Following the sale of eOne, Hasbro has created a new entertainment division based on the remaining portion of the sold company.
Olivier Dumont will serve as president of Hasbro Entertainment, while Zev Foreman and Gabriel Marano will serve as the head of film and head of television, respectively.
“We are thrilled to embark on this new chapter, building upon our rich heritage of storytelling to continue delighting audiences across generations,” Dumont said. “Gabe, Zev, and I look forward to working with the industry’s best creative talent, studios, and distribution platforms to push the envelope with innovative storytelling that will let fans engage with their favorite brands like never before, while also building exciting new worlds and the next wave of Hasbro franchises for a growing audience.”
Hasbro is currently developing and producing over two dozen projects based on major IP like “Dungeons & Dragons,” “Transformers,” “GI JOE,” “NERF,” “Play-Doh,” “Magic: The Gathering,” “Peppa Pig,” and “My Little Pony.”
“Entertainment is core to Hasbro’s strategy and its mission to entertain and connect generations of fans through the wonder of storytelling and exhilaration of play,” said Tim Kilpin, president of toy licensing and entertainment for Hasbro. “Audiences can count on Hasbro to keep creating compelling and fun entertainment that brings to life our wide array of iconic brands, including ‘Peppa Pig,’ ‘My Little Pony,’ and ‘Transformers,’ reaching audiences through varied platforms in ways that resonate in today’s fast-paced world.”
DarkEyes
Hasbro: The CHPS has years, not going to change now. There are fans that even say it doesn’t exist at all!
The cheap hollow plastic syndrome is here to stay!
AcademyofDrX
Hasbro is the only licensor. Takara Tomy and Kodansha get "special thanks" credits. The manga creators have the copyright for their material.
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Also by posting this image I am violating the reproduction text in said image, hopefully we don't have any narcs. (I believe this is a valid fair use case.)
AcademyofDrX
I'll want to look at the detailed info in my hardcopy, but the back of the book only has Hasbro branding.
![[IMG]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/815ruB9yH6L._AC_SL1500_.jpg)
In general I think people overestimate TakaraTomy's rights to the franchise, but IP is notoriously complex, and Hasbro and TakaraTomy have a long and deeply intertwined relationship.
May also be worth noting that regardless of the fact that the parent publisher is originally a Japanese company and the media was originally Japanese, this product is for the western market and published by the American wing of Viz. That's Hasbro's domain.
Grun Gast
Ah, I was specifically referring to Super Robot Wars in this case. The producer did mention that in the case of Transformers, they also have to deal with Hasbro and not just TakaraTomy, especially because the last few games have actually seen official release outside Japan (SRW V, X and T were all translated into English but only officially released in Asia, whereas SRW 30 saw a worldwide released including on Steam). That makes total sense, since Hasbro would definitely want to have a say in that scenario. Like, I somehow doubt that Kiss Players would've ever seen the light of day if it had been meant for an international release.
On that note, does anyone happen to know who Viz Media managed to license the G1 manga from back in… 2020, I think? Was it copyrighted to Hasbro (who handles international rights), TakaraTomy (who originally commissioned the manga) or both?
Not just video games, really. Remember that Prime also cost a ton of money per episode, enough that TakaraTomy (who also helped foot the bill) felt burned enough to basically quit trying to put a Japan-original series on tv?
That's part of the reason I don't really have much of a complaint with stuff like Transformers: Battlegrounds or that upcoming Earthspark game despite not being into the shows they're based on: if they're moderately successful enough that Hasbro sees there's a point in producing more games, why not?
Out of curiousity, are there any numbers on how Battlegrounds did? I think most reviews I saw gave it a fairly decent score, nothing on the level of War For/ Fall Of Cybertron or even Devastation, but nothing particularly scathing either.
Fenrys
Hasbro doesn't dictate what Takara does with Transformers
cloudballoon
Oh don't say that… Hasbro learned how to hollow out all of a figure's limbs without even bother adding in some inner details at expert level, and unlearned they can give us ball joint wrists swivel when the transformation calls for the fists to fold inside the hollow cavities (Laser Prime/Scourge were the rare exceptions).
Rojixus
Hasbro doesn't learn anything.
cloudballoon
Paramount made a tidy profit on Bumblebee with a smaller budget. ROTB blow its budget but bombed. Wonder if Hasbro can learn anything from this parallel for video games.
Grun Gast
That, I think, is why there's such confusion Transformers doesn't have more of a presence in video games. You don't need to make some Marvel's Avengers-esque massive AAA game that could potentially destroy multiple studios should it fail, a variety of different genres would work too.
This is, in fact, part of the reason Transformers gets brought up so often among Japanese fans when it comes to Super Robot Wars: in Japan Transformers no longer has much of a presence outside of the movies (i.e. you don't really have Japanese-original tv shows anymore, and a big chunk of stuff like Legacy is released as TakaraTomy Mall exclusives as opposed to general retail releases you can find in department stores or toy stores like Toys R Us), and while SRW isn't a big AAA title it's a pretty well-known franchise. Bandai Namco are the ones who concern themselves with the budget and animation etc, so they foot much if not all of the bill. I recall back in SRW MX there were jokes that most of the animation budget clearly went into Gear Fighter Dendoh's animations (whereas many of the returning series reused sprites from previous games).
Monolith Soft is (was?) also known for their sprite work in stuff like Project X Zone and Dragonball Z: Attack of the Saiyans. They could probably due a good job too, especially if it's an RPG or SRPG game.
GizmoTron
I would believe Hasbro also has no interest in games let alone most things that are Japanese only, so unless it's one of the SRW games that actually gets localized in other regions they probably wouldn't have a problem with it.
cloudballoon
I'm good with that. TF lends itself to all kinds of creative styles. From retro pixel art to SD to cell shading to grim & gritty. I think as long as the games moves the narrative forward, there's a dedicated fanbase for new games, not just mindless media tie-ins.
Deathcatg
Maybe they should give a license to WayForward. They'll retro-fy something nice up with classic sprites.
cloudballoon
Does a Transformers game really need AAA or AA production money though? Go full 80's Pixel Art, baby!
For me, why WFC & FOC were awesome & memorable to me were the stories, not the production values (not that I don't appreciate them). I'd be juut as happy with a new TF game of that continuity today with 10yo graphics.
Animating a faceplace is nowhere near as complicated as a mouth. Simplify some shape in the designs
Imagine Hasbro got the foresight of doing a TFVGU in the style of MCU.
AcademyofDrX
I'm sure they would love to do all those things, but they need partners willing to put up the production money. That's what this new division will be for: finding partners, not spending all the money to develop in-house. Goldner had wanted to take on more responsibility and risk by running a media company, but with the eOne sale and this new company, Hasbro will be even more dependent on external media partners like Paramount.
LordMegatron2007
Hasbro needs to move on from the past these old heads have built and innovate. More shows (cg and 2d), animated films with a big budget live action film every few years, video games (AAA or AA) and comics
Grun Gast
So hypothetically if somehow the Unicron Trilogy was the one utilised in Super Robot Wars, the names could be Convoy from Armada, Grand Convoy from Superlink and Galaxy Convoy from Galaxy Force?
Hahah. Sorry if this feels like beating a dead horse, but I really do enjoy thinking and talking about this. I can imagine Bandai Namco and Takara Tomy arguing that if they use G1 in a SRW game they have to use Convoy because that's the name used in those series, but Hasbro digging in their heels and insisting that they can use the Convoy name for Fire Convoy or Lio Convoy or Big Convoy, but G1 Autobot Commander's name must be Optimus Prime no matter what.
Or, more likely, Hasbro just isn't interested in the video game market outside of the most basic of tie-ins.
GizmoTron
For the record, TakaraTomy can and still does reference their legacy characters with their Japanese names like "Convoy". It's only versions of the character post the '07 movie that are now only using the name Optimus Prime in Japan, but say Fire Convoy is still Fire Convoy, so if he appears in Super Robot Wars that's what he'd be called.
However given that those games are from Bandai, the chances of Transformers characters in that series is probably no more likely than Takara being able to make a G1 Jetfire reissue.
Grun Gast
Oof. That Optimus…
Deathcatg
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