News 01/04-01/10

New Hasbro Images: Hasbro has sent out a new batch of promo images including pictures of Human Alliance Mudflap w/ Agent Simmons.
Tiger's Take: Lots of win here.

First look at Japanese Animated toys: Big Bad Toy Store has posted pre-orders for and the first images of the TakaraTomy Transformers: Animated toyline.
Tiger's Take: Bee and Prime look good. Bulkhead's shade of green is just bizarre. The rest are kinda so-so.

Device Label comes to the US: Toshiba announced at E3 that they will be marketing the Device Label line (minus the yet to be released Blaster) in the US.
Tiger's Take: Awesome news that we're getting a US outlet for TakaraTomy's Device Label releases. A little surprising that they aren't cheaper, but then these are MSRPs.

Production images of Gentei Dark Skyfire: Toy Hobby has posted pictures of the final production version of their exclusive Gentei Dark Skyfire figure. 
Tiger's Take: Slick looking deco.

Unreleased Robot Heroes pics: Botch the Crab has posted images of the unreleased Star Saber and Dessaras Robot Heroes figures.
Tiger's Take: C'mon Hasbro. You need to find some way to make back the money spent on the mold right?

News 12/21-12/27

Dates and location announced for BotCon 2010: Fun Publications, the organizers of the official Transformers collector's convention, BotCon, has announced that BotCon 2010 will take place at DisneyWorld. The convention will run from the 24th to 27th of June.
Tiger's Take: Neat location for the con and surprisingly affordable room rates.

Hasbro Transformers Q&A December 2009: The latest round of Q&A with Hasbro is being posted by the sites taking part. TFWiki has links to the various Q&A's.
Tiger's Take: Some interesting answers if not the most productive Q&A we've had.

War for Cybertron Starscream designs revealed: Game Informer has posted images of the War for Cybertron Starscream design on their blog, along with some background info on the character.
Tiger's Take: Cool design, but it looks a bit stubby in plane mode.

Shout! Factory G1 Season 3 & 4 release date & cover: The release date for Shout! Factory's G1 Season 3 and Season 4 DVD set have shown up on Amazon.com. The set will hit shelves on April 20, 2010. TVShowsonDVD.com has posted an image of the cover art. 
Tiger's Take: Very reasonably priced set at $30 MSRP and the cover art's pretty cool too.

Figure OH Issue #143 recap: Issue #143 of Figure OH! magazine has been recapped. Highlights include a teaser for the Winter Wonder Festival excusive The Fallen figure and hints that new NEST videos are coming.
Tiger's Take: What could these new NEST videos be?

TakaraTomy Transformers Animated keychains: A solicitation for Transformers: Animated keychains from TakaraTomy has been posted.
Tiger's Take: I dig the super-deformed character designs. They really show off the individual personalities.

News 12/14-12/20

TFWiki reaches 10,000 articles: In a bit of shameless plugging for one of my favorite TF websites and side projects, the compendium of all things Transformers now has over 10,000 pages of information.
Tiger's Take: Congrats to the Wiki, and here's to another 10,000 articles.

TakaraTomy's Transformers Animated site goes live: TakaraTomy now has a website for their upcoming Animated line. Only content so far is an Optimus Prime wallpaper and a promo video.
Tiger's Take: Site looks interesting, making me even more eager to see what they're doing with the line.

DVD exclusive EZ Collection Bumblebee images: Higecuma Toy Toy blog has posted images of the exclusive Bumblebee figures that have come with the DVDs of the two live action movies.
Tiger's Take: Neat repaints that I luckily don't feel a need to own.

Transformers Animated score posted then taken down: For about a day the score for Transformers: Animated was posted online by the composer Sebastian Evans. Then the files were taken down and now the page itself is gone.
Tiger's Take: Glad we got a chance to get this through some method, even if for a short time.

War for Cybertron Q&A: Activision has allowed several fan sites to conduct interviews regarding the upcoming War for Cybertron game.
Tiger's Take: I like the ideas behind the game design, and even more so that game design is Step 1 beyond all else.

New Hasbro trademark: Transformers@TheMoon has discovered a new Hasbro trademark for the name "Airachnid" for a toy robot convertible into other visual toy forms.
Tiger's Take: Could it be a new Fuzor?

News 12/06-12/13

Japan getting Animated: The Japanese Famitoy blog posted information (now removed) regarding a future Japanese release of Transformers: Animated toys. Current plans are for single carded deluxes and Activators along with two-packs of Deluxes. Of particular interest is the choice of Dirge as one of the characters being released. Being a non-show character, the release deviates from TakaraTomy's usual M.O. of releasing show accurate toys.
Tiger's Take: Very interested to see what kind of deco changes and new sculpting might result from these releases. Another chance at Cliffjumper is quite welcome as well.

New Hasbro promo pics: Hasbro has released a new group of pictures for upcoming ROTF releases.
Tiger's Take: Human Alliance Barricade and Legends Wheelie are probably the only buys for me.

New video game coming out: This month's GameInformer magazine has an article on a new Transformers game coming out which is not related to any existing continuity. It's titled "War on Cybertron" and an in-depth description and scans of the mag have been posted on the Allspark.
Tiger's Take: An intriguing game concept, we'll have to wait and see how the execution is.

Walmart Black Friday sale: A scan of Walmart's Black Friday ad shows they will be offering  2-packs of Scout-class figures for $9.00. The figures are the same Air Raid, Storm Surge, Clocker and Hardtop that were available as Target exclusives in the first movie line.
Tiger's Take: Not a bad price, but most everyone has these already. Certainly not worth braving Walmart insanity for.

Details about the next cartoon: Veteran voice actor and Marvel Sunbow mainstay Michael Bell has revealed some tidbits about the upcoming TF cartoon through an interview with Moonbase 2. The one that isn't Moonbase One. The key points are that Mr. Bell has auditioned for Ratchet and a character named General Fowler, casting is being done by G1 VA and Beast Wars VA & voice director Sue Blu, and Beast Wars VA David Sobolov has also auditioned.
Tiger's Take: Always nice to have Ms. Blu on board for a Transformers property. Here's hoping Mr. Bell and Mr. Sobolov are successful in obtaining parts.

Encore #19 released in Japan: Encore #19 Big Mission Volume 3 Frenzy, Rumble, Overkill and Laserbeak were released in Japan on December 11th. This is the last announced Encore release to date.
Tiger's Take: Hopefully this isn't Encore's final encore.

News 11/16-11/22

Target exclusives hitting the brick and mortar: The Straightaway Shootout, Burning Fallen and white Universe Leo Prime exclusives have been spotted at a Super Target in Berwyn, IL.
Tiger's Take: Time to get hunting for these nifty exclusives.

New Animated sightings: More new stuff has been sighted as Electrostatic Soundwave and Freeway Jazz have been spotted at Wal-Mart.
Tiger's Take: Nice to see the remaining Animated figures are going to get releases. Definitely need that Soundwave.

Unreleased Energon packaging art: Dan Khana has posted art for unreleased redecos of Energon Optimus Prime and Energon Megatron to his DeviantART page.
Tiger's Take: Both look nice and Megs looks like an emissary of Energon Unicron.

Walmart Black Friday sale: A scan of Walmart's Black Friday ad shows they will be offering  2-packs of Scout-class figures for $9.00. The figures are the same Air Raid, Storm Surge, Clocker and Hardtop that were available as Target exclusives in the first movie line.
Tiger's Take: Not a bad price, but most everyone has these already. Certainly not worth braving Walmart insanity for.

Mike Costa interviewed: Mike Costa, the writer of the ongoing IDW Transformers comic, has been interviewed by Seibertron.com.
Tiger's Take: An interesting look at Costa's thoughts on the property.

Buster Optimus Prime released in Japan: TakaraTomy's Buster version of Movie Optimus Prime has been released in Japan.
Tiger's Take: Looks like the ultimate Movie Prime figure.

News 11/09-11/15

They are Ten: The Allspark messageboard and news site turned 10 years old this week.
Tiger's Take: While not Transformers news per se, I wanted to mention the milestone for the Allspark as it is my source for TF news and instrumental in my weekly news reports. And news is incredibly light this week.

Power Core Combiners?: According to Transformers@TheMoon, Hasbro has filed for a new trademark for the phrase "Power Core Combiners".
Tiger's Take: What could Hasbro be using this name for? Power Core puts me in mind of Powermasters. Of course combiners are always fun.  Could this be some type of hybrid?

Dark Skyfire: Toy Hobby has posted mock-up pictures of its upcoming Henkei (Japanese Classics) exclusive repaint of Classics Jetfire.
Tiger's Take: I'm hesitant to get too excited before seeing the actual item, but the mock-up is looking pretty slick.

Target's Black Friday sale: Black Friday Ads has posted a Target ad scan that indicates Target will have Deluxes on sale for $7.99 on Black Friday.
Tiger's Take: Great pricing on deluxes, an excellent time to stock up.

Device Label Blaster may be canceled: Several Japanese retailers are listing Device Label Blaster as canceled and no longer taking preorders. Hyper Hobby magazine mentions an April 2010 release. No official word so far.
Tiger's Take: I'm really hoping Blaster isn't being canceled. This seemed like our best chance to get a Blaster that fits with the Classics style and looks more like his G1 self..

Original Transformers packaging art up for auction: Several pieces of G1 packaging art have been put up for auction including Metroplex, Astrotrain and Blitzwing!
Tiger's Take: Some incredible pieces of Transformers history. Hopefully they end up in appropriate homes.

News 11/02-11/08

Mailaway and other new Hasbro figures revealed: BWTF.com owner Ben Yee has posted images of the ROTF NEST Global Alliance 2 pack with Infiltration Soundwave and Battlefield Bumblebee. Included in these images are pictures of the pack-in catalog which shows a movie accurate red redeco of Rampage, a Blazemaster redeco homaging the Evac repaint of Movie Blackout, and a black, red, yellow and chrome redeco of Ravage which will be the the mailaway.
Tiger's Take: Ravage redeco looks okay, but not a must have. Happy to have waited on Rampage.

Masterpiece Skywarp found in the US: Masterpiece Skywarp has been spotted in a Walmart in Kentucky.
Tiger's Take: The wait is over!

Images of upcoming Marvel Crossovers: Marvelousnews.com has posted new images of upcoming Marvel Crossovers figures including our first look at bulldozer Hulk's robot mode. X-Force Wolverine and Spider-mobile Spider-man are also shown.
Tiger's Take: X-Force Wolvie is a nice improvement with the silver, black, and red giving him a cool evil mech look. Spidey and Hulk Dozer are nifty too.

Takara releasing G1 colored Legends ROTF Devastator: A promotional image of a G1 redeco of the EZ Collection (Takara's release line for Legends class figures) Devastator has been posted on Famitoy's blog.
Tiger's Take: Need a black face to really feel like G1 Devastator. Still, it looks better than the normal color scheme.

Boom-De-Yadda, Boom-De-Yadda: Movie Optimus Prime has been added to the latest entry in Discovery Channel's "I Love the Whole World" series of commercials.
Tiger's Take: As fan and historian of Transformers commercials, I thought this was pretty cool. Too bad they didn't hire Mr. Cullen to re-dub the Prime footage.

Mini-con 12-pack at Sears: The K-Mart exclusive Mini-con 12-pack has shown up on the Sears website.
Tiger's Take: A second chance for those who missed it the first time.

News - 10/26-11/01

Official images of new figures: Hasbro has sent out images of new ROTF figures. Included in the photos are Legends class (Bumblebee, Shadow Striker (Universe Wheelie redeco), Smokescreen (Universe Rodimus redeco), Starscream, Rally Mudflap and Offroad Skids), and Fast Action Battlers Spark Blast Jolt, Rally Mudflap and Offroad Skids.
Tiger's Take: Repainted Universe Legends are a great move by Hasbro. Sign me up for Shadow Striker.

Painting featured on the back of 1986 boxes up for sale: Jeffrey Mangiat, the artist who painted the murals that appeared on the back of the 1985 and 1986 Transformers packages, among other TF works, has put the 1986 painting up for sale on Ebay with a starting bid of $7500 USD! The auction ends today.
Tiger's Take: Truly a piece of Transformers history. But will anybody meet that asking price?

Interview with Jeff Mangiat: TFormers scored an interview with aforementioned artist.
Tiger's Take: A very informative interview. Cool to see that he's a fan of the line himself.

Universe 3.0 confirmed: The Allspark's Lonegamer recently had a chance to attend a Paramount press junket. Part of this junket was a panel with Hasbro's Mike Ballog and Aaron Archer, where it was confirmed that a new a Universe/Classics style line would be coming after the movie line. You can read Lonegamer's panel recap here.
Tiger's Take: More Universe/Classics? Yes, please.

X-Box 360 Transformers Bundle coming: Microsoft is getting ready to release two new X-Box 360 bundles, one of which is a Transformers-themed bundle. The bundle will include a X-Box 360 Elite, an extra controller, Transformers Revenge of the Fallen: The Game and the ROTF film on a Bumblebee USB stick.
Tiger's Take: One step closer to my becoming a 360 owner.

Animated Season 3 DVD coming: Amazon.com has put up a listing for the third season of Transformers: Animated. No release date specified.
Tiger's Take: Good to know we are getting Season 3 on DVD.

ROTF Spoons: No, not Transformers cutlery, but a repaint of ROTF Dirt Boss resembling the Go-Bot named Spoons. The image is an early leak, so no confirmation on name, but the homage would seem obvious.
Tiger's Take: I love the ROTF Dirt Boss mold, so I'm inclined to buy any repaint. Making it a cool and unexpected homage? Definite buy.

News - 10/19-10/25

ROTF out on DVD & BluRay: Obviously the big news this week is the release of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen  on DVD and BluRay. If you need help figuring out which version to buy, TFWIKI's DVD field guide has you covered.
Tiger's Take: Even more options this time around. The Big Screen edition seems to be the one to get, as it includes the IMAX only scenes.

New images of Generations Skids and Screech: Milton Hero Publishing has posted new pictures of the Skids and Screech figures which can only be ordered through a form that comes with their Generations: Volume 3 book. The two figures are Movie Skids and Mudflap inspired repaints of the G1 Skids mold, with Screech having the alternate Crosscut head.
Tiger's Take: I always find G1 repaints interesting. Having these to add to the Movie-inspired redecos of G1 Ratchet and Ironhide increases my desire to own all four. Also makes me wonder how many more redecos of this nature will TakaraTomy come up with?

ROTF breaking sales records?: MichaelBay.com's webmaster, Nelson, has made a post saying he has received unconfirmed reports of ROTF selling 4 million copies on it's first day of release. In comparison, Twilight, which is the highest selling DVD of the year so far, has sold 10 million copies total since March.
Tiger's Take: If this is true, ROTF has to be considered an unbelievable success.

Round 5 of Hasbro Q&A: Answers for Round 5 of the Hasbro Q&A have been posted and some very interesting answers are to be found. The biggest news is that Masterpiece Grimlock has been announced as having a future U.S. release. A round-up of the Q&A links, plus the Allspark's own Q&A answers can be found at the Allspark.
Tiger's Take: Me want Masterpiece Grimlock. Oh, and the Q&A is pretty cool too, some nice answers this time around.

Early 2010 toy assortments: Some info on early 2010 toy assortments was posted on TWF2005. Most notable are some repaint names and the release of another wave of Mighty Muggs.
Tiger's Take: I like the somewhat large number of same-name repaints. I don't buy many such redecos, so these assortments will be easy on my wallet.

Device Label Ravage and Tigatron released: TakaraTomy's Device Label Tigatron and Ravage transforming USB drives were released on Friday, October 23rd/
Tiger's Take: Can't wait to get my hands on one of these, both for the novelty and the chance to fiddle with software features they come with.

News 10/12-10/18:

Toys R' Us sale: TRU is putting select Transformers toys on sale from 10/11 through 10/17. Toys included in the sale are Universe Ultras (50% off, now $12.99), Revenge of the Fallen Robot Heroes Scenes (20% off, now $15.99), and ROTF Leader Class Optimus Prime ($10 off, now $34.99).
Tiger's Take: A great deal on the Universe Ultras and a good discount on the Robot Heroes. Not a bad price on Prime, but how many people still need to pick him up? <Timidly raises hand>

Commemorative Series Perceptor in stock at TRU: If you can't wait for him to hit shelves, here's your solution.
Tiger's Take: A cursory evaluation of brick and mortar storage capability indicates a distinct tactical deficiency.

New dialog for The Twins in Revenge of the Fallen video release: Images from Target's website of their exclusive BluRay version of ROTF show a disclaimer above the film rating mentioning that dialogue has been changed from the theatrical version. The change appears to be present in all versions as new dialogue has been confirmed to be present in the DVD version as well.
Tiger's Take: Interesting development. Have to wonder if this will be for the better and will we ever see the theatrical version of the audio?

Device Label Ravage Knockoffs: Knockoffs of TakaraTomy's upcoming Device Label Ravage toy are already showing up on auction sites. An example can be found at TaoBao.
Tiger's Take: Geez, the knockoff companies are getting more brazen by the minute.

Optimus Prime and Starscream on the phone for you: If you go into the Protect or Destroy sections of the official Movie website, you can now find a form to fill out for sending or receiving a personalized phone call from Optimus Prime or Starscream.
Tiger's Take: Why no Megatron? A very cool idea on Hasbro/Paramount's part nonetheless and I hope they paid Mr. Cullen and Mr. Adler well for all the bits and pieces they had to record.

Reprolabels updated: Stickers for Animated Blurr, BTS's Classics Optimus Prime trailer, and a set of Beast Wars Megatron inspired stickers for Blue Alternity Megatron are now available at ReproLabels.
Tiger's Take: The Blurr stickers are nice, particularly the ones that convert a game die into crushed Blurr. The Megatron set is interesting with some humorous homages, but the blue Megatron seems more reminiscent of Megaplex than the Beast Wars' T-Rex.

New TakaraTomy repaints of ROTF Rampage and Demolisher revealed: A new solicitation has surfaced showing movie-accurate repaints of Rampage and Demolisher to be released in Japan.
Tiger's Take: I'm hoping these show up State-side.

The year is 2004: The Transformers: Mosaic project has updated with a one page prequel to The Transformers: The Movie.
Tiger's Take: Mosaic continues it's fun one page peeks into the Transformers universe. I like the animated movie prequel idea.

Sneak peek at the Optimus Experience: The official Transformers movie site has been updated with a preview video of the augmented reality feature that will be on the Revenge of the Fallen DVD and Blu-Ray.
Tiger's Take: This new feature looks like it could be interesting.

Radio Free Cybertron's 10th Anniversary: The first Transformers podcast celebrates it's 10th anniversary by interviewing as many past contributors as possible and finally posting Part 4 of their The Transformers: The Movie parody.
Tiger's Take: Nice to see Part 4 finally released. But will it be the swan song for the parody? Let's hope not.

Q&A with Bob Orci and Alex Kurtzman: The Allspark's Lonegamer8 got to sit in on a Q&A session with Orci and Kurtzman at the a round-table event for the release of ROTF on DVD and BluRay.
Tiger's Take: Interesting Q&A but nothing groundbreaking.

Voice Actor panel from Paramount Press Junket: A clip of the voice actor panel from Paramount's ROTF press junket was posted on the blog of participant (and voice of Bumblebee and Jetfire) Mark Ryan. 
Tiger's Take: Well worth checking out, it's interesting to see how the various actors got involved with Transformers.

Revenge of the Fallen Rifftrax: The MST3K guys will be releasing a Rifftrax for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on October 22, priced at $3.99.
Tiger's Take: Going by MST3K's rep, it should be good. I really need to check out MST3K for myself.

Target sale: Target is advertising ROTF Powerbots and Voyagers at $15 in their ad for this week.

Tiger's Take: Good sale, more so for the Powerbots.