ExVee

Thanks to Actar, we've got a bunch of nice, big photos of Leader class Jetfire from the upcoming new Studio Series assortment. Jetfire is designed to work with the newly remodeled Voyager class Optimus Prime allowing the two figures to combine as seen in Revenge of The Fallen, and reportedly the combination process follows a similar track as the movie, requiring Jetfire be ripped limb from limb to facilitate the merging. Read more...

ITMedia's Netlab had an interview with designers from TakaraTomy, talking about Transformers, with emphasis on the Siege toyline. Published in Japanese, we only have machine translations to go off of right now, so it's hard to dig too deeply in the content right now. But while we wait for a better translation from the fan community, we can still take some interesting bits and pieces out of what we have. Read more...

We've got a new photo of the redesigned movie Optimus Prime Studio Series Voyager, as seen in the Cybertron battle scene at the beginning of Bumblebee. Planned as number 38 in the line, we've got a couple of waves to wait before this figure hits retailers, but this new robot mode photo makes it look the best it has yet, with no obvious mistransformations, and showing off the balance between movie detail level and big, well-defined G1 shapes. Keep reading...

In a welcome break from whatever the latest Masterpiece-alike bandwagon might be, Zeta Toys posted pictures on Weibo showing a project of an entirely different sort: The Zeta Bar. Scaled for Legends figures, this is a set of one bar section, a Decepticon throne, two bar stools, two modular furniture pieces, and various scaled glassware, allowing for a lot of potential customization, especially when multiple sets are used. Read more...

Due to come out any time now in Japan, we have a few early photos of the toy-based redeco of Masterpiece Megatron. MP-36+ loses some of the extra option parts the first MP-36 had, but replaces them for a new face sculpt, chromed parts, and some added color. Right now we just have out of package shots of the robot mode, but it's certainly an interesting contrast against the normal MP-36. Keep reading

By way of a press release published before Christmas, we've learned that Hasbro has won a criminal case in China against parties accused of counterfeiting Transformers products. This judgment is the outcome of actions initiated in 2017 by Hasbro, and reportedly thousands of pieces of the fake merchandise were destroyed. It had long been common perception that entities in China could basically act freely when it came to playing fast and loose with intellectual property, but this ruling would seem to indicate that it may not be so easy after all. Read more...

Thanks to ChErikS, we have some out of package photos of Leader class Transformers Siege Ultra Magnus. It looks like the first trickle of Leader class is finally starting to arrive now, though we're still waiting for any coverage of Shockwave to turn up right now. We've previously seen side by side shots of this Magnus alongside Siege Voyager Optimus, revealing they stay close in height even when Magnus is armored. But now we have comparisons with Combiner Wars Leader Ultra Magnus, and that really puts the size of the new figure in perspective. Keep reading...

On the TFND Facebook page, Yenting Lai has shared a few pictures of the new Voyager Optimus Prime coming to Studio Series as number 32 in the Hasbro lineup. This is still Optimus in the form depicted in the first three movies, but now more screen accurate than the wave 1 release, and designed to combine with Leader class Jetfire. Read more...

While many locations in the US are still waiting for most of wave 1 of Transformers Siege to hit store shelves, we've already got package stock photos for much of wave 2! In Demand Toys on Facebook has posted the package-front photos for the Deluxe and Battle Master assortments, showing us Ironhide, Chromia, Sixgun, and Prowl, plus Aimless and Pteraxadon. Read more...

From Baidu we've got another look at the surprise upcoming Voyager Studio Series Optimus Prime based on the appearance as seen in the Bumblebee movie. We saw an instruction booklet image and one slightly mistransformed robot mode photos, but now we have a low quality image of the back panel of the box that reveals the vehicle mode and shows the intended look of the robot mode. Read more...

The Toysdaily message board has turned up a few images showing projects from Flame Toys to eventually join their licensed Transformers merchandise lineups. Read more...

Toyworld has been working on a new lineup of Legends size unofficial figures, the first based off of Wheeljack. Though the expected redeco as Exhaust has been known, it seems that wasn't quite enough for Toyworld. Using the cigarette pack-styled deco as a basis, a holiday special edition appears to also be in the works. Keep reading...

We told you last night about what appeared to be a new reissue of G1 Optimus Prime - but only the robot portion of the toy, no trailer. A number of photos were shared, but that was all we really had to go on at the time. But one of those photos includes the product barcode with visible numbers. That allowed us to take advantage of some online resources and squeeze just a bit of info out of this. Keep reading...

On Facebook, TFND has shared a few pictures of a most peculiar thing: A G1 Optimus Prime in new vintage style packaging very much like Hot Rod and company that have been filling shelf space at Walmarts this year. The catch? It's only the truck cab and its essential parts, such as the fists and rifle. Keep reading...

Coming to us from 蓝色正午 on Weibo, we've got a few new pieces of stock photography for the Transformers Siege Greenlight & Dazlestrike set we first saw yesterday. The new photos show that the figure will have more retooling than just a new face, as the forearms can now be seen to be new pieces as well - notably omitting the 5mm ports that were present on both Moonracer and Novastar. Keep reading...

The Facebook page In Demand Toys has posted a packaging stock photo this afternoon giving us our first look at Transformers Siege Greenlight, one of the new products mentioned on an unconfirmed listing of upcoming merchandise. Immediately, this lends much more weight to that list (our detailed analysis of which you can find here, but it also reveals a surprise when you look just a little closer: Greenlight is not a redeco of Chromia, but of Moonracer (with a new head sculpt, of course). This distinction is important, as it means that Greenlight will function as a combiner limb, a capability the Chromia mold - near-identical in engineering, but a different toy entirely - notably lacks. Keep reading...

Transformers: Bumblebee had its early preview screening over the past weekend, and met with unusually positive fan response, for a live action Transformers movie. The praise may not be 100% universal, but it seems evident that the moviegoers who have seen it so far like the different take, breath of fresh air, and potential new directions the movie opens up. But what it means for what comes next in the movie franchise is far from decided. Read more...

We've got some initial out of package photos showing off the Master Optimus Prime G-Shock x Transformers collaboration figure. Toy blogger tagoal tweeted out some quick photos showing the figure in its robot and alternate modes, as well as providing a side by side with Siege Voyager Optimus that seems to confirm our earlier estimate that Master Optimus Prime would come in around the same height as a pre-Siege Leader class Transformer. Keep reading...

Good news! The first BotBots toys have been found at brick and mortar retail in the US this evening. Twitter user Trasufoma has reported the find at a Walmart in Massachusetts, where a "stocking stuffer" mid-aisle display unit had one of its bays filled with the blind pack assortment of BotBots Series 1. Making this news even better, Trasufoma has confirmed for us that the seemingly hand-written number codes we observed on the units sent to us for the BotBots Challenge by Hasbro are present on the regular retail run! Keep reading...

TakaraTomy's official website has updated with an MP-44 Convoy product page, giving us some brand new stock photos of the most expensive ever Masterpiece Transformer. Until the next one. More shots of action poses are included now showing off a range of the figure's flexibility, plus they recreated one of those iconic Transformers: The Movie moments using MP Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. Keep reading

Amazon Japan sort of has product listings for the May 2019 wave of TakaraTomy Transformers Siege releases, consisting of Pteraxodon, Micromaster Rescue Patrol Stakeout and Red Heat, Deluxes Chromia and Prowl, and Voyager Soundwave. Along with those comes MP-44 Convoy, which is due out in late August. Read more

The potential list of upcoming Transformers products we posted earlier had a number of interesting items shown, but some of them seemed rather vague. But the English text on the image was only part of the story, and the Chinese tells a good bit more. Keep reading!

Originally solicited for a release window at the end of January 2019, it seems MP-43 Beast Wars Megatron will be taking some extra time to get to collectors. Amazon Japan sent an email update this morning alerting preorder holders to the status change and advising of the new expected delivery window. Amazon now expects Megatron to be released on March 30, two full months after the original plan. The upshot of this for many interested buyers in the US is that most people should have their tax refunds in by then and can devote some of those funds to paying for the big purple tyrant. Read more...

Finally, for now, from Tokyo Comic Con 2018 we have photos from the Masterpiece display. We finally got to see color promo photos of MP-44 Convoy this afternoon, but it seems for the convention tours it's still just the grey testshot unit making the rounds. We'd bet, though, that by Winter Wonderfest the color copy will be getting shown to exhibition-goers. Read more...

Not having quite as much new stuff to show as Studio Series, Transformers Siege is very much present at Tokyo Comic Con 2018. A healthy lineup of product is out for visitors to look at, covering the Hasbro market's whole first wave of products and showing some from a little further down the line. Notable here are samples of Ironhide and Starscream that appear to be in full plastic colors, representing our first glimpse of what these toys will actually look like when they hit shelves. Read more...