The "Aaron Archer Hasbro" as you put it also had its share of stinkers; glaringly Alpha Quintesson, a large mass retail figure that doesn't transform whatsoever. It also had Energon and Cybertron toys being sold in discount stores or retail outlets for years well after the product left the shelves in mainstream stores.
*Ran through Combiner Wars episode 1 on YouTube again* Hey, at least CWs Supputron is anime accurate! Ok, I kid.
How exactly is it weird to reuse molds? Not exactly a new thing, it's been done for 30 years on Hasbro's side, Takara alone had multiple colors of some molds before Hasbro even came up with Transformers...and there was no remolding past a few slight things like the #38 Datsun getting an new front spoiler and the Toyota PU getting a tow outfit vs a cap. I haven't noticed any decline in actual quality, a disliked change in engineering or aesthetic is not a quality issue. I have had equal actual quality control issues from both sides for years back as far as the first Generations line. Plastic is no cheaper than it has been, in fact they use Polyamide for many parts now, which is flexible and more durable for high stress areas, some may break occasionally, but I've had ROTF and early Classics break with no effort, flaws happen on a figure by figure basis. Articulation has always been on a figure by figure basis, wrist motion hasn't been on every figure and even some CW molds have ankle tilts. Classics Starscream had neither ankle tilt, waist swivel or wrist swivel and the wings hindered arm movement with the null rays on... Hollow sides and barely any head movement, certainly no up or down. And that was 10 years ago. Voyager Prime, no wrist articulation, only side to side head movement and let's not even get into the ratchet choices on the legs of Voyager Megatron and Jetfire, plus neither had waist swivel and Megs didn't have wrist swivel. Plus that, Titans Return figures have some more articulation. People are upset because of their own self imposed definitions of what mainline figures should be, like it's a collectors focused line and should be MP made or something. I love the playability and figures so much more personally than I have since Classics started 10 years ago. And I certainly never liked any toys put out during the Unicron Trilogy, especially now in retrospect, and owning 2016 figures, I don't care how small they've gotten.
That's what Betatron looks like. In hand, CW Computron looks like Computron with a mouthplate. The new colors go a long way to making it work, even without the new tooling.
G2 Superion is $64.79 on amazon right now, and the price for all the CW sets goes up and down all the time.
Well, to be fair Superion and Computron's heads are kinda hella similar. Especially if you compare G1 Superion's Toy face to G1 Computron's toy face. They are pretty similar toy faces. Which is why i wonder why Takara nor Hasbro made a "Toy accurate" Superion face and gone with the show accurate one?
The problem with the mold reuse currently isn't that it exists, it is the frequency at which it exists, which appears to have rapidly gotten out of control. This in a line where we are not talking about new characters - we are talking about established characters. Usually established characters who originally did not share molds with these other characters. Therein lies the simple problem any of us could see coming from 70000 miles away. What is usually the case here is that Hasbro always seems to wonder why things that are obvious problems to us are problems in the first place. "You mean fans are upset that Computron looks just like Superion?" Really? Does a Superion who looks like Superion and costs $100 have the same value as a Computron who looks like Superion and costs $100? I certainly don't think so. They can make a profit on toys without reuses - the reuses simply exponentially grow the profit. There is nothing wrong with wanting to do that - but I think you can do that in a way that both respects and grows the brand. But people have to stop buying any and everything they put out or they will have no incentive to be thoughtful and create meaningful product that both kids and collectors can appreciate. It should be clear though that the designers are not wholly to blame. While sometimes they might be fairly ignorant, marketing and legal and other meddling management is likely the real source of our frustrations. I have worked at big corporations and I can tell you they likely function mostly by coasting on reputation at this point. The amount of poor decision making that happens on a daily basis would likely blow your mind.
Youean the Betatron Scattershot that released in single packages? Yeah that was okay. The Scattershot head was actually more toy accurate than the one in this box set. But now that there's a Computron you could pretend Betatron never existed if you feel like it.
Except it really isn't. Silverbolt has been used for Silverbolt and Cyclonus, who was an easy pass for those who didn't want one. Is this the third character to share this mold...hardly a big deal in the grand scheme of things. And so what if they didn't share a mold back in G1? He's been retooled enough to make him different...which is more than some Botcon repaints even get. Except he doesn't look like Superion. I have him in hand. Looks totally different thanks to the great deco they gave him and the fact that the limbs are totally different. Aside from the fact he looks like Superion the same way that Grimlock looks like Optimus Prime , people shell out $$$ for Botcon toys that are exactly as you are talking about. You are free not to buy it. But if mold reuse is an issue for you, you might as well have stopped buying Combiner Wars with the Aerialbots...because there were mold reuses far and wide after that.
Thus allowing them to have more money in the budget for the next line that needs more new and unique molds. Did the need all the retools they had in combiner Wars? No not really. Did it help the brand with a 5-ish year long plan? Maybe. It's too soon to tell, but Titans Return is off to a good start.
I don't understand what you mean by value. Are you comparing the G2 Superion boxset with the Computron boxset? Because if you are, I'd say they have literally the exact same value as both have a Voyager, Four Deluxes, and a Legends toy. If it's value to a fan's collection based on any given fan's opinion about how much repainting or retooling is needed to make it worth buying a second toy that shares the same base mold as another, I'm not sure that's even quantifiable.
I bought this set because I'm mixing and matching with the UW set, and I will admit the colors on this Scattershot are straight-up gorgeous. But at the end of the day, I cannot deal with the lack of new tooling from the Betatron version. Some people can, I can't. Much in the same way as UW Blast-Off, new tooling trumps repaints, even if they're in my preferred color, every single time.
