Hasbro Q&A/July 2010

A question archive of, and links to the answers from, the July 2010 Hasbro Q&As, released on July 26th.

Questions

It’s great to see obscure characters from the early Transformers media get official identities, like Acid Storm. Are there official identities for the other “Rainmakers” (http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Rainmakers) seen alongside him in the cartoon episode “Divide and Conquer”? (Some fans claim that Sunstorm (http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Sunstorm_(G1) ) is the yellow one, but the blue guy definitely has no name.)
Now that BotCon 2010 is over, you are probably going to get lots of questions about the new product that was shown and/or talked about at the various panels. We want to ask you something different. How was YOUR BotCon experience? What were you most excited to reveal, what do you think go tthe best reaction, what was the biggest surprise, how does it feel to be treated like rock stars? We know that sometimes this can feel like just a job to you guys, so hopefully seeing the excitement from the fans at BotCon makes it all worth it, and we hope you had a great time!

Since the name placards at Botcon didn't specify, through which retailers will the Seacons reissue, Deluxe/Legends multi-packs, and repainted Legends Devastator be released?
Would Hasbro consider releasing the remaining animated molds and/or redecos online to HTS.com, Previews and/or interested online retailers if they are unable to find any other retail outlet to release them? Both the GI Joe and Star Wars brands have released product -- such as the GI Joe Resolute multi-packs and Joker Squad Multi-packs -- this way, would it be a feasible endeavor for the Transformers brand as well?

With the pending release of the Master Piece Grimlock this July, who else might get the Masterpiece treatment. Also it seemed like Alternators were very popular a few years back, any chance these might come back out again?
With the success of the Star Wars crossover, any chance we will see a crossover with G.I. Joe?

What factors go into the decision to distribute the product to different countries, and what proportion of the full line typically ends up being sent to countries that may not end up with every last item in the full set.
My favorite Transformers: Animated episode has to be Thrill of the Hunt which brought back the legendary Sue Blu as Arcee in the touching Ratchet wartime flashbacks. It was spectacular that it was recently perfectly captured by the Toys R Us Exclusive wave of those two figures. I'm wondering if the Transformers Brand team has any favorite episodes of that series that they would like to share.

Assuming the reason we never got a movie Dispensor figure was due to certain copyright issues with brand-name sodas, would Hasbro ever consider a version with a more generic soda logo? I know I'm not the only one who wants a killer soda machine!
Seeing how quickly Animated Arcee sold vs. Animated Ratchet, are there any plans to insure a slightly larger run for Animated Rodimus over Animated Iron Hide?

Jazz’s Hall of Fame nomination profile mentions that he was Orion Pax’s best friend. Orion Pax has only ever had one best friend, and that was Dion, a character from the G1 cartoon episode “War Dawn,” who gets shot alongside Orion Pax and Ariel, who (obviously) became Optimus Prime and Elita-One. Some people have taken this new piece of information to indicate Dion was rebuilt into Jazz, which is a departure from some fans’ assumption that Dion gets rebuilt into Ironhide or Ultra Magnus. So what is Hasbro’s stance now? Does Dion get rebuilt into Jazz? Ultra Magnus? Ironhide? Or does he just die?
After what some fans have dubbed “Thundergate” – the 2007 Botcon boxed set that had the very limited, oft-requested Classics versions of Seekers Dirge, Thrust, and Thundercracker – we’ve finally started to move past the pain with the non-exclusive, mass-retail releases and planned releases for Thrust and now Dirge. With those two and Starscream, Skywarp, and Ramjet already produced in mass-release lines, that leaves just Thundercracker to complete the main Seekers. Will you be releasing a Classics mold of Thundercracker to mass-retail? Not Action Master or Shattered Glass or some other background Seeker instead, but regular Thundercracker?