Botcon 2015 News - Combiner Wars and Titan Wars

[Sparky Prime]

Botcon is this weekend, and early images from the Hasbro booth have started to be posted online.
TFW2005 shows the new backdrop artwork similar to the Combiner Wars packaging revealing the next toyline theme will be Titan Wars, and appears will heavily use the Headmaster gimmick.

Looks like Fortress Maximus will be getting a new toy and will come with both Cerebros and Spike Headmasters. Some have pointed out on the message boards that the arms appears to be the same as Metroplex, suggesting it'll be a retool of the Titan class Metroplex.
Blaster is now a Headmaster.
And there is some sort of jet Headmaster. TFW seems to think it looks like Galaxy Convoy or Star Saber after correcting that it's not Astrotrain. Update- Now they're saying it likely is Astrotrain. Personally, I think it looks like Sixshot with that head.

[Sparky Prime]

Seibertron has posted an image of a Combiner Wars poster showing art of Devastator, Superion, Ultra Prime, Bruticus, Optimus Maximus, Defensor, Menasor and Galvatronus.

[Almighty Unicron]

I literally bought Metroplex because I thought my dream of getting a fort max would never come true. Now? I think I'll have to repaint my 'Plex as a metrotitan and get the Fort max.

[JediTricks]

That poster has 2 different Optimus Prime-based combiners. Something is a little extra wrong with that one. Nice that Onslaught will be closing out the deal (unless you count Victorion, who I guess is going to be late to the party and have a lot of Alpha Bravos).

Hmm, it does bear some similarity to Sixshot, although he wasn't a Headmaster toy (but neither was Blaster, whose name is 1 letter off from keeping a turkey moist in the oven), the head is similar and there are those chest circles.

[Sparky Prime]

TFW2005 has posted an interview with Hasbro's Jerry Jivoin and Ben Montano from Botcon about the future of the Transformers toy line. Mostly dealing with Combiner Wars, but they do talk about the Titan class among a few other things.

[Dominic]

Ben: I think you started the question with “only”… we have two of them, which is a pretty big step. But a lot of it is story driven for us to be honest with you so along with IDW and other partners, that really drives… and also we see the fans or if we ask the fans to create a new character that’s what driving our decision a lot is like Jerry said is what do we hear the loudest of. So Hall of Fame vote no matter how silly it may seem that’s information for us. That feeds to us what do people care about? Who do they want to celebrate? So all that stuff really comes into play and helps us decide who’s going to come in the toy line but also… in some sense if we’re going to do something Titan class…if it’s pricey it has to be something that we know people are going to jump at.

Interesting answer. Besides coming out and saying that the Hall of Fame was market research (which we knew, but might not have expected Hasbro to say out loud), they say that some of the choices are story driven, which is consistent with the more synchronized efforts from Hasbro and IDW.

And, he says they listen to the fans. (I wonder if that means we will see a bump back up in quality next year.)


As for the comics, I tend to think that the stupider things in the comics (the Enigma of Combination and its related back-writes, Thundercracker being written as a teenage girl and various other low pitches in RiD) are more IDW than Hasbro. (Hasbro would mandate that certain characters show up. But, the plot details are likely on IDW.)

[JediTricks]

Dom, they didn't say Hall of Fame was market research, they said market research was a byproduct of it. You are conflating intent into action.

If we see a bump in quality up, I'll be amazed. Takaratomy seems concerned with that, not Hasbro who seems content to throw their hands up and say "this is the best we can do given the budget and time and overhead".

[Almighty Unicron]

Deluxes already cost like what, $20 now? How much would you be willing to pay to see a bump in quality, and to what level? Would you be willing to pay $25 for what used to go for $10 or $13 during the Unicron Trilogy?

[Shockwave]

Where I live deluxes are 12.99 + tax. Which usually comes out to ~15.00.

[Sparky Prime]

The only place I've seen a deluxe figure at $20 was Toys R Us. Everywhere else they're still $15. If they have any... Last time I was at a Wal-Mart they only had RID one-step changers and a couple Combiner Wars Voyagers. They didn't even have the space set up for anything else on the shelf.