The Energon Pub

[Seibertron]

It's that time again! Every four to six weeks, we get to submit two burning questions to Hasbro that fans are dying to know the answer to. Got a question you think we should send Hasbro? Share your ideas in this topic for May 2010's Hasbro's Transformers Q&A.

Please note the following when posting your questions that you'd like us to submit.

Hasbro’s Transformers team greatly appreciates the collector-fan community’s continued passion and support, and is always listening to its valuable feedback – particularly with regards to the Q&A program. As we proceed into the next year of Q&A, the Transformers team wants to ensure that fans continue to get the most out of this forum by being able to provide answers to questions that are of interest to your readers. As a result, we thought it might be helpful to share some insights into what types of questions the team is able to elaborate on and what types of questions cannot be answered for various reasons.

* Unfortunately, there are some things that we cannot comment publicly on due to confidentiality, legal or competitive reasons. Examples of these types of questions are ones that relate to the upcoming TV series or movies that have not had details announced yet, “When will X toy be made/redesigned/released?”, Hypothetical scenarios or “what if questions”, Sales/Cost Data, Product Idea Submissions, Potential Design/Redesign and Future Movie/Entertainment.

* With that said, that leaves a lot of room for a whole host of other discussion points. Topics that are open for discussion are things like Deco Decisions, Current Design Choices, Design Process/Development, Character choices and Redeco/Retooling choices. Also, questions pertaining to past and current Lore/Storyline, Line Strategy and Marketing are open for discussion too.

[Constantine]

What is Hasbro's views of third-party outfits, like Fans Project, Head Robots, Mastermind, and old-timers like ReproLabels? Does Hasbro feel that these fan-based products hurt sales of Hasbro products, or help them by increasing the overall popularity of the franchise?

[It Is Him]

Do you still love me, Hasbro? Because if you did, you'd let me have all those cool Animated toys you're holding out on. Don't tell me those kids in Japan will get them first!

[Diem]

"Will the Generations line include homages from all eras of Transformers?"

[DavidT]

"Will the Generations line include homages from all eras of Transformers?"

I thought that was already confirmed that it would... but maybe not


.

[Diem]

"Will the Generations line include homages from all eras of Transformers?"

I thought that was already confirmed that it would... but maybe not


.

"Will the unreleased Animated figures be released in the Generations?" was my original idea but it seemed too specific.

[Darkclyde]

Will Hasbro export the latest Animated Lines (Blackout, Arcee)in mass quantity to Southeast Asian region? (regarding that Arcee is hard-to-find on the US market)

[Optillamanus]

What is Hasbro's views of third-party outfits, like Fans Project, Head Robots, Mastermind, and old-timers like ReproLabels? Does Hasbro feel that these fan-based products hurt sales of Hasbro products, or help them by increasing the overall popularity of the franchise?

Theres's no way they're gonna boost popularity. They're marketed towards people who are already fans; people who aren't Transformers fans probably don't know 3rd party companies exist.

[Jetstorm92210]

Is there any reason for Animated Blitzwing having buttons in his arms?

[Mkall]

How far along is Hasbro in moving its production to Vietnam? We've seen a leader-class Starscream so far with the Made in Vietnam stamp. What does moving to Vietnam mean in terms of quality/quantity of current/future productions?

It's seeming to be a trend that figures are getting seriously redone instead of a simple repaint; not that repaints aren't done, but one has to look at Recon Ironhide and the mentioned Drift/Blurrz re-do. Is this going to be a new direction for Transformers?

[Gandalf]

You released Generation One Soundwave under the Classics line as a Toys R Us exclusive, and then Perceptor and the Insecticons under the Universe line. It seemed logical that Blaster would be the TRU exclusive for Generations, so why the change to an SDCC exclusive? Will another character be selected to uphold the tradition of non-vehicle TRU commemoratives for the Generations line? And please tell us that Blaster will also be available on Hasbro Toy Shop!

[Arlekkin]

In an interview, I've read that if the Universe/ Classics 2.0 should continue, 2 fan favourites (G1 Soundwave and BW Rhinox) will be slated to be released, and Guido Guidi has done a (cool) re-design of Soundwave for All Hail Megatron which unfortunately was not used. Are we going to see such design executed as a figure?

Apart from the power core combiners, are we going to see any other combiners/gestalt figures in any other line, which are made of a leader class figure + deluxe class figures, like some kitbashes of Menasor and Superion seen online, rather than deluxe class + scout class figures?

With IDW's popular mini-series last stand of the wreckers, most of the main characters are either Japanese or European exclusive characters (e.g. Overlord and the Predators). Are we going to see any rendition of such characters, and/or characters like Headmasters, Powermasters and or any G1 female characters in the Generations line?

I'm not a person into repaints per se but I was wondering how the whole repaint process works. How figures are decided to be repainted into which figures and so forth. This is after I've seen that some times some figures are more suited for repaint into certain characters rather than others. Such example was the repainting of Universe Silverbolt into Skytfall (Skyjack). Wouldn't have been better to use the mold of Cybertron Sideways for such figure rather than Silverbolt?

[Editor]

As we have learned, Hasbro has decided to start a Hall of Fame for Transformers and in a great move for fans, in addition to the first 4 inductees (G1 Prime, Megatron, Bumblebee & Starscream) you have tasked the various fansites to help determine a fan choice for the 5th inductee.

However we haven't heard much regarding the point of the hall and how it will move forward beyond this initial year and induction at Botcon.

Will future inductions be held in similar fashion of company picks and fan picks or will it be more fan controlled? And what is the greater point for the Hall, seeing it should be tied to greater media exposure (however as the next show is set not to be traditional G1, it is unlikely there, and IDW is already using them within comics that is unlikely) or releases (as all 4 of the set inductees have seen G1 re-releases {from both Hasbro and Takara} and in the Classics line again show this has already been done within recent years) but as per the points in brackets show, these have already been done. ergo Is this all just publicity for ramping up excitement within the fan community, without actively having a pay-off beyond the possibility of backing the winning candidate for the 5th spot?

That said, Go Soundwave!

[Constantine]

What is Hasbro's views of third-party outfits, like Fans Project, Head Robots, Mastermind, and old-timers like ReproLabels? Does Hasbro feel that these fan-based products hurt sales of Hasbro products, or help them by increasing the overall popularity of the franchise?

Theres's no way they're gonna boost popularity. They're marketed towards people who are already fans; people who aren't Transformers fans probably don't know 3rd party companies exist.

I disagree. These products are marketed primarily over the internet, and I think that the rise of fandom on the internet is what kept the franchise alive and allowed it to make the comeback that we're now all enjoying. The toys can stand by themselves, or their popularity can be increased by comics, TV shows, and such. I'm putting third-party toys into that same category.

[Stockade]

Since Thrust will be released for the Generations line, will Hasbro release Ramjet and Dirge as well? or any chance that Hasbro will release Thundercracker, and Skywarp along with Thrust for those who missed out or just started collecting Transformers?


How long will the Generations Line last once production starts?

[Kibble]

We know about Animated Rodimus and Ironhide, but what about Blackout and Wingblade Optimus...will they see US releases?

Why haven't you dropped the hammer on the mini-MP Convoy/Optimus KO yet? Are you going to?

[kirbenvost]

What is Hasbro's views of third-party outfits, like Fans Project, Head Robots, Mastermind, and old-timers like ReproLabels? Does Hasbro feel that these fan-based products hurt sales of Hasbro products, or help them by increasing the overall popularity of the franchise?

How about we stop bringing them to Hasbro's attention?

[Editor]

What is Hasbro's views of third-party outfits, like Fans Project, Head Robots, Mastermind, and old-timers like ReproLabels? Does Hasbro feel that these fan-based products hurt sales of Hasbro products, or help them by increasing the overall popularity of the franchise?

How about we stop bringing them to Hasbro's attention?

Seriously folks, we know that Hasbro has not and will not answer questions regarding 3rd parties, and bringing them up in these Q&A's only serve to remind Hasbro that we are buying stuff from other people rather than their offerings. Not exactly what they want to hear from us.

[Gauntlet101010]

Yeah, quit it witht he 3rd party questions! They were asked anyway. Hasbro doesn't like them. Asked and answered.

My questions:

1) The G1 Unicron prototype comes up in discussion every now and then. For the sake of curiosity, how far along were the prototypes before they were canned? Could they be mass produced at all at this point (meaning, are any of them far enough along for that, are things lost now)?

For instance, I understand that G1 Arcee only made it to the non-transforming prototype stage and that, obviously, couldn't be mass produced at all at this point without further work (final molds don't even exist). Meanwhile Animated Blackout, although cancelled here, was obviously ready to be made into the TFA line.

For this question I'm asking about the Takara Unicron (with that mini moon), the yellow and blue Hasbro Unicron, and Beast Wars Neo Unicron.

Not asking if there's any plans to release them ever (because, obviously, there isn't). I'm just curious if any of the prototypes were far enough along for it to be possible.

2) Recently an old Hasbro toy brochure has been unearthed and it shows us some prototypes of the movie characters. What happens to these prototypes? Are they thrown away or are they valued at Hasbro (even now, about 20 years later)? Do you guys still have them in storage somewhere? Would it be possible to get a clearer look at some of the old development prototypes someday? If not, why not?

3) One of the biggest differences between Takara's recent releases and Hasbro's recent releases has been the shiny. Namely the chrome on the Henkei figures and the shiny paint on the Animated line. It seems like Hasbro is shying away from the shiny. Any reason why?

4) When we look at Takara's Henkei line we see some pretty startling differences (the paint jobs in Cyclonus and Dinobot for example). How much communication was there between both of you in this line? Was Hasbro oblidged to give up anime accurate colors (like on Dinobot or Cyclouns)? Were there any color schemes you gave up to Takara that you would have liked to have kept? Conversly, was Takara unable to get color schemes that you recieved instead?

[guardianprime]

When designing a new transformer do you ever take into concideration with other hasbro toy lines?
the most specific example i can think of would be motorcycles which my this time most of us have realized are pretty close to being in scale with G.I. Joe figures. is this ever on purpose and do you have any plans (other than the one known G.I.Joe transforming motorcycle) to exploit this in the future?

[LiKwid]

Will Botcon continue to be overseen by funpub in the future or do they have a "contract" of sorts to run the con? With the delays in the registration( understandably) will Hasbro look elsewhere for a company to run their Con?


sorry had to get this off my chest LOL

[Arlekkin]

Sorry but another question came to mind....

So everybody knows that when the Transformers came out in the early 80s, Takara could not release some characters such as Shockwave and Skyfire, as they were the property of other companies. Now, does Hasbro have the rights to all of Takara's character inventory including the e-hobby exclusive characters? And if yes, are we gonna see any of those characters in any future line?

[Jelze Bunnycat]

Sorry but another question came to mind....

So everybody knows that when the Transformers came out in the early 80s, Takara could not release some characters such as Shockwave and Skyfire, as they were the property of other companies. Now, does Hasbro have the rights to all of Takara's character inventory including the e-hobby exclusive characters? And if yes, are we gonna see any of those characters in any future line?

I think the BotCon Bug Bite, Deathsaurus, Universe Leo Prime and the canceled Victory Saber pretty much confirmed that.

[Seibertron]

Our 2 questions have been sent. Man this is tough to do, especially with only being able to ask 2 questions.

Let me see if I can answer some of the other questions here ...

[Seibertron]

What is Hasbro's views of third-party outfits, like Fans Project, Head Robots, Mastermind, and old-timers like ReproLabels? Does Hasbro feel that these fan-based products hurt sales of Hasbro products, or help them by increasing the overall popularity of the franchise?

Hasbro has stated in the past several times that they are not pleased with 3rd party products. They had also stated that they were looking into pursuing legal avenues to prevent further products from being made.

Speculation: Considering that we haven't heard anything further about this, my personal opinion is that they decided it's too costly to pursue legal action since most of these companies reside in China and/or not worth the hassle and/or is not cutting into their profits (perhaps they talked to an actuator?).