Quoted from arcademojo:Year 2000. Everyone said the exact same thing about WPC95 games. Don’t buy them because they didn’t make a lot of them. You’ll never be able to get parts. The A/V board were unattainable. Heard the same thing pretty much about every different system. If the stash of boards dry up someone will come along and make new ones. You can even look to the Gottlieb system one boards with those spider chips. Yeah they make new boards now. Another thing is just because surface mount is new to most us in the hobby there are many companies that make boards.
if pinball didn't take off and become a money pit. you would have never seen those System 1 remakes. If the money is there, stuff will get made. If it starts drying up, things will stop and a lot will be dead in the water. Least I know my old stuff is fixable by me. My spike system stuff as of right now, is disposable, because it cannot be fixed right now without buying replacement parts. Until it's serviceable, it's considered disposable.