PW79 don't ignore the huge change to pinball purchasing behavior that coincidentally started in 2015 and which has lasted through now. By early 2015, Stern started enforcing it's minimum floor pricing for it's distributors to sell each level pinball machine. So instead of street pricing being offered around $800 lower for a pro, the best any dealer could offer you now was $0 off. Who do you think ended up with the extra $800 per pro, $1.5k per prem and $2k per LE? I doubt Stern let the distributors keep much of that, so Stern either raised their internal pricing or eliminated discounts. Either way it was a money grab for funds that were in the pipeline but which did not automatically belong to Stern nor did it automatically come from the buyer's pockets before now. And that one change continues to impact every new machine sold since 2015. The other part of the rise in revenue was due to increases in final pricing.

We moaned about it at that time and have ever since. Our collective tears formed a river and if you row down it at night, you hear the cries of nib pinballs being opened, $100 bills rubbing together as money churns down Stern River, emptying into their bank's tide pool and filling the vaults, and loud maniacal laughter. So where Stern needed to sell 12k units per year, maybe they only sold 10k units each of the last years. With higher revenues being charged on each unit, it had just built in a permanent 30% profit into the structure. I think they will fine for awhile at these reduced sales levels.