Miami, FL
Quoted from Thermionic:I think the concern is legitimate, and they probably made the right call here.
Plopping a $50 Hasbro toy on the playfield and "circuit bending" it to interface with a node board is easy enough to do, but there is absolutely NO WAY such a toy would remotely last as long as the rest of the machine, and it would likely become an ongoing headache for Stern's service department.
Designing and implementing an appropriately robust mechanism with a proper metal chassis/actuators/gears, brass or ball bearings, decent stepper motors/controllers, etc. would almost certainly add way too much to the overall costs to even consider for the Pro model, and might even be a challenge for the Prem/LE as well (ie. other features like the elevating playfield would need to be sacrificed).
In my humble opinion not trying to accomplish an animated Grogu is a missed opportunity and would more than justify the cost of these LE's. Furthermore if it was an extra thousand, then an add on to the Premium at a cost down the road would be bought up if it was well done. If the other features like Upper playfield and Razer Crest were strong enough new additions to attract buyers, then leaving it up to modders to create the animated puppet (or hot wire the Hasbro one) would be fine. But those two features were weak in this case and the animated Grogu could have been very cool if done properly.
