Toy Fair 2015
From Transformers Wiki
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| Date | February 14–17, 2015 | ||||||
| City | New York, NY | ||||||
| Venue | The Times Center | ||||||
Toy Fair 2015, hosted in New York City from February 14–17, boasts "over 25,000 attendees, 345,500 square feet of exhibit space, 100,000 products with over 7,000 never before seen in the world, 1200+ exhibitors, [and] 1000 global media representatives."
Transformers Wiki was invited to Hasbro's 2015 Collector-Fan Media Day 2015 Entertainment Brand Preview Event at The Times Center on Saturday, February 14, and wiki contributors Matt Karpowich and David Willis attended. Following a presentation starting at 1pm, fan representatives were allowed into Hasbro's product showroom.
Contents |
Coverage
Venue and showroom
Rescue Bots
Sub-Shark!
High Tide!
Rescue Drill!
Robots in Disguise (2015)
Legion
1-Step Changers
Fracture! Thunderhoof!
Warriors
Jazz! Sideswipe!
Mini-Cons
RATBAT!
- The alternate forms of the Mini-Cons were called out as being either "buzzsaws" (Autobots) or "torpedos" (Decepticons).
- The first wave of Mini-Cons consists of Divebomb (Decepticon humanoid), Dragonus (Decepticon dragon), Sawback (Autobot wolf), and Slipstream (Autobot humanoid), and will hit retail in the fall of 2015. Wave 2 consists of Beastbox (Autobot gorilla), Ratbat (Decepticon bat), Sandsting (Decepticon scorpion), and Velocirazor (Autobot dinosaur).
- The "wave 1 Mini-Con wolf" was referred to as Wolfwire by one presenter, which may have been Sawback's working name. Meanwhile, the stock photography refers to Divebomb as "Sliver".
- Each wave of Mini-Cons will come with parts that, when assembled, create a "bonus" non-transforming Mini-Con made out of clear plastic pieces. At present, these "bonus" Mini-Cons are unnamed, and it was uncertain how the information about them would be relayed to the general public, as the feature is not called out on the packaging. Wave one's parts will create an energy lion, and wave two's an energy shark.
Deployers
- The Deployers and their Mini-Cons were stated as being modeled specifically on the play pattern of the original Soundwave.
Mega Optimus Prime
- Mega Optimus Prime is capable of carrying up to ten Mini-Cons.
Super Bumblebee
- Super Bumblebee can carry as many Mini-Cons as he friggin' wants.
Generations
Legends
- Viper was said to be a "generic" style Transformer – not technically a drone, but a design a lot of different, independently-sentient guys share, like the Omnicons in the Energon cartoon. This characterization is intended to facilitate fans army-building Viper, recalling the Cobra Viper that is his namesake.
Deluxe Class
Blades!
Protectobots!
First Aid!
Rook!
Rook bio!
Streetwise!
- The "brand-new Prototectobot" Rook was said to be a "toolbox," with fists that can manipulate and use different types of weapons.
- Rook's deco was said to be the work of Joe Kyde. It was kept similar to the pre-existing Protectobots to maintain visual consistency in Defensor's combined mode.
- Because Rook's fists end in 5mm holes, and Combiner Wars hands use posts of the same scale, designer John Warden has received some late-night photos of Rook using the giant fists like "Hulk Hands" from his TakaraTomy teammate Shogo Hasui. This is both ridiculous and awesome.
Voyager Class
- Cyclonus's combined form was said to be called "Galvatronus" (with a long "o"), but his super robot head couldn't be revealed because the on-hand figures were hand-painted samples. The Legends Class "Viper" figure was implied to be Galvatronus's firearm, mirroring Powerglide/Silverbolt.
- Hot Spot was said to be the work of TakaraTomy staffer Takashi Kunihiro.
Leader Class
- As a designer, one thing John Warden is trying to do is work subtle scale back into Transformers. As an example of this, he stated that the doors and ladders on Ultra Magnus are 1/144th scale, and that the Titan Constructicons feature ladders of the same size (putting them into rough scale with one another).
- It is possible to arm Ultra Magnus with a hammer by combining his missile pods with some of his other parts.
- Minimus Ambus cannot ride in Ultra Magnus's cab mode, both due to the figure's transformation and so as to not give the appearance that Ultra Magnus is merely a "mecha".
- Ultra Magnus was also said to be the work of TakaraTomy staffer Takashi Kunihiro.
Titan Class
- Each of Titan Class Devastator's components is roughly the size of the original Devastator toy.
- Titan Devastator was a collaboration between designers John Warden and TakaraTomy's Shogo Hasui, who was driven by an almost-religious fervor to see that Devastator reached perfection (and reportedly got very little sleep in the process).
- With Titan Devastator considered the one chance to do an accurate "dream scale" Devastator that would appeal to both hardcore and casual fans, Hasbro did not want to commit to doing "Prowlastator," given that concept's relatively recent introduction into the lore.
- While the color layout of the Devastator on display was final - including painted black "windows" on his Mixmaster foot - the green will be changed for better consistency on the finished product.
- Mixmaster's change into an industrial cement mixer came about both to modernize him and to bring him into better scale with Long Haul's gigantic "mining dump truck" altmode.
- Devastator's poseability includes "monster hip joints" and rocker ankles on both sides. You're welcome.
- A presenter suggested that it would be pretty awesome to see Devastator redone as the Build Team.
Kre-O
Hero Mashers
Notes
- Presenting for the Transformers team were Jerry Jivoin and John Warden. Also at the event were Generations senior brand manager Sarah Carroll, senior vice president of Transformers Tom Warner, and TakaraTomy designer Hisao Nishimoto, plus former Transformers marketing team members Greg Lombardo (representing Play-Doh) and Mike Verret (presenting for Jurassic World).
- The Playskool Heroes component of the Jurassic World line will include redecos of several early Rescue Bots human figures, including Walker Cleveland, Sawyer Storm, Jack Tracker, and the original Charlie Burns.
- Clips from upcoming Rescue Bots episodes introduced Blurr, High Tide, and Salvage, the "Rescue Force recruits".
- One of the Robots in Disguise slides revealed that the franchise will receive a McDonald's promotion. This will presumably be done in conjunction with My Little Pony, as their presentation also referenced the chain.
- During the Generations portion of the presentation, the audience was polled to add a vote for the Fan-Built Combiner's location of origin. The Sea of Rust won overwhelmingly over Iacon and Kaon.
- Following the location vote, Jerry Jivoin said that he'd love to see the first-ever female combiner, and heavily hinted that fans may be able to vote for the gender of the Fan-Built Combiner in the near future.
- Ben Yee's interview with Jivoin also revealed that the first wave of Combiner Wars Deluxes released in North America lacked pack-in comics because of production timing issues; the collector cards are usually only used in non-English international markets, but were subbed in because the comics weren't ready to go. Any re-releases of first wave figures will include comics.[2]
- On the showroom floor, Jivoin clarified that the Tiny Titans line is in fact a mix of characters from different universes, despite the packaging being Robots in Disguise-themed. This was done to both draw in fans of other Transformers series and to beef up the character assortment.
- John Warden confirmed that Combiner Wars Blackjack was originally designed as Runabout; that Offroad was originally designed as Ruckus, but they both couldn't get the name and decided it didn't make sense for Ruckus to be a Stunticon anyway; and that Rook was designed as an entirely original character, whose head is based on the crown of the actual rook/"castle" chess piece.
- Although he has now moved on to another brand, Mark Weber was indicated as being instrumental in pushing for the existence of the Combiner Wars segment and working out its details.
- Whether redecos of figures from previous assortments receive new heads - Legends Huffer from Optimus Prime was used as an example - depends on the size of the figure and its equivalent production costs (e.g. making a new head for a Legends figure was said to be much cheaper compared to one for a Deluxe or a Voyager) and if TakaraTomy agrees to the proposal. In Huffer's case, his new head "insert" was deemed small enough by TakaraTomy that they agreed to it with minimal negotiations.
- One presenter inquired about whether fans would be interested in customizable "order-your-own" Combiners. The idea was agreed to be both awesome and potentially Wiki-breaking.
- When asked about the possibility of getting either the Generation 2 Stunticons or TakaraTomy's Slingshot in Combiner Wars, a presenter said that they couldn't reveal anything at this time, but stated that Hasbro loves to listen to the fans and tries to deliver the best tributes it can to its wide audience.
