Hasbro Pulse Fan Fest felt like several Fan First Fridays stacked together, and the crew recaps every Transformers reveal. The Ark shows off its Teletraan-1 Mainframe robot and Golden Disks, and Trax steals the show.

Robosen’s $700 self-transforming Optimus Prime gets a long debate. Brian shares his experience in the fan room, and the crew vents about Pulse Premium sellouts.

Fan Fest, Overall

The crew agrees Fan Fest was no replacement for BotCon or Toy Fair. It was more like several Fan First Fridays stacked together. The Thursday Pulse Premium mixer had almost no Transformers content, and its links reached non-Premium fans anyway. Brian sat in the fan room on Zoom with friends like Ant and was told to react big. The host kept standing in front of Ant’s square.

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Hasbro Pulse Fan Fest Transformers Reveals

Hasbro openly acknowledged recent leaks during the presentation. The Ark appeared in Mark’s hand and looks big. Its Teletraan-1 robot is named Mainframe, stores the Voyager Golden Disk and the Vok disk, and folds into a small Ark bridge for the slug figures. Commander Class Rodimus Prime connects to Omega Supreme. Rhinox looks off to some of the crew, partly because of its realistic beast mode. [Source: TFRadio]

Trax was the crowd favorite, an unmistakable Corvette that keeps its flight mode, and the crew wants Road Rage and Loudpedal repaints. Wingfinger joins the Deluxe Fossilizers, though Mark’s combiner was his own creation. Core Class Dracodon is a radioactive-green Vertebreak redeco, and Core Class Soundwave impressed everyone with its likeness. Pulse exclusives include Tricranius, a Triceratops Ractonite retool with scorched-bone deco and blast effects. Shattered Glass Blur’s packaging won over even the Shattered Glass skeptics. A Fan First Friday in May should bring Studio Series news. [Source: TFRadio]

Robosen Self-Transforming Optimus Prime

The big surprise was Robosen’s licensed self-transforming Optimus Prime, 19 inches tall with about 5,000 components, for $700. Brian recalls the viral T9 prototype from RFC 650 and the knockoff he received when trying to buy one. He calls this version far more refined. The crew sees it as a programmable educational robot more than an action figure. One host worries about the battery and app support in 20 years. Others note that Robosen carries the risk and Hasbro collects a license fee, which explains how it sells at $700 when HasLab Unicron needed crowdfunding. [Source: TFRadio]

Pulse Premium Sellouts

Everything except Core Class went up for preorder during the event. Pulse and Amazon sold through their first allocations of Galvatron and Rodimus Prime. Even Premium members missed out in the middle of a workday, and one host had to turn to Big Bad Toy Store. Brian took the day off weeks ago to live-tweet the event and preordered as items appeared.

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