NIB Metallica-

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It's so new, it's not even fully made yet!

NIB Kiss-

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Wow...right back to decal issues...thats so 2016...
Way to go stern

Disappointing for sure

Yeah he loves the Hobbit and says GB is the worst game ever made, go figure lol.....I mean how are you even supposed to take a guy like that serious?

Yeah I'm a little sick of hearing this routine from people now.

Old school. I've heard the gold dust from 2014 is back on some SW too.

I actually play games & understand them. Most people here understand and respect my opinions and knowledge of games...even if they disagree with me, they get where I'm coming from & know I'm coming from a place of experience.

Comparing GOT LE to the Hobbit is like comparing a Hyundai (GOT) to a Mercedes (TH)...rule set on GOT isn't that complicated...I sold my GOT LE after 90 days because nobody cared for it...everyone seems to be highly entertained with TH....go figure

A new Stern Pro bought today in the UK would cost $8146. Yes that is for a Pro.

Oh crap, thanks for jogging my memory, I asked my contact ( he works for a soon to be opened pinball museum in N. Miami) forward me pics of a NIB Metallica. The side decal was just hanging down when they opened the box. The best part was the Star Trek sticker on the coin door.

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Look what you did with your opinion about Got, one of the best pin of all times.
We told this woman that this pin is a turd, see what happened

Thank you....

I don't understand how this thread (and others) can exist with these pictures and stern says nothing.

Because they know it already. It seems to be a head in the sand and greed mentality.

When you combine climbing retail price increases with consistent cost cutting in the form of spike node modules, changing to a flimsy cheap 2 latch system for the play field, recycled play fields, soldered node based leds, peeling cab labels etc. etc.

Just wait till an LED goes out on one of these tables and they have to replace a whole board (a proprietary one at that). Hold on to your wallet. This will continue till people let Stern know licensing doesn't trump shoveling out tables that are closer to toys in quality.

Can you imagine what these machines will look like in 15 years with splitting cabs and shattering clearcoat..etc? The guys on here are worried about node boards availability down the road. These games are not going to survive that long for us to worry about that, they will self-destruct way before the boards are out of circulation.

Wow, just wow, with those pictures I am so happy I was able to return my MET for being a POS, and I am not surprised at all Stern has not improved. I am surprised that people keep buying NIB Stern pinball machines though.

Small key issue and Jersey Jack calls the customer himself, just like Charlie would at spooky. The "great Pinball savior" Gary Stern doesn't have the time, and if he did he just deflects and lies along with his minions Powers and Gomez.

Lat year i made a joke, Stern would deliver their pins in the future without decals. Half way done. Good job. You are on the right track.
Absolutely right.
Like Motorola, Nokia, Commodore, GM, Lehman etc etc
All had better knowing about markets than their customers.

Since it's in a museum, your friend should leave it in that condition as testament to what Stern pinball represented in 2017.

Yep few hundred million points.

Stern doesn’t care.

Until legions of people stop supporting them they will do the same, probably sold a lot of ST already.

Gary would say something like no machine is perfect and it’s within the normal standards to have some decal peel or ghosting or cabinet splitting etc..

No stern does not care one bit. The pictures speak for themselves.

There were howls of derision a couple of years ago, and even last year, when people suggested that Stern were reverting to type, and that their new machines had become modern DEs or the worst of the SEGAs.

Personally, I doubt they'll last anywhere near as well as that, if they were to suffer even remotely similar levels of abuse.

They're frequently in a bad way straight out of the box.

P.S. That ST coin door sticker on a NIB Metallica (ST production ended this time last year) is absolutely laughable.

Some of you people are pretty ridiculous. Stern had a decal issue a couple of years ago and it seemed like Met pro and WrestleMania were the main ones affected. So are you folks claiming these are new production games with this issue or just posting old crap to be dramatic? There were some wrinkle issues with KISS also. Haven't seen that issue since then so they obviously cared enough to fix it. I had a met pro that peeled a little. I just glued the decals back on and kept playing it. Would I have preferred it not happen, sure, was it a big deal, nope.

As for the claims that the games will not hold up you have zero idea what they will look like in 15 years and you are just making up shit to be dramatic. Maybe they won't hold up as good, maybe they hold up better, maybe it's about the same. You do not know and neither do I. Simple fact is if you don't like the games or the company then just don't buy them. But your thinking that a JJP game is going to hold up any better is a very flawed point of view.

Well more people going to the competition might actually be enough of a "reality dose" for them to do something. I jumped ship this week by getting a JJP game. Pirates will be released in first quarter which in turn will let me put up two Stern games up for sale and I will reserve a spot for Toy Story for the end of 2018. Stern has the opportunity with GOTG to snag my business back but I'll take this release with a grain of salt. I will wait a while before coming back to Stern to see if they have addressed what they need to gain my confidence back. Short of that, I see alot of JJP stuff entering my small collection and seeing more Sterns leaving.

Fact: the photo of the met decals I took myself 3 days ago. The game was recently set up nib and has no more than 20 plays on it.

this thread is such a joke

Completely agree on the decal issue = addressed.
Code seems to be better now than 2015
Ghosting = still a problem
Node boards = still a problem
Cab splitting = not sure

No it isn't.

Their cabinets are immensely more solid. Their latest board revisions for WOZ & Hobbit (and all DIs) seem to be very reliable. They publish all their schematics for both boards and mechs, of all revisions. They use much higher quality decals. Playfields are much higher quality.

How could they possibly not both hold up much better and be much easier to service? Spike and Spike 2 will be a nightmare.

JJP's manual for DI blew my mind. It's not a photocopy that as been pdf'ed. Extremely detailed and the manual get's updated when they do changes.

You do not have a portal to the future and you are just making up shit because sterns cost a lot in Europe. You are just guessing and trying to sound important. I've owned all 3 JJP games. They are nice, but they are not easier to service and I have had more problem with them then any stern ever. Will they be in better condition then a stern with the same number of plays in 15 years? I do not know and neither do you.

Whats the build date on the MET? Is it old stock with peeling decals? Or fresh off the line...

You have to pay extra for that nice JJP manual too.

And you sound like a fanboy too blind to even recognize facts with ample evidence and pictures to boot. Is it legit to complain about pf ghosting and clearcoat cracking? Is it legit to ask for resolution for splitting cabs and decals, when there are pictures after pictures from NIB buyers? You're in denial man. And don't tell me it's been addressed, the guy that sent me the pics told me Stern send them a head decals to change themselves. Also just in case it didn't penetrate your bubble SW games still have ghosting.

But your Kiss pic is a few years old right? I’ve seen that one before. I thought the point was discussing issues Stern is having now, not rehashing their “greatest hits”. Sounds like your Metallica is new business, but you undermine your point by posting it right next to an old pic.

So back to your Metallica - what’s your build date? Is it a new machine or was it built back when they were having cab decal problems?

Of course those issues should be addressed by Stern. Point is that if people are using old pics and old reports and implying those specific issues are still happinging with newly built Stern games, it’s hard to have an honest conversation about the issues they’re still having today.

EDIT: Sorry, I responded seriously to your other post before reading the above. You’re evidently not interested in a fact-based discussion, sorry to have wasted your time. If you need me I’ll be waiting for my SW to spontaneously combust.

So?

You have to pay extra for PF supports on Stern.

I’d rather have PF supports myself.

I'm not a stern fanboy and I'm not in denial of anything. I've owned a lot of games from almost every company for the most part and I've dealt with issues from almost all of them. It's just hilarious how up in arms most of you are about anything stern does. Below is a list of all of my stern NIB purchases and I've had a few issues but nothing that sent me crying to pinside and nothing for the most part that I couldn't fix. The majority of them literally needed nothing. There's a 11 game sample set for your data and I have a lot of friends with a lot more games then me that also have yet to have any of there sterns fall apart or burst into flames. I'm sure you don' believe me or anyone else though because stern has never made a game that functions correctly in some of your minds. I really do think most of you people stare at your games instead of playing them. It's like a perfect unblemished pinball machine gives you all wood or something.

Tron pro NIB no issues
ST pro NIB bad opto under ramp, pain in the ass to fix
IMVE NIB now issues
MET pro NIB pealing head decals, couple of switch adjustments
TWDLE NIB blown fuse for magnet upon startup
ST Premium NIB no issues
KISS LE NIB slight wrinkle around the coin door, Gene head needed tweaks
GOTLE NIB no issues
GB premium NIB needed lots of gameplay tweaks, no cosmetic issue
MET Premium NIB no issues
ASLE NIB no issues

Oh, you pay for those with a JJP too. It’s just baked into the $8.5k base price.

So ad hominem and no attempt to refute any of the FACTS I stated.

Board reliability - Spike and Spike 2 node boards are constantly failing, and revisions are not mutually compatible. Virtually no reports of JJP's latest boards failing .

JJP publish schematics for every revision of every board and mech in every one of their machines. Stern have published no Spike or Spike 2 main or node board schematics at all. Game specific boards are typically not covered either. Mechs, some are, some aren't.

The cabinets use much heavier, stiffer, higher quality ply with more bracing and better joints. Find me numerous splitting JJP cabs.

The standard JJP decals are thicker, higher DPI and less brittle. The 'RadCals' much more so. They're also laid edge to edge, so even if there is some movement, they won't split at the corners like Stern (and CGC) do.

The 'FUN' pfs were absolute dog **** and Stern are still dribbling their GB stockpile of those out, with second date stamps. The Churchill pfs have clearly been cheapened to a level where they've become problematic. Clear chipping, insert ghosting and lifting, excessive dimpling or cratering are common. The only JJP machines reported to have any major pf issues since the early pre December 2013 WOZ (which had a US non-Churchill manufacturer) were a couple of engineering sample DIs that had 10s of thousands of location plays and a very light clear.

No crystal ball is needed.

Thats bad! Ok the decals would be one thing (bad batch of adhesive?) but the star trek decal lol...

I agree. I get tired of the bickering. I love JJP's machines, and I love Stern's machines. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. I'm not a fan of Hobbit or a few of the Stern titles, but I can always find the good in every game. Even if I had a Shaq Attack as my only game, it's still better than the games I had five years ago. It's pinball and I love pinball. Give me an old Gottlieb or a wood rail and I can still have fun with it. Guess I'm pretty f**ked up, eh? This nitpicking is exhausting.

Feels like your in class all over again......or monitoring detention...pending from which angle you look at it

WTf? What do you mean using old pictures? Those pictures are less than a month old!

No you can't. Your doing the hobby all wrong

He said Metallica pic was a month old.

There’s that Kiss pic (which I believe I saw a year or two ago in another thread). And then the cabinet splitting pic, which is apparently also from a while back.

That’s what I mean. If you (and obviously I don’t mean you personally, you didn’t post the pics) mix in old and new pics, it makes it difficult to tell what problems Stern is having right now. Which is pretty important to the discussion.

Oh, Ok, I thought you meant I posted the old pics. I agree if the pics are old then it's not valid. I, however, got those pics last week and the museum got the machine a week or so before that. I have no idea of the build date. It could be old inventory.

Everything from Stern just boils down to the same issue they refuse to modernize the way they think. It seems they just follow the same old process. I'm not getting into the whole fanboy debate on who makes a better machine. I will say this JJP, seems to be using a modernized process. JJP PotC shows a modern approach to code, the reveal felt very modern, with all use pinheads scrambling and excited on line searching for leaks and watching the countdown. I really believe if Stern wants to survive as a modern company they need new blood basically everywhere, leadership, design, code, manufacturing, quality control, marketing you name it.

some of your rant I agree with, but to say that Stern is even in the same league in regards to quality versus JJP is a total JOKE...clearly the JJP product is built 10X better than Sterns....if you owned one you would know that....I have have several of both and there is no comparison...

Your reputation is well known and earned on the forum.

Here's some reports of JJP cabinet issues, Multiple examples too. https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/hobbit-owners-thread/page/23#post-3255689

And here's a recent post of JJP PF problems.

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Actually, it's the Stern haters that are ignoring the FACT that all manufacturers who produce pinball machines in large volume will have some problems/issues. And people who simply point this fact out on the forum get smeared as Stern fanboys. JGentry is now a Stern fanboy? LOL. It never ends. I've been smeared as well for saying as much, and even with only two of six pins in my collection being Stern.

Make no mistake, there is a very vocal and extreme hate component on this forum. Many are happy to ignore the FACT that JJP has had issues too. Lots of reality distortion bubbles in this thread and on the forum.

Both JJP and Stern have had their problems and deserve criticism for their shortcomings. Buy if you want; or don't buy; that's really the most significant impact anyone can have on a manufacturer. Anything else is ridiculous diatribe by people with an axe to grind.