Mkall wrote:My understanding is that Hasbro is pretty much king since they hold the license of Transformers and lead the mold design process and their relationship with TakaraTomy is that TT can do whatever they want with the molds and Hasbro uses their manufacturing facilities and gets their assistance on some of the design work. Hasbro gets first crack, then TakaraTomy or is it TomyTakara? I never remember the order off the top of my head. Hence why, except for rare circumstances, there hasn't been a unique mold to appear in Japan until after its seen release in North America, the biggest exception being the Microns accompnying the Japanese TF: Prime figures, and I have my own hypothesis on that which have no impact on this discussion at this time.
Your speculation about anniversaries I think may be grasping at straws. We're at the point now where every year is going to be an anniversary for something. 2013 is Pretenders, 2014 may be Micromasters, the 30th year for the original G1 cast, or the 10th year for Energon and so on and so forth. Every fan will hope that their preferred anniversary will somehow get special treatment over all the others.
I'm following Occam's Razor on this: There is no supporting fiction for Machine Wars and it's a small toyline that only collectors will follow which made it a perfect target for The Club to make a set around. After some back and forth, Hasbro agreed on their mold choice and away they go.
I'm not saying you're wrong. I fully accept that I could be wrong, you could be right, or we both could be way off. I just think that we as fans tend to overcomplicate things.
Not complicating, dissecting. It is how I generate interest in non-TOMY pieces.
Actually, you will be surprised. If you go with pre-merger Takara, you will find that a majority of the licensed figures come from their own pre-Transformers and Transformers (Car Robots, Micron Dentsu trilogy, etc.) lines. And that they also did a good chunk of the figures after that point. Adding those two elements, and the two pieces from ToyBox (Omega Supreme and Sky Lynx), TOMY is the top banana of sorts.
Plus, I was talking about the important anniversaries. Namely Transformers, Headmasters, Pretenders, and Beast Wars. Headmasters and Pretenders helped redefine the toyline, and Beast Wars (created by Kenner) helped reinvent it. Which is why I find them choosing a toyline that initially failed because fans (including myself) hoped it was a revival of the original. That, and from my understanding, this line is based on European Generation 2 pieces (mostly retooled).
Besides... For all we know, Admiral Ackbar is wishing to tell the Machine Wars fans that "It's a trap!" But, then again, I know that there is an Edward Elric (Fullmetal Alchemist) joke within this toyline.
Ultra Magnus, Springer, Hot Rod, Blurr, Kup, Wreck-Gar
Galvatron, Cyclonus, Scourge, 3 Sweeps
)
Because if Hasbro is reviving this very obscure line, then it can mean TOMY is going to be doing something interesting when it comes to Generation 1. Hmmm... 
