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Machine Robo began life as a puzzle-toy line in 1982. The initial figures were designed and marketed by Popy Pleasure, a company which had broken away from Bandai.

The company mainly dealt in licensed toys from Super Robot Anime and Tokusatsu series - the market for these figures had declined badly, and the non-licensed, affordable Machine Robo were most likely an attempt to revitalise Popy's flagging commercial fortunes.

Designed initially by Katsushi Murakami, the toys were small vehicles that could be reconfigured into robots. Despite this not being a particularly new idea, the Machine Robo Series sold well, helped by a ¥600 price point (which would lead to the small figures being informally known as the '600 Series').

Popy began expanding the line to larger figures with the ScaleRobo DX figures - unlike the '600 Series', modelled on real-world vehicles with a high level (for the time) of detail, similar to Diaclone's Car Robo Series (although the first release was the Psychoroid, a vehicle licensed from the Anime Space Cobra). After twelve small figures and seven DX figures, despite a decent level of success, Popy were reabsorbed into Bandai at the start of 1983. However, Machine Robo was such a success that Bandai were eager to continue the line.

Their first move was to reissue the Popy '600 Series' figures in new packaging. Next they began adding their own designs. Here the line took a change of direction, and with rare exceptions the toys would now almost entirely be based on real-life (and usually contemporary) vehicles. Many of the designs were taken from ideas submitted by children. The Machine Robo Series would eventually run to 54 figures, with additional recolours sold as 'Best of Machine Robo' 5-packs.

Towards the end of 1983, Bandai began exporting the line to the West. The American and Australian lines were named Machine Men, while the European version was named Robo Machine. While the line was a success in the latter two cases, the American version was a flop, leading to Bandai choosing to licence the figures to Tonka, resulting in Gobots.

Bandai also added a backstory to the line - the Machine Robo were refugees from the destroyed planet of Romulos, defending Earth from the Devil Invaders (monster robots from the Casmozone) so it didn't suffer the same fate. No cartoon series was made, but some animated commercials were produced, as well as manga strips. Devil Invaders figures (initially available in three types; a further two would follow the next year) the same size as '600 Series' toys were added to the range in 1984, as were further '600 Series' figures, and larger sets such as the combining Battle Armor 5 and the Battle Base.

However, the line would soon come under heavy competition from Takara. Bandai's competitors had licensed their Diaclone and Microchange lines to the American company Hasbro, which had turned them into Transformers. Now Takara imported the Transformers mythos, and had a hit on their hands. Bandai considered doing the same with Gobots, but put the idea on ice after a dubbed episode of Challenge of the Gobots went down poorly at a Japanese toy convention. Without notable media support, Machine Robo suffered heavily.

Bandai would try to sustain the line with fresh ideas. 1985 saw only four new '600 Series' figures, while new assortments were added to the range. The Big Machine Robo were based on vehicles used in the '600 Series', and were around the same size as Popy's Scale Robo DX figures; Machine Puzzler was a Giftset containing six small figures that could combine to form a large robot; the Double Machine Robo were made up of two vehicles that formed a single robot.

However, none of it worked, and Machine Robo was effectively put into hibernation while Bandai planned a revamp. Machine Robo would be relaunched in concert with the Revenge of Cronos Anime series.