I feel like everyone is reading this wrong, and that the cover isn't blue (per se) more that it does something to the light of the display to make it blue. Because it already has to go over orange to make blue. So, it would just be some sort of variant of blue since orange a red are so close together. Right?

So red + cover (blue) will not equal purple (kinda wish it did, though).

A blue cover will do nothing to a red or orange display, no matter if it's plasma or LED. The blue cover blocks all light except blue, there is no blue in red or orange.

You're not dealing with paint where mixing colors changes things by adding pigment. You're dealing with removing colors through filtering, very different.

--
Rob Anthony
Pinball Classics
http://LockWhenLit.com
Quality Board Work - In Home Service
314-766-4587

The question then is why is pinbits selling a blue cover. I put an e-mail in to them to ask for pictures.

Probably the same reason they sell orange/yellow protectors to go on a pinball game that is vastly blue...

I suspect they're color blind.

I may just buy one to see what it does. You can also buy blue window tint and tint the DMD glass

The blue cover pinbits sells is for the blue LED DMD. Rarehero posted a bunch of pictures of this last week both before and after on his Avatar.

Exactly. Looks to work very nicely on the blue DMDs too. I'll have them at my booth at PPE and Expo.

--
Rob Anthony
Pinball Classics
http://LockWhenLit.com
Quality Board Work - In Home Service
314-766-4587

I missed out on an Australian pre-order for the November batch due to funds. How likely is the rumour to be true that they will be doing another Tron production run in December?

Cheers!
Adam.
Australia.

It has to be a question of parts at this point demand appears to be strong enough to support a December run. I have a November pre-order in as the Oct sold out the day it was announced via my distributor.

I guess Stern could pay Google a fee to give search data for example how often was Tron Pinball searched or Tron Pinball for sale or Tron NIB and likely it was more searched than any other title or at least one of the more searched pins so Stern could see it was the best pin to remake.

Probably SM and LotR or potc would sell great but Tron has the lowest production run by a lot so less used pins to fight against.

I know Stern may have a lot of inventory of other pins like xm or TF or avatar but those are going to be unsold either way and people waiting for a tron or else will just wait not buy those other pins.

I bought Tron because I wanted a Tron, I was not going to be a buyer of TF or Avatar. If they are sitting on inventory, I don't know what it would take to move some of those older titles.

I would buy TF if Tron eventually becomes unobtanium. Sure feels like it already is to me. I would even consider Avatar if the price was very low for a NIB, like 3000 or less. The game grows on me the more I play it. I can't really explain why. Kinda fun to stack the multiballs on it, and the AMP SOOOOOOT JACKPOT callout is hilarious.

If they ever ran a close out on Avatar like the old WPT and WOF, I'd jump on one, too. I actually think it is fun, but not worth full price, to me.

I guess it depends on the situation and location of where it's on route. At Pinballz, here in Austin, Tron Pro is one of the best earners among the 100 pins they have. It might be a very different crowd/clientele/pin skill level at a 1-3 pin route location like a bar, bowling alley, etc, but at Pinballz, the Tron isn't going anywhere, and is consistently given preferential treatment from the techs to keep it in top shape so that the tokens keep dropping in.

Glad to see pics of my purdy Blue TRON LE (aka Encom Edition) I took to the Texas Pinball Festival 2012 made it in this thread. The blue DMD I was displaying at the Festival was a prototype for XPin I was showing before it was released. Some issues were addressed that I noticed in it while at the show, that have since been resolved.

I've since purchased an XPin Blue DMD for my TRON LE and it looks awesome in that game. TRON deserves a blue DMD. It's so fitting to that title.

B_R thanks for attaching those pics of my game from the festival. I haven't seen those before.

So those who've decided to get one, who's got the best price? I've gotten quotes from 3 different places and all were the same....

$4700 shipped is the Stern fixed lowest price for this batch

Where was this?

What's the pickup price? $350 less?

Can't wait to get mine here in Australia delivery is early to middle of December.

Might have to contact a So-Cal distributor now....

As soon as someone can do $4450 shipped for a NIB Tron (which I *know* they were offered for recently), I'll buy one today. Cash.

You can PM me. My offer is good until midnight PST Sept 18. After that, I'll probably change my mind.

In-state purchases would be subject to that State's sales tax at the time of purchase so it is typically not a good idea to buy local.

Just about everybody that said they were getting one from the October run of TRON said they were paying $4700-4800.

You should contact JJ, he really came through for me on X-Men and you will pay less than a local distributor for sure (tax).

Kevin

I don't think the distributors are allowed to do it for that price. They seem to have been given a mandate from Stern on this October run. Maybe the TRONs that were made months ago could be sold for a cheaper price?

If that's really happening, that's the dumbest thing *ever*. Once they're paid for and out of Stern's hands, the distributor should be able to sell them at ANY price they want.

It's called competition.

I disagree. As distributors they are also representatives of Stern. Prices need to be somewhat controlled.

Automakers keep tight price controls on their distributors via MSRP. Stern needs to do the same.

Any food product on the shelves has been specifically marketed and designed to align into a retail price point agreed to by the manufacturer and distributor

Price gouging at the gas pump is illegal...at least here in the state of Michigan. Distributors have no say in setting price. The oil company sets the price case closed.

I don't know why people are so surprised that the price is up. The game is in high demand, why would they pump out not enough games to cover the market demand at a vastly lower price? If Stern makes 100 games and sells them for $4200 instead of $4600 to distributors, they are leaving $40,000 on the table.

The games sold out to distributors at the higher price point in what, a day?

Seems like an easy $40k to me.

Yr Welcome brother ,, Absolutely Beautiful !!! Xpin Blue DMD , Where can I get 1 ?

The distributors are still getting them for around 3900. The profit is what is being raised, not the cost.

I am not complaining, the price is reasonable when you compare it to ACDC and XMEN.
It makes sense that the distributors have to make up for the losses on all the Avatar, Nascar, TRS, and TF they still have in stock and Stern is essentially throwing them a bone.

A proven top 25 game NIB for less than $5000 shipped these days is a good deal. Plus it is going to get even better if the controlled ramp lighting mod works out.

No complaints here, either. I have one coming from this new run, so the price, although higher than any other pro model, is acceptable. Better than 5800 that we saw just a month or so ago when they were thought to be finished with Tron.

From X-Pin.

Again another reason for a Stern MSRP. I could give a s**t that a distributor "lost money" on another transaction. Don't try to "make up for it" by dipping into MY wallet on another sale.

I think this is Stern's MSRP. It is not collusion by the distributors, it is STERN doing this.

What were the close out prices on those other two games? I was out of the hobby at the time. Thanks.

It's also called "sellers market" when there are only 50 machines in the whole USA and people are queing up to buy them.

Why on earth would they discount them when there is no need to?

I guess you guys are lucky they aren't putting them all on eBay and selling them to the highest bidder.

Dave.

Maybe Stern is going to enforce territories like WMS did with there machines. I was able to get a better deal from companies like Monroe in Cincinnati Oh for pins like Pool Sharks or Party Zone, then they lost the line, could not even get the video games like Smash TV or even T2 gun anymore. Was it worth it for them to let me the customer purchase from them and allow me to save money. I was happy but then when I register my serial numbers for warranty the maker of the machines now knows which distributor I bought them from as they know who they were also sold to. Maybe they should not have taken the line away but more like we are going to bill you 200 more dollars for each one you sell in the future this way. WMS did this to protect there dealers and geographical areas and force someone like me to buy from Brady Dist instead of Monroe or later Atlas Dist, when Williams left pin I could no longer gets pins from Operators Dist in Highpoint NC as Brady was now the bigger dealer with better pricing but nowhere close to what Jack at pinball sales had or even Green coin could sell for. Green coin was at my local auctions so I got most from them. I been told on super deals not to turn in serial numbers on certain redemption makers for probably this reason. If you buy a Tron pro and you should, its a great pin Stern can still find out and maybe there gonna charge the distributor more if its not in a protected area or maybe sold for a protected price. Not sure if this is what is happening but who knows. I bet JJ knows as they were Bally Williams dist I think or maybe it was Mountain Coin in that area.
Buddy

Just for those who are interested, I took a picture of a TRON in France at Xmas time with the red LED display. I think it looks really good and suited the game great.

PS I like to get the Grand Champ on sited machines

Dave

Tron_red_display_(1).JPG

I think it looks good would rather a blue one though

eh ... it's still in the color pallet (red for the Recognizer). Not bad.

I'm happy with my stock amber.

Looking at my PotC orange plasma vs XM red LED the plasma is more muddle or grey, while the led has more punch. But the LEDs looks worse in the aspect of dot separation, you can see more black between the lights grid.

I wold be happy with either but slight edge for me to the LEDs.

Ideal would like something with the fuzziness (less dot separation) of the plasma but the punch of the LEDs

They were both sold for 2499 NIB by Playdium in Canada. Many from the US bought and shipped them in. Wish I would have picked up WPT back then. I'll be watching for close outs of those others, but won't hold my breath.

http://LockWhenLit.com/Products.htm

The blue are shipping as they come in. Other colors ship right out. Hope to have enough stock of the blue to ship immediately too soon, but they're pretty popular and are gone before they get here.

--
Rob Anthony
Pinball Classics
http://LockWhenLit.com
Quality Board Work - In Home Service
314-766-4587

Sweet. When they gonna do that for Avatar? I'll sell Rollergames and Time Machine and pick one up.

B_R I bought my blue DMD directly from XPin (Brett Davis). Send him an e-mail and ask when more will be available.

If you've got extra funds laying around. I highly recommend Kimball's Pinball's backbox LED insert board. It brings the backglass to life. I added it to mine, which could be seen at the TPF.

Here is a video of it (this was taken prior to me receiving the finished blue DMD, thus ol' faithful orange in there)

Thanks. Looks just fine indeed.

Wow, I'd buy a TF or Avatar pin NIB at those prices.

I bought a Canadian closeout WOF....but I heard they got chewed out for doing that, as it devalued all the other distributors who had stock of those games. I don't think that kind of blowout will ever happen again. I think we would have seen it with CSI or 24...and I'll be honest, I was waiting for a CSI for cheapie-cheap! Another reason why it won't happen again...you don't want too many people sitting on their money waiting for a half-price NIB game!