Assets from the movie at this juncture obviously won't be shown but play field elements which aren't movie specific will be amongst other things.

Hobbit LE price increasing soon according to Jack. If you're even considering I would put a deposit down.

After my WOZ preorder experience I'd rather pay when TH is in stock & shipping.

Maybe the price will be more then, maybe less, maybe the same, who knows?

Thanks for the heads up though, might be a good option for some other folks.

I don't see how they could honestly raise the price at this point after the whole woz fiasco.

I'll just buy one when my distributer gets them in stock and pay whatever the cost.

Either that or take over dg's if he doesn't want it when it actually comes out

First consultation is free

Are deposits held in a trust account so that money is safe in the event that TH does not happen for whatever reason (god forbid) and everyone can get their money back or is it all risk? I am a live for the moment geezer anyway so will just wait and maybe pick up a pro/classic once full production is in swing if machines are as good as expected, early adopters/investors deserve a better deal and the LE extras IMHO, prices should stay static as a reward for the faithful and potentially ultra patient folk.

Mark.

Of course it is. Why not. and when people stop buying, he will think it's due to something else and just close up instead of lowering the price. Many other companies do something similar.

Tho, i'm pissed off at Jack. I am looking forward to the direction he goes with this. I won't buy one, but i'm looking forward to watching it's development and playing it at shows. 4 or 5 years later when used prices plummet, i'll snag one if I want it. I hope Jack makes it past game number 4.

YEAH! THIS is the way to support the hobby!

I was going to support the hobby. Until Jack smoked a bunch of Pot, and decided to raise his price another $1000. Hence why i'm pissed at Jack. Gets the rights to a theme I really wanted, then releases it for a price, that I think he's on crack. That's fine. The used market is cheaper with mass produced games around the 5 year mark. With 1500 LE's there's plenty to go around so i'm not a bit worried about it.

Besides, I did support the Hobby recently. Once Jack announced his price point, I looked else where for my money and Bought a new AC/DC premium instead. Seems this will be the last support I do for while, because it seems Jack passed the Pipe to Gary after taking a hit.

Yeah, it will be interesting to see what the new machines (WOZ, Hobbit, Metallica, Predator, etc) sell for used in even 3 years. Most should be HUO, yes?

Yes. Most Operators won't get rid of them that early, unless they are real Duds, or something even better is coming. Lets hope for the latter.

I would say yes to that, since it seems 80% of the market seems to be home buyers now. I do see a lot of new stern on route around here tho. No JJP stuff yet that I know of.

I'd say more like 5 years, most ops have enough locations to move the game around to still bring in pretty good earnings for a new spot for around 5 years or so. When shit starts breaking a lot and the playfield is dirty as shit, then Ops usually dump it, unless it's a constant good earner. Hence why MM's are on route so much yet. They are still all over the place here and Ops won't let them go cheap, because they bring in the cash. Same with Addams.

Why charge the same or less for a game that the competition sells that isn't as high of quality and has fewer toys? I own an ACDC Premium, it's a great machine but it's not on the same level of WOZ. WOZ has screen printed cabinets that are cleared, is a wide body pin, uses a 7 speaker 2.1audio sound system, has far more toys, comes with a topper, comes with a headphone jack, and uses a 26" LCD. Ontop of that the ECLE model comes with powder coated parts that go through a a much longer process then Stern games for durability and quality. If you take away all of those things then maybe you have a $5k-$6k game, otherwise you get what you pay for with WOZ and likely TH as things stand now.

Lots to hope for! Star Trek, Predator, Spooky, Hobbit, Godzilla, Munsters, WNBJM, Zombieland Schwantzification, etc...

Yup! The more pinball the better. One good thing about all of this bickering is that people are actually bickering about multiple pinball companies in 2013. Who would of thought in 2003 this would be happening? lol

That's for damn sure! We were all close to saying words over the grave site!

Hobbit update? Some people are still waiting for a WoZ update.

that's all well and good, but out of your list, I don't give a shit about anything that is added as "bonus quality" items. It's all pointless. shouldn't have to pay 4k more for a game for stuff most people dont' really care about in the grand scheme of things. The display.....is cheaper than going with gas DMD's. More cost to programming tho and development, but less cost in bulk for actual parts. Everything else I could take it or leave it. If I wanted to do any of the other things, I could for a hell of a lot less than 4k. And its' not always about the toys. You guys gush over AFM, and that is the most stripped down econoline game B/W ever made. When it's all said and done, it comes down to playfield rules and fun factor. Doesn't matter if you have a Topper (most old timers never put the topper on if it had one), doesn't matter if the cabinet is clearcoated (still unsure how well this will hold to graphics over time), doesn't matter about speakers (DE had good sounding True stereo and nobody gave a shit), Headphone jack (useless in general, small % might care) Zaccarias all have them, Powdercoated rails and lockdown bar (all DE, Sega, Stern have had them with 3k NIB games no problem). Widebody (again who cares, STTNG wasn't any more expensive than NGG), just more to lug around and again, comes down to gameplay and rules. STTNG and TZ play great, IJ and RS are ass. Wide body or not, doesn't make a good game.

Ok...most of these things are YOUR opinion, and I respect that. But many of those things are important to a lot of people...me included...

Same here. I want the 5 magnets, a wide body platform, stereo sound, LCD and two mini playfields. With Keith and Ted doing the code the more complex the better in my book.

I think the bickering is related to the shenanigans performed by these companies (requests for interest-free loans on vaporware, unbelievably long delays, broken promises, shady distribution tactics, outright lies, increasing prices after deposit, etc., etc.); not the number of companies that exist.

If this hobb...err...industry was even the least bit reasonable (financially and otherwise), there'd be way more folks cheerleading.

With the exception of stereo sound, I am taking Neo's side... clearly won't care about the rest. I do care about the final price.
$7.5k for a pin? (which will translate into €7.5k or more here, due to transport, taxes, etc)
No way!!

Well, I don't think this is gonna change anytime soon when Stern can sell out of Metallica, Star Trek, etc in hours! It doesn't seem Jack is having a problem selling Hobbits either. (er, the game that is!)

After buying ACDC Premium (great game) I don't mind paying another $1k more for a game that offers the features and build quality that WOZ comes with. Theres nothing wrong with ACDC Premium, its made well and is a lot of fun but its no WOZ in terms of features and build quality. There are cars out there that cost more then others due to additional features and different build processes. Same thing here with pins from different companies.

I wanted to take affence and say the only thing that's useless around here is u but that's name calling and I don't know u well enough so I won't. Then I wanted to hear u bitch some more about game prices cause stern/ pinball flippers/ and Jjp have been pushing u out of the market for the past five years. ive seen u posting ever year complaining about prices on rgp. Then I wanted to hear some more about how the the work people put into a real manufactured game was all pointless and I wasted my time and ur money. I can't get enough of ur great wisdom into this hobby. I should have spent the last year of my life stealing the design of the stern sound system and thrown my headphone jack out the window. Ill have to go just cry myself into a corner now. No ones holding a gun to ur head to buy anything, u keep restoring ur play fields no one will shit on u there. Try designing ur own from scratch instead of fixing a old one. Then put it out there for all to see. Someone might shit on ur design but at least u took a risk and tried. Right?

There is no denying that the cost of entry for those looking to buy NIB is on the rise. JJP is at $7500 and Gary is not far behind. I am atypical of the folks on Pinside, in that I prefer to have a few very nice pins rather than a large collection. I currently have a very clean LOTR and will add a WOZ ECLE later this year. Then I will add a TH LE that I ordered on day 1. I can see maintaining a small collection of 3 to 5 pins that I consider special. And yes, my tastes (for ownership) run more toward the more modern pins. The older classics I play whenever I run across them in the wild. I like and am willing to pay for all those "bonus quality" items that Neo talked about. I could take the same amount of money I am spending on a small collection and spread it out over many more older games if I choose them carefully. But that is not what I want. There are many different kinds of pinheads each doing it their own way. And that is a good thing.

Life of two pinball companies. One fights the other in quality and quantity of product. One feeds of the other in pricing.. Unfortunately we pay but ultimately we should get a better product which seems evident over the past two years. Some of us will be nib buyers some of us will be second hand. What's good and bad for the hobby will always be argued but that's why we have places like this. Buy, sell, help fix, and discuss.

I'm doing the same thing. Our house has enough room for 3 or 4 pins, and my wife would rather I have newer pins that look good, and I don't have to rebuild. She's very happy to pay for new pins, and she loves the look of WOZ and the Hobbit. Different than others collections but it works for us.

I think that was also what Robin said when he closed the last one. So... In before the lock... May as well start saying that in every JJP thread now. Everyone that is restless and angry seems to gravitate towards these threads. Every ax getting ground down by the same folks. Nothing rational and no actual discussion. Blah blah blah. And look, I just added more blah blah blah into this useless turd of a thread.

Rumor has it the PF will be at 1.5 degrees so ball times are as long as the damn movies!

And another one closed. I'm sorry everyone.

I'm getting really tired of all this crap. I'm interested to hear your thoughts (via PM to me) on how I can stop this stupid Stern vs JJP feud on Pinside. Stop the negativity that seems to find its way into each and every JJP thread. Because frankly, I'm out of ideas.

Well, I'm glad we could end this topic with a comment that was actually funny