Robosen Licensed Transformers

[griffin]

Since the first Robosen self-converting Optimus Prime did so well about 2 years ago, Robosen have continued to produce and plan for quite a few Licensed Transformers products, so it is probably worth having an ongoing news topic for their updates.

The American Robosen website store for Transformers - https://us.robosen.com/collections/transformers-series

The first item to be released was the self-converting Optimus Prime cab - released from October 2021 to mid 2022, depending on your country.
It was about us$700 for the first release in America, and about au$1400 in Australia as an EB Games exclusive in mid 2022.
An impressive item (toy?), which I have had the pleasure of test driving a fair bit at a Hasbro convention exhibit... but noticed that after just two days of usage, the plastic fists and feet had excessive amounts of damage from the auto-converting process of dragging the four limbs across whatever surface it is on, no matter how smooth it is, because it needs a hard surface to be able to balance properly. As such, I decided against buying one at that price.

Next up was the self-converting Trailer to pair up with the Optimus cab - released late 2022, for the same price as the the cab, at about us$700.
The trailer came with a Roller as well, so that you had something to drive around, in addition to the trailer converting.
It was also an EB Games exclusive in Australia, released at the end of 2022, for the same au$1400 price.

As they were doing so well now with their Transformers licensed products, Robosen re-released the original Optimus Prime cab at the end of 2022, and called it the "Flagship Optimus Prime", raising the price to us$1000... so that they could release a smaller version of the self-converting cab at about the same time, and price it at the same price as the bigger one when it was first released (us$700).
This smaller version was called the "Elite Optimus Prime", and was also released at EB Games in Australia in mid 2023, for au$1200.

As part of the promotions for the new smaller Elite Optimus Prime in December 2022, Robosen had a competition in North America for a golden "Lucky Draw" Elite Optimus Prime, which probably only had a few made.

Then we had a non-converting Gen1 item - Bumblebee, released mid-2023 in America for us$400. It did just about everything like the Optimus Cab, in terms of electronics and movements, but just didn't convert into anything.
I don't think this one came to Australia though, as I don't recall it showing up on EB Games' website.

The next item set to be released any day now, is another non-converting item - Rise of the Beasts Optimus Prime. Similar to their Gen1 Bumblebee, this Optimus is just the robot mode, but has similar electronics and movements gimmicks (voice activated and remote-controlled) that each Robosen figure has had so far. This one is us$900.
I think I remember seeing this one listed on the EB Games website, but it isn't there anymore, so I can't remember what it was priced at here.

Next up on the self-converting side is Grimlock, set to come out by the end of 2023, it is said to be priced at us$1700... more than double the price of the original Optimus Prime cab!!! ... so if it was to come to Australia, expect it to be at least au$3000!
(I don't recall if it was listed on EB Games site, as they don't currently have any of their Robosen products on their search page, so mustn't have any older items still in stock either.)

This weekend at NYCC, Robosen had on display, the ROTB Optimus, Grimlock, Bumblebee, Golden Lucky Draw Optimus... and an interactive display stand, which I think was also part of the Golden Optimus competition promotion, as I can't find it listed for sale anywhere.
https://news.tfw2005.com/2023/10/13/...n-booth-496457
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[griffin]

The Robosen display base that was teased earlier this month at NYCC, has now been officially shown off, with some people in America getting one sent to them to review....
https://news.tfw2005.com/2023/10/20/...se-info-496846

And a youtube video review - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc0CeDDubAc

It is noted as being us$250 in America, so if it comes here, it is likely to be au$500.
https://us.robosen.com/products/ai-base

It isn't just a display base, as it is fully electronic and interactive (with Amazon Alexa installed), allowing your Robosen toy to stay on and active while it is plugged in.