Well this is interesting, didn't Mike from Homepin say he didn't care at all about the western market, and had no immediate desire or plans to sell his pins in the USA? I see there is now a USA distributor and sales listing for Thunderbirds:

https://pinside.com/pinball/market/classifieds/ad/61243

I always root for new manufacturers, and I know Mike has taken a lot of crap, but I really did not appreciate his generalization and bashing of all Americans. He basically excused the bashing as though he didn't care because we weren't his market.

We have a call into Highway Games in Australia who granted us a distributorship and looking into issues.

GAP

Better import them quickly, then, before Trump starts a (wider) trade war with China.

im sure that there are many in the USA that have seen the tv show and want to buy the game

if some one want to distribute the games in the US, then why not ship them?

EDIT
it is funny the US distributor is called Great American Pinball

Only those that are over 55 now and living on a fixed income. But where there's a will there is always a way!

Generalization. tsk tsk. I remember the show and I'm not living on a fixed income
If the game is good it will sell. I guess we'll see when it hits the states.

Well I must be a one off because I’m 32 live in the United States and watched reruns of the show as a kid. I would agree this probably isn’t his target market most people here never even watched the show. So I can see where mike would be coming from on that perspective. I saw the news about the pin asked homepin how I could get one and have one reserved through NITRO PINBALL. I can’t wait for it!

You must have been watching the shortened version FOX did on Saturday mornings right before Bobby's World came on then right? I'm guessing there may have been a few others beside you and me.

I believe so, I also found a dvd of some of the seasons in one of those bargain bins at some store so I have that to watch. It looks like a fun pin I’m sure once more people get ahold of them there will be more demand, but what do I know I own GOTG and GB which makes me an outcast in most pin circles as it is lol.

I am still of the opinion Saturday AM TV was at it's finest in the mid to late 60s with Thunderbirds being one of the crown gems, but I gotta admit that Bobby's World was fairly entertaining to watch even in my 30s.

But it was The Tick from that same era that is one of the all time classics. Never missed an episode.

The trade war with europe is a bigger problem.
Al american pinball machines get a extra 30% tax .
Because 30% from Stern and JJP goes to europe they will get a hard time, sales wil drop hard.
Small boutigue like Spooky and Dutch and homepin will rise.They sell less over sea.
Lets hope this trade war is not going to happen.
Sorry for my bad english.

Curious why anyone in the USA would want to buy this game after what Mike had said about this country. The gameplay videos posted earlier did not look fun at all. Hopefully they have improved the game since then A LOT. Also, orange dots in 2018 are a hard sell.

Where have you seen that the EU is planning a 30% retaliatory tariff on pinball / amusement machines?

Not that it would surprise me. It's very easy for the EU to target specific industries which will cause havoc on local / regional level, both politically and economically in the US.

It was going to be colour but with a new programmer it went to orange.
From what I have seen only minor changes except the pops area has opened up and he stated the code was pretty much done back at the show so I wouldn't expect too much different.
Otherwise he had a dummy spit on AA and banned himself in the last 2 days and left that forum so don't know about support - he even made a comment about the upgrading software and if certain warranty parts can't be returned to him in 14 days you and you machine serial number are taken off the list for certain levels of machine support. Here is Aus it sometimes takes 7 - 10 days for goods to get to you so doesn't leave people much time if they still have to remove parts.

Be careful and sure with your purchase

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I just read it and it sounds fair to me....

Well, two guys here are waiting for Stern Node boards and after 3 months - nothing.

rd

I'll pick those up and put them in a shipping container with the rest of my junk. They will probably still arrive faster.

not all of us can expect personal service calls from Mike

Just drop my Stars off at the shipping depot, and the nose boards can go inside!
Two birds with one stone!
rd

Added over 6 years ago: “Node boards!”

He was at my house last night.

Seriously, you will get personal service from him. I’ve bought his replacement boards for years, any issues you have, you’ll generally get a reply to your email within minutes (not months...).

I clarified how the code update will work last night with him.

Basically, the game is going to ship with complete code. In the case of an update, he will send you a plug in module that simply plugs into the MPU (at no charge to you) and you send the old one back to him. Same will apply for any replacement parts. You’ll only send the old parts back if it’s reusable of course (like the module)

rd

machine now plays well?

rotordave , did you also ask if he is building dummy's to spit and bikes that he can throw in the bush?

Haven’t played it yet ... been a tad busy.

rd

Rotordave, possibly the only guy on this website that got his Christmas presents and didn't open them until New Years because he was a "tad busy".

nah, just a generous guy
I think he has all New Zealand and half of Australia's pinfans visiting this weekend
and is letting them play first

Honestly, I still haven’t had a chance to play it. There are still 100+ people at my house and I’m running 3x competitions simultaneously.

It’s f**king insannnnnneeeee!!

Mike is here, I have talked to him on and off through the day.

rd

Backbox EL lighting ....

rd

Remember when Thunderbird 2 comes out of the mountain, and all the trees fold back?

The pin does it too ....

rd

let us know when you have a chance to look at the audits, like to know how many games have been played over the weekend

Mike tweaking things with EL Lightning happening ...

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Thunderbirds multiball start

rd

I’ve left that house now for a week ...

Dunno what the audits are, but I can tell you that it was played non stop 9am to 10pm and I didn’t see it miss a beat. Always someone playing it.

A few things Mike said:

- the centre ramp will be a little lower and clear plastic. The one fitted is a prototype.

- they forgot to add the palm trees on Tracey Island up the back

I had a couple of games, as did others. We had a few suggestions on rule improvements (little stuff) and Mike was open to making the changes.

Overall, the machine proved to be reliable and certainly looks the goods. I suggested the white apron may look better in blue to match the wireforms ... YMMV

rd

Best DMD message ever: "KEEP PLAYING!"

I like the white apron for some reason.

Hopefully someone else will have a review when the festivities are over.

I appreciate the vids, But how does it play?
Price point is agreeable but so does Great Wall and TATA vehicles, enough said. Game play WHOLE please.
Also sent via F***BOOK so you know who I am . Yes I hate F as much as you hate P Mike!

Some feedback from some players at Pincade over the weekend (cut from the AA Pincade thread)

NICKSFIGURES: Thunderbirds was very cool, superb build quality , amazing artwork, and fun to play. I am hoping to aquire one to go with my other sci-fi pins. Nice one

FAIRDINKUMDAN: Have to agree. It looks really well made and a lot of thought put into it to get it this far. Very impressed with it, even if I sucked at it. Played the hell out of it and it had some nice modes to go after. The only thing I'd change is the plastic lockdown bar. I think that my playing will end up breaking that thing. Thanks Mike for bringing it to Pincade for all to enjoy.

Yes, it has an ABS lock bar epoxied to a steel lock mech. Same construction as a WPC bar (except the ABS top part) Most people didn't even notice, it looked like a black textured lock bar. It was thick as hell, I can't see it ever breaking. Mike had discussed before, the metal lockbar top was one thing the chinese couldn't get right. Personally I don't have an issue with it.

rd

Like those other freezing cold nights out in the garage, it will be warmer to the touch than steel, just like one of those wood rail ones.

I agree with this, Mike is serious about this kind of stuff, I know just by dealing with him over my BSD board. I think this is a good first game for Homepin, and I don't care about side drama. Not that TAG is bad (I mean compared to some of the Spooky's stuff this is a TZ), but I think Homepin can benefit by hiring a pro to design the next game.

Very happy to play the proto at RD's!

Getting closer to perfection

Mike has his eye on the ball

Homepin is a Perfectionist at heart , and TB will super nice

Innovation and Quality. Quality, Quality !

Super fussy collector here
Unbiased view

TAG = COOL

tb 2 (resized).jpg

TB1 (resized).jpg

This from Facebook:

"One thing we need to be very careful with is the voltage settings when we are building machines for different destination countries. The transformer taps, fuse and MOV are all different for 230V and 115V countries.

I wonder where these power switch boxes are destined for ?"

Another further comment:

"We are still building our final seven test machines to iron out any final bugs before we go into full production in a week or so. These seven machines will go all over the place as "demo" machines and will still contain small errors/faults/incomplete things. One of the things we are testing for is multivoltage and that is what we are doing here and will ship a machine to a 115V country to confirm. We can't ship ANY finished machines until the CE approvals come back and that is still in progress."

IMG_3731 (resized).JPG

CE compliance is only for Europe and has no relevance anywhere else... it's an abbreviation of "Conformité Européene" ( European Conformity).
In Australia, minimum requirements are SAA approval and C Tick emissions... possibly ISO9XXXX etc.
It is the responsibility of the importer to ensure relevant certification is in place... if not, they are obliged to obtain it themselves at their own cost.
If these are not obtained by the factory themselves and are made freely obtainable then the importer is put in a very difficult situation indeed.

I also got to play Thunderbirds at Pincade in New Zealand. I have a podcast about video games, pinball, arcade and retro games and if you wanted to hear what myself and a friend had to say about the game, you can take a listen. If you can't stand talk of video games then fast forward to 1 hour and 8 minutes for the Thunderbirds discussion.

Game the System Podcast: http://gamethesystem.co/podcast/19/3/2018/game-the-system-podcast-episode-5

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/game-the-system-podcast/id1341961411

Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/httpgamethesystemcopodcast/game-the-system-podcast

Why would you not fix errors and faults??? I can understand "incomplete things", but to say there will be errors and faults sounds like an excuse in advance.

Full disclosure I suppose. I'm sure that they are working to fix any errors or faults they find. That is the point of these test machines is it not.

I'm not sure of that - "WILL still contain" (as stated) as opposed to "might still contain" would be the point of test machines - to find any not yet found. To send them out when there are *known* errors and faults would mean you are testing them with errors which I would have thought would compromise the information gained?

Lol!! Thanks for the clarification, the earlier inaccuracy was concerning.

Are there still targets under TB2 and are they viewable when the ramp is up?

For those that don't look at Facebook, another update:

"We have been working on making TAG a little easier to play. This has been the feedback from both novice & seasoned players.
The Mole captive ball has finally come together and works well from every angle unlike before and we have added an extra gate at the top of the PF to make the TB4 rollovers easier to achieve.
We have also tweaked the software to allow the T2 ramp to stay down longer making it easier to achieve multiball as well as a few other refinements to the ramp operating firmware.
These small changes are easy to make on these seven final prototypes as there are no art changes or anything that requires licensor approval."

IMG_3733 (resized).JPG

IMG_3732 (resized).JPG

Good to hear there are many improvements in place. Hope they change the music to mode based instead of just playing selections like a music player.