to work on. It's possible we'll see Beast Wars themed product later in 2016, plus the idea was floated that as the series really got its momentum more in 1997, that might be when to make the nostalgia-push. Naturally, Masterpiece Optimus Primal was brought up, and it's a possibility for US release, but no confirmation of commitment.
• A question on the fate of a 2017 Transformers convention was basically deflected to PR, with John quickly and politely remarking that he was a toy designer and maybe let's stick to that kind of question.

That explains a lot of things.

Sabrblade wrote:From the Wiki:

Transformers fans got to ask questions of John Warden.
From that Q&A...

• The head-only Titan Master characters are not off the list for possible Deluxe-or-larger toys with full bodies later. The 1987 Headmasters just took priority out of the gate for bigger toys.
• All-new characters are harder to slot into Generations than for the kid-aimed lines due to the expectations of older fans; it's not as difficult to get people worked up for a new version of even a lower-tier character like Skullcruncher because people already know Skullcruncher. New characters generally need a strong fiction-led story behind them to really make them work in well. So new characters are not off the table, but not super-likely.
• Getting the Unite Warriors Groove and Blast Off toys to the US is a possibility, but no plans announced. Both of those toys were done on TakaraTomy's initiative with zero Hasbro input, long after the Combiner Wars Defensor and Bruticus had been designed and put into production.
• Combiner Wars was very retool/recolor heavy as it was a bit of a gamble and had a harder time selling to the top-office folks. Being able to put out a lot of product on fewer steel molds helped ease concerns. Titans Return will not be as heavy on the recolor/retool front.
  When planning the molds, "pretool" heads are sometimes put in without actual, concrete plans to ever use them. Call it a bit of insurance; the cost is minimal to do so, and if a retailer wants a new exclusive, then that new head is waiting to be used nice and easy.
• Speaking of insurance, the Robots in Disguise toyline was partially so main-Autobot-cast-heavy to secure its footing in the younger-aimed audience. Younger kids want versions of the main good-guy cast more, so the line was tilted to provide. Now that the show and toyline have proven themselves and are doing well, they have more freedom to explore more of the show Decepticon cast.
• Titan Trypticon will not have the more horizontal modern tyrannosaurus profile. He also won't have a walking feature, as they felt including that would likely cost out more impressive gimmicks. Whether or not he includes Full-Tilt and Brunt is up in the air.
• Victorion's green got de-saturated due to feedback from the fans. John noted that they talked with the IDW colorists to nail down a shade of green that would work better with the bright red and evoke the comics coloring a bit more.
• Beast Wars isn't getting the big Anniversary push this year so as not to pull away from the Titans Return series. Hasbro is worried about stretching too thin across too many lines, and both Generations and Robots in Disguise have really strong momentum they want to work on. It's possible we'll see Beast Wars themed product later in 2016, plus the idea was floated that as the series really got its momentum more in 1997, that might be when to make the nostalgia-push. Naturally, Masterpiece Optimus Primal was brought up, and it's a possibility for US release, but no confirmation of commitment.
• A question on the fate of a 2017 Transformers convention was basically deflected to PR, with John quickly and politely remarking that he was a toy designer and maybe let's stick to that kind of question.

That explains a lot of things.

Guess that explains why Combiner Wars was so retool heavy (and why it took so damn long to happen in the first place!). If it was a difficult pitch, then I'm okay with the retool bananza. Glad to hear Titan Wars will have more mold diversity!

There will be audio coverage of that talk coming soon.