Studio Series Gamer Edition Optimus Prime Showing Up in Canadian and US Gamestops

Amazon fulfilled delivery of mine yesterday. Bumblebee & Barricade are still showing for July, but lately Amazon has been shipping individual figures as they get them instead of the whole wave at once.

Sabrblade wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:

Fortress_Maximus wrote:Picking up Prime, pre-ordered. Hoping they do a henkei version too.

Meaning a "Premium Repaint"?

Well, it's possible. Based on the track records, so far all the Optimusses have been repainted for the Premium Finish line so I'd be surprised if this one is not.

The Premium Finish line is dead.

How come when there's Beast Wars figures coming and on preorder?

Unless it's just naming semantics?

That's not Premium Finish. That's Beast Wars Again.

What's the difference in terms of paint apps?

Rodimus Prime wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:

Fortress_Maximus wrote:Picking up Prime, pre-ordered. Hoping they do a henkei version too.

Meaning a "Premium Repaint"?

Well, it's possible. Based on the track records, so far all the Optimusses have been repainted for the Premium Finish line so I'd be surprised if this one is not.

The Premium Finish line is dead.

How come when there's Beast Wars figures coming and on preorder?

Unless it's just naming semantics?

That's not Premium Finish. That's Beast Wars Again.

What's the difference in terms of paint apps?

Nothing, but it's strictly Beast Wars and 2-packs to boot.

Emerje

Figured they might do a henkei version but even without the premium paintjob, these look nice and will pick up a few more.

Amazon USA already began shipping Optimus while in Canada, we have to wait until June.

Prime does look really nice. I intend to pick him up.

-Kanrabat- wrote:Amazon USA already began shipping Optimus while in Canada, we have to wait until June.

GAMESTOP TO THE RESCUE!

Emerje wrote:

Rodimus Prime wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:Unless it's just naming semantics?

That's not Premium Finish. That's Beast Wars Again.

What's the difference in terms of paint apps?

Nothing, but it's strictly Beast Wars and 2-packs to boot.

Ok, so it could have stayed under the Premium Finish line, and Sabrblade was just being petty.

Rodimus Prime wrote:

Emerje wrote:

Rodimus Prime wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:Unless it's just naming semantics?

That's not Premium Finish. That's Beast Wars Again.

What's the difference in terms of paint apps?

Nothing, but it's strictly Beast Wars and 2-packs to boot.

Ok, so it could have stayed under the Premium Finish line, and Sabrblade was just being petty.

Premium Finish was limited to WFC and SS anyway... But what's in a name? Apparently some unwritten rules

So I just played with and transformed Gamer Optimus.

The size is PERFECT. At las the's big as he should have been from the start. Plus is overall look is on point. The only thing I don't like for the bot mode is the arm thing for the weapon. Why must the arm plug in his butt? There's some huge gap behind his legs or even in his backpack. Why not store the arm there? I may drill and small hole and do it myself.

As for the vehicle mode, it's nice, but there's gaps everywhere, especially the back. The gams under due to the armpits is forgivable. The gap of the feet on top of the truck will be easy to deal with the the right upgrade fillers. But as for the back of the truck, maybe a more elaborate thing is needed. Like a transforming shield accessory or some extra panels on the legs. I'll wait and see what the upgrade people will come up with.

Overall, Gamer Optimus is fine on it's own and worth the price. But to be perfect, he needs to be pushed to "leader" with upgrade kits and whatnots.

Jelze Bunnycat wrote:

Rodimus Prime wrote:

Emerje wrote:

Rodimus Prime wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:Unless it's just naming semantics?

That's not Premium Finish. That's Beast Wars Again.

What's the difference in terms of paint apps?

Nothing, but it's strictly Beast Wars and 2-packs to boot.

Ok, so it could have stayed under the Premium Finish line, and Sabrblade was just being petty.

Premium Finish was limited to WFC and SS anyway... But what's in a name? Apparently some unwritten rules

Though technically Prime is both SS and WFC.

Kidding aside I think they're more likely to use a different name for a premium repaint line than use the name "Premium Finish" again, otherwise they would have attached it to the BWA line in some form. I think some poor choices, particularly WFC Megatron, left people very sour on the name. Maybe they'll revive the Generations name someday.

Emerje

I realize now that one of the reasons that they made the Gamer Edition part of the Studios Series, is to have part of the toyline ready to receive the toys based on the" Transformers Reactivate" game that is coming later.

TulioDude wrote:I realize now that one of the reasons that they made the Gamer Edition part of the Studios Series, is to have part of the toyline ready to receive the toys based on the" Transformers Reactivate" game that is coming later.

That would be logical and also very appreciated. Many of those upcoming designs are SICK!

TulioDude wrote:I realize now that one of the reasons that they made the Gamer Edition part of the Studios Series, is to have part of the toyline ready to receive the toys based on the" Transformers Reactivate" game that is coming later.

I would be OK with this.

Just please, let's get FOC Jazz. that is the one i have always wanted

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:

TulioDude wrote:I realize now that one of the reasons that they made the Gamer Edition part of the Studios Series, is to have part of the toyline ready to receive the toys based on the" Transformers Reactivate" game that is coming later.

I would be OK with this.

Just please, let's get FOC Jazz. that is the one i have always wanted

I'll skip Bee because I think the new one is horrible compared to the original. The new optimus ain't perfect but he was worth getting.

But one I'm waiting for in anticipation is definitely a redo of FOC Jazz. The original deluxe was the symbol of the Transformers nosedive in quality for size, hollowness, and overall cheap feeling. A redo would do this design justice.

Barricade has arrived! And he has giant back kibble out of the box.

Is your Decepticon symbol on the hood if the car aligned?

Mine is straight.

Just watched Emgo’s review of Bumblebee, and damn, if he’s not just a convoluted mess. Robot mode is just sad.
Transformation us awkward at best, and not really much of an improvement from the original which was already a pain to transform.

I think I’ll skip him, unless he goes in deep clearance at some point.



Hopefully Megs ends up much better than this.

Overcracker wrote:Just watched Emgo’s review of Bumblebee, and damn, if he’s not just a convoluted mess. Robot mode is just sad.
Transformation us awkward at best, and not really much of an improvement from the original which was already a pain to transform.

I think I’ll skip him, unless he goes in deep clearance at some point.



Hopefully Megs ends up much better than this.

You'll watch him and not me? I'm here, where's Emgo? WHERE IS HE??????? I'M RIGHT HERE!!!!!!

chuckdawg1999 wrote:

Overcracker wrote:Just watched Emgo’s review of Bumblebee, and damn, if he’s not just a convoluted mess. Robot mode is just sad.
Transformation us awkward at best, and not really much of an improvement from the original which was already a pain to transform.

I think I’ll skip him, unless he goes in deep clearance at some point.



Hopefully Megs ends up much better than this.

You'll watch him and not me? I'm here, where's Emgo? WHERE IS HE??????? I'M RIGHT HERE!!!!!!

Been watching Emgo for like 15 years now.
Fine, just watched your review. Still a convoluted mess.
Also, you may want to add a link to your channel in your signature.
Transformation is jus as convoluted as the original, just in different ways.
Seem’s like you had a real hard time with him.

The original Bee is much, MUCH better and I really don't feel the needs to replace him by that new one.

Also, am I the only one to not struggle in transforming the original?

-Kanrabat- wrote:The original Bee is much, MUCH better and I really don't feel the needs to replace him by that new one.

Also, am I the only one to not struggle in transforming the original?

I only struggle with getting the feet in right. What I dislike about this new bee is his lack of a pelvic area, it looks really strange.

william-james88 wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:The original Bee is much, MUCH better and I really don't feel the needs to replace him by that new one.

Also, am I the only one to not struggle in transforming the original?

I only struggle with getting the feet in right. What I dislike about this new bee is his lack of a pelvic area, it looks really strange.

What nag me the more about the new one are the "front car wings" just hanging there on the chest. It looks incomplete and hollow.

william-james88 wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:The original Bee is much, MUCH better and I really don't feel the needs to replace him by that new one.

Also, am I the only one to not struggle in transforming the original?

I only struggle with getting the feet in right. What I dislike about this new bee is his lack of a pelvic area, it looks really strange.

Would you say that the lack of a pelvic thrust really drives you insane?

-Kanrabat- wrote:The original Bee is much, MUCH better and I really don't feel the needs to replace him by that new one.

Also, am I the only one to not struggle in transforming the original?

I haven't transformed it in a few years, but I just remember the arms being weird but not particularly difficult to change. They really should have just remade that figure, but smaller.

At least the new Megatron looks really cool, Prime just needs an upgrade kit to hide his hands and Barricade is good if you don't mind the backpack. Three of the four molds are winners, I think that's a pretty good start. During the live stream they hinted at more coming so we'll what happens next. Bee was probably the hardest one since he has such a round alt mode and lanky bot mode, I think we can expect more on the same level of the other three from here on out.

Emerje

Since I was last here, I succeeded in getting all 3 of the first wave of SSGE figures. I've messed with Prime and Barricade so far, and plan to mess with Bee some soon.

Barricade was the first one, and he's alright. He is great to look at, and has a great large presence. Unfortunately his robot mode is hard to pose and cannot move too well. But the alt mode is really nice. And they did a good job on the back making him look like the game model.

Prime is the clear winner here. He is really chunky and solid, and very posable. He is great.

messing around with Bee today, I like him more than I thought I would based on early photos. He is cute. I like him.

I just can't get over Bee's huge "wheel gaps" on his chest's sides. They could have engineered some panel to fill those in.

Prime and Barricade are adequate, but IMO that Bee is a huge swing and a miss, in both modes. Robot more so than vehicle. It's still inferior to the original in design, especially the chest piece. Looks as bad as MP Arcee. Sadly Cliffjumper is just a straight repaint, nothing will change for him either.

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:

Barricade: "I'm not crying, you're crying!"

Sabrblade wrote:

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:

Barricade: "I'm not crying, you're crying!"

I know I am!



Emerje

War for Cybertron



Bee is still neat to me

Got Gamer Megatron!
Here's my impressions.



The bot is fantastic looking. I love his arm canon but his mace is ridiculous. The overal proportions of the bot are on point and his colors are superb.

But there's one glaring flaw. He just have ONE hard click of articulation in his knees! As if those are no knees, but transformation joints. In today's days and ages, it's baffling.



That's the ONLY way the knees can bend. No further than that. Unless you start transforming the legs.



Compared to the original Generations deluxe (in all its yellowed glory), the SS Gamer Megatron is barely any bigger. He still looks way better.



Contrary to the original, Gamer Megs have NO hollow parts. At all! Even the "hollow" on his back don't count because the multi-headed mushroom peg act as a "spinal column". There is not even any hollows inside of his legs nor his arms. A true miracle.



The transformation was easy to figure out despite the altmode being Cybertronian. There's many interesting steps and the transformation was very satisfying to do.



The only hollow part of the vehicle is an "exhaust port" at the back. Much less egregious than on Gamer Optimus. Of course, storing the giant mace on top of the vehicle ruins the look.



The vehicle is barely bigger than the deluxe original, but it's more cohesive all around.


Overall, Gamer Megatron is worth getting at full price. I was blown away by him. I don't think he'll need any upgrade kits to be truly complete like for Gamer Optimus. But I'm looking forward the Reprolabels to make him look even better.

Looks like no one gives a fuk about this line but have a video review of Megs regardless.

I've been hearing that megatron has a wide spread misassembly, where it looks like the knee piece hindering the knee bend was either installed wrong or wasn't supposed to be there in general. It was not in stock images or anything, and only showed up now, and adds nothing to the alt mode or transformation, so misassembly is very possible.

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:I've been hearing that megatron has a wide spread misassembly, where it looks like the knee piece hindering the knee bend was either installed wrong or wasn't supposed to be there in general. It was not in stock images or anything, and only showed up now, and adds nothing to the alt mode or transformation, so misassembly is very possible.

Let's hope no pins nor glue are involved if that's the case. I'll wait for any confirmations before starting to mod mine.

Studio Series Gamer Edition Megatron is out there... a bit. Him and Rhinox are slowly being distributed across both the US and Canada. Some specialty retailers got their copies in, and smaller retailers too, which is why some Americans may find this wave at Gamestop. If ever you are curious about this Megatron, we have a video review and pictorial review for you below. The pictorial review is from out very own Kanrabat, and we have a nice shot comparing him to the previous version. You'll let us know what you think!

-Kanrabat- wrote:Got Gamer Megatron!
Here's my impressions.

The bot is fantastic looking. I love his arm canon but his mace is ridiculous. The overal proportions of the bot are on point and his colors are superb.

But there's one glaring flaw. He just have ONE hard click of articulation in his knees! As if those are no knees, but transformation joints. In today's days and ages, it's baffling.

That's the ONLY way the knees can bend. No further than that. Unless you start transforming the legs.

Compared to the original Generations deluxe (in all its yellowed glory), the SS Gamer Megatron is barely any bigger. He still looks way better.

Contrary to the original, Gamer Megs have NO hollow parts. At all! Even the "hollow" on his back don't count because the multi-headed mushroom peg act as a "spinal column". There is not even any hollows inside of his legs nor his arms. A true miracle.

The transformation was easy to figure out despite the altmode being Cybertronian. There's many interesting steps and the transformation was very satisfying to do.

The only hollow part of the vehicle is an "exhaust port" at the back. Much less egregious than on Gamer Optimus. Of course, storing the giant mace on top of the vehicle ruins the look.

The vehicle is barely bigger than the deluxe original, but it's more cohesive all around.


Overall, Gamer Megatron is worth getting at full price. I was blown away by him. I don't think he'll need any upgrade kits to be truly complete like for Gamer Optimus. But I'm looking forward the Reprolabels to make him look even better.

I adore my Gamer Megs, but I really wonder what's up with that knee design?
And if those are indeed misassembled, they are held in with a pin, making any modding very difficult.

Often when talking about Studio Series and the progression from live action movies to animation to video games the question of what exactly is a "studio" comes up. Thanks to a Q&A held by TFW2005 with the Hasbro Transformers team (and thanks to Seibertronian Munkky for bringing this to our attention) we get some insight into just what qualifies as a studio. The short answer is, well, basically everything including comic books.

Q: So we kind of hit on this with the comic talk, but just to elaborate – first we had 86, now we have Gamer Edition expanding Studio Series even more. What sort of other things could happen?
A: Anything that’s technically a studio could be on the table. We’re trying to look at that and make sure that it’s authentic to what Studio Series is. We don’t want to just shoehorn everything into Studio Series, but we do know that there are opportunities to grow the brand. We always say from screen to toy. And a lot of people read comic books on screens now.

Q: Hasbro turns the tables! Asks us if we’d consider comic publishers as studios, and that they could live in the Studio Series segment?
A: Led to a small back-and-forth on this subject, but in short it seems Hasbro may be interested in something like this.

On that note, they also talked about what games they're open to doing in the Gamer Edition line.

Q: For Gamer Edition, is it limited to just WFC or will FOC (Dinobots, Bruticus, etc) and all the Transformers games be included?
A: Pretty much all of it. Think the clear winner will probably be, everybody wants some Devastation stuff, we need to figure out how to do some cell shading for it. Continuing from WFC, think FOC is on the table. Team has even joked about doing Mystery of Convoy, doing some sort of dot deco or something like that. We have the Ultra Magnus now and we have the Rodimus from Kingdom, it’s like why not. Why not some N64 Transmetals too? We can get some of that in there, there’s a lot of options. If it’s been in a video game, we have the opportunity to look at it, taking a little bit of a cue from what the Star Wars team did with their gamer stuff. There’s no licensing issues, we own all of that, it’s all on the table for us. But with the live action movie stuff, there’s always that stuff going on, you still have to deal with Paramount and the licensors.

Could we really see the Studio Series line become the home of Beast Wars Transmetals figures or future and former Commander Class figures done up for Mystery of Convoy for the Nintendo Famicom? Time will tell!

Final big piece of news that's currently making its rounds on video game news channels is the current status of Activision's Transformers games. It's a mixed bag, but the team seems optimistic about these being available again. Turns out licensing was never the issue as has long been speculated.

Q: Possible to re-release the Activision TF games to coincide with Gamer Edition?
A: Sadly, apparently Activision’s not sure what hard drives they’re on in their building. When a company eats a company that eats a company things get lost, and that’s very frustrating. Hope is that now that the deal is moving forward with Microsoft and Xbox that they’ll go through all of the archives and every hard drive to find it all, because it’s an easy Game Pass add. We want those games back up for people to have a chance to play.

Q: How did that impact the process of making Gamer Edition?
A: Sam had to load up the games on older platforms because there were some deco details we couldn’t find – we have the CAD, but it’s not colored. So we had to find some of the character details within the games themselves.

Q: So you do have some of the game assets then?
A: We do, but it’s very interesting. FOC, we have everything. For WFC, we had to rip it ourselves, because they could not find it – they kept sending concept art instead, which we didn’t want, we need the CAD. So we booted up an old computer and ripped them all out from there. Which was a learning experience and a long weekend, because we just wanted to get it right, so that’s why we did it like that.

Hopefully Activision finds those hard drives, fans have been begging for new opportunities to play those games for years now.

TFW2005 also did a very lengthy solo Q&A with Evan where he talks about figures he'd like to make, what is and isn't possible, and whatever happened to that Takara Armada Optimus Prime prototype among many other things. It's a very extensive read so check it out the link at the top of the page.

N64 Transmetals?

Which could, in theory, mean Transmetal reissues with shiny paint instead of flakey vac-metal chrome?!?

And here I started the article thinking I'd be most excited about the "studio" definition being stretched to include comic stuff, opening up the possibility of more Marvel book characters.

They could even do monochrome repaints of G2 stuff and claim it's accurate to that Tiger LCD game!

Based on the reviews, I actually cancelled my pre-order for Gamerverse Megatron. Even though I'm a fan of Megatron as a character, this just didn't seem like enough of an update to be shelf-worthy. It's really small, and the only thing that might include enough plastic to make it a voyager is that big mace. And I don't think the mace looks all that good. The alt mode has a lot of gaps, the robot mode has articulation issues. Maybe if I find it on discount someplace, but I didn't see this being worth full price. It's even less of a 'voyager' than SS 86 Ironhide.

Cell shaded runamuck and runabout generics seems only a matter of time now

or there was the Super Nintendo Transformer at one point in Japan

from tfw2005 question about collabs answer from hasbro. What, where and when or was that an answer given by the guy that really should have more/some product knowledge?

On the bright side googling stuff, g1 megatron custom in NES zapper colors is amazing.

INJECT DEVASTATION-RELATED ITEMS DIRECTLY INTO MY VEINS PLEASE

It would be really nice to get updated FOC figures. 2011-2012 were such poor years for mainline figures quality-wise.

Sign me up for studio series idw and n64 transmetals, pls and thx

Studio series straxus and rack n ruin from comics would be nice too

Anyone remember the PS2 Armada game that came out in the early 2000's? Such a great game, and honestly still holds up even by today's standards. With Armada getting so much attention again (finally), I would love to see something come out of that. The Decepticlones from that all sport awesome designs that could span various size classes. Also, a perfect opportunity to create some army building like they mentioned. The Mini-cons in that game also had some badass and interesting designs as well.

Studio series Beast wars the gathering ahaha

Razorbeast88 wrote:Studio series Beast wars the gathering ahaha

THIS right here. I'm such a sucker for Beast Era characters in cybertronian/vehicular bodies. That comic had SO many good designs.

Still sad I'll never be able to own that BotCon set with the pre-Earth Maximals and a couple preds.