The Hall of Fame awards return this year, at HasCon in September, and invited American fansites have been involved in the first round - which has them nominating a short list for each of the three categories, for Hasbro to collate for fans to vote on later.

The three categories for this year are,
- Favourite Transformers (robot) character
- Favourite Transformers Movie (robot) character
- 2017 Transformers Hasbro toy of the year

The two new categories this year are a good inclusion, as the second one highlights the focus of the Movie this year, while the third category could be a good annual award... if it was able to include a full 12 month period so that every toy each year has a chance. Fans are allowed to nominate toys that are yet to be released, but it means anything released in the next 6 months that is known or unknown, doesn't really have a chance. (I think Trypticon would have been a clear winner if this vote happened in December, but it isn't officially out yet in America, so even if it makes the short list, very few people might vote on it if the vote is done through facebook or the Transformers app.)
I think since the voting is in July, the inclusion period should be toys officially released from July 2016 to June 2017. They could still call it a 2017 award, but they just have to clarify it being the financial year ending in 2017.

The fansites have to send in their results by the end of this weekend, so it will probably mean the public vote will be by the end of this month... most likely to be announced at SDCC, to help promote HasCon to the SDCC attendees.