That's sort of hard to argue with. Yes, they make quite a bit of money selling slot machines.

While I am not an expert on the financial stuff, I notice new units cost $15,500 and they sold over 20,000 new units in 2013 alone. $310 million dollars on new units in one year.

Income has dropped dramatically over the past 3 years.

No, it's not pinball and arcade stuff. The end of that was in 1999. Now it's all gambling related - online gaming, video lottery terminals etc. that make up the "other"

There are some ex-pinball designers still working at WMS...and on slots nonetheless. Shame.

For $15,500, those better be LE slot machines.

And for the most part are. My wife and I are "frequent slot gamblers". I appreciate charm of the old, but I am blown away every year with the new tech in the slots. The sensory immersion games, such as Wonka. Transmissive reels. LCDs, OLED buttons. Adaptive games. It's really quite impressive, and they are constantly raising the bar.

...I wish I could say the same for modern pinball. It's just not quite there.

We love the video slots too. Aristocrats new 60's Batman slot is cool. In the pic you can see the fin of Joe Kaminkows Batmobile that was on display.
batmanslot_zpsc56a4166.jpg

To quote myself from a few months ago about the Pachinko situation in Japan, which is similar to the slot machine situation in the US:

"The popularity of Pachinko in Japan is quite staggering. Just in my small town, there are THOUSANDS of pachinko machines. I would wager that there are more pachinko machines on location in Japan than pinball machines in the entire world.

For example, Sega Sammy's production capacity at their Pachinko/Pachislot factory is 5000 pachinko machines per day (!!!) and this is just one of the many companies making them.

http://www.segasammy.co.jp/english/ir/individual/glossary/pachislot.html "

When something like a slot machine, crane machine, or whatever, brings in more money than a pinball machine ever could, AND is much easier to maintain, why bother with pinball?

Pinball requires passionate operators, owners, and players, but, unfortunately, passionate players spend less money, get more replays, and complain more.

In terms of the feel of machines, Woz doesn't feel like a B/W even though that is clearly what they were going for. Because of the change in designers, materials, manufacturing, etc. a B/W machine of now would not feel like a B/W from 1999.

In some ways, the yearning for the past of so many on here is not dissimilar from EM guys lamenting the changeover to solid state in the 70s. These are just different eras of pinball with different feels.

Even within Stern's (or B/W's) output there are vastly different feeling machines (IM and STLE for example).

So true !

Bump.

Williams doesn't seem like the kind of company that would ever want to cater to the modern home pinball collector with all their outdated "dream themes" that today's manufacturers make to sell games.

Nope, not Williams. They knew when to get out to keep their pinball legacy intact. There will never be another pinball company like Williams either. Not gonna happen.

This is true. The Williams name and logo are synonymous with quality and fun for me and have been since I first laid eyes (and ears) on a little arcade game named Defender back in 1982--though I'm not gonna lie. If they returned, I would be #1 in line for a Sinistar pinball machine.

Why bump a two year old thread? Let sleeping dogs lie.

It's retro Monday. We also had another thread on dimples.

It would be Amazing!

Seven years in and it looks like you are full of shit (as usual)

In three years we will know