Pretty sure they'll make certain test games / protos playable by the public at shows or on location will all be manufactured properly, unlike those which go out to paying customers. Then some will blithely think if they order this title there won't be torn up clear & paint and botched inserts ... their silence continues to be deafening on the issue, and I'm sure it's not because they've fixed it.

I expect they've realised that re-spinning existing layouts / toys / mechs has a much higher rate of return than doing all new machines all the time.

I can't imagine this won't be a re-spin, and that would make it the third this year! Spiderman VE (Spiderman), Pabst (Whoa Nellie) and Batman '66 (Batman Dark Knight).

Who'd have thought at the beginning of the year Ghostbusters would be the only all new game for Stern in 2016 ... and even then, it would be blighted by serious quality issues.

There are obviously varying degrees, but given that they're re-using elements from the last Batman game, they're clearly very keen to save development costs and hours. Given all the current quality issues, it doesn't bode well. I wonder what other costs will have been cut this time? Re-constituted cardboard legs?

Another new title after Batman '66, later in the year? That would be total madness given their many issues at the moment. Not to mention the backlog of very needed code updates for half a dozen titles.

Highly entrenched monopolies are sometimes undone by their own avarice. In Stern's case, the cost cutting and resulting major problems with their games seems to have reached a watershed moment.

If Lawlor's game is a hit for JJP, Heighway manage to start mass producing Alien(s) this year, CGC get AFMr produced somewhere other than Stern and at a lower price than MMr and DP finally start spitting out more games ... then surely Stern have to be in some serious trouble, given the widely felt misgivings about their current direction and quality?

Then of course there are other x-factors ... next Spooky game will presumably be a bigger run, how will HomePin's Thunderbirds turn out and in what kind of volumes and prices, will TimeShock finally appear next year and how many will be made?

There's never been more choice, and never been so many major issues with the incumbent market leader.

Are people in the US really going to want to pay JJP / DP money for a game that will almost certainly share the same ultra flimsy cabinet and el cheapo metal backbox of all recent games, together with low print quality cabinet decals, assembly errors, half designed mechanisms and a lottery as to whether you get a playfield that will last more than a few dozen games in a reasonable state?

I don't see how either their pricing or quality are sustainable.

He may be good, or the best Stern have, but he's pumped up way too much here.

Let's take a look at his last 3 games:

AC/DC - interesting modes. terribly, terribly unbalanced scoring. bugs. been waiting an age for rebalancing and fixes.

Metallica - good all round. essentially finished.

Star Trek - responsible for re-doing the ST modes / code. Made it much better, but has been left with several game breaking bugs and numerous other irritating ones. been waiting an age for final polish and fixes.

Are we really saying that he's done better with recent games than the likes of WOZ, Full Throttle, Hobbit or even BOP 2.0?

Got confused when he said he was aware of the bugs in ST and they were being worked on.

Cronyism isn't a good look for them. It's going to turn a lot of would be buyers off. Even for those in a position to exploit it, I suspect many will feel uneasy.

If you want a high end, high build quality pinball machine these days (which should command a high price) I'd say Stern no longer even make product for the market. JJP, DP and I'd like to think Heighway in future are surely the quality items.

Why pay the same price for a Stern that's likely $1000s cheaper in some cases to build, and what's worse, looks, feels and wears like 4 figure savings have been made too.

If true that probably means it'll be significantly more than a WOZ Ruby Red or Hobbit Smaug in the UK - currently £8995 (~$11,800). Good luck selling those.

Edit: or are you talking C$ ... ?

The breeze blowing through the gaps in the inserts?

We know that it will almost certainly be laughably high given the quality of materials, assembly, QC and engineering in their games these days.

GBLEs NIB and those used for a couple of days or weeks aren't selling with mark ups, or even at original retail (~€9500) in EU ... they're going for less, and some aren't selling at all.

Haven't kept up with the US, but are people really still paying over the original NIB price for '16 Sterns, now that the cat's out of the bag regarding how bad the problems are?

Expensive Sterns aren't like a low-run Pininfarina special edition of a Ferrari. The prices may be comparable, but their current machines are like clapped out 30 year old Chrysler New Yorkers with a door hanging off or missing, rusted through, but with a new coat of paint and some rims .... a bit like Ricky's car in Trailer Park Boys.

I stand by my guess that they're looking to sell the company in part or whole, and soon. They're demonstrating their ability to make in excess of $10k gross profit on a pinball machine.

He also states that more than 50% of their business is overseas ... and overseas customers / sellers / distributors are left to swing ........

UK market is minute though.

Also, I think people are generally far more clued up about what's going on with Stern (all the cost cutting, poor quality and defectiveness) on the continent (EU) and AUS/NZ, than the UK. A lot of people here seem to believe that if they're paying a lot of money, it is perfect, and it is their eyes that are deceiving them, not the product.

No. Germany absolutely dwarfs the UK market. As does Australia.

I'd be very surprised if France, the Low Countries and Austria weren't much bigger too. Tons of collectors in Italy, but not sure many new Sterns are sold there ... prevailing view there seems to be that they're total crap.

Nothing Stern do PR wise is not going to look ugly and not get shit on, until they stop shafting their buyers and distributors with defects and terrible quality, and roll back some of the cost savings (absolutely not going to happen).

The (S)LE looks good. The Premium (LE) and Pro (Premium) pretty meh. Topper looks much better than the awful GB & GoT ones. Playfield art is ok, I guess, but it's going to draw unflattering comparisons with Austin Powers ... and it clearly is BMDK 2.0. Such a barren game, even at the lowest point of entry pricing wise.

Still, for $15k it should look good. But that $15k (probably close to $20k in most overseas markets) still gets you the cheapo metal backbox with cheaper plastic bands, by the look of it the same cheapo practically balsa wood cabinet, and the same crappy cabinet decal print quality.

The SLE is how their Premiums should look normally.

If this was some one off celebration of 30 years, they would have pushed the boat out a little and made it their own WOZ ECLE ... instead, as I suspected, this looks like a, "Hey potential investors, we just proved we can clear more than $10k (I'd guess 12k) gross profit on a machine. Buy us or into us for a massive sum."

Oh, and that's not a backglass for $10k and $15k .... it's a translite.

That's sad.

I think they're talking about their pricing mechanism.

Tripling*

For the super stripped down Pro model (albeit with LCD), BM'66 so-called Premium, at £9000, is a few bucks shy of $11,000 in the UK at current exchange rates. As little as 12 months ago, that would have been $14,750.

For reference Dialled In is £9500.

One of those is clearly much better value, but at these prices, some markets are rapidly reaching the end of NIB purchases altogether.

The UK's situation might be uniquely dire with a catastrophically weak £, with Brexit looming, but the point still stands.

People are being squeezed until their pips squeak in the US, and it's far worse everywhere else.

Unless some sense prevails pretty rapidly, I forsee empty production lines, or howls of derision as Stern particularly slash prices aggressively, leaving people who bought recent machines massively out of pocket.

All it takes is one little financial crisis (Italy is teetering on the brink right now - and both EU and US banks are exposed) ... and boom. Current pricing is absolutely nowhere close to being sustainable.