Beatles is a lot of fun, and we all know this new Elwin game is going to rule. It’ll hook the people who couldn’t get into Beatles.

Just buy a Wizard from Ken Head. It is one of the best EMs ever made, super rare, brand new, it's built like a tank, and it is produced by the top EM restorer in the U.S.A....if not the world.

45 second clips of audio. Stills when archival video is available. Pro-level BOM. It should cost less.

Everyone is ignoring the cost of Beatles licensing.

A friend of mine is in the car business selling parts for Chrysler products, the licensing fees and requirements are utterly insane. It's one reason when you go to the toy store you see lots of GM and Ford products on the shelf and much less Chrysler.

The licensing fees are horrible and Chrysler does nothing in return for the scalping.

And mind you this is for nothing more than using the words "SRT" "Mopar" "Super Bee" or "Hemi" they want upwards of 50%

I think Beatles has more in it than the typical pro; 4 flippers, 2 optical spinners, 2 magnets, spinning disc in playfield, 3 separate drop target banks with total of 11 drop targets, 3 pops, inner art blades, metal apron instead of plastic, power coated armor.

Seems more premium like than pro like to me.

Forget the ramps and mechs. What this game will need is artwork with a proper gradient fill along with consistent insert fonts.

But it has no ramps!!!!!

Those things are woven out of hardened silk, custom designed and built, with tooling and skills that are possessed only by the world’s most experienced Ramp Artisans.

It’s not just the one-off cost per unit of ramp. It’s all of the money, research. and development - the untold sunk costs - that can produce these delicate, ornate fixtures of “pro” pinball machines.

But you just answered your own question! Ha. Because it is a sport - should it be an Olympic one… that is the question.

Probably because of the mixture of sarcasm, humor, facts, misinformation, speculation, personal grievances and conspiracy theories in the posts

Actually, pinball ramps have been around at least 87 years. Here's a 1935 CCM Rapid Transit I restored years ago.

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every time someone tries to make a point about pinball some prewar pinball nerd always come in to spoil their fun.
(and it's usually me, sorry)

well, more accurately it's manufactured scarcity. It's purposefully limiting a run. But then again, LEs also do that too.
Illusion of scarcity would be like if they built 1500 but said it was super limited, then trickled the rest out

From a postwar pinball nerd. Thanks for the clarification.

And Kapow's cut. Essentially two licenses before anything's built. But the game really is less-than with the short music clips and stills instead of archival video, plus a slight tweak on an existing design, so little R&D. Less work than flipping a Borg layout for a new machine.

You're not really disagreeing with me. Drawing an existing playfield in CAD using likely pre-defined Stern standard modules for targets spinners, pop bumpers, flippers, etc isn't a heavy load. Then modifying a few aspects of the proven design is nowhere near from-scratch whitewood testing trial and error. Very light R&D portion, and like you said, the software depth is basic - essentially a step or two above JP The Pin. A big chunk of the money on that pin is tied up on Beatles/Kapow licensing, though it was a good point that it does have powdercoated armor and art blades.

The sarcasm is weak. Still takes time to design, make molds, prototype, iterate. That is all expensive people time even when they have the resources inhouse. Then once they get the design down, production molds must be made, stored, remade. Then the ramps must be made, trimmed, and finished. All labor/time. Then those ramps must be stored and shipped in large pallets.. that's more space in inventory. Then you have the subassembly work. Then you have the burden of storing those molds and overhead of what it means to make small runs of them later.

Contrast that with a part that is 100% reuse - completely machine made or produced at large volume except for the sub-assembly step and is significantly smaller. The unique parts are cheap to produce in large volume and easy to store.

At the end of the day, a ramp is a 1-off part that requires a lot of manual labor vs a punched+assembled part. The mech has more material cost, but is still a simpler part to use. The REAL difference is the burden associated with a part like a ramp can be amortized over the run of a game so as long as you plan for healthy runs you bury the ramp's extra burdens in your dev budget. Where as the reused mech carries all its burden in the actual BOM per unit. So it's a cost that never amortizes. That's why it carries a big burden in the BOM... where parts like molded pieces and ramps carry less once amortized.

So the difference is about a part that becomes cheaper as you run more, but still has a high overhead... vs a part that basically stays expensive. One is front-loaded, the other is linear. How you account for the spend can differ too.

I bought a NIB Beatles today! Fell in love with it while playing for 5 hrs straight at Free Gold Watch in San Fran! Should we get back to being excited for the SLElwin? Please don't gouge us, please. We all have our price limits!

The best thing about pretending to know what it costs to make
Pinball machines, is anything can cost whatever you want it to be.

If you choose to believe drop target banks are basically free, that’s cool, just like if I believe Ramps are worth more than the most skilled of truffle pigs, that’s cool.

If I want to believe that Beatles - in which every single post is in a different spot than seawitch - was tossed off by an intern in 20 minutes, hey that’s cool too.

We are all experts, after all.

I had a Beatles platinum with topper. Huge Beatles fans our master is decorated in Beatles, ringo signature, seen Paul a few times live. The pin is fun but got old and sold after a couple yrs. Had a hard time selling it but luckily broke even since the topper tripled in price. Opto spinners are amazing.

Drop target banks are so expensive….
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And ramps are so cheap, particularly the ones made out of plastic and not angel pubes….
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Man, that's crazy, Stern should consider having ramps manufactured by the thousands instead of buying decade-old retail NOS ramps.

Just for reference this is the one that Stern uses:

https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/500-7029-04

$270 and then you need to assemble it, install it, and have some way to control it.

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True. And the ramp still needs all the flashers, switches/optos, art, decals, cables, air ball covers, entry posts, protectors, hex posts to support it. And it needs to be controlled. And it’s a one off custom design that needs prototyping etc etc.

Probably we should be comparing to this…

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I'm not a BOM expert, I dunno what a lot of these things truly cost, I was never involved in those kinds of talks. I can tell you from my personal experience though that most people severely underestimate the costs of labor when it comes to design. Everything is simple, and "just do this" until you try it, and realize it's all more work than you think it is.

That goes for everything. Remakes, toppers, 'simple' games. It's rarely all that effective to focus on the costs of the raw plastics I think.

I know right…301C6507-5390-40D0-84F6-A4BA2D12BC5D (resized).png

And imagine how cheap they could make those retail stock drop target banks in the 1000’s that could also be used in any number of future games.

It's a Stern part...... so it's already marked up 1000%

These games are so cheap. Just a matter a time before a brand new company undercuts every other company and produces way more games.

Deeproot?

Homepin.

Newer, and better.

Greatwichpin!

Comparing parts prices is amusing ( and sort of futile to represent worth).....the most special end products Ive ever seen are ALWAYS more valuable than the sum of the parts...

So much more to it.......

Guess the banter is good, given no reveal yet...

Made it to another bourbon Friday....thankfully...

Can you elaborate? I've never heard of Ken Head, and I can't seem to find a lick of information about him when I do a google search.

Ken is a talented restorer and a good guy. He's on Facebook.

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https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/who-wants-a-gottlieb-wizard-conversion-kit

We have been punked. There really isn’t an Elwin Bond game!

Somebody better tell Keith that.

LTG : )

Definitely don't get it Doug. Can't imagine the hype is increased by putting it out there and going dark this long (mines not anyway)....Pinball I guess

Will still give my "reveal Tuesday" bump.....surely I'll be right some month.....

I wouldn't be surprised if they don't say or show anything for months from now. If they want to keep quiet this is what I'm thinking.

Lol...too true!!..

Gotta admit, I’ve been frozen out on any news regarding this.
The price will probably piss me off, but I still might pull the cork.

Anyone know a distributor and/or how you can get one?

Try Glen - https://thepinballplace.com/

LTG : )

WARNING: “CARGUMENT”!!!(TRUCKUMENT)

People demand crank windowed, cloth seated, radio deleted, manual transmissioned, vinyl floored, spartan pickup trucks all over the internet.

The manufacturers build them (w/t trimmed 1/4 tons, diesel powered small trucks), at about a 20% discount than fancier equipped trucks, and few people order them, thus not making it profitable for the manufacturers to make them in small numbers.

News flash! It’s more expensive to put crank windows and vinyl floors in a truck specially ordered, than it is to just put power and carpeting in everything standard at the rate people actually buy them!

But alas, large scale manufacturing =/= pinball manufacturing, until it does. Small runs of mechs cost more than big runs of mechs.

Back on topic.

I’m excited to see a Stargazer on steroids from Elwin!

Bah-da-dun-dun-dada-da!

Damn these things are kind of hard to find--people talk about not wanting the game, but I'm not sure you can even find one if you're trying to?