Exclusive
From Transformers Wiki
The term exclusive is most often used in reference to a toy (or other item) that was only available at a limited venue - typically just a single store chain - rather than in widespread mass release alongside every other contemporary Transformer or tube of toothpaste.
The difference between exclusives and mass retail product can vary significantly, as does the level of difficulty in finding them.
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Characteristics of exclusives
Exclusives can be as simple as previously-released toys now featuring new packaging - often as giftsets at a reduced price. Most frequently, however, exclusives tend to be redecoes, with the store or venue able to say they feature a version of a character that can only be purchased through them. This approach dates back to at least 1985 with the Cookie Crisp mail-away exclusive version of Jazz, and continues to this day.
More rarely, if a toyline intended for mass retail winds up cancelled, its offerings may be shunted to exclusive status. This may result in a wholly unique toy mold exclusive to particular venues; that way, Hasbro and TakaraTomy can make back at least some of the extensive development costs that went into it. Examples of this would include all three uses of the Megatron Megabolt figure, some of the later Titanium Series figures, and the Alternators versions of Rumble and (Jaguar) Ravage
As a rule, new molds are not deliberately created for the purpose of being exclusives, because the very high costs of creating the steel tooling elements are difficult to recoup when it's released as a low production run through a limited venue. Of course, all rules have exceptions, at first made possible by the unprecedented levels of cash flowing into the franchise courtesy of the live-action film series. In 2008, Chevrolet/General Motors commissioned the creation of Aveo Swerve (pictured right), an extremely limited piece available at first only through Chevrolet dealerships and their corporate website. In 2012, Universal Studios gift shops welcomed a newly created mold for Evac, the star of their movie tie-in theme park ride; it also helped that this toy was sold for eight years. A decade later, the culturally-omnipresent popularity of Bumblebee left the Buzzworthy Bumblebee subline able to produce three new molds, followed by a fourth that completed the thematic set even though it was packaged differently; all four were exclusive to Target. The Walmart-exclusive Velocitron Speedia 500 Collection subline for Transformers: Legacy would similarly bend the "exclusives always redecoes" rule with another two newly-created figures.
Store exclusives
Though store exclusives in Transformers date back as far as 1989's Kmart-only releases of the "Legends" Bumblebee, Grimlock, Jazz and Starscream, the practice saw little use in the US until KB Toys stores got its own exclusive mini-line Machine Wars in 1997. Store exclusives tied in directly to the main retail line, however, remained minimal in the following years, with Beast Wars and Beast Machines getting one or two.
The success of the 2001 Robots in Disguise series caused a boom for the franchise, resulting in the "big four" chains (Walmart, Toys"R"Us, Target, and KB Toys) each getting their own Transformers available only at their stores. Since then, store-exclusives have persisted to this day, with ebbs and flows of the amount of exclusive product depending on the overall strength of the brand. To this day, multiple store exclusives are released each year in the US... with the 2007 live-action movie toy line creating a rush of exclusives that left 2001 in the dust.
In Japan, short-run exclusives are fairly common. There are multiple outlets for exclusives; in addition to the occasional "normal" store redeco, the TakaraTomy-affiliated e-HOBBY online store was a steady venue for exclusives of all sorts. Many brick-and-mortar stores also frequently receive very short-run smaller exclusives (such as Mini-Cons) that are technically given away free, but only as a "bonus" to people who bought certain toys (or a certain amount of toys) at the stores on a certain date. Magazine mail-aways remain a popular outlet for exclusive redecos in Japan, though that practice has fallen out of favor in the US.
Of course, an item that is a retailer exclusive in one country may be released through a different retailer in another country, or be a normal mass-retail release altogether. The biggest example of this is the string of "USA Edition" toys from TakaraTomy, which are (almost completely) toys from Hasbro's lines in (mostly) unchanged packaging, released in Japan through exclusive outlets rather than as part of the normal line.
And exclusives aren't just limited to toys either; other Transformers media has also had its fair share of exclusive releases. For example, Beast Wars Transmetals for Nintendo 64 was exclusive to Blockbuster rental stores when it first released. This can also extend to exclusive pack-in materials and even bonus features for a product depending on where it was released. The home video release of The Last Knight, for example, had different bonuses for different retailers and versions, such as the "Mission to Cybertron" pack-in comic at Toys R Us and the Blu-Ray combo pack at Target including all of Combiner Wars.
A relatively young phenomenon are so-called "shared exclusives", which can best be described as "available in several places, but not available anywhere else". An early example are the Energon Road Wrecker Mini-Con Team/Night Attack Mini-Con Team and Race Mini-Con Team/Space Mini-Con Team combo packs, which were available at both Toys"R"Us and Walmart stores, but nowhere else. The concept has seen more widespread use in more recent years, often in the form of so-called "online exclusives", which means those figures or sets are available at several different online retailers (sometimes including the online storefronts of major retailers such as Walmart, Target, Toys"R"Us and Kmart), but are not supposed to be sold in brick and mortar stores. Examples include the Generations "Ultimate Gift Set", various Platinum Edition figures and sets and the Combiner Wars "May Mayhem" figures and "Collection Packs".
Convention and club exclusives
Convention exclusives have a more consistent history, starting back in 1994 with BotCon 1994's Generation 2 Breakdown, which had been slated for normal retail release with the rest of the team, but ultimately cancelled. The following year saw the first convention-exclusive toy redecoed specifically for the convention, Nightracer (albeit not to the original specifications).
From then on, each official Transformers convention (including those going by other names) has had at least one exclusive toy... in fact, as time has gone on, the scale of convention exclusives has only expanded, with multi-toy packs, larger molds, and even retooled items. It is not uncommon for Transformers exclusives to be produced for other conventions as well.
In 2005, Fun Publications expanded exclusives by producing toys available only to members of the Transformers Collectors' Club. While one each year was produced as a "free" incentive for signing up, in 2006 the first separately-purchased exclusive, Astrotrain, was produced based on fan-reaction to an unreleased retail exclusive. Several more club exclusives have been released since then, some of them based on cancelled redecos from defunct lines, while others sported decos specifically designed by Fun Publications.
Exclusives in other countries
While exclusives have a long history in the United States and Japan, they were rather uncommon in many other countries until the beginning of the 21st century. The first outlier was Toys"R"Us, which carried the Commemorative Series line of reissues as an exclusive not only in the US, but also in Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. Beginning with the 2007 movie line, Toys"R"Us also started to sell exclusives through many other of their international branches, starting with the "Decepticon Desert Attack" two-pack of Blackout and Scorponok, which was also available in several European countries.
Toys that are exclusive to store chains that only exist in the United States can be exclusive to other stores in other countries. For example, most toys that are exclusive to Target stores were usually exclusive to Zellers stores in Canada (back when Zellers still existed). With later installments of the live-action film series such as Dark of the Moon, Age of Extinction and The Last Knight, Hasbro aimed for a very "global" approach by offering many, if not all exclusive figures to stores around the world, and any attempt at gathering a complete list of international retailers that carried specific figures is bound to be an exercise in futility. The Generations sub-lines Combiner Wars and Titans Return also saw numerous exclusives released internationally.
It's also possible for toys that are released as exclusives in the US to be available as general releases in other countries, such as the Target exclusive Scout Class toys from the movie line, or Power of the Primes Punch/Counterpunch, which was exclusive to Amazon.com for North American purchasers but got a standard retail release in Pacific rim countries. In return, toys that are available as mass releases in the USA can also end up as exclusives in other countries: For example, in the United Kingdom, the Alternators were originally only available at Argos stores; and a non-AllSpark Power variant of Nighwatch Optimus Prime was also released as an Argos exclusive.
In Australia, stores that commonly carry exclusives are Target (not related to the US chain except for the name and the logo), which became famous for offering an imported version of Takara's Masterpiece Ultra Magnus, Kmart (also not related to the US chain of the same name), BigW, Myer, Mr Toys Toyworld and Toys"R"Us. With the exception of Masterpiece Ultra Magnus, nearly all of these exclusives were also released by Hasbro in the US, either as mass retail toys or as exclusives. For example, Alternators Rodimus and Nemesis Prime, both Hasbro Toy Shop/San Diego Comic-Con exclusives in the US, were released as Toyworld exclusives in Australia.
Lastly, in recent years there has also been the occasional multi-pack that was released as a store exclusive in various countries, but was not released in the US at all. For the 2007 movie line, this was a two-pack of Voyager Class Optimus Prime and Deluxe Class Bumblebee, released as an Argos exclusive in the UK and as a Kmart exclusive in Australia, and "Voyager y Unleashed" two-packs of Unleashed Bumblebee with either Voyager Class Blackout or Autobot Ratchet, exclusive to Sam's Club stores in Mexico; and for the Animated line, some European Toys"R"Us stores (in Germany and the UK, at least) got an exclusive Deluxe Class Autobot Ratchet/Bumblebee two-pack.
Why exclusives?
God hates you and doesn't want you to have toys.
Aside from that, exclusives for both stores and conventions are incentives to get interested buyers to the stores/shows to make other purchases. While you're here for that Transformer or Star Wars Clonetrooper set that can only be found at this store... hey, Dr. Pepper is also four for ten bucks. And look, the new Venture Bros. DVD set is out. Need some paper towels? Tube socks?
For store exclusives, often the chain will request (or in the case of Wal*Mart, demand) an exclusive, perhaps even suggesting (or, again, demanding) a specific price point, should the line be proving popular. Sometimes, Hasbro or Takara may solicit items already in the works as exclusives to stores. Several toys that had been slated for normal retail release, but canceled in the Universe line, for example, were ultimately released as Target exclusives in 2006.
Convention/club exclusives are a bit different, and involve a lot more work done outside of Hasbro/Takara's offices. The convention organizers themselves write up proposals to the company, including the molds they would like to use, color arrangements, names, any new tools they wish to make, and such. These plans very often change depending on mold availability (sometimes molds are lost, or deteriorated, or are being used for other releases) or plans that Hasbro/Takara have in store for the future. In almost every instance, the convention-exclusive toys would not exist at all if the convention organizers did not request (and pay for) them.
As the Transformers fandom has grown larger and more mainstream, the number of eyes searching for every new toy is only growing, which has led to no small amount of frustration among fans who feel a need to track down pieces of increasingly limited availability in order to complete their collections. This has proven particularly intense regarding store- or convention-exclusives representing members of traditionally-grouped annual character rosters or sub-teams; many fans fear they could have "holes" left in their collections, as the mass retail pieces tend to be far easier to find. The Earthrise toyline, for instance, featured a new cartoon-accurate version of Starscream as a mass retail toy.... and all five other members of the traditional Seekers as store exclusives!