Hellscream9999 wrote:and big groove = technobot (I assume) (we aren't getting big groove, but we are getting his core figure for the technobot - if that comes to fruition) and teams (TT seems to be skipping the core mold cyclonus, but not skipping the optimus team)
Also I belive the clear plastic is relegated to the front of the cycle, which I mentioned, which seems like the entire assembly is attached via a hinge or mushroom peg, so it really isn't too difficult to swap it out.
There's more to it than just the clear plastic that points to Groove being a Takara-original mold like Prime War Breakdown, Jet Vehicon, Gaia Unicron, etc. were. But before I get into those other points, I'll address the clear plastic first.
That the figure has clear plastic while none of the Hasbro molds do suggests it was given an additional plastic sprue that all of the other Hasbro molds lack, making this figure a greater expense than your average Hasbro Deluxe class figure. After all, Hasbro has standards when it comes to the budgetary limits for figures in each of their size classes, while Takara's standards aren't nearly so rigid.
Though other toys in the other lines like the current Robots in Disguise line use some clear plastic, the clear plastic on those figures was evidently budgeted into those figures, whereas the entire Deluxe class of the CW line is fully without any clear plastic. That Takara is using clear plastic on this new Groove mold and not on any other CW Deluxes suggests that more money was put into developing this one figure over all the others so that it could have that extra clear plastic sprue, which implies that it breaks the budget Hasbro established for the CW Deluxes by having one additional plastic sprue.
That said, here are the other points about Unite Warriors Groove to consider:
It has two guns that are based directly on the guns of the G1 Groove toy, whereas the Hasbro CW Deluxe molds each have just a single weapon (aside from the foot/hand gun) that is more original in its design instead of being deliberately based on the weapons of the G1 toys.
The figure has been given special attention by TakaraTomy advertisement, which wasn't the case for either Slingshot or Wildrider since those two were treated by Takara to be just ordinary figures. But Groove here was given big focal imagery in magazines ads and online order pages to make him stand out as something unique and different from the other Protectobot figures.
And finally, when the figure was first revealed, it was still a gray prototype at that point when all of the other Protectobot toys were well passed that point, placing its development cycle far later than any other Combiner Wars / Unite Warriors molds we've seen thus far, which strongly suggests that Takara had to make it themselves since, if Hasbro was behind this plan all along, would it not have made sense for Hasbro to have initiated its development as early as the other Protectobots? After all, when both Slingshot and Wildrider were first revealed, their new heads were already done, instead of still being in the hardcopy stage like Groove was.
So as far as can be told, this Unite Warriors Groove mold really looks to be a non-Hasbro product designed solely by Takara without regards to Hasbro's standards or input. And with Hasbro having already made a Legends Groove that still interacts with the Defensor combiner in some way, Hasbro very likely might feel contented enough with the Legends Groove to consider the Deluxe Groove as an unnecessary redundancy.
Not to mention that Hasbro went to the trouble of making Rook as a replacement for Groove's limb status, and did so by making him inherently meant to be the new Protectobot character that he is and no one else, instead of another preexisting character first like Alpha Bravo and Offroad were.
While rook may be unique to hasbro, has/tak probably colluded on the core mold for swindle, et al.
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