That too!

I'm thinking about making some cool boxes for my playfields like video game boxes. Maybe model it after the Atari 2600 game.

It would be the equivalent of people having shelves of video games. Maybe Heighway should start selling accessories like this.

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Dialed In FTW. Accepting the crane, BM playfield looks like a GOT Pro. No amount of lipstick can change that.

We know that DILE is $9000.00 MSRP per Jack at Expo. That doesn't include shipping. So we are at about $9500.00 shipped for DILE. There is zero chance of me buying the pin for anywhere close to that price.

BM66 SLE is a 30th anniversary thing that Stern has never done before. Nobody is going to say it offers good value at $15k. It's a collector thing.

The BM66 LE costs how much? I don't know what the MSRP on it is, but I believe it will be around $9500.00 shipped as well.

I love my Hobbit, but believe me, it was a huge stretch for me to pay more than $8k for that pin (shipped). The overall appearance and quality feel is very good, but I still had *plenty* of problems out of the box.

Obviously I haven't played either of these pins, but just based on overall appearance and theme, I would take BM66 LE in a heartbeat over DILE, without even thinking about it for 2 seconds. But the BM66 theme is a huge nostalgia rush for me, and I think the theme on DILE is almost as bad as WOZ (but not quite). It does nothing for me (and the sound effects and callouts make it even worse).

BM66 is going to have a ton of clips from the show, half a dozen versions of the theme song, and Lyman on code. I plan on buying the premium ($7500.00 or so shipped?) and that would be about $2k *less* than DILE.

Bottom line, when it comes to comparing these two pins in terms of "value", it's actually a bit ridiculous, because at $9500.00 each, they both suck hard in that category.

Greg nailed it.

Of course it's ridiculous. Same people "beating the same dead horse" that I was accused of

I guess the $7500 peremium doesn't count in this stupid poll

Agreed...."value" of a toy can't be quantified ( or justifyed, as the thread would imply) quite that easily. Do we base our purchases on " most stuff wins, regardless"? Of course not.

Think we can just agree prices are getting out of reach, period. But that's as far as I can go with it.

neither.

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I would love to have all 3 ... Dialed In, Alien, & Batman (all LEs). Wouldn't that be great? Not feasible though unless I win one of the lotteries. They are all likely a year away before all of the existing pre-orders have been shipped and open for next day sales from distributors. If the pinball industry suffers by all 3 of these hitting the market at the same time (using up many of those collector's dollars), maybe they will come down in price. Probably wrong there, but one can hope. At first look I choose Dialed In probably because of being able to play it and loving it.

Alien price is cheaper, but shipping it over the pond will likely be very expensive.

Aurich - you did a great job on Alien with the Fox limitations. It was a real big crowd pleaser too at the Expo.

I agree when you are buying a house or a new computer but look at all the stuff in XmenLE and then look at IM now I will gladly pay 5K for a nice IM but I wouldn't give you 5K for XmenLE, don't care for the theme or gameplay, ur avatar suggests a problem with the recent Stern ghosting issues and I don't blame ya but I've owned lots of Sterns and been very happy with the build quality, no JJP pins yet but it seems there are built to last which is great, still not buying one based on that. I don't see what the point is of this poll? Heres a general question, if you are indifferent to theme and gameplay then why are you buying a 9k pin the first place? thats what will decide which way I'm going not value of components or structural integrity, Just saying.

Thanks man! And if you're interested don't let the shipping scare you. Talk to Cointaker, they're doing US distribution and I would imagine are bringing them over by the container.

Ghostbusters pro has more value than bm66

9k for nib pinball is almost comical to me.....but that's just me. Alien is at the upper limits (at $6,500) IMHO.

Of course I just bought a really fun DMD pin from the late 90's for 2k........so what do I know.

My thoughts exactly. Among the toys I have seen in recent - or not so recent - Sterns, this is my favorite. Others I found either ugly (Mike on a Stick), not super reliable (GB slimer, Gene's head in Kiss), not very interesting (Austin Powers / TWD's crossbow), not interacting with the ball (Star Trek's enterprise, GoT dragon) or not original (ACDC cannon). My opinion of course. Not saying I do not enjoy any of the toys above, but I simply find the Crane integration excellent (You may argue it is inspired by Junk Yard's crane, but it is far superior).

So... I am not complaining that Stern reuses it!

Until a guest says "I liked the other one better - can you switch it back now?"

I'm buying Alien LE which for me looks superior to both these games, theme is really important hence the foolishness of this thread and yes I would prefer Batman, love being in that 5%, changing the name from "Dialed In" to something else is ridiculous, and even more so would be the fact that a person would now buy one as a result, thats worse than buying a pin because of build quality.

Here's a poll for you. What's the most ridiculous TOP reason anyone would ever buy a pinball machine?

Only one option needed. "Build Quality"

Did you hear that sound? That was the mic being dropped.

As for comparing full feature pins - I would say look at BM66 premium @ $8.5k, Dialed-In premium @ $9k or Alien LE @ $8.1k, all would be plus shipping. If you want cool bells and whistles you are way past $6k on Alien, but at least you have the option to forgo and add the mods later. You will notice these models hovering between 8k and 9k, which is just too damn much money. One huge differentiator for Alien, is that once you buy the cabinet and upgrades, you have them forever and can use them with future game kits costing $4.5k each. These prices have eliminated BM66 and DI from consideration, and has left me pursuing only Alien. Hopefully JJP comes out with a DI standard edition priced under $7k to remain a player in the home market, which would allow me to reconsider DI.

I believe every manufacturer's goal (other than Stern) should be to release a lot of games, and for JJP that means making games that are packed with features yet which sell in the $6k to $7k range. JJP needs to focus on capturing market share and that will require a cut from newly announced prices. Heighway's price structure is much different and I believe their pricing is pretty good as is. $6k for a new game and the bells and whistles can be purchased later if funds are short. Stern can test the markets all they like with high prices, but I won't be biting. They would better served to ensure a pro model of every title is offered and it should be priced under $5k. The fact that pro's have risen to $5.5k and heading to $5.8k with Aerosmith, is a fail in my mind. I won't be buying any of those either.

Whether the price of a NIB pin is $5k, $8k or even $15k those are all large sums of money and high build quality should be a given.

There is no reason for manufacturers to sacrifice playfield, cabinet and decal quality at todays crazy prices when former pin manufacturers had those items nailed down. Again, it should be a given to expect quality in those areas.

Overall if prices are going up, quality should stay the same or go up (not down), code updates should be released quicker (and be more then just bug fixes) and customers shouldn't feel nickel and dimed with extras that should come with an LE.

Stern as of late is guilty of all of the points above and more and more no longer resembles the company they used to be.

If I was to take a reverse mortgage on my house I could get both! But then I'd have to get rid of one of my "cheaper" machines to fit them in and that's not making much sense in my mind.

Why did he fall down or pass out or something?

I can't believe build quality trumps gameplay for any of you, that has to be the dumbest thing I've heard in a while, I think its even higher than when this guy I know told me I need to find Christ a few months back, no that was dumber but the bar was set real low, WTF are you talking about? would this thread have even been started if not for the GB ghosting playfields? I doubt it. Listen its shitty that the GB playfield has ghosting issue's and yeah at the current prices things like that should be caught during testing and if not made right in a prompt manner but this one man stand here with this thread is foolish.

I agree but the opposite also works in this ideology, I would rather have TWDLE which I felt was shipped nickel ed and dimed and code that took a year to finish but is simply amazing with regards to gameplay than the high quality built TH who's gameplay put me into a mild coma. Whats the difference if you feel cheated by the build quality vs the gameplay and can anyone honestly choose quality over gameplay when it comes to pinball? not too mention a game every 3 or 4 months vs years. I'm just happy we have many manufactures all producing games and can have this debate, pinball was all but dead not too long ago.

You have a biased opinion KPG, it sucks your PF is bad. Shit happens. People got screwed with light boards on Woz, it happens.

When i sit my GBLE or TWDLE or Ac/dc premium right next to my WOZ, it make very little difference to me that i have a direct print cab, or that its packed and gorgeous.

So is GBLE. And with Spike 2 etc., i'm happy with the build quality of Stern, JJP has always been better, but i don't PLAY build quality so its WAY down on the buy factor scale.

Who would buy a pinball machine just because its built like a tank and looks gorgeous as the main reason? Nobody i hope

Theme
Software
Artwork
Price

All go into purchasing a pin. You are fairly new to buying pins and like me who spent years going on and on about JJP quality, you will settle on gameplay, pricing, theme and artwork in the future.

It's hard to feel good about your experience with Stern, I get it.

But hey, my Woz damn sure looks good sitting there while i play all of my other Stern and Bally pins first.

Here's an absolute fact to make you happy, all things being equal, theme, software, artwork and price, its JJP all day.

Is it too much to ask for both?

If I could get a "Batman Dialed In Edition", then I might be in the market for one.

They don't suffer for it and are blowing JJP out of the water in sales. And in fact you are straight up wrong about recent Sterns.

I wouldn't trade my TWDLE or GBLE for any other pin out there. I stipulate that JJP pins are "better quality".

The proof is in the sales isn't it. That's why in the JJP poll "who's in" there are 27 people in and 291 that checked the I'm out box.

As for Stern and the BM66 versus Dialed In, the premium sales will destroy DI for one thing, on price alone. It's 2k cheaper

So you and i can keep going back and forth beating the dead horse and Stern will keep getting the sales.

Maybe Toy Story will fit the bill on both? Then we still get the privilege to pay $10k for it.

While Stern at least offers a pro and premium version?

I don't know Rob, I f ing love my "falling apart, pos, no good garbage" Stern pins.

No, I think Alien has both from what I've seen thus far but I'll look into it.

I was going to say only if JJP was building a pin like Alien and then i stopped myself. I'll take the Heighway build and quality at a cheaper price.

It's not really a fair question. You really have to compare BM66 Premium to Dialed in LE (the only available version) if you are comparing things from a value standpoint.

BM66 is around $7600 delivered and Dialed in is probably closer to $9400 delivered. That's a pretty big difference! BM66 LE isn't really a value as most of it's value is due to the fact that it's limited. If they make a Dialed In Standard at a price that you could get it for $8K delivered I think that would be the best value of the bunch. I have a feeling it will probably end up being closer to $8400 delivered though.

To Early to answer this... No one has played BM 66. Until that happens you are judging one thats been played vs one that has not

That doesn't matter in this thread this is about value of the components, you know the important stuff.

No one had seen Batman 66 before a lot of the money got sent off.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

And JJ is right, no one has yet played BM66. I wonder how Lyman will do with the 30th yr anniversary pin and LCD?

And one more time, pricing and everything else being equal, JJP feels like better quality, and it is.

Just answering the question as to why I sent $$$ in, not trying to beat the dead horse

Stern's track record and history
Lyman and Gomez
Special 30th anniversary pin
Limited
LCD
Theme is awesome
Neymar on an LCD (per Odiner, how much is that worth?) Hehe

It all added to sending in $$$. If it was JJP instead of Stern, same thing would have happened for me.

I think you forgot to mention one thing.

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Dialed In will have a standard edition. No price for that one yet. So LEs are comparable. Standard edition will not have invisiglass, no shaker, and stainless rails - per Jack at the Deep Dive at Expo.

To talk value on $9000 game ridiculous but then you say "Actual "Fun factor" of both BM66 v Dialed In is irrelevant"

This is just comparing Batman, Alien, Dialed In and I'll throw Domino's in there since it's shipping at the same time.

Theme - Alien
This will vary depending on the person but Alien is an awesome theme to me.

Software - Dialed In
This might be a tie with B66 but Sterns have always taken awhile to get the code done.

Artwork - Batman
It may be just a collage of images but I think it works well and makes an impression while the other two are kind of mediocre.

Price - Domino's
It's lower.

These are the things I can judge from my computer. Gameplay can't be judged till I see these in person though the response of people who played Dialed In has left an impression.

Dialed In looks really good... the $9k+ price is bending us over. While I think its great games are being made, the fact that they are pricing them this way may hurt the hobby.

Yup

It will be exciting to get Dialed in - dialed in and playing perfectly!

Would I rather perish from a gunshot to the chest or a knife to the chest?

I know that sounds hyperbolic, but really I just don't want to do either. I think JJP provides more "value", but there is no way I'm paying 9k for either of these games. The small lowering of prices that will be coming up won't cut it either, because now I'm kind of irritated that this is where we are.

And no, none of this has actually impacted the joy I have for this hobby. I'm having a Stars delivered to my house tonight, and I'll be playing it with a bunch of friends. The hobby is just fine, but the manufacturers have alienated me.

Dialed In LE should have been priced at $8999.

That $9000 price barrier is hard to get past.

I kind of feel like Stern and JJP have been pushing prices until they reach our breaking point. They may have found it.

Then again, when are people lining up to buy BM66LE for almost $10k and submitting videos for the opportunity to pay $15k for an SLE, sight unseen, maybe not.

I didn't think I'd get past the $8000 barrier. And I'm not sure that I really have, despite making an "exception" on Hobbit LE.

No way am I making an exception on the $9000 price barrier.