Hasbro Q&A/December 2008: Answers
1. What are the official titles of all the Hasbro team members involved with the Transformers brand?
- We do not wish to have a roster of the Transformers brand team published for public viewing. Thanks.
2. The Marvel Crossovers Transformers don't feel like they use Takara engineering. Can you confirm who works on them?
- Since the Marvel Transformers Crossovers and Star Wars Transformers Crossovers are dealing with character and vehicles from a 3rd party (Marvel and Lucasfilm), TakaraTomy is not involved in the design and production of these lines. However, TakaraTomy is an integral part of our main Transformers product lines.
3. How do you determine the demographic spread of past purchases? That is to say, how can you tell what percentage of sales were parents buying for their children versus adult collectors buying for themselves?
- This is always a challenge as we evaluate sales and determine future direction of the line. While it is impossible to measure the exact split, we use a blend of market basket research coupled with our knowledge of collector preferred characters and assortments.
4. What is the name of the voice actor who portrayed the narrator/Optimus Prime in the recent Action Blast cartoon, and has he done voices for you before?
- The voice actor's name is Ron Hayden and has done work for Hasbro across multiple brands. We will be using him for several Action Blast Cartoons in the future.
5. Acid Storm was a welcome addition to our collections. The use of older, "obscure" characters who have previously never had toys is very exciting for fans. Can we expect more nods towards non-toy characters as the 25th Anniversary continues? Perhaps in the Robot Heroes line, which gave us the awesome but otherwise Movie-only Dispensor?
- Bill Rawley: Acid Storm was great fun to see develop into a real toy for the first time. It is very difficult to get "obscure" characters into our toy line. One of the benefits Transformers has over other brands in the market right now is the "I remember that guy!" factor. You have die hard fans as well as casual fans that remember certain toys from their youth or from the cartoons. It makes my job that much easier to stand up and propose an idea for a new design of a character that many people already know and love. Right now we are not planning any further obscure characters, that's not to say we would never do them.
- Finally, I agree with you, Robot Heroes is a great place to try and get a few more of these rarely seen characters out into the light.
External links
[edit]- 16bit.com's December 2008 Q&A
- ActionFigs.com's December 2008 Q&A (archive copy)
- Allspark.com's December 2008 Q&A
- Cybertron.ca's December 2008 Q&A
- otca.com.au's (Ozformers) December 2008 Q&A
- Parry Game Preserve December 2008 Q&A
- Seibertron.com's December 2008 Q&A (including awesome Universe Galvatron abandoned third mode sketch)
- Tformers.com's December 2008 Q&A
- TFviews.com's December 2008 Q&A
- Transformers Fanclub Q&A (login required)
- Unicron.com's December 2008 Q&A
