Botcon 2008, part 1

Botcon day one (which for us, which was Saturday) was busy and fun! If a picture is worth a thousand words then we've got 153,00 words to share, and that's just from day 1!

CLICK HERE for the photo gallery. Listed below are our summary of notes from the first very revealing Hasbro Panel.

Greg Lambardo, Director of Marketing for Transformers began the presentation with discussion of the past year.

2007 was tremendous! Great year will lead to the ability do more projects the fans have been asking for!
• Movie gross sales over 700 million worldwide
• Transformers Movie DVD sales were #1 DVD in the USA
• Transformers toy line was the #1 Action figure toy brand
• Movie deluxe assortment won some toy industry board (whose name I wasn’t fast enough to type!) award for best boys action figure toy line
• We know how strong of a fan base Transformers has and “we want to want to thank all of you for your support,” a round of applause from Hasbro to us the #1 fans

“Now on to the good stuff!” He said they would skip most of what we seen, leaked on ebay and such
• Transformers Animated toys to hit the shelves be June 22, plus or minus a few weeks depending on location. full toy line starting by August
• Lots happening promotionally, Transformers Animated Season 1 released on DVD, coming soon!
• First slide was Sentinel Prime Deluxe 9/2008
• Deluxe Swoop: Blown away by how show accurate, Project was a Hasbro/Takara co-development project
• Deluxe Elite Guard Bumblebee! (toy was not on display) It was a redeco of the standard deluxe Bumblebee. Dark Brow on top car bronze bottom.
• Leader Ultra Magnus! Crowd applause erupts! :) Very show accurate, has hammer, absolutely awesome!

Transformers Universe product update:
• Originally line was it’s basically everything but animated and movie
• Classics Universe deluxe Ironhide. Very G1 inspired, very nice a SUV w/ front silver rollbar. Not an 80’s van, “this is our interpretation of what we think Ironhide would be in today’s modern times.”
• Classics Sideswipe: same car as sunstreaker, new redeco and new silohette. New head sculpt!
• Universe Ultra Silverbolt. A concord with sounds in jets and robot mode, with transformation form and other electronic sounds when flying
• Universe Storm Cloud is a Powerglide recolor. Dark color scheme, looks great
• Universe legends: Megatron and G1 inspired Jazz, Kickback vs Ironhide, BW Transmetal Megatron vs. BW Silverbolt, Thrust vs Blaster

Fall 2008 Exclusives:
• Comic Con Hasbro Nemesis Prime
• Titanium 6” War Within Skywarp.
• It is Hasbro’s intent to sell exclusives such as Comicon on Hasbro Toy shop July ‘08
• Walmart exclusives: Breakaway is a recolor of Cybertron Hotshot, Fracture is a red and white recolor of Mirage, Crankcase,
• Dirge and Roadbuster G1 color schemes look great. Each pack includes a deluxe and a voyager figure. They come with a comic featuring these characters! Roadbuster is a recolor of Cybertron Defefense Hotshot and Dirge is Voyager Starscream. Springer and Ratbat Springer is a green recolor of Cybertron Evac, ratbat is a purple and grey recolor of Sideways. Both look great.

Then the biggest news: TRU exclusive
• 6” titanum War Within Prowl!
• 6” titanium War Within Grimlock
• These are coming thanks to fan support and interest, (and because the molds were already made! Ha!)

25th Years of Transformers 1984 to 2009 SNEAK Peak. 25th anniversary of the brand
• Targeting Thanksgiving: G1 Optimus Prime Re issue, it’s original G1 OP includes digitally remasterd on DVD first 3 episodes with sound box of Cullen Quotes, and a re-print of issue marvel #1, Silver foil logo of 25th anniversary packaging
• Celebrating all lines he showed logos of many ‘core lines of Transformers: Energon, Armada, RID, Beast Machines, Beast Wars and G2…
• First showed Universe deluxe: Hound with with Ravage! As a cassette tape, very G1 style looking. Ravage looks pose-able. Here’s the great part, this Ravage will fit into the chest of G1 Soundwave!!!! Very cartoon accurate, colors pose-ablity CROWD GOES WILD!! :)
• Universe Cyclonus with Nightstick. VERY G1 cartoon accurate. VERY nice sculpT. G1 cartoon Look!
• Beast Wars g1 cartoon accurate Cheetor, totally new mold… totally new sculpte, pose-able, AWESOME!
Aaron archer joked, in this 25th Anniversary celebration, we’re even “celebrating variants” the eyes open and change from red to green color!  The intent here is to make a toy that looks much more like the cartoon.
• Universe Legends Brawn and Beachcomber, look very G1 inspired Using legensds scal;e
• Robot Heroes BMach cheetor vs. Tankor, RID OP v. Megatron

Questions:
Q:Movie 2- Vehicles being driven around. Will we get redesigned versions of the Movie characters or the same.
A: Ongoing, It’s going well, We’re very happy. Product line; Wait and see! “We’ll look at releasing characters in other sizes.. Make them more movie accurate.”

Q: Masterpiece Thundercracker,
A: It’s on the short wish list.

Q: Off screen Animated characters? Blackout in Animated form?
A: Nope. Oilslick is the only one.

Q:More Attacktix?
A: No

Lukis Bro Question: “Thank you for featuring strong, kick butt female characters!... (Sari)” Any chance they’ll be producing humans coming into the line?
Aaron Archer: “When we say it’s at the top of our short (wish / want to produce) list… We mean really short list.”

Q: Titanim line:
A: Collector market liked them. But that’s about it. Not enough market to support

Q: Another round of questions about Arcce begging:
Greg Lambardo: answer: just because you haven’t seen it, doesn’t mean it’s not being worked on!