ExVee

As Transformers Siege prepares to start making its way to retail locations in the US over the next few weeks, we've got updated pieces of stock photos for much of the first wave. These images come from a number of listings on ebay where they're illustrating pre-sales of the various toys. This has afforded us the chance to see the finalized stock photos, using actual production sample toys for a range of items across all but the Leader class, as well as giving us looks at the back panels for the Deluxe packaging. Unfortunately among the covered price points, Lionizer is still absent but we hope to be able to add those stock images soon. Click here to see all the images!

Transformers Siege is currently entering the retail distribution system in the US, already finding its way to comic shops and some other specialty retailers, starting on the west coast. That means it'll only be a short matter of time before major chains get in on the action and the hunt can truly begin for the latest refresh of Transformers Generations. To help facilitate that process, we spent some hours today hunting down product identification codes for all the toys in the first assortments, from Battle Masters up to Leaders, giving us UPC numbers and Target DPCI codes for the whole lot of them! Keep reading for more...

Japanese website Moon Base has posted a page for the blind box assortment of Transformers BotBots, consisting of a total of 24 different characters. From this listing we have stock images showing the retail carton along with robot and alt mode for each individual toy. There's a diverse range of different forms to be had from this case assortment, which means we can just hope that there will be easily read code stamps like Tiny Turbo Changers have had to help avoid duplicates while collectors try to seek out full sets. Read more...

By way of Loopaza on Facebook, we've got a quick update on TakaraTomy's Transformers Siege offerings for the month of April. Sadly the listings bring us nothing in the way of surprises, appearing mainly to bring the Japanese side of the line to the start of what we consider "wave 2" product - though for one instance it may be that they're juggling the release order just a bit! Keep reading for more...

Via 孩之宝变形金刚 on Weibo, we have some glamour shots of MPM-6 Movie Masterpiece Ironhide. Due out... well, any time now, we think? The photos certainly give a lot of focus to the fine details of the figure, keeping closely zoomed in in both modes to see all of the screen accuracy that's packed in with this mold. The main thing we're really lacking in this showcase is a side by side with one of Ironhide's already released companions like Optimus or Bumblebee - but such photos will probably come along very soon with retail release right around the corner! Keep reading...

TakaraTomy has uploaded a new webcomic chapter for LG-EX Big Powered, coming as a TakaraTomy Mall exclusive at the end of March, 2019. I wish I could tell you more about the details of this comic, however with all text in Japanese, naturally, and the typical level of visual insanity filling every single panel, it's hard to make much sense of the events. See more here...

While all eyes turned toward Paris and London over the weekend, Shanghai was enjoying its own exhibition - indeed, we briefly suspected one of the early Studio Series reveals may have taken place there before more info came in. However, Toyworld did have some of their goods on display, notably early entries in their unofficial fill-in-the-blanks figure line bringing more move designs and characters to Studio Series scale. We've got another look at the bulldog tank robot, including one image posted on Toyworld's Weibo showing the tank in color. But another interesting display is Toyworld's go at World War II Bumblebee, with the vehicle mode based on the contemporary Mercedes as seen in the flashback in the movie - while still retaining the military armored car elements to the robot mode. Via an array of Weibo users who caught photos during SHCC, we've got quite a few pictures for you to check out of these two upcoming products!

Thanks to the efforts of both waffel and thepr1me1nat0r we've got a few good photos of the early prototype build of Studio Series Devastator, shown off by Hasbro at MCM Comic Con in London this weekend. This Devastator will serve to mark the tenth anniversary for Revenge of The Fallen with the Constructicons beginning to ship next year, though it may not end up with the entire set available before 2019 is done, but we'll just have to wait and see what kind of distribution magic Hasbro might try to pull off. Read more...

As part of a reveal happening at Shanghai Comic Con this weekend, Prime 1 Studio has posted to Instagram showing off the first look at their statue of Bumblebee in his Volkswagen body, based on Transformers: Bumblebee. The statue sticks closer to the final appearance of Bumblebee as seen in the movie trailers over the last several weeks, with exception of the raised door wings. One commenter stated asking Prime 1 Studio about this at the event, and reports that they may be working on revisions to bring the likeness more in line with what's seen in the movie. Time will tell! Read more...

Thanks to a lead from Autobase Aichi, we've found the original source of this photo may be Instagram user PrimeVsPrime. From their post, we've learned that this photo was taken at MCM London Comic Con, taking place this weekend where Hasbro has an exhibit set up. With added background of the circumstances of the photo, it feels safer to say now that we're looking at the real deal - hopefully there will be more of these toys to be seen as the weekend unfolds! Read more

Though certainly pale in comparison to in-hand photos of Skytread we do have a leaked stock photo of Siege Sideswipe's box front. Far from our first look at the Deluxe level packaging (it debuted all the way back in July during TakaraTomy's local unveiling of Siege) it's nice to see more bits and pieces of the line turning up as we move ever closer to its launch on store shelves - an event we expect to happen by the start of December, if not perhaps a tiny bit earlier! Read more...

Early this morning, a product sheet similar to what we've seen in the past offering first signs of upcoming toys was leaked through a Weibo account. Right now we don't have any clear indications of its origin or veracity, but we think there may be enough credibility to present it as a potential rumor, as it included the mysterious MPM-8 which was later listed for preorder by BigBadToyStore. The listing is written in katakana, so keep reading to have a look at that, and the translation that reveals all!

Though we're not expecting these to begin filtering out to retail for another month or so at least, at least one Transformers Siege figure has found its way to the hands of the fan community. Tonight we have our first in-hand look at Skytread, the renamed Duocon Flywheels, with photos taken by ChErikS. We've learned from this that the Deluxe toys will not feature any sort of character bio, nor was a collector card included. That may disappoint some, but thankfully Skytread itself sounds like a very nice figure! Read more...

Alongside the Big Powered photos, Dengeki Hobby has published a large batch of stock images for the March crop of TakaraTomy Transformers Siege toys, and this time there's a decent few shots we haven't seen before. Besides actually depicting the weapon mode for Stormcloud and "Visper", and showing Megatron's fusion cannon pegged on his forearm, we get some new photos of Shockwave that reveal an alternate arrangement for his "super mode" add-on parts that moves away from platform shoes and extra arms and repurposes strictly as guns, guns, and more guns. All that, plus Hound, Skytread (Flywheels, if you prefer), Big Shot & Flak, and Battle Master Blowpipe, which you can see mirrored in our gallery!

Dengeki Hobby has posted some coverage of the reveal of TakaraTomy's exclusive Big Powered LG-EX set. The three pack consisting of significant retools of Sky Shadow, Misfire, and Twin Twist as Dai Atlas, Sonic Bomber, and Roadfire is due late in March of 2018, and represents the first new Legends line entry in a long while. Dengeki's images mostly jirror the already released stock photography for the set, but several of the photos are now available at a larger size, allowing us to study them for more detail. You can check them out for yourself in the mirrored gallery, but as for our conclusion? This set still looks amazing! See more...

A number of sources are reporting on some developing situations with the corporate face of Hasbro this week. A class action lawsuit has been filed based on accusations of possible securities fraud or "other unlawful business practices." In short, the suit is claiming that Hasbro presented misleading or materially false information regarding business performance that led to harm to investors. Other reports this week point to layoffs coming to Hasbro's workforce, though Hasbro themselves have not referred to the situation as such thus far. Keep reading to find out more...

Coming to us from Hasbro's own Investor Presentation documents, we've got our very first look at the mysterious BotBots, by way of a small piece of art included in one of the numerous slides. Surely flying in the face of anyone's expectations, the BotBots appear to be based on the idea of transforming food items, with things like drink cups, donuts, ice cream cones and more all visible in a variety of robotic forms. If you were a child of the 80s, by some remarkable coincidence, you might fondly recall a McDonald's happy meal promotion along the same basic idea. In which case this line might be a very pleasing nostalgia trip when we get to see it in full. We've enlarged the image from the presentation to get a good look at the characters, as well as a fair quality look at the line's logo, click here to have a look!

Over on Twitter, @toygrind (who you might more immediately recognize as Thew of Thew's Awesome Transformers Reviews on Youtube) has posted two pieces of stock photography showing in-package samples of the Siege Micromaster Battle Patrol and Air Strike Patrol. We're not sure right now of the original source of the images, but they do show us some small new details - such as the Micromaster "Whisper" now being identified as "Visper". The packages carry the series-numbering S5 and S6; with the Battle Masters in wave 1 being S1-S3, we can safely presume the Race Car Patrol is S4. Read more...

The group Transform Element have posted 3D-print prototype photos of their MM-01 figure, an unofficial take on an unofficial redesign of Movie (sort of?) Bumblebee with a beast mode. Drawing inspiration from the same fan-produced art book that's led to things like the mechanical bull Sideswipe, this not-Bumblebee is a Not-Bumblebee in more ways than one, as it becomes a robotic tiger. Much like with the original art this copies from, the basic engineering concepts are not unlike Lioconvoy. The robot is said to be 17.5 centimeters tall, putting it in either solid "Voyager" territory, or maybe "Masterpiece" scale, depending. No price or release information is currently available. Read more...

It looks like we're in the traditional "season" for Walgreens Transformers exclusives finally, as Power of The Primes Wreck-Gar is finally appearing in the US. Our first confirmed sighting comes from Sacramento, California by Instagram user MCUcollector24, who snapped a photo of his find on the shelf at an area Walgreens, marked at $17.99. It'll probably still take a little while for Wreck-Gar to make its way out to the rest of the country from here, but with any luck it will also become available online from Walgreens soon to help out those not lucky enough to manage a local find. Keep reading...

Apparently it was too early to observe that the flow of leaks via Weibo had seemed to subside, as usual-suspect "tf-factory" has put out a few minor items in the last little while. We've got copies of the final stock images for Voyager wave 1, showing the packaging and robot and vehicle images for Optimus Prime and Megatron. This is not our first time seeing the Voyager packaging, as it had been displayed at Summer Wonderfest in Japan immediately after SDCC. We also have images of the covers for the Hasbro Asia variants of the instructions for wave 1 Battle Masters, which brought an interesting detail to light, especially when taken together with the Voyager packaging. Read more...

Early Amazon listings are turning out to be quite a regular source of information these days, as a new round of updates has provided some information not even revealed during NYCC this month. Among the listings are the officially revealed Reflector/Refraktor, and Brunt, plus Red Alert who has been prominently featured in promotional art and snuck in the official press kit images from NYCC. The fan vote characters are also listed, and while not named we will recall that the winners for this round were Mirage and Impactor, with Impactor on the Decepticon side for Reasons, we're sure. But there is a surprise hidden among these! Find out more...

TakaraTomy has just begun the official unveiling of Legends Series Big Powered, with our first close looks at the toys in full color. While we oddly lack an image of Big Powered itself (apart from that thumbnail from earlier, we do have multiple images of each of the three components. A surprising amount of retooling has gone in each figure here, leaving them scarcely recognizable as their original molds in robot modes. The two Deluxes have also had "base" "modes" developed for them, bolstered ever so slightly by some of the newly added parts. It's gonna be a substantial set when it releases next March at a retail of ¥15,000. See more here.

TakaraTomy has posted the latest batch of stock photos to their online product catalog, giving us high resolution looks at their second batch of Transformers Siege releases, coming in March of 2018. Included in this wave of toys are the newly revealed Megatron, Shockwave, and Skytread, AKA Flywheels, plus the Japanese release of Hound, rounded out with two Micromaster sets and a Targetmaster. Of most note, we now have a good quality photo of Shockwave's core alternate mode. We may jokingly call it a submarine, but it's totally passable in what it's surely intended as - a small space battleship. Either way though it's definitely not just a gun turned upside-down! Keep reading...

This morning an assortment of TakaraTomy stock photos have come out for upcoming Transformers goods due early next year, including some of the debuts from NYCC last week. But standing out among those is Shockwave, whose photos present confirmation that there's another alternate mode hidden under the fully equipped starship form Hasbro's stock images showed us. Click here to see more!