"It is the same process that Williams and us have used for 30 years, nothing changed"...BS something must have changed for this to be happening all of a sudden in such a large quantity. Thankfully mine is still perfect, but really sucks for all those that aren't as fortunate.

what should Gary tell

we tried to rip of the people again and wanted to save 5$ per game

but now have this problems?

is this already ghosting?

brand new latest produced GB Prem

IMG_7341 (resized).JPG

I think it's probably more like $50+ than $5 .. compared with the Churchill ones.

Yes it is

Sure is, sorry. Can you tell us the playfield date please?

September

Which specific date in September?

Sorry this is happening.

Date is Not important
Nothing is fixed at stern

Yes it is ghosting, maybe you are lucky and it stops there. Bad to see that they still have the problems...

The date is important.

Actually it is ...
Please share

It isn't ... we established long ago that these aren't errant batches. It's a systematic problem ... and as he correctly states, nothing's fixed.

Come on man/woman (sorry don't know your gender). We have been tracking dates for months. Of course it's important. And as far as I knew all the overseas GB Premiums were August or earlier runs. We're simply asking for the actual date. I'd be upset too if this were my machine but help the community out here and let us track this accurately. I appreciate your tenacity but let's have some semblance of constructive feedback.

Lame

I suppose the PF batch is more relevant than the date the pin was assembled?

The date that is stamped on the playfield is intresting

there is NO date at the play field
machine production date 1st. September at the cabinet backside

I don't have a dog in this fight, but I have been following the thread. This really is disgraceful, the price gets higher and the quality gets lower. Have some pride Stern, or is it just about the bottom line?

Cant believe that, take a closer look

only a sticker with the serialnumber
and something what i cannot read with a pen

That pen scribble is the PF date.
The trend of pen written dates vs stamped dates on the pf and having ghosting issues seems to be a connection.
My guess and only a guess is that stern has at least 2 different manufacturers of the playfields. One uses a pen and one uses a date stamp.
Does anyone with a written date on the playfield have no issues ???

Can you take a picture please

Unfortunately we have also seen one with both a stamp and hand-written. Mine is without issues with 9.20 hand-written. But it's brand new.

Thanks for that info.
I was aware that some stamped pf have issues but it seems far less, also why I said " at least 2 manufacturers " maybe more .
In manufacturing in general it is very rare that one company would use both hand written and a stamp.
In the instance of several that have had both I can only guess it was reevaluated and then stamped after additional qc. Not that it helped on those .

Pics please!!

They've probably stopped adding production dates, for obvious reasons ... they will continue using faulty stock long after it is 'fixed' (if it is).

The playfield on my GB LE has a pen written date and a stamped date. Either with different dates....

Exactly, different dates , inspected twice .
Let me expand on that . It's about traceability, well hopefully.
I would say that one manufacturer uses a pen to date it's playfields then word got back to stern that something was wrong , so stern then reinspected and then stern placed a secondary date stamp on it .

Date is important. Probably early sept since it's an overseas shipped unit right? If you don't give a date then your post is useless. If it's overseas unit then it's a aug or early sept date and then it's no surprise to anyone.

Playfields with recent dates have yet to have a issue. Fingers crossed

I was ready to order Spiderman VE, and I would still like to order one,
but I can't imagine going through what we are seeing, and being at the mercy of Stern.

Like others, I have friends that were talking of ordering a new machine, and they ask me for my thoughts and the status of the quality, of what I have heard or read.

Does this make me have a dog-in-the-fight?

Speaking of Stern are you serious, did you hear they blocked Martin from Pinball News from the tour and party (and he bought a ticket already)? All because he said Batman 66 was too expensive. All the PR he's given them, and now this? This hobby is getting so stupid.

I think the playfield issues will be solved in the sense of very few at some point, and those with issues, getting resolved.
It is highly likely though some, myself included, that have some minor ghosting that will need to live with it.
Of course at that time, it could get ugly again with posts.
I disagree however that known defects are leaving stern in mass.
The issues are not visible before they leave, yet some believe otherwise.
Plenty of marked cabinets and playfield on tour.
Certainly people can make a mistake too, despite our desires for perfection.

I think a lot will be known and closed, in a couple months.

Optimism....much better then pessimism.

Stupid move.

Seems like quite a bit of that going around!

Right?? I mean, fine, ban me, whatever, who cares. But Pinball News?? Martin has put in so much work giving everyone the scoop on everything for so many years, it strikes me as incredibly petty. Dunno if that was Jody making that call or what, and I know I'm working on a competitor game and people don't like me trash talking the competition, but that's some weak shit.

And after all that he was still covering the Stern stuff, because he's a better man than I am.

Sounds like he dodged a bullet........

Sterns' whole marketing/communication strategy has gone a bit off the rails since this B66 launch. Not sure if there has been a change of staff, or it's Kapows involvement, or what?

But small companies in small (luxury) boutique industries need to work on building and retaining customers for the long term.

Not pissing them off and treating them with arrogance.

first trip to expo and I have to say the lack of maturity in the industry is pretty shocking - no wonder its in the situation it is. Clashing launches, giving away pizza or other things and just a lack of respect between some of the industry organisations was very disappointing in my view. As they say in racing, do the talking on the race track.

Those launching new products should work with the other to timetable it so everyone gets a piece of the focus of the show. Move it around every year so stern is first this year, second next year... and so on, I got to a lot of launches and they seem to work something out so you can goto the big news events - expo needs to do the same.

Ref the play field date, I think that is important to an extent - but at the moment I don't think the issues are resolved on anything thats been made so far. Interestingly Stern have not insourced playfields.

Cheers,
Neil

don't think it was just stern.

Sadly money makes people do the worst things.
It looks very strange to me now, not working after doing so for 45 years.

What's funny is the attendees, the drunk attendees, behaved better then some vendors.

Maybe they needed some of our libations to
Mellow out!!!

Haha, yeah, pizza wars.

Did you happen to catch Gary Stern mean mugging his way out of Pat's reveal? He stayed until the cloth came off the games and then very publicly walked out on it.

I won't lie, it was hilarious.

That reveal wasn't very good so I don't blame him for walking out.

Rob

If the production date was the 1st then the PF date would have to be prior to Sept. So, your game has the older PF in it.

who know if there are old and new, only Gary

the only nr i can find is 823 with a pen

its realy hard to notice
will watch it the next weeks
all others are perfect

That is it. Thank you!

Did he also mention the cannon modes on AC/DC?

Thanks

Well hopefully you got a good one.