I have to say that the price increase is extremely disappointing. For those saying this is a special release and the next game will go back to GB pricing you are fooling yourself. It feels like stern was holding back pricing while they developed their LCD and now that it is out they are going to match JJP or go past JJP in pricing. I expect that they listed BM as a special release with big pricing so that when the next game comes out they can decrease it $500 across each model compared to BM and people will be too dumb to notice it's still a huge price jump.

As for the SLE and LE pricing, both are insane. I'm interested to see exactly what they put in these games to justify the price. What would you have to have extra on a game to make it worth 5K more? Seriously what would an LE model have to have to most of you to justify that price? And for all of those that panicked and secured your LE how are you feeling now, still going to buy it? I bet there are close to half of the LE's that end up back available before these ship. Once the excitement wears off you are just left with a 10K toy and it gets a little harder and harder to swallow each and every day.

As for myself, I have purchased 15 sterns over the last several years. So I think that would qualify me as a pretty good customer. I'm 100% out at anything over 8K. It's not even a consideration for me. There's simply not enough value in stern games to justify that price and I have no way of getting 8K in enjoyment out of the game. So if this turns out to be the new premium price I am likely done buying sterns NIB ever again. I don't typically buy pros as I like the full feature options. I highly suspect that I am not alone either. So I hope that stern is reading some of this as if the pricing continues like this you won't see a drop of my money ever again. They shouldn't worry though, others will line up bent over with wallets open.

if they use this as the justification, then they must truly think their customer base is naive. off the shelf LCD displays (which are widely produced) are a lot cheaper than the custom LED display panel that they've been using for the past 6 years.

The pro model is no longer going to be in the mid 4's this is not a price point that makes sense for Stern, it is not because they are being greedy, when pins where in this price range a few years back STern was on life support. That is what companies do in really tough times they survive, however if 4.5k was stern surviving then hell 6k is not so bad Hardly what I call price gouging. Sucks for us the buyer but that is just life you can't afford everything you want.

I did say that as an Australia, I don't see the appeal of batman 66 as a theme, I think you will find this to be the case with many overseas markets. Not knocking it at all but, it not really Batman as many people know the character. I stand by my comment, if there was a batman 66 pro it would sell maybe 25% of GB or other big title themes such as Starwars.

I wonder if adam west had to agree to do the meet and greet to be considered and have the opportunity to purchase one of the 30 super LE's (or does he have to fill out the application like the rest of us?

I don't plan to get a Batman '66 unless I win via the Project Pinball raffle but this thread has given me hours of enjoyment!

I also don't want to go to off-topic (lol) but I was curious to hear peoples thoughts. Do we think the next Pro Stern releases will have an LCD screen and if so, would the street price be what GB is now which is $4999 US? Personally with the limited run of SM Vault that had all new dots I can see Stern going DMD with the next Pro and LCD with Prem/LE.

Adam is being paid very well to be there...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog

My prediction on what ever comes next is everything will have an LCD and be priced like below. You can forget pro's in the 4's ever again.

Pro = $6499 MRSP
Premium = $8199 MSRP
LE = $9499 MSRP

Just a guess but I'm betting stern values their new LCD at a $700-$1000 price increase. They don't want you to know what the spike system and LCD save them though now that is it developed.

Pure cost of parts + labor and overhead? Who knows, but the company deserves to decent make a profit.
I would think the Spike system has actually lowered cost and maybe labor somewhat - but that's just a guess.

Stern needs to make a good profit (as does any business) to survive.
I don't have an issue with the prices they want to charge - but still have an issue with an application process for the right to buy a machine.

lol to the "science" part of the article:
As part of advancing science, several experiments observing the reaction of frogs to slowly heated water took place in the 19th century. In 1869, while doing experiments searching for the location of the soul, German physiologist Friedrich Goltz demonstrated that a frog that has had its brain removed will remain in slowly heated water, but an intact frog attempted to escape the water when it reached 25 °C

I was amazed to read that a brainless frog remained in the water

Lol, this is so true. I'm just glad to have realized that I was getting cooked in time.

The cost of a high quality LCD is less than their existing Dot Matrix. Can be had for under $100 especially on orders over 1000.

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Automotive-display-LH123WU01-bar-type-12_60471646396.html?spm=a2700.7724856.0.0.N39FUm

yup

I know it's been said that this is a special release so pricing is not normal but can't help to feel priced out as well. Premiums are nice but I sure like a well equipped and fun to play pro. I bought two pro's nib in the past couple of years. That's the one thing Stern did well that nobody else could compete with. Everyone else targets the higher dollar, premium market. I guess it's a wait and see game with every release.

Yeah, the so called science behind it isn't all that reliable, but as a metaphor it is rather apropos.

Did the same once they surpassed 11kAU for the LE down here in Australia. Not for financial concerns, just couldn't justify the inherent value based on the product.

Using alibaba as your manufacturing supply chain = comical

Does the word "lifecycle", or availability mean anything to people?

For every Pinsider that feels the B66 pricing structure is unrealistic (bogus?), there are two or three or twenty pinheads more than willing to pay without complaint. Prices will be what the market will bear. Maximize profits, that's what they should be doing.

Stern knows we'll (most of us?) always be here for them. Because where else are we realistically going to go? Anytime soon, that is.

I could see them using the old pro price and incorporate the dots and video for DMD. Then with the premium and LE they will batman prices and have an LCD.

What if it turned out the 30 SLE's are free, Stern celebrating 30 years by giving 30 amazing customers a free amazing game? Wow

That would increase development costs.

Stern is all LCD across the board now. Even for Pro when it comes back on the next model.

I think if they want to reduce flipping they need to improve their ability to make more machines in less time and raise only the LE price

I was going to ask what you are smoking, but then I looked at your location.

Yea, I would agree with most of what you said..

From my perspective Stern lost a possible sale from me on a Pro but if they making $1000 off a Pro and $3000 off a Prem (just guessing) they just need to sell 1/3 the amount of Prems to make same profit.

Agreed, and I'll admit, I don't know if the support (programming, drivers, etc) is cheaper or more expensive for the LCD, but it is the excuse they will use for sure.

How does the cost of producing animation to show on a DMD compare to the cost of animation for an LCD? The cost of the hardware isn't the only factor.

In my uninformed opinion it seems likely LCD animations would also be cheaper due to more people being available with the required skillset and more software available. I'm interested in learning more. Is there much overlap in the skillsets? How does the time investment per minute of animation compare between the two formats? Is it significantly easier in one format to utilize existing images, perhaps using an existing clip as a starting point and turning that footage into your pinball machine animation?

If you have seen or played the Batman 66 slot machine there are all sorts of video clips from the TV show in that game. Since that game was developed by Joe Kaminkows company and he's also on the design team for the pinball maybe they were able to use some of those existing assets. If this is the case then they have a huge head start with all the animations needed for the LCD displays on the pinball game.

Yep, they will sure as hell re-use tos of stuff from the slot:

The bad news is I REALLY dig what I see there...

Batman wheel looks awfully close the Wheel of Fortune wheel. That's my prediction for the playfield toy on the left hand side (where the joker can was on BDK). Either that or it will be incorporated in the SLE Topper? The crane and WOF Wheel are probably the 2 best toys Stern has come up with over the years and would make for an awesome pin!

batmanwheel (resized).jpg
WOFWheel (resized).jpg

November / 2012 / Avengers / Pro / $5699
April / 2013 / Metallica / Pro / $4995

That took me 2 mins to find suppliers for lcd's at less than $100.If I were seriously looking I probably can find the exact ones Stern uses for under 75 bucks/unit on a 1000+ order. Pretty much all lcd's are made in china. The only thing comical is that people still believe that the majority of lcd's are made in the US. Supply chain is not a problem, I have used Alibaba as well as direct import from various companies in China all the time with no problems at all.

Also the pro price went down by $4 between Tron and Transformers.

So no LE's for Spooky in game 3......

Spooky Pinball official house game #3...
Let's just toss this out right away. We are throwing the kitchen sink at this one, rolling RZ money into more talent and expanding the building, moving the number up to 500 units, and the price will be $6250. No LE's... just 500 bad ass awesome games. Might be an alternate backglass available to all, but that remains to be determined.
Not gonna say another word until it's ready to show and announce officially (gonna be several months). Hate to raise the price at all, but trust me... that $250 is ALL going towards cool interactive toys and the engineering it takes to make our games better.
We're waaay beyond the 1/3rd mark on Rob Zombie shipped and getting faster all the time. We want to have the best games we can possibly make, and do what we can to keep them affordable... pinball is crazy expensive any way you slice it.
Speculate away...

That would be awesome.

If they had a pro in the mid 4's I'd be all over this as an operator.

Where did this come from?

That's a good prediction, it lets them port the animation over from the slots wholesale also.

So has anyone talked to a distributor to see what the "street price" might be for a premium vs an LE?

I don't think Stern will get away with this in the long term. And customers such as yourself are a good example. When ( I admit some may say if ) JJP are putting out multiple titles I think they will struggle. And by then the old customers may have gone for good.

On the Rob Zombie thread

Did Illinois' minimum wage go to $15

The supply chain question isn't about pricing... It's about issues like
- product lifecycles
- long term availability/visibility into changes
- engineering support
- forecasting
- leadtimes
- trustworthy
- lastly - agreeable payment terms

Stern can't place a stocking order on a Monday for such a critical component and have them show up with different dimensions, power, mounting, etc... or try to place an order and find out the part is NLA w/o a direct alternative. This isn't homebrew scaled up - this is commercial manufacturing with tooling, documentation, support needs, approvals, stocking requirements, etc.

You don't run a factory stocking from grey market internet purchases that change weekly if you want predictability, support, and consistency in parts.

Street prices are looking something like:

$7599 PREMIUM
$9599 LE

Freaking ridiculous.... i paid 6300 with mods for my nib twd premium in dec/Jan. 8 months later the price is 1300-1500 more...... what a bunch of bull

"10k by Christmas" is going to very soon mean that a pin will DEPRECIATE to 10k by Christmas. That's a scary thought.

Did that really happen? In that the street price for these games dropped by $700?

can't wait to see a new thread title saying ''could batman66 be the best stern ever'' wait for it...

lcd cost definitely less than dot.
at this price this should be a new design but, here comes some left over cranes.
the new system cost a lot less yet price went up.
like someone said earlier in this thread, crazy price for this pin, they will lower the price by $500 on the next game and people will think it's a good deal but you still pay more in the end and that's what stern want, people with more money than common sense will still buy it anyway, so whatever we say or do it won't change anything.

Call me foolish but I'm really interested in the multiple translites. But I think it's a SLE only thing.

Will any of them be painted backglasses ?

LTG : )

Ok almost 2000 posts in this thread of speculation. Come on Stern, pics please!!!