So I've been back-and-forth-ing with someone from Nelvana -- the group that is doing the localization for Beyblade in North America and some parts of Europe -- and I finally got some information from him. However ...

Hi Brad,

Sorry I took so long to send you a response. I know it isn't much, but here's the info I can offer on BEYBLADE: STEEL SQUAD. ... Well, that's the first bit of information; the title has been modified from METAL FIGHT BEYBLADE to BEYBLADE: STEEL SQUAD. The cartoon series follows Greg (formally Ginga), Ken (formerly Kenta), and Kyle (formerly Kyouya) as the fight against the evil Daniel and Ryan of the Dark Nebula organisation to protect the world.

The first tops to be released will be Pegasus, Bull, Leo and Sagittario. They will all include the Beylauncher ... for whatever reason Hasbro has decided to not release the regular launchers worldwide. I think it may be due to some safety concerns, which is also their motivation for the stadium redesign. From what I can tell it's a mostly flat rectangle with large walls built into the plastic. As far as I can tell there are no exits or pockets of any kind like the previous Hasbro stadiums. From what I can tell in the pictures Hasbro sent us, the stadium is actually completely covered by a clear plastic screen and you shoot into it using two ramps. As far as I know this is the only stadium Hasbro has designed for release so far.

As for your questions about the limited Beyblades Aries, Pisces and Quetzalcoatl, my understanding is that rather than damage the market for these rare Beyblades in Japan Hasbro has decided to simply not release them like they did for several rare Beyblades in the previous series.

As for a release date, it's currently unknown but the first tops should be out for Christmas 2009.

This is all the information I have for now. If I hear anything else I'll let you know.

Sincerely,

Chris Dakota
Nelvana

Well ...

:pwn:

I would have preferred it if they just left it as 'Metal fight beyblade' and the stadiums don't sound to good if there just flat and rectangular... hm

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Beyblade steel squad...
Stadiums....
Well atleast theyll be in US soon.

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Do you want an awesome Takara Tomy Stadium, but all you have available are those terrible Hasbro Stadiums? Don't worry! Click here to convince Hasbro to make those awesome Takara Tomy Stadiums!

«The Power to Howl at the Sun is the Power to Claim Victory»
«The Power to Roar at the Moon is the Power to Reject Defeat»
-Aikemi

Beyblade: steel squad? Hasbro will make them? No rares?

Oh carp...

EDIT: I hope this is just an April fools joke...

Anyone who got/gets pisces, aries, etc should show em off to everyone

^EDIT: Never thought of that XD

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Do you want an awesome Takara Tomy Stadium, but all you have available are those terrible Hasbro Stadiums? Don't worry! Click here to convince Hasbro to make those awesome Takara Tomy Stadiums!

«The Power to Howl at the Sun is the Power to Claim Victory»
«The Power to Roar at the Moon is the Power to Reject Defeat»
-Aikemi

EDIT: I hope this is just an April fools joke...

Lol, it could be.. I doub't it tho.

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|My youtube channel!|

Beyblade: steel squad? Hasbro will make them? No rares?

Oh carp...

EDIT: I hope this is just an April fools joke...

Unfortunately I got the e-mail on March 31, and I doubt Nelvana would play such an elaborate joke on me.

Steel Squad...
couldn't they have called it something like metal fighters? or if thet must, steel fighters to make it sound more accurate and less cheesy?

I am happy, yet slightly unhappy; steel squad? Really?

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Thanks to Kai-V for the avatar and signature!

Well, instead of being so critical, the way i see it is we should be excited because we know that its coming to NA. We all aged a bit but the era of Bey shall return! All we need to do now is spread the word, to make sure it is as big or even bigger than it originally was.

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Do you want an awesome Takara Tomy Stadium, but all you have available are those terrible Hasbro Stadiums? Don't worry! Click here to convince Hasbro to make those awesome Takara Tomy Stadiums!

«The Power to Howl at the Sun is the Power to Claim Victory»
«The Power to Roar at the Moon is the Power to Reject Defeat»
-Aikemi

I am happy, yet slightly unhappy; steel fighters? Really?

it's gotta be better than steel squad, don't you think?

MFB's will need a new abbreviation for the Americanized carp. since the "squad" should have nothing to do with the toy itself, I think it's safe to call the new release "BS"

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Well, instead of being so critical, the way i see it is we should be excited because we know that its coming to NA. We all aged a bit but the era of Bey shall return! All we need to do now is spread the word, to make sure it is as big or even bigger than it originally was.

I need community service to graduate. I volunteered at the elementary school to help out kids with their homewor. Guess what I'm going to bring as a prize for good behavior and grades to promote this!

it's gotta be better than steel squad, don't you think?

MFB's will need a new abbreviation for the Americanized carp. since the "squad" should have nothing to do with the toy itself, I think it's safe to call the new release "BS"

I made a typo, I'm an idiotXD

This sounds like some badly named children's rap group.

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Thanks to Kai-V for the avatar and signature!

oh no nelvana and hasbro are making bad decisions, how will i ever cope with this horrible new reality

I made a typo, I'm an idiotXD

This sounds like some badly named children's rap group.

They really screwed themselves by naming one of the main characters Daniel and renaming the title to steel because we now have...

...a steely dan in a children's show.

I really hate Hasbro for this very reason that they love ruining Beyblade even though they don't admit it

"We are not releasing the limited booster prizes to prevent the market of Japan from collapsing"

Well, instead of being so critical, the way i see it is we should be excited because we know that its coming to NA. We all aged a bit but the era of Bey shall return! All we need to do now is spread the word, to make sure it is as big or even bigger than it originally was.

I guess you are right. We need to take this in stride, since there was bound to be some unfavorable localization. At least it's coming out at a reasonable time frame. We should be happy that Beyblade Back! This sight is going to boom!

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Thanks to Kai-V for the avatar and signature!

oh no nelvana and hasbro are making bad decisions, how will i ever cope with this horrible new reality

Buy Takara and make the little kids jealous like everyone used to do with pokemon cards? :o

But yes! More tournaments!

Finally some info XD Thanks Brad!
It's nice to know that these will be released by Christmas '09 but what the hell is "STEEL SQUAD" could they not come up with a better name or left it at Metal Fight Beyblade (they probably thought the name MFB sounded too violent :\ ).

The names for the characters aren't too bad but it sucks that they won't be releasing the rares I was hoping they would at least release Pisces.

And it's no surprise that they will be changing the stadiums, but at least there won't be any annoying pockets, etc.
hmm...no regular launchers..... I'm not sure how I feel about that. I'll just stock up on the Orange Right launchers. Though it seems Takara is also trying to eliminate the use of regular launchers and Hasbro won't be using them at all it seems.

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I just hope Hasbro doesn't change some beyblades like they did with the previous series. They totally ruined Uriel 2, Wolborg 1, Metal Driger, etc...

It's a shame, but so what?
I'll stick to Takara Beyblades, it's even cheaper than the Hasbros in stores here were.
With the Takara gear, we can make better tournaments anyway. We will have many new players to show them that Hasbro isn't doing well.

I think the main reason for changing the name "metal fight" is because it sounds gramatically awkward in a way. Metal's mostly commonly a noun being used as an adjective...

I mean, I don't care what it sounds like, but that was prolly their concern. I really just hope that this will target older groups of new bladers. The name might sound too childish to them and prevent older bladers from joining.

Oh right, tournaments. I'd forgot to mention it from a previous e-mail he'd sent me, but in passing he mentioned the return of Rip Zones though due to some licensing agreements they will be at Wal-Mart instead of Toys R Us. No organized play, as expected.

Figures; we kind of already guessed that it would be marketed as a fad. Never had my hopes up for much organized play from them. Well that's what this site is here for!

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Thanks to Kai-V for the avatar and signature!

oh no nelvana and hasbro are making bad decisions, how will i ever cope with this horrible new reality

This^

The majority of this isn't all that surprising. In all honesty though, the name change they selected sounds awesome to me.

Steel Squads? LOL really? Why not just keep Metal Fight Beyblade? Because the word "fight" shouldn't be used since it's considered a "kids" show?

edit: lol is this some april fools joke?