>>10356239>I don't think the engineering is different only because they're made in different factoriesIt's literally what Hasbro has said. I'm only repeating what Hasbro said at SDCC one year. Someone asked a question on why a certain line has better articulation than the other and it's because one factory is set up one way and the other isn't. This is why lines like Overwatch and GI Joe had superior articulation and enigineering to Marvel Legends, despite having inferior sales.
McFarlane (and other companies) switching engineering across multiple lines points toward this being true, despite smaller lines not getting the sales that would be cost effective for that upgrade. In other words, it's cheaper to produce every figure a certain way regardless of sales when the factory is set up to produce figures in Y mode vs X mode.
>I'm saying companies will copy the general idea, but put enough of a twist to avoid being slapped with patent infringement charges.I know what you said, but the fact is that Hasbro and many other companies are changing the engineering and designs of their own joints every couple of years. And no one is imitating or copying joints from 20 years ago (patents are only protected for around 15 years) despite some of them being superior to current stuff.
So it's likely not a patent issue.
Thus, if McFarlane is copying Mafex joint, all their other new figures would be using it too, because changing tooling is expensive and companies need to be cost effective in using it.
Pic of McFarlane creating the Revoltech joint, which Kaiyodo would steal 3-4 years later and called it revolutionary
