I folded before I started I'd pay 6 that's it wait for someone that's sick of it and resells it. I can justify six not 7 or 8 unless quality picks up.

I think the poll implied Stern LE, or we are mostly liars.

My, how times have changed...

If anything, comfort levels of what people will pay have stayed the same over past four years. I use 5/6/7k as my guide for nib pro/ prem / Le and that is about $1.5 k lower than what I might have paid two years ago. These are is max delivered price or for local pick up. That puts me beyond the reach of Stern's marketing arm. Now must continue to resist.

Confession time - I once paid $15k for a used pin, and that was BBB. Truth is I didn't feel comfortable owning such an expensive game and sold it primarily for that reason. I wouldn't do that again nor do I plan to exceed my stated limits. Alien SE is pushing this top end, so will be watching it closely. My dream of one day owning a TBL has gone up in smoke.

So long as I can sell them for what I bought them for....I guess I'm still in? Getting awfully hard to rationalize it though.

Is Stern still going to have the cheapest option, or will that now fall to American Pinball?

I dont know what my price ceiling is, but its gettin damn close !!

Absolutely wild to see people losing their mind about prices you can't get used machines for today. Inflation is a bear.

No on the pro at 8k - ridiculous

I would not pay $13,001 for an LE

Funny looking at statements made 9 years ago and then checking their collections.

At some point, the price will outpace the value. The thing that hurts in this hobby is that we aren't talking about 10 dollar comic books here...this is a 'pay to play' type of hobby. When you are primarily dealing with collectors whom are VERY well to do, and which have lots of discretionary income...this is the type of result we get.

With a big purchase, I always ask if I would have more enjoyment spending the amount on something else. For me, that answer is 'yes' when it comes to pinball. I can't justify spending 10k+ unless I plan on keeping it the rest of my life or selling it for close to or above what was paid.

bond prices have reached the point that i will not pay.

I think it was a mistake to raise prices in this economy, I just don't think the value is there in collecting a bunch of them like it was a few years back. It's a buyers market now and prices are falling in the used arena at the same time they are going up for NIB.
I would not buy anything now unless it was a must have lifelong title, I don't need a collection for collections sake.

Bond is a dream theme for me, but:

A) there is zero chance I'm going to spend 15k all-in on a LE

B) almost 10k for a premium is on the fence. Do I want to pay that much? No, of course not. Gameplay would have to be STELLAR for me to even consider it

C) the pro doesn't have enough on it to entice me at 7k. Besides, I can get plenty of great pins at that price.

D) the SLE is a complete unknown. If it were a reasonable price...this would likely be my horse. My guess, however, is that it will be a ridiculously high cash grab.

Pinball now is very different than it was 4 years ago when I got in (and you old timers will laugh at that). For the past 2 years... since COVID you could buy a NIB pin, play it, sell it, and make a profit. You used to take a big hit for opening up that box. With supply/demand out of whack a pin in hand is worth substantially more than one coming in sometime next year. I'd buy a $13,000 Bond LE at $14,500 with tax and shipping if I thought I could sell it for that in a year, but I don't know that I could anymore. The NIB pins I've bought (Rick and Morty and Godzilla Premium (well, 7 plays on that one) all were "free pins" where I played it for a while and then sold it for more than I paid for it. When that is the case, so long as I have free cash it doesn't really matter how much it costs as long as I can get my money back. The LE package model at Stern is less about the extra bling these days and more about not having to wait 6 months for it.

I've got one pin on order now, a NIB Weird Al LE. Its the one pin I'm buying not caring if I can get my money back out as Weird Al is my number one dream theme, and the more I read into the P3 system the more I like it. I paid an extra $1800 for the LE kit mostly for the squeezebox topper. I'm more inclined to buy an LE or an expensive pin when I can put down a reasonable deposit and pay the rest when it is ready to ship... like I have with Weird Al and did with Rick and Morty. I paid $500 over $MSRP to pick up Godzilla for the showroom model with 7 plays because I could walk out of the store with it.

So long as the "flash to bang" of buying an LE means that you get your pin first, I think Stern will continue to go gangbusters with this model. They are pushing it on price though. I think JJP found the ceiling.

That's sad to hear, but makes a lot of sense.

I read about a homebrew recently, a guy made a TNA clone for around 4K and that was buying all the parts at retail cost and shipping them to Australia.

I think the manufactures think they are selling cars or something people can't live without.

I wonder how many are flippers that will lose money and how many players will sell in 6 months to a year at a substantial loss?

When you take out those 2 groups, you find the true ceiling. I agree that JJP has already found that ceiling. I have the strong feeling that Stern is about to as well.

Stern. Is that you?

Need to adjust for inflation… Bond and TS4 are the true step-change jumps. For me as an operator I buy basically every Stern pro and sometimes also buy LE at home, knowing I can sell in 6-18 mos with little if any risk; typically making small profit.

With the Bond LE price jump, that essentially outpaced inflation (hard to do!), it is the first time in forever where I didn’t even stress all day on reveal day about whether I should or shouldn’t. It’s a clear No. That ‘wallow back and forth and eventually buy it’ price was $12k for me. The principal really.

I never thought I would pay anything close to 9500 for a game, but I bought a GZ this year. Although I am selling a High Speed, Pinbot and likely a Sopranos to make it up. But hey, winters are long and this gives me something to do for the next 6 months.

Right. All it takes is the right theme, the right art, the right designer, the right coder, or whatever floats your boat. You don't have to sell a million pins, just enough to keep the lines moving until the next release. Stern cannot make enough games to meet demand so obviously they are floating a lot of boats.

It all depends on how successful you are. You're talking about pocket change for some people.