Does anyone know when they will be out? Has there been a recent update? Hoping to see at Allentown. Last year the line was super long and I was impatient.

They're building them now. Update soon.

Has it been confirmed to be at TPF ?

Cointaker is bringing that same prototype as last year is what I was told... the one I got the ball stuck behind the upper playfield flipper and lost my game.

Do you know this as fact? Unless Chris or Melissa told you this, I'd wait it out and see if they get a production model by then.

Well, You know I didn't ask Chris today I just assumed it would be. I'll ask him tomorrow and repost. To late to text him tonight...

If true - that suxs.
That proto was crap.... and to not be nearly ready for production and have production machines at shows is... suspect...

Ask if it will be a production gane. thank you

Here is the price on their website.

TBL_(resized).png

Can tell you guys that DP is working hard to get a production game to TPF and for whats it worth for you, am personally reasonable sure it will be there

Have plans to go to TPF myself and dont want agry people lynchen all Dutch attendees

Has anyone called them to get the distributor price? Can you PM it to me?

I agree. There's probably many others who feel the same about the $1500 increase.

If say just 100 people turn away from a purchase now, DP loses $850,000 in potential sales rather than earning $150,000 more from the increase.

I think more prospective income is lost than gained at the new price point. I don't think it was a good pricing move.

Don't worry, Texas is an "open carry" state now, meaning you'll see it coming!

Same case could be made for Stern and JJP (see SMVE & Hobbit pricing)

I'd agree. More profitable to keep price lower and sell more units when a price increase is expected to stifle sales. In this case, $7k for TBL and I am a buyer. At preorder level of $8.5k, I'm on the fence, but would consider purchasing if game play is outstanding. But $10k is too much for this pin and I won't be a buyer. I would happily seek one to play in the wild or at a party, and will probably play it for hours, it just won't be going home with me.

You may well be correct; however, you are mixing revenue with profit. The $1500 increase is a net increase in the bottom line as opposed to topline revenue. If, for example, the all-in cost were $8450, the lost revenue would be $850,000 while the lost profit would only be $5000. It would only take four sales at the higher price to make up for the lost profit on those 100. To be sure, this is gross oversimplification; however, it is the classic Econ 101 question....if I price my hotdogs at $15, I make $14 profit on each one but only sell two for a $28 profit. If I price them at $1.25, I sell 100 but only make $25 in profit. Somewhere between $1.25 and $15 is the sweet spot.

With respect to this game, there is no doubt that they would sell many, many times more at $5k than $10k, but where is profit maximized? Purely speculating, I would agree that it is south of $10k and if not, you begin to wonder about their costs.

If they dropped the price of Lamborghinis to $3K they would sell 10X more of those as well.

Interesting. I usually stay out of pricing threads, but I think there are some factors to be considered:
Pre-order pricing was $8500 with several unknowns (licensing, manufacturing, parts). They ended up with something like 191 preorders that stayed in. It is entirely different what you think a product will cost to make and what it costs to make in the end.

Fast forward to today, licensing is adjusted, boards were redesigned, more work on the artwork and build, different LCD, different PC and the introduction of distributor. All of these items have costs associated with them.

I would imagine they will break even or make a small amount of profit with the preorders Going forward the new pricing gives them capital to make their business survive. They have something like 7 or 8 guys working on this. I would imagine they'd like to get paid someday. I also imagine they don't want to make just 191 games. This is the new entry cost.

I just wonder what kind of market there is with this kind of entry cost. I mean $10k for a pin is just getting pretty expensive. We're at literally double Stern Pro territory here.

I still think the game is awesome, I mean, a freaking Big Lebowski pin, it still blows my mind that it's happening at all.

But it's a somewhat niche theme (hardcore following, but not very wide) and a really ridiculous price. Can they get much more interest at that price? I wonder what the bowling lower playfield adds to the BOM?

I just hope that they stay in business, do a second pin, and that's it not quite so expensive. I like DP in pinball, just can't swallow the 5 figure cost.

There is also a risk, that it may only be "one and done", so for me, I have to ask myself, do I want to spend $10k on a pin, and there may be no support in two years if they don't make it?

I wish we had more Pinball 2000 I could put an extra game under all my pins and double my collection without eating up more space!!!

That's the model that Heighway is using, swappable games like Pin2k. See if it takes off or not.

I do see where you're coming from, but there is a sizeable pinball market in Europe and TBL has cost me significantly less than a Stern LE or premium. Therefore while they may be losing potential sales in the States, it's still a very attractive price for us over here.

This is a concern of mine as well. I wish I could find out what their sales projections are.

I'd feel better if they saw this as a niche product and only aimed to sell 300-500.

If on some business plan somewhere they expect to sell 2000 TBLs, then they will not be here in 2 years and I'd potentially have a machine that sat dark with parts that can't be replaced.

I think part of it could just be that pins are difficult/slow to make for anyone other than Stern so selling more units isn't always an option if you can't build them fast enough. Look at how many sales JJP likely lost over the years due to having such piss poor production speeds/delays. I'm sure if they could build 50 games a day like Stern they could afford to sell more units at a lower cost but since they can't they might as well charge more since they can't even keep up with the orders they have. I don't know if this will be the case for TBL but my guess is that production speeds will likely be slow and it will take them a good amount of time to get through the couple hundred orders they have. May as well charge a premium if you know your production speeds will be limited. This also takes the wind out of the sales for aftermarket sales since there is less room for buyers to flip games for profit.

Well you know the cure for that!

LMAO! If we say stern prices are to high we get shot down.

Aurich. Maybe inform yourself first about all prices before you call tbl price ridiculous.

You know what is ridiculous? Paying the same money for a fully featured and awesome looking pin the big L as for those generetic unfinished stern games.

In my humble opinion ALL current NIB pins are ridiculously priced.

Didn't cost me $10k either!

Nope. Only another $25 when the pizza man shows up.

What about TBL that you have played seems finished in anyway? Is there new prototypes at some recent shows? Every one that I have played pretty much had zero code so that would be exciting to hear that updates have happened.

You have to remember that while TBL is a solid value over seas it is now listed at $3500 more then a stern premium in the states. Call them generic and unfinished all you want but it's hard to imagine there being $3500 more value then an AC/DC or Met premium which are both complete awesome games. If I could pay the same money for TBL as a stern premium ($6500) I'd definitely consider buying one. At 10K it's not even a consideration.

It's all about theme. It's for diehard Lebowski fans from a boutique overseas company...not meant to compete with mainstream Stern titles.

Updated "pre-production" models were at the DPO Expo last November.

It is just the exchange rate, taxes and shipping. If it were being made and sold here it would probably be closer to $8K. If you don't believe me, go grab yourself a Whoa Nellie in England:

https://www.pinball.co.uk/shop/pinball-machines-for-sale-new-used-fully-refurbished/whoa-nellie-stern-pinball-for-sale/

6495 pounds = 9240 dollars

Can you imagine paying almost $10K for a Whoa Nellie? Stern pro models price out to OVER $7K there. They're thinking the same thing in reverse: "Why would I buy a Stern pro when for $1K more I can get a TBL?"

I think your spot on with this. I'm obviously a huge fan of the movie. First my understanding was $8500 plus shipping and at that point I and many others had abandoned putting in preorders on any pin. I'm much happier since I took that stance it was a good decision for me.

Now if it is anywhere close to $10,000 I would never consider buying it NIB. Frankly I thought $8,500 plus shipping was too much for it. None of the protos were working right at expo this year that combined with the death of the movie music really killed my excitement for the title. IMO there is no way this pin holds value at 10 or even 8K. Not hating, I hope all the kinks get worked out so the pin ships in good shape and many of you all get a pin you love. That's what it is all about! This is just one dude's opinion on it's price point.

Not that it makes a huge difference, but keep in mind that the pre-order and CoinTaker costs are not exactly apples to apples. The pre-order $8,500 cost didn't include shipping whereas Cointaker's $9,995 cost does.

What's the cost with no shipping? I'm sure they're not going to sell it for the 9k. They're making a rake on the "shipping cost".

Consider me educated on exchange rates.

The no-shipping price did include it being in the US though, so it was only local ground shipping.

If I'm not mistaken, the exchange rate when pre-orders were first being taken back in January of 2014 was 0.735, so $8500 = 6163 euros.

Today the exchange rate is 0.918, so $10,000 = 9180 euros.

That seems like a huge price increase to me.

Looks to be plenty of room to move games at a lower price in the US while maintaining the same profit margins they are getting for games sold in Europe.

Please correct me if I'm way off base here.

Really looking forward to this one... hope to see it at Allentown (just like above, the line was really long last year so I did not get to try it).

Regarding currency... Its interesting as the currency markets have been really wild for the past few years.

- July 2014 for 1 U.S. $ you could get 0.73 Euro (I think pre-order were around there if not before)
- Currently 1 U.S. $ will get you about 0.90 Euro
- This is a huge swing as the Euro has gotten much weaker against the $ over the past 2 years..
- Said another way, it should take less $ (more then 15% less) to pay the same amount of Euro's now then it did 2 years ago.

Dutch pinball is getting significantly more Euro's then it did back when it took pre-orders even if the price was flat...
Lets say original pre-orders were $8500 including shipping, that would equate to 6205 Euro's 2 years ago... Now the costs is $9900 and that equates to 8910 Euro's using recent exchange rates.... a 16% increase in $ and a 44% increase in Euro's per machine. So the good news for DutchPinball is that they will be getting many more Euro's then the were when this project started per machine (at least for the one's sold in the U.S.).

The U.S. $ has strengthened vs. many currencies including the Euro, the british pound, canadian $, thus, you are hearing from all those regions that the cost of stern's machines have gone up in their local currencies.... (assuming Stern is selling in U.S. $).

Anyhow, really looking forward to playing this machine, unfortunately not at a price point that I will be able to own, but home many people buy them and put them on location!

well, you have to ship the games to the US and pay customs and other fees, which probably adds 15 to 20%

It's a HUGE price increase as others have said with the rise of the dollar.

The price point is absurd with all the other options available.

On the other hand, they should do well with the Euros and the Aussies who are already used to getting F Ed on the exchange rate

These guys haven't proven themselves to be business geniuses

True, but wasn't that also the case when they set the original price that equaled 6163 euros.

Even if the original price didn't take shipping from Europe to the US into consideration, I think by expo 2014 they had announced the machines would be shipping from the US. The price was still the same and the exchange rate was around 0.8, so $8500 = 6800 euros at that time.

The price was shipped to Chicago with Phil or some other distribution point. Then you had to get it home.

Regardless, who is going to pay $10k for a pin with DP that might never see #2 and zero support?

If it gets done, I'm guessing this will be a one off. $10k pins will be a snooze fest here.

It is what it is, we don't run DP's business. I'm just lamenting that while I backed out at $8500, I kinda hoped that once they were shipping I might suck it up and get back in. At $10k it's not even a fantasy, that's just ridiculous for me personally to spend on a single pin.

Maybe in Europe they're used to it, who knows, but here in the US there's no way I'm spending that for any game. Dream theme or otherwise.

If someone does a hand painted Star Wars game, where all the costumes are replaced with samurai uniforms and RZA does interpretations of the John Williams soundtrack we can talk about it. Until then though ...

It's absurd the price in dollars has gone up since the preorder price. If I bought one of these, I would be paying in Euros and basically be getting TBL for around $7000.

It's hard to see many sales in the US at that price as I would guess the hardcore TBL fans are already in on the pre-order. Are there a lot of TBL fans in Europe?

If they knock it out of the park they may generate some sales, though it will likely depend on what other games are available when it hits the streets.

Maybe $9995 is just the MSRP?

Even if $8495 is the MSRP this pin won't sell.

It's DOA.

They have F ed up the whole launch for years now.

Licensing issues are a joke. I hope they can survive but they don't get to extract stupid profits from their own stupidity.

TBL is popular here.
$9k+ pins not so much.

Are there distributors selling it in Europe or do you buy directly from Dutch Pinball?

What is the selling price in Europe in Euros?

Just like Hobbit?