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First revealed at New York Toy Fair 2018, the Transformers: Studio Series (aka Transformers Generations: Studio Series) toyline is a celebration under the Generations banner of over ten years of live-action movies, with characters from every movie represented. It has also coincided with Bumblebee, Rise of the Beasts, and Transformers One, acting as the collector-oriented tie-in for these films, similar to Generations for the Age of Extinction toyline.
With rough robot mode scale as a line-wide goal, each figure is sized in relation to other toys, even in the same size class; within the Deluxe Class, 18 Bumblebee is shorter than 10 Jazz and 01 Bumblebee, who are in turn shorter than 04 Ratchet and 11 Lockdown.
The toyline boasts greater screen-accuracy than previous lines, due its focus on relative scale and its making use of CG models pulled from the films (or games) for reference, though this does fall short for early Bumblebee and Rise of the Beasts toys, as they were designed early in their respective film's development. Studio Series also explores toys for characters who had none before, or were left to a smaller size class.
The earliest exclusives in Studio Series were hit hard by the bankruptcy of Toys"R"Us in several countries. Thundercracker was only available for a very short window at TRU, and only in store. Likewise, the Bumblebee/Charlie 2-pack was also intended for Toys"R"Us, but ultimately only released that way in Canada, which still had Toys"R"Us by the time it came out. Both releases were eventually made available through numerous online retailers such as BigBadToyStore, Entertainment Earth, ToyWiz, and TFSource.
The Bumblebee Then & Now Two-pack was exclusive to Target and BigBadToyStore in the United States and to Kmart in Australia. The Bumblebee Vol. 1 Retro Rock Garage set debuted at San Diego Comic-Con 2018 and was later also made available via Hasbro Toy Shop. The Bumblebee Vol. 2 Retro Pop Highway set appears to have been an "online exclusive" shared between the same retailers that offered Thundercracker and Bumblebee/Charlie. We say "appear" because the Retro Pop Highway set was also available at GameStop stores in the United States, and both sets were also listed in Diamond Comic Distributors' Previews catalog, so really the only "exclusivity" for these appears to be that neither of them is available from Walmart or Target.
Meanwhile, in Hasbro Asia markets: a special Bumblebee with battle damage deco was given away to customers who purchased at least 100 SGD of Studio Series and/or Power of the Primes products in Singaporean Toys"R"Us stores; and in China, the purchase of Studio Series products from Hasbro's official TaoBao online shop on May 15, 2018, entered buyers into a lucky draw with the chance of receiving one of 300 battle damaged Bumblebees or one of 88 Blackouts in camouflage deco.
Falling on the tenth anniversary of Revenge of the Fallen, the 2019 product saw a return of the film's starring combiners, Jetwing Optimus Prime and a hugely ambitious Devastator, which necessitated a release over two years.
As with the previous year's Vol. 2 Retro Pop Highway, the Drift and Baby Dinobots set was available from multiple online retailers. Battle Damaged Megatron was first found stocked by Hong Kong shops, long before it was available both online and in store at Toys"R"Us in Canada and Target in the U.S.
"As Seen In Parks" Megatron was officially exclusive to Universal Studios, but was released (almost a year after he had been officially revealed) in Hasbro's Asian markets first. Due to the global [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}COVID-19 pandemic|{{#if:||COVID-19 pandemic}}]], the toy was ended up being released exclusively via online retailers in the U.S.
2020 saw the release of Leadfoot at Target, the enormous Devastator box set at multiple retailers, and the beginnings of the Target exclusive Buzzworthy Bumblebee line in celebration of everybody's favourite little yellow Autobot. Toys in the latter line are earmarked by the addition of "BB" to their ID numbers.
For 2021's new product, Studio Series started to include characters from The Transformers: The Movie, in celebration of the film's 35th anniversary. These toys feature a separate numbering system in Hasbro markets that utilizes "86" before the number of the respective figure. The '86 figures follow the same style, scale and play pattern of those from the concurrent War for Cybertron Trilogy toyline, complete with blast effect compatibility and 5 mm ports that can support the C.O.M.B.A.T. System. Gnaw also makes the first non-Autobot or Decepticon entry in the toyline.
The Buzzworthy Bumblebee line further expanded in 2021 to include multi-packs. Target also received reissues of Battle Damaged Megatron and the Then & Now Two-Pack.
In 2022, Studio Series adopted the Core Class price point that debuted in the Kingdom toyline, producing both characters too small for Deluxe Class as well as pocket-sized versions of the main cast like in days of yore. Notably, unlike the larger figures in the line, the toys in the Core Class are not numbered.
2022 also saw the first shift in the line’s packaging design, conforming to Hasbro’s initiative to reduce packaging waste. Box sizes were slightly reduced, with plastic clamshells and windows phased out in favor of decorated cardboard backings and small open windows respectively. Leader Class figures switched to a completely closed box design. Core Classes do not have the display backdrops, but retain the new decorated cardboard backings.
2022 saw the first in a line of exclusives themed around NEST in the online exclusive N.E.S.T. Bumblebee, a new assortment of Buzzworthy Bumblebee Deluxes from Target, and a special commemorative multi-pack of Autobots for the 15th anniversary of Transformers available at Amazon.
In late 2022, a second wave of Buzzworthy Bumblebee Deluxes were briefly listed by the wholesaler NDA Toys, with accompanying stock renders, and seemed to fill the pair of conspicuous gaps in the Studio Series numbering system. Unfortunately, Target opted to cancel their release due to poor sales of the previous wave.<ref>"Original Plans for Individual Releases of Hatchet and Earth Mode Hound were Cancelled" at Seibertron.</ref> A redeco of Hound was eventually released in Generations Selects.
Studio Series expanded in scope in 2023, not only with toys for Rise of the Beasts–the first new Transformers movie since the line's early days–but also into the world of the War for Cybertron video game. Toys from the latter imprint feature a separate numbering system that we've chosen to represent as beginning with a plus (+), though the actual toy packaging stylises the symbol as a little D-pad. Neat! It also introduced the Commander Class range of figures from Siege, starting with Ultra Magnus, who was revealed at San Diego Comic Con 2023 by Flint Dille.
There were further releases in Buzzworthy Bumblebee this year, some of which continued the range of NEST-themed redecoes, and none of which were released in waves or regular assortments. Another Transformers 15th anniversary set, this time for most of the Decepticons, was available on Amazon.
2024 introduced figures marked as "Concept Art" releases–based on character designs created for films which ultimately did not appear in the finished product. Bumblebee, having left a variety of designs on the cutting room floor during its tumultuous post-production, was the primary source for this initial round of "Concept Art" releases. Figures from the Transformers: Reactivate game would also be added under the "Gamer Edition" banner, sharing its numbering system, while the long-running The Transformers: The Movie Dinobots lineup came to a close this year with Swoop.
Another addition for 2024 was the "A-Level" assortment, a concept being introduced across multiple Hasbro collector lines to distribute toys of high-profile, in-demand characters outside of the normal wave-based assortments, meaning they can remain available for retailers to order (and thus for fans to buy) for a longer period of time. The inaugural Studio Series A-Level Deluxe Class case was home to the first toy for the concurrent Transformers One film; taking advantage of the film's standalone nature, Hasbro chose to decrease the scale of its Studio Series toys for affordability, placing leaders Optimus Prime and Megatron in Deluxe rather than their more typical Voyager or Leader size classes.<ref>April 25, 2024's Hasbro Pulse Transformers Fanstream | April 2024 on YouTube, with Ben MacCrae, Mark Maher, and Evan Brooks.</ref>
Leader Class figures would finally adopt the open-window packaging design of the other size classes this year, while thicker cardboard was used for all boxes aside from the Core Class.
With the Buzzworthy Bumblebee branding being rotated out of circulation, its signature Target-exclusive cartoon-style redecoes of War for Cybertron Trilogy toys were released in normal Studio Series packaging. Another Amazon "15th Anniversary" multipack was released, this time for Revenge of the Fallen. Similar to the first year of Studio Series, a limited amount of specially painted Optimus Primes were given to people who spent at least HKD$3000 at the Hasbro Hong Kong Fan Expo 2024.
This item is currently scheduled for release, but is not yet available at mass retail.
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TakaraTomy Studio Series toyline
Similar to Power of the Primes, in Takara's Transformers Studio Series (トランスフォーマー スタジオシリーズ Toransufōmā Sutajio Shirīzu) line, all figures are identical to their Hasbro counterparts, forgoing Takara's past practice of using more movie-accurate paint jobs. This is most likely due to the line being an official collaboration between Hasbro and TakaraTomy, much like the Masterpiece Movie Series line. ID numbering differs after number 8 compared to the Hasbro release, since some of the exclusives are not released in Japan. Introduced to the line in 2021, Takara includes characters from The Transformers: The Movie in its pre-existing Studio Series numbering system, whereas Hasbro assigns them ID numbers prefixed by "86". Takara also assigns ID numbers to Core Class figures, which go unnumbered in Hasbro markets. From wave 4 through wave 12, the packages featured the franchise's 35th anniversary logo. Toys would eventually used entirely closed boxes, starting with wave 29.
In 2021, Takara decided to go back to its old ways and launched the short-lived exclusive Premium Finish toyline, featuring re-releases of some Studio Series figures with much more movie-accurate decoes.
In July 2017, photos of a computer screen taken during an internal Hasbro presentation were leaked to the public that revealed, among other things, the very existence of the Studio Series general retail line-up, though not the actual title "Studio Series" yet (which was later revealed through separate leaks). The fact that the slides incorrectly featured projected release dates for "2017" instead of 2018 (which included dates predating the leak) led some fans to assume that the still unannounced line-up had long since been canceled. It wouldn't be until several leaks later that Hasbro finally acknowledged the existence of the Studio Series line, and revealed the first few waves during New York Toy Fair 2018, even offering a limited quantity of the first wave of Deluxe Class figures as an early release through the Hasbro Toy Shop website. Simultaneously, TakaraTomy revealed their version of the line at Wonder Festival Winter 2018.
Among the figures whose existence was revealed through the aforementioned July 2017 leak that were not officially unveiled at Toy Fair was Voyager Class Ironhide, who made his worldwide debut at retail in Singapore in June 2018. Subsequently, Hasbro announced the redeco of Voyager Class Starscream (based on his appearance in Revenge of the Fallen), the final figure revealed through the July 2017 leak, via their "Hasbro Pulse" Instagram account a few days before San Diego Comic-Con, even though they still hadn't officially acknowledged the existence of Ironhide by that point.
Like with previous movie-based lines, Studio Series also assigned code names to at least some of its characters. In 2018, the "theme" for those code names was "Australian race horses":
{{ #if: {{#ifexpr: 3 }}
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Bumblebee: "Stryker"
Dropkick: "Blue Lightning" or "Blue Light"
Megatron: "Fox"
Optimus Prime: "Radar"
KSI Sentry: "Sentry"
Shadow Raider: "Mercenary"
Shatter: "Red Lightning" or "Red Light"
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The code names of many of the other figures, assuming they even had code names, are still unknown, as those toys have (thus far) consistently been listed under their actual characters' names. Meanwhile, a listing for a supposed Voyager Class figure using the code name "Destroyer" later turned out to be a mislabeled Energon Igniters Speed Series Barricade from the Bumblebee movie toyline, with which the Studio Series shares its code names.
A few of the Deluxes and Voyagers of the previoustwo movie toylines scale fairly well with Studio Series figures. To this extent, afewmoldswere also redecoed in this toyline as well as afewretools. Furthermore, the static figurine of Quintessa scales well among these toys and also seems to serve as an inspiration for later pack-in figurines like Wheelie, Brains and the Mini Dinobots.
One of the biggest misconceptions surrounding the Studio Series toyline is that there is a subline called "Studio Series 86". This came about from leaked listings on Walmart's website where the number "86" was misinterpreted as part of the toyline's title, rather than the ID numbers of those toys. While the toys based on characters from the 1986 movie do feature a separate numbering system, the line itself doesn't acknowledge them as being any different from the live-action movie toys they are sold alongside.
While it has never been confirmed, the move to include 1986 characters in the Studio Series toyline after three years of continuous focus on the live-action films, was likely done to allow Hasbro and TakaraTomy to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the film, without stepping on the toes of the Beast Wars 25th anniversary, which was celebrated as a part of the War for Cybertron Trilogy. Evidence suggesting this is the inclusion of some of the film's main characters (Cyclonus, Rodimus Prime and Galvatron) being sold in the concurrently-ran Kingdom toyline and the shared design aesthetics of the toys between both lines.
Due to the cancellation of Hound and Hatchet, the toyline's numbering system is missing 86-18 and 94. Additionally, 79, 86-13, 86-20, 95, 96, and 102 are only assigned to the Buzzworthy Bumblebee version of the line. 74 Revenge of the Fallen Bumblebee is the only toy so far to be re-released in the regular line after debuting in Buzzworthy Bumblebee.
TakaraTomy's version of the line has skipped over "72" for unknown reasons.
Junkion Scrapheap and Buzzworthy Bumblebee Ironhide both use the 86-24 number, the only time the same number has been used for different characters between the two lines.
The instructions of the Buzzworthy Bumblebee "Worlds Collide" set mistakenly label it as part of Studio Series, under the Transformers movie.
