Why would they want to do that?

They can't make enough of the $8500 ones now.

If they made twice the amount of machines at $7500, by the time they employed twice as many staff to make them, and increased the size of the building, and bought all the plant, they'd actually make less money than maintaining the status quo.

More turnover doesn't necessarily mean more profit.

(AKA: I made more money from one furniture store than I did from 4).

rd

I didn't listen to Garys Expo speech this year, but I have heard it before.

I know where he is coming from ... we were discussing it when he was down in NZ last year.

What he is saying (or trying to say) is the Barcades are introducing a new younger generation to pinball ... in the same way that arcades did back in the 70s/80s. He sees that as a great thing. He loves to see kids/teens playing pinball, he was surprised how many we had playing at Pincade when he was here.

The last thing anyone wants to see is pinball dying off with the guys currently in their late 40s/50s/60s, which is on the cards unless we bring the young guys on board in big numbers.

rd

That's awesome man.

I see the same thing when I travel around the States, in Denver, Chicago, NYC ... bars with pinball (and arcades) packed with people of all ages, drinking beer, playing pinball and having a good time.

Unfortunately we don't have any barcades here in Auckland yet ... we don't really have any location pinball to speak of really, a few games here and there. A few of us are working towards making something happen.

Wellington has a thriving little scene happening now, thanks to pinsiders clg and @simonzzz. Awesome to see people playing pinball on location again!

rd

My 15 year old daughter has played in barcades around the world. All the ones in Denver, Logan Arcade, Sunshine Laundromat .. hasn't been a problem so far. We go in during the day rather than at night time.

In NZ, Australia and Europe, kids can go in most licenced premises without a problem, they just can't buy a drink.

rd

The LE came out long before Star Trek ...

rd

I dunno, Tron LE did the LE thing pretty good.

I would get rid of the Match (set it to a very low percentage) and keep one free credit reward for getting a high score.

rd

We can accept that.

rd

The truth is, they don't know.

They sell games to distributors, the distributors sell the games.

If you buy a game from JJ at Game Exchange, he doesn't ask you what you're doing with it. You could be routing it, or putting it in your barcade, or putting it in your house. He doesn't know. So how would Stern know?

rd

See, that's ridiculous.

Don't be swayed by those comments.

What final Wizard Mode isn't coded?

There isn't one. Not like GB where there is one on the PF and it doesn't work. XMEN doesn't have one! There's no insert for another wizard mode.

You can't say "there's no final wizard mode" when there isn't supposed to be one! And then say you've only completed 2 villians so you'd never see it even if it was there!

Good luck first beating all the Heroes and then beating all the Villians. There's probably only a handful of people who have done that (on factory settings without stacking on)

The two wizard modes for Heroes and Villains are more than adequate, and are both very good Wizard modes, particularly Dark Phoenix. If you want to see them I have a video on YouTube of both modes in one game.

That's the problem ... someone says something like that, and now people think "it's a thing". It isn't.

rd

Paying $19,300 AUD for a collectors edition JJPOTC is in-saaaane!

Why would you want to do that?

Why not buy the standard one (which has exactly the same gameplay) for $5000 less?

You’re in a small market .. if you sell the CE in a few years, you’re going to lose a heap of money. If you buy a standard, you won’t lose much (presuming the game turns out ok)

As you said yourself, your car is only worth $10k, I can’t fathom why you’d pay twice that for a pinball machine.

Don’t get sucked into the whole “fake scarcity” thing...

rd

$5000 is an awful lot to pay for a topper.

I live in NZ. Same as Aussie but even smaller top end market.

I was offered a Batman Super LE. It was going to be $25,000 NZD (thanks to the local distributors large markup)

I declined buying it because I knew if I ever went to sell it, I would be blowing $10k plus. Probably $12-13,000 at my guess.

I got a BM66 premium (exactly the same game) for well less than half the SLE price. 44% of the price to be exact. It doesn’t have the topper that the $17,000 LE or $25,000 SLE does.

Bm66 LE/SLE has one of the best toppers of any pinball made. But I ain’t paying $6000 or $14,000 extra for it. That would be mental.

rd

I bought that for $70,000 off list price too.

I let other suckers take the hit.

rd

No, because of scarcity... there are always buyers for used games.

However, like everything (property, cars, etc) as the price gets higher, the pool of possible buyers decreases.

When the market slows, they might drop a little more in price, and take longer to sell. But still nothing like a used TV.

rd

See, that’s where you’re going wrong.

rd