The story so far...
From Bandai's Machine Robo Series in 1982 through Robo Machine, Machine Men then Tonka Gobots until finally Hasbro.
Below is a chronological history of how this line of little robots spread across the world!
In 1982 POPY (Bandai's design us cool things branch) issued the first twelve figures in Japan under the title 'Machine Robo Series' and they were popular. Each figure was given a traditional Bandai/POPY model number such as 'MR-01' / Machine Robo 01.
These model numbers are stamped on the figures along with the manufacturing details and even appeared on some model's stickers. For example, Buggy Robo's model number is MR-08 and it has an '08' on the bonnet. For the US Tonka releases these Machine Robo Series specific stickers were largely dropped along with the extra pack-in sticker sheets.
The figures bore simple names directly relating to their alternative mode (eg. 'Bike Robo') and retailed for around 600 Yen leading to their almost official name, 'The 600 Series'; approximately $3.50USD / $6.25AUD 1982.
After years of success, in late 1982 POPY was struggling financially leading to it being absorbed by the parent company Bandai and Machine Robo Series along with it.
1982 - 83 Bandai re-released the first twelve models along with a string of new figures still sporting the same naming and model number convention. The small scale yet high quality of the toys with a comparatively low price saw popularity continue and grow.
1982 -83 Bandai released most the current figures as 'Robo Machine' in Europe and this too was a success. Robo Machine releases were given new 'RM' model numbers* (eg. RM-37) and these were stamped on the toys. The Robo Machine line was released with even more simplistic names seeing Cycle Robo released as ‘Bike’. This is likely to increase the chance of readability in Europe's traditionally multilingual market. Robo Machine figures for the most part retained the colour scheme of the original Machine Robo Series releases and were packed with the extra sticker sheet still printed with the MR model number.
* the first issued Robo Machine figures are stamped with MR numbers and Made in S.PORE before manufacturing for the line move to Macau where the RM numbers took over.
Bandai Australia (later to be renamed Bandai) released most of the series as 'Machine Men' and the line also did well, showing the MR model numbers and having their own simple names; eg. Cycle-Man. As with the Robo Machine line, Machine Men, bar the initial S.Pore release are stamped Macau vs. the Machine Robo Series and Gobots lines that are stamped Japan. It's worth noting there's some crossover towards the end of each line's run due to manufacturing closing down in certain regions and using up parts stock.
At around the same time, Machine Men were released to the US and Robot Machine Men to Canada by Bandai America. Unfortunately they weren't embraced in the same way and the line failed to take off.
Keep in mind that robots that turned into things was a new idea to the West and that Hasbro's Transformers (initially mostly copies of the Japanese Takara 'Diaclone' and 'Micro Change' lines) didn't emerge until 1984. US Machine Men and Canadian Robot Machine Men were released in experimentally low numbers and only included the six figures MR-01 through MR-05 skipping MR-06 (Highway Robo) and finishing with MR-07 later to become Turbo.
1983 Bandai needed help to crack the US market and Tonka were keen to take a piece of the change-o-robot toy pie predicted to be swamped by Hasbro's Transformers in the following year. Bandai licensed the Machine Robo Series
models to Tonka who released them local to the US as 'Gobots'. With more US suitable advertising, new figure names (Bike Robo becoming 'Cy-Kill') Gobots quickly became a success.
While the Gobots toys had new names and were released by Tonka, the models were still stamped with the original MR model numbers and Bandai. Only the blister cards and other packaging showed Tonka's branding.
As with the Robo Machine and Machine Men lines, some of the Machine Robo Series figures were not released as Gobots; eg. MR-06, MR-12, MR-22, MR-27, MR-30, MR-38, MR-53 and MRB-747.
1983 - 84 Bandai re-released the first run of figures in Australia. They were still Machine Men, however this time were issued with the US Gobots names. This linked them nicely to the Hanna-Barbera 'Challenge of the Gobots' cartoon released in 1984 even though the title sequenced needed to be changed to reflect the Machine Men branding along with the song. Check it out on YouTube - it's much better; queue my personal and Australian bias.
In Europe the same naming convention change occurred for Robo Machine, however without the re-release and figures retained their unique RM model numbers.
1985 (early) As Machine Robo Series sales were flagging Bandai started to wind the line up. This was in response to the Japanese market losing interesting in Super Robots and focus shifted to Gundam-style robot military hardware. Hasbro had also teamed up with Takara to release the Transformers cartoon in Japan with the related toys. This allowed Takara to reuse their existing Diaclone and Micro Change moulds with updated colour schemes, names, packaging and marketing. It was extremely cost effective and low risk for Takara making them the market leader and killing off the Machine Robo Series. Unlike The Transformers, Machine Robo Series didn't have a supporting cartoon in Japan. One had not been released locally and Bandai marketing felt Challenge of the Gobots wasn't in keeping with Japanese audience expectations. There was a test screening of a Japanese dubbed Challenge of the Gobots episode in Japan but the poor reception saw it not go any further.
Outside of Japan, customers were still begging for ne robot that change into things toys and Tonka were desperate to keep their market share.
Tonka needed new figures but they didn’t have the in-house talent or time to make their own. Bandai had stopped designing them and so Tonka convinced Bandai to license them a number of rejected prototypes. These rejected figures made up much of the Gobots Series 3 release leading to many of them being a little on the underwhelming side.
Tonka sold them in the US while Bandai released some in Europe and Australia. A few of these Series 3 figures broke the MR / RM convention and adopted MRT (likely Machine Robo Tonka) identifiers (eg. MRT-43). This confuses things further as the new codes do not appear on the packaging and were only stamped on the figures.
1986 The fairly decent anime 'Machine Robo: Revenge of Cronos' was released in Japan and Bandai re-released a number of key 600 Series figures that had featured in the show... again with different number; MRJ-1, MRB-1, etc. – however they kept the original Machine Robo names. In the same way Challenge of the Gobots hadn't helped Bandai in Japan, Revenge of Cronos did nothing help Tonka in the US as it needed to be dubbed into English. It's unknown why this didn't occur, however two thoughts are that the Revenge of Cronos story portrayed the characters completely differently to the Gobots and simply the expense for a line that Tonka knew was running out.
Meanwhile in France, historically a solid market for POPY/Bandai, Revenge of Cronos was dubbed into
French and released as 'Revenge of the Gobots' with Cronos character names changed to match the Challenge of the Gobots series-ish. The story in no way has anything to do with the Hanna Barbera cartoon, regardless it helped maintain Robo Machine's popularity.
1992 The Gobots Battle of the Rock Lords film was re-released on VHS in Europe. Hoping people would go nostalgically nuts over Gobots, Bandai re-re-leased some figures again in that continent. The challenge was that by then Tonka had been taken over by Hasbro and they owned all of the Gobots names and intellectual property. As Bandai still had the rights to the models, a comparatively small selection were re-released, this time with even more basic names. Robo Machine 'Eagle Robo' later re-released as 'Leader-1' was re-re-released simply as 'F-15'. It's unclear why marketing didn't revert back to the first Robo Machine names to attract original fans. Pack in sticker sheets were updated with 'Robo Machines' or 'RM' to further separate them from Hasbro's
Gobots.
Robo Machines wasn't the success Bandai had hoped it would be. This may have been in part due to the marketing as all of the fronts of the cardbacks were identical bar a foil name sticker. This gave the whole line a bootleg feel sadly matching the toy build quality feeling cheaper than the originals. This was especially noticeable in the quality of the plastic and overall finishing of the pieces; moudling dags, wheel axle pins not properly pushed in, etc.
2002 Hasbro suddenly realised that their license on the Gobots intellectual property was about to expire so as a joke they gave Megatron (Transformers) a little Mini-Con personal slave named 'Leader-1'.
Hasbro has and will likely continue to sporadically use the Gobots line or character names to maintain the copyright.
...and that's about it for now for the 600 Series. Bandai still own the rights to the models so who knows what we may see in the future!
Tonka vs. Hasbro / Gobots vs. Transformers
To get it out of the way, there were certainly some rubbish Gobots and garbage Transformers.
Tonka's Gobots have often been seen to be the poor neighbour to Hasbro's Transformers regardless of their models being sourced from the same toy line (unlike The Transformers) and released two years earlier. Most of this stems from them being simply cheaper to buy, small and a US market at the time pushing bigger is better.
This was all part of varied marketing plans by Hasbro and Tonka that consumers at the time bought into.
Hasbro marketed their Transformers line from the top down. Every kid wanted Optimus Prime, Megatron, Soundwave, etc., who were prominent characters in the cartoon, larger figures and expensive. For kids with less well off parents there were smaller, more affordable figures that Hasbro and the cartoon for the most part barely focused on. Kids WANTED the big ones. They were cool, you were cool if you had them and parents wanted their kids to be cool.
Tonka in comparison worked from the other way up by issuing LOTS of small figures at a cheap price making them widely affordable. Low profit margin with high turnover equaling lots of product with consumers helping it selling itself. The toys of the main characters in the supporting cartoon where no bigger or more expensive than any other figure in the line. So while only select kids ended up with an Optimus Prime, most kids who could afford a Leader-1. There were more expensive Gobots toys however they weren't the marketing focus and were produced in far lower numbers.
Cartoon Marketing: While Challenge of the Gobots is a far more accurate representation of characters adapted from actual toy models and has a higher average frame rate, Machine Robo: Revenge of Cronos's slick anime style and mature tone and story often has it viewed as the better offering.
As far as marketing went, if Challenge of the Gobots had been a more akin to Revenge of Cronos there's a good chance Gobots would have given The Transformers a real run for their money. Especially since there were a lot more Gobots on the market by 1985 than Transformers and many of those were well out of most child's budget. If Revenge of Cronos had been dubbed and released in the West post Challenge of the Gobots' run it's likely to have appealed to a slightly older child market and broadened the appeal of Gobots and their market share.
Negative comparisons are often made between figures such as 'Road Ranger', a $3.00 USD Gobot and 'Optimum Prime' a $40.00 USD (almost triple the size) Transformer. A more fair comparison would be to Transformers Huffer who has no diecast parts, backwards arms and death pipes for hands. Whereas Road Ranger's chest and back are metal, makes a decent robot and has hands; and I quite like Huffer.
Transformers 'Gears' VS Gobots Small Foot or Scratch would be another good example.
When making a comparison consider that many of the Machine Robo Series / Gobots are only three and a quarter inches tall, are partly made from quality diecast metal and often offer greater complexity in their transformations than their usually more revered, fair comparison Minibots Transformer chums.
For the most part smaller vintage Transformers (Minibots) don't resemble a specific vehicle while the Machine Robo Series and related lines mostly hold a close likeness to actual vehicles; something only the larger, more expensive Transformers do. Gobots were also unfortunately the target of mass bootlegging in the early 80s which has seen many people hold up poor quality copies to demonstrate that Gobots were a badly manufactured line.
Which is a better toy?
Who knows?
Most of us played with both as a kid and those of us that can see the merits in both as adults still do!