Will the LCD have clips and sound from the TV series?

Maybe the Batman66 crane is a Joker bash toy that moves around the playfield like in BDK, a more dynamic way than Slimer in GB.

The flyer says new game layout. The crane, the thing you like, is what is staying.

It will be interesting to see if they use those crap plastic piece together ramps again.

I have no idea. I am just quoting Stern's flyer.

I think you can take off the knee pads now. Gary says he has had enough.

It seems like that game is more likely to ship in January or February. BM66 is supposed to start shipping in late Nov.

While we are waiting for the reveal, we should start a discussion of what may be in the game that is signature/typical recent George Gomez design.

Here are a few to start:
-multi-piece floppy plastic habitrail return ramps
-spinner at the beginning of a metal ramp
-path of the dead plastic
-real ball lock near the right slingshot
-2 flippers (not more than 2)
-3 pop bumpers in top right playfield
-one inlane to each flipper
-saucer

I hope you all are doing well. I just read you had a 7.1 earthquake nearby and small Tsunami wave.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/01/asia/new-zealand-earthquake/index.html

From where did you get the picture? Look at that flipper gap. Something is going on down the middle there.

That makes sense. If it is an early Stern drawing of the BM66 playfield maybe that circle would be the 2nd LCD screen.
It certainly would be a totally new design from what Stern has been doing lately. Therefore I have my doubts it is a Stern.

Also, hopefully they already have somebody diligently designing #4 as #3 is getting close to ready for manufacturing.

probably is not

I can't believe they photoshopped the whole damn thing.

Is that Gary Stern in the upper left of the second picture?

I am guessing the Bat Gadget plaques are for the super LEs, and the Episode plaques are for the 120 USA games and 120 overseas games.

I also thought it was Pinchroma rather than Keefer that was saying that for the ramps.

Hondanut maybe?

It is strange that GB is the only cornerstone release in 2016 for Stern.

SMVE was a small remake, and now we are getting this rumor that BM66 is a special boutique like game.

In 2015, they had cornerstone games WWE, KISS, and GOT...plus the boutique Whoa Nellie.

As with Catwoman I always felt Mary Ann was the hotter one. It could be that they were more exotic than Batgirl and Ginger?

The increased pricing of BM66 and the lack of communication of the playfield problems did a lot of letting the air out on that title.

I thought the pre-order MMRs were about done with the exception of the Twisted Pins customers. It does not sound as though those people will be getting games unless a lawsuit happens from what I have heard in the rumor mill.

It does seem that all manufacturers are "reliable" when the games are ready to ship to ready-to-pay customers.

The only way manufacturers will be accountable and reliable is if we stop pre-paying and only pay when the game is ready to ship. Pay with credit card so you have a couple months to get your money back if the game does not ship.

Pinch me. That joke was too good to not be a dream.

I certainly hope and expect Gomez has a few tricks up his sleeve beyond that. For the huge price they are asking it needs the kitchen sink thrown in.

Just give it a rest. Ed is a respected Pinsider and an avid pinhead. That is good enough for me. Everybody can't like the same things in art and entertainment.

Not to sidetrack, but does anybody know whether Ryan Adams and Slash have Pinside accounts? I would not be surprised if Ryan has one since he seems very active with pinball.

It can't be anything other than a money grab if they are trying to keep people from flipping games. All they need to do is make the LE a special edition with no limits so then flipping would not happen. With a special edition they could price it for a reasonable profit while providing a Premium for those that don't want all the aesthetic bells and whistles but do want the game to play the same. The "Limited Edition" is good for Stern but only causes heartache for customers because the customers that don't get in on the limited run either get stuck paying a jacked up price from a distributor or flipper or they miss out.

One thing for sure, when it is revealed I am basing the worth of BM66 on a comparison with WOZRR/ECLE since the prices are so similar. The bill of materials better be impressive or else it is a bilking of the customers. One other thing, if the playfields of these inflated priced games start chipping and ghosting in the first month after deliveries start it will be a disaster for Stern in my opinion.

As far as I am concerned he can tell me anything he likes. Can't you imagine the isolation you would feel being stuck at a base in the middle east for several months while also being in harm's way much of the time?

If they are upping the number of SLEs then they are no longer so special so they need to lower the price. Otherwise, without lowering the price it is just a further bilking of the customers.

I sincerely hope and want to believe he was being sarcastic.

......and Stern comes to your house to maintain the game whenever you need/want them to do a repair.

For $15000, or even $12000 the game should have a Bose surround sound stereo.

I am just referring to the money and where it should be going. The money should be going into expensive parts on the games, not all into Stern's pockets. Where is the extra $7000 going to be in this BM66 SLE they are planning. A typical LE such as Ghostbusters is around $8000 so the SLE must have $7000 more stuff in it, right?

Dr. J obviously.

Is the one in the middle Clyde Drexler?

Walt Frazier.

Artis Gilmore

Ralph Beard?....before my time

Dominique Wilkins

Louie Dampier

I had no idea he was married to model Iman before David Bowie married her.

They new houw too spel bak then.

Last I read all models were supposed to have the same playfield features. It appears that the big rotating toy has two or three sides. One is the TV side and one side is the smaller rotating disc that you are probably trying to shoot past.

Likely the double spinning discs. One spinning disc similar to the TOTAN lamp/Tesseract in a larger motor driven disc that has the small TV.

I don't see any signs of drop targets. They look to be static stand targets just like BDK.

You can't expect everybody on the urban dictionary to spell correctly.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Villain

What are the $5000 in differences between the LE and the SLE. ...or even between the Premium and the SLE?

I had to look three times to see what you did there.

Cash grab indeed. Very sad where this hobby is going.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if JJP announced their Lawlor game is $6999 tonight? Stern would be shitting themselves.

I was at Borgata last week. They had two of the double curved screen Walking Dead and about 8 of the double curved screen GOT next to each other in a row. The Walking Dead were being played just about all the time. The GOT slots were empty quite a bit. The TWD slot had more going on with the sound effects and graphics. It made me want to go and start watching the TWD series from season 1.

disclaimer, not my video:

It is pretty obvious from that video that Gary is driving the greed. I still can't believe they shut PinballNews out of the factory for doing their journalistic duty in asking about the reasons for the pricing. As you said Ice in another thread, Gomez seemed essentially a little shy and embarrassed when asked about the pricing.

Unfortunately, even though Gomez is VP at Stern, Gary seems to be the one doing the pricing and driving the cost cutting.

The owner's lists on Pinside show that a very substantial portion of the LEs and limited games such as Spooky are owned by Pinsiders and that does not even include the people that don't list the games they own.

If there actually was another BM66 version announced that was called the "Studio" version, then Iceman would likely flip out. We might have to call for a straight jacket.

Nice video. Thanks for sharing. Since you now seem to have the full-on pinball bug (like the rest of us) and appear to be here for the long haul, why not list your location and collection in your profile?

overspending-statistics (resized).jpeg

Unfortunately, two of those three are already over your limit, and it is reported that the other, the next Stern pro, will be around $5200 or higher.

Same for me. I also urge people to never borrow money to buy a luxury item. Although I have the financial means to buy, these NIB prices are at the point where the value/worth per dollar spent is not there for me. I was brought up to be financially frugal/conservative and to spend money wisely on good quality things of need or entertainment that provide long term value. The equation does not make sense for me at the present extreme prices unless it is something truly special.

Hopefully we are about at the tipping point where the prices are so high the NIB sales will suffer. I am curious to see what happens with new games after the sales numbers fall. Will the manufacturers that survive simply cheapen games back down to the way they were around 2007-2010 such as Stern was making and lower the prices hoping buyers will come back? I also wonder how many people that are turned off will completely leave the hobby.

Some distributors still have BM66 LEs available from what I see online.

Does it really matter? The distributors do flipping now that Stern does not make it possible for regular folks to buy and sell for profit.
I am sure there are more. I have only done a 30 second search. Also, some distributors have not listed BM 66 for sale at all yet so several of them will likely have the LEs for sale later.

https://www.homeleisuredirect.com/pinball-machines/stern-pinball-machines/stern-batman-66-le-pinball-machine.html

https://www.pinball.co.uk/shop/pinball-machines-for-sale-new-used-fully-refurbished/batman-66-pinball-machine-by-stern-pinball/

http://www.pinballs.com/

Automated Services is in Connecticut.

You also might want to get the $5 Bat signal for the back right corner:

https://www.amazon.com/Batman-Signal-Mega-Mini-Kits/dp/0762445262/ref=sr_1_2

http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/ef78/

ef78_mini_batman_bat-signal (resized).jpg

At least with all the excess BM66 profits Stern will be able to pay for replacement playfields for all the SMVE, GB, GOT, and KISS that have defective clearcoats.

Don't forget the $5 spotlight in the back right corner.

YES:

"the Bat Signal, which lights up to project the iconic winged Batman symbol onto nearby walls"

https://www.amazon.com/Batman-Signal-Mega-Mini-Kits/dp/0762445262/ref=sr_1_2

Exactly. If Gomez is doing it then why wouldn't anybody else with basic skills?

BDK has already been colored:

http://shop.colordmd.com/colordmd-replacement-display-for-batman-the-dark-knight-pinball-machine/

Based on that serial number it is a TDK from several years ago rather than a BM66.

The serial numbers are done in sequence.
Gary also referred to the original as a Pro:

http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=5583

I am guessing a distributor that was holding the NIB game wrote that on the box for identification purposes. It is still not a BM66 because that serial number is from about 5 or 6 years ago.

How did it shoot?

It would suck to pay $15000 on a pin only to realize a month later that it sucked or did not suit your tastes in pinball machines. Imagine if that happened plus it turned out to be the consensus to not be a good playing/shooting game. The owner may end up being stuck with it because they couldn't stomach dumping it for a $6000 to $7000 loss. It is not fun having a boat anchor in your collection taking up the space where a fun game could be.

It looks interesting. The middle of the playfield seems a little dark in the video. Some spotlights could be added if that is an issue.

I wonder is one of the bat gadgets will be the bat hand broom?

0f87e939b72daa0ee4f9ce83a1b5340e4e03ad8c (resized).jpg

I bet they were watching this Batman video right before the assembly of the topper: