SDCC 2023 Hasbro Show Floor Q&A – Legacy, Studio Series, Video Games, More!

SDCC 2023 may be over, but we have another special piece of news to share. Like last year, along with the Q&A held at the panel, we were able to ask Hasbro some additional questions on the show floor, going over a variety of different topics including Legacy, Studio Series, video games and more.

Read on to see our Q&A!

(Once again, a huge thank you to the Hasbro and TFW SDCC teams for making this possible!)

Update: Additional Kotobukiya Q&A here.

Hasbro Team Discussion

Q: For Gamer Edition, is it limited to just WFC or will FOC (Dinobots, Bruticus, etc) and all the Transformers games be included?

A: Pretty much all of it. Think the clear winner will probably be, everybody wants some Devastation stuff, we need to figure out how to do some cell shading for it. Continuing from WFC, think FOC is on the table. Team has even joked about doing Mystery of Convoy, doing some sort of dot deco or something like that. We have the Ultra Magnus now and we have the Rodimus from Kingdom, it’s like why not. Why not some N64 Transmetals too? We can get some of that in there, there’s a lot of options. If it’s been in a video game, we have the opportunity to look at it, taking a little bit of a cue from what the Star Wars team did with their gamer stuff. There’s no licensing issues, we own all of that, it’s all on the table for us. But with the live action movie stuff, there’s always that stuff going on, you still have to deal with Paramount and the licensors.

Q: Possible to re-release the Activision TF games to coincide with Gamer Edition?

A: Sadly, apparently Activision’s not sure what hard drives they’re on in their building. When a company eats a company that eats a company things get lost, and that’s very frustrating. Hope is that now that the deal is moving forward with Microsoft and Xbox that they’ll go through all of the archives and every hard drive to find it all, because it’s an easy Game Pass add. We want those games back up for people to have a chance to play.

Update  – In relation to the above answer, Hasbro sent us this clarification.  “To clarify, comments that suggest TRANSFORMERS games have been lost were made in error. We apologize to Activision and regret any confusion; they’ve been great partners, and we look forward to future opportunities to work together.”

Q: How did that impact the process of making Gamer Edition?

A: Sam had to load up the games on older platforms because there were some deco details we couldn’t find – we have the CAD, but it’s not colored. So we had to find some of the character details within the games themselves.

Q: So you do have some of the game assets then?

A: We do, but it’s very interesting. FOC, we have everything. For WFC, we had to rip it ourselves, because they could not find it – they kept sending concept art instead, which we didn’t want, we need the CAD. So we booted up an old computer and ripped them all out from there. Which was a learning experience and a long weekend, because we just wanted to get it right, so that’s why we did it like that.

Q: What led to Gamer Edition’s creation? Were Activision or High Moon involved in coming up with the idea at all?

A: They actually weren’t, because we own the rights to the games, they’re licensed from us to be produced, so we have that freedom. Again, we kind of took that from Star Wars, we looked at what they were doing with the Black Series, there was gamer stuff, it really seemed like a natural progression, because we wanted to see what we could expand Studio Series into. It doesn’t only have to be live action (which the team started with 86), there’s a natural progression – we’re gonna run out of characters eventually, how do we keep Studio Series going? Gamer Edition came as a suggestion from an engineer who’s been on Transformers for a very long time now. When we started doing the 86 movie stuff, he was like, it would be great if we did this as well. And it was like yeah, you’re totally right, we need to do that! And that got the ball rolling.

Q: Hasbro turns the tables! Asks us if we’d consider comic publishers as studios, and that they could live in the Studio Series segment?

A: Led to a small back-and-forth on this subject, but in short it seems Hasbro may be interested in something like this.

Q: Are more video game franchise collabs possible since they’ve done a few things like that before?

A: It’s interesting, collabs continue to grow, and companies are approaching us, so everything is always on the table. We definitely want to partner with video game companies, clearly Nintendo partnered with Lego and they made a Nintendo system, or there was the Super Nintendo Transformer at one point in Japan, like we would love to be able to do something along those lines. Any company out there, like I don’t know, a partnership with Sega, a partnership with Microsoft or something, Sony – even just to make a Playstation, would be awesome.

Q: Maybe some sort of crossover with a game like Warframe for example? They have characters that are called Prime Warframes, that would be interesting.

A: Yeah, some of their designs are very Michael Bay-esque.

Q: Or maybe Transformers Pokemon and get a whole new group of fans collecting.

A: Ah, the dream, yeah.

Q: So we kind of hit on this with the comic talk, but just to elaborate – first we had 86, now we have Gamer Edition expanding Studio Series even more. What sort of other things could happen?

A: Anything that’s technically a studio could be on the table. We’re trying to look at that and make sure that it’s authentic to what Studio Series is. We don’t want to just shoehorn everything into Studio Series, but we do know that there are opportunities to grow the brand. We always say from screen to toy. And a lot of people read comic books on screens now.

Q: Moving to Legacy, there were a lot of Transformers Animated characters that went unmade back in the day like Omega Supreme, the Constructicons, Strika, etc. Do you intend to finally make some of them?

A: They’re always on the table, right? Legacy does provide us that massive sandbox, I think as we approach our 40th there’s a lot of stuff to pull from, we want to celebrate every fandom. Always say that every series that comes out is somebody’s first entry point into the franchise, whether it’s live action, a video game, Animated, RID2001, Victory, RID2015, etc. There was a kid we were talking to before and he was like, “I’m a Star Saber kid!” and it’s like, my God! So everything’s being looked at as best we can. There are, you know, mainline characters, more popular characters, that maybe show up sooner, but everything is always being looked at.

Q: Can you talk at all about plans for the future of the line?

A: Safe to assume that there will be a third part of Legacy. Would say stick around for the Fall, we kind of have a cadence that Pulsecon tends to be where we say what’s coming the next year. So now that Pulsecon’s been announced I think everybody kind of has an inkling of that. Clearly we got the Legacy wave 4 fanstream out there, we wanted to make sure to do that because they were starting to leak. Studio Series wave 4, we finally finished the panel, we want to get those out so that when we hit Pulsecon we’re looking towards 2024. It’s gonna be fun.

Q: There’s been a lot of characters we’ve seen before that never made it into the shows at all (Animated Marauder Megs, Powermaster Prime, other Allspark Almanac characters, etc used as examples). Things that exist in a more “nebulous” state, in other words. Would you be able to do stuff like that?

A: Unsure, depends on how it was created. If it was created by the studio we were working with for the show, then technically it should be our property. But if it’s fan created or came from other outlets, then there might be some creator rights things we’d have to look into. The things featured in the Allspark Almanac for example. It is very interesting because the rights issues get a little complicated, especially when dealing with even some of the Japanese media stuff that’s like, we have the rights to the Transformer characters that are in it, but the human characters that show up, those aren’t ours, which is very weird. And then, like even some of the stuff that was produced for like the TV magazines that launched back then like the manga, some of those characters are ones that we kind of need to work out rights issues with. So it might be a very similar situation to that, but it’s something we’d have to look into.

Q: Since Autotroopers are happening, are troop builders something you’re interested in doing more of, like the TFP Vehicons?

A: Troop building is definitely something that even our director super wants to do more of. Think we have to get them out of exclusives and more into mainline, so it’s definitely something that we’ve talked about. It’s something that we, compared to other action brands, kind of lack. There are these background characters that just never got to get made. So we’re testing the waters. So we did the Baliff pit for a Comic-Con exclusive – everybody was after that to buy multiples. We did the Sharkticons in Studio Series, people wanted multiples of that. We’re doing this other new troop builder kit to see if people are interested. And then clearly we’ve made the Seeker mold like 900 times, but yeah, we can make it a little more purple and you can build out your entire Seeker army. The G2 Cybertronian Trooper was a head swap Mark and Hasui came up with, so we’re also looking at the multiple heads thing and swapping of heads.

Q: Any possibility of a new complete G1 soundtrack and not just select pieces?
A: 40th anniversary seems like a good place to do that.

1-On-1 With Evan

Q: Overall, what is the Gamer Edition fig you’d most like to do?
A: Titan Trypticon, or Fall of Cybertron Combaticons.

Q: Now that Jolt is coming with Powerlinx Hot Shot, are there plans to do the rest of the Minicons as well?
A: Mark and I have talked about it. We know Armada fans want them, we are discussing how to get them out there.

Q: Will Jolt get a retail release for those who can’t get the exclusive set?
A: Maybe at some point we will do a version that goes with retail Hot Shot.

Q: Since Commander Armada Optimus is now out, can you tell the full story of the Takara version we’d seen if you know it?
A: The Takara Prime was developed by a different team at Takara that doesn’t work with the Hasbro toy team, the Hasbro team asked for it but the model couldn’t be located, so the Commander toy was made from scratch. I think it turned out for the better.

Q: Possibility of a Siege Astrotrain release without the battle damage?
A: Absolutely. Maybe expect Astrotrain to appear in Studio Series, to better match his animation appearance.

Q: How has Armada Prime sold in comparison to other Commanders? He seemed to frequently sell out at online shops.
A: From what I’ve heard, he does keep selling out because he’s a fan favorite.

Q: Lugnut won the Hall of Fame vote, so will a figure happen?
A: I certainly hope so, since he’s a fan favorite, and since we’re dipping into the Animated universe, it’s certainly a possibility.

Q: Titan Nemesis seems to be opening the door for bigger fembot figures, so what other things would they like to do? Maybe like a new Voyager Elita, or Leader Strika?
A: Yes, we’ve done Elita before at Voyager scale as part of Power of the Primes, but one of the things we’d like to do is revisit Arcee as a Voyager in Studio Series to compact her backpack a little better.

Q: Will there be another version of IDW Orion Pax? Think the WFC Prime mold would work well as a base to get that buffer “supercop” look.
A: Yeah, there’s always gonna be more Primes, pretty safe bet of more Orion.

Q: Will there be Studio Series Transformers One?
A: Certainly counts as available for Studio Series.

Q: How about a more accurate Cybertron Optimus Prime?
A: I think so, people love Leobreaker and Cybertron Wing Saber and their combination gimmicks with Cybertron Optimus, and I think it would be good to revisit that. I would like to fight to make that happen.

Q: The newer Legacy TFP and TFA figs like Skyquake and Prowl being more faithful to their original designs than the initial TFP figs has gotten good feedback. Is the plan to continue with this, maybe lean into it even more?
A: We found a good balance of styles, and found that the Animated Prowl would look good alongside a Generations G1 Prowl.

Q: How about a Liokaiser to go with Victory Saber/Deathsaurus?
A: Absolutely yes. I also want to do Road Caesar. Fans have been very vocal.

Q: Evolution seems somewhat heavy on retools/repaints, was this a conscious decision?
A: It’s more that we thought it was the best way to do those characters. No budgetary or extra constraints, it was just the plan to make them as they are.

Q: Do you plan on continuing the Pretender updates, maybe like a big IDW-inspired Thunderwing?
A: We talk about it a lot. We think that the way we do Pretenders is currently good. Thunderwing would be a great Titan to do, either the game one or IDW one.

Q: Will future Pretenders follow their original sizes?
A: Perhaps. Depends on where we can make them in the line. Metalhawk we made bigger, if we made the others that go with him, they will likely be in scale with him.

Q: Are Transmetals something they’re interested in diving into more?
A: We are, and it’s more likely we would have to go with the spray metallics than vacuum chroming.

Q: Polar Claw appeared in a piece of early Kingdom artwork, but obviously he never materialized. Is there any chance he could be revived? BW fans would love to see him!
A: Yeah, it’s possible. It was something John Warden had planned. But when team transitions happened, it was decided release-wise that it makes more sense to do a Voyager Tigatron than Polar Claw at that scale.

Q: How about the unmade Fossilizers?
A: Entirely possible, never really part of the plan, we let the poster artist do the designs and they created them.

Q: Are you interested in doing more toy-only characters in general?
A: We get asked about making new characters, but there are also a lot of “legacy” characters to work through. But we would like to bring in more newness.

Q: Would BW Torca be someone they’re interested in doing, maybe as a Leader or even Commander?
A: Torca, maybe, always a possibility. It would be nice to do Fuzors.

Q: Are there plans to re-release Legacy Cosmos? Has the exclusivity agreement with Walmart ended?
A: Yes, we plan to release him at some point, possibly the other Walmart-exclusive molds too, and plan to seed them into the mainline more.

Q: Has the success of Legacy Menasor made other combiners an “easier sell?” Are there plans for more?
A: Yes. The only issue is they are a lot of work. Working on Menasor was hard on Mark, but he’s looking to do more eventually.

Q: Will we see Machine Wars stuff?
A: I’m hoping we can do a Machine Wars capsule. I’m sure people have noticed some of the molds have features that have compatible characteristics and could be redecoed into these characters.

Q: Is there a possibility of a Titan Predaking reissue with swords and more guns?
A: It’s always possible to reissue, but given how we have done combiners now, we would probably re-engineer Predaking if we wanted to release him in the future.

Q: Overall, what are the Legacy figures you’d most like to do? If you’d like, choose one from each universe you can think of.
A: For IDW – Pharma, evil Autobot science with chainsaw hands.
For G1 – Omnibots, everyone’s waiting for that trio.
For Beast Wars – Quickstrike, I think it would be fun to do in Core class.
For Beast Machines – It would be fun to do an accurate Cheetor.
For RID2001 – Team Bullet Train, or the Build Team.
For Armada – Red Alert, to complete the team.
For Energon – Optimus Prime.
For Cybertron – Megatron would be fun, especially since he’s a Triple Changer.

Q: So for a new Energon Optimus, would he still have his trademark chunkiness?
A: Well, it’s certainly iconic. Though since I like his combination with Energon Wing Saber, I would like for a new figure to have good articulation.

Q: Have plans for mainline releases been impacted by what they can accomplish with Haslab in any way?
A: Kind of, there’s been some alignment with future plans of some characters and Haslab and where they come from.

Q: Studio Series ROTB Primal has no faceplate, could we get an alternate head with one?
A: I would say that’s definitely in the cards in the future, he didn’t have a faceplate in the CAD we received from the movie, and we thought he would have a mouth shown more in the movie.

Q: How about an Apelinq retool?
A: Yeah, we have to do him. We have to retool him. He wouldn’t be a new mold.

Q: Any interest in doing ROTB Maximal releases in their OG colors, similar to the Platinum Edition AOE Dinobot pack?
A: I think it could be a fun exclusive, but it wouldn’t go in Studio Series.

Q: Are there plans for some of the larger ROTB characters, like Stratosphere or even Unicron, to get toys?
A: We get that a lot. Maybe eventually a Haslab of Unicron in like 10 years, since we would want to see a robot mode. Stratosphere would be fun, would be interesting to do a Studio Series Titan.

Q: Haslab projects have been exclusively WFC/Legacy so far. Could Studio Series Haslab projects happen?
A: It could, I would want to do it for ones with more difficult engineering, with licensed vehicles, like Triple Changer Drift, Shatter, Dropkick. I don’t know how fans would react if we were to do Transit.

Q: Since Studio Series Commanders now exist, have you considered redoing AOE Grimlock as one since he’s so huge in the film? Or how about the other Dinobots?
A: The Dinobots, we’ve talked about it, but we think Commander class would be inaccurate and would be too small, I think we would need them to be Titan class to scale with Voyager Optimus, or possibly do Dinobots that scale with Core class figures.

Q: What led to the creation of the separate ROTB “mainline” Deluxes/Voyagers? Why are some of their designs so different?
A: The kids-oriented line was exclusively based off of concept art we received. For Studio Series we got more defined CAD models, but they updated them in the movie and our figures were already so far in production we could not change anything.

Q: Does ROTB Airazor have a robot model or were the toy ones something they created?
A: We created the toy robot mode, it was not provided by the movie studio.

Q: Could Paddles, Scorn or any of the other newer Dinobots happen after the 86 Dinobots are done?
A: I think they would continue to be in Legacy, and we would need to determine more G1-ified versions of their designs.

Q: Overall, what are the Studio Series fig you’d most like to do?
A: For Bayverse – Sizing and scale wise, movie Ratchet needs to be a Voyager class.
For 86 – Definitely Optimus Prime.
For Rise of the Beasts – Would like to do Unicron’s minions, like the Scorponoks.

Q: Would you like to do more Decepticon Commanders? Commander has been pretty Autobot-heavy.
A: Definitely a yes, we need to balance that out.

Q: Takara seems to be doing their own versions of some figures again, will this continue? Fans like the variety/choices and they can be sold via Pulse.
A: Definitely something that can also happen. We didn’t provide input from the Hasbro toy design team for the ROTB Takara Primal.

Q: Could lines include more waves in order to get more figs? Maybe entirely new lines in addition to Legacy/Studio Series?
A: It’s possible, though we’re limited by item count and shelf space at retailers. I don’t know if we would get more items, but it’s certainly not off the table.

Q: What are the collabs you personally would like to do?
A: I’m a big Mega Man fan (*gestures to Mega Man pin on his lanyard*), and I would like to do Ride Armors or Rush. Or if I could do Final Fantasy, a Chocobo or the Hardy-Daytona motorcycle.

Q: Is there a chance for figures from the Japanese Transformers Go! Series?
A: It’s possible, but it doesn’t have the biggest following. The triple changing Optimus would be fun.

Q: What is the Japanese BW fig you’d most like to do?
A: Big Convoy, Magmatron, Galvatron, BB and Starscream would be fun. Diver as well.

Q: Any chance of a Power Rangers crossover? We’re surprised it hasn’t happened by now!
A: We get asked that all the time! The only concern there, in terms of similarity, Megazord and Transformer differences don’t stand out enough internally, but it’s possible.

Q: Will the new Skybound comics be getting toys?
A: Oh yeah, absolutely, but it will take a while, maybe after the first year of the comic run to let the Energon Universe establish itself (Evan shorthandedly calls it the Sky-Energon Universe to distinguish it from the Unicron Trilogy Energon Universe).

Q: There’s been a few Transformers with a large amount of translucent parts, like the SDCC Titan Returns Sentinel Prime. Any chance of more releases like that?
A: Well, I know clear parts would make some collectors’ skin crawl. If we did Ghost Starscream, I don’t think it would be in Studio Series, likely Legacy.

Q: What do you think about a Mask/Transformers collab?
A: Maybe the vehicles could be done as Headmasters.

Q: What LEGO Transformers would you like to be made?
A: Well, if there’s an Optimus, there has to be a Megatron, but my preference would be a Soundwave.
(Interjection: It would be neat to have LEGO Mindstorm components to play music.)
A: Yes, that would be fun, and I’d like to have transforming cassettes too.

Q: What Diaclone recolor would you like released in Legacy?
A: Red Mirage, we definitely need to do that at some point. I think it would be good to do Powered Convoy/Magnus as well.

Q: When will the next Transformers Haslab be?
A: Well, Deathsaurus will release this December, and we are planning to start the next one this Fall.

Q: If there was a Haslab Primus, which design/version would it be?
A: Mark always wants to talk about Primus and doing it. Don’t know if it would be based on the Cybertron version, but more based on G1.
(Minor discussion occurred about the possibility of a multiversal singularity Primus to incorporate elements of multiple versions.)

Q: If you wanted to do an entirely new color scheme for a character, what would you want?
A: I think it would be neat to do a stealth black Cyclonus.
(Trivia – Evan worked with the person who made the Universe 2003 Silverbolt, the designer just wanted to make him purple to fill out the color roster.)

Q: This year’s convention exclusive was available at the Vault offsite. In previous SDCC years Pulse Premium granted access to concerts, exclusives, etc. Has Hasbro decided to focus Premium event perks towards Pulsecon rather than privileges for in-person events?
A: We didn’t forget, it’s just the best we could do. The Ariel and Dion War Dawn 2-pack was originally planned to go to GameStop, but we brought it to SDCC for a wider release.

Q: If there was a Sonic/Transformers collab, which of Eggman’s Egg Machines would you like to make?
A: Well, I think I would definitely want to get in Eggman’s standard flying ball Egg Mobile, perhaps make it a pseudo-Headmaster and plug in his other mechs and combat vehicles.

Q: Will Tidal Wave come from the Titan Nemesis mold?
A: No, there was never a plan to retool Nemesis into Tidal Wave.

Q: Will there be more figs that can transform into weapons for Titans to wield?
A: I think it’s possible, we haven’t done one since Black Zarak. We also did Sixgun for Metroplex. On that note, I think we need to do a new Metroplex, so he can have ankle articulation.