Well, I tried to turn this into a boating thread.

BTW. I forgot to classify the Bond Premium buyers. Here they are running a load of coke.

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Crazi could write a book on Pinside… and has. Unfortunately no one really wants to read it (except when forced to one post at a time)

Agree with all of the above Kim except for I wouldn’t call the Pro buyers winners either price wise.

In the FUTURE, not for those living in the past, the Goose is cooked.

1,000 LEs is NOT “limited”. Try that $13k on Venom or most other titles. Nope

500 is NOT some kind of “rare” number worldwide as Stern promotes it.

Same goes for the overpriced Premiums.

Inserts anything JJP here as well. Their new pricing model has already failed. And it’s NOT just TS4

Of course they will always sell some pins of any theme regardless of price. But the pool of those buyers is decreasing.

That’s the FUTURE. Some here can dismiss the pissed off feelings of past buyers, I wouldn’t if I were JJP and Stern.

Then again, sometimes lessons have to be learned the hard way

I’m still going to enjoy the overpriced pins I might buy, but those FUTURE buys are gonna fewer and far between.

5. Pussy Galore!!!

Sorry to be blunt… but not interested in following a journey that ends in ‘no soup for you!’. It’s a total dick tease.

I learned the easy way and stopped buying $tern after buying Family Guy, but not because Family Guy sucked, but more because it was not much more than an over baked Sega. Which, to this day, $terns are really just the bastard offspring of mating a DE/Sega with the now-available second hand B/W hardware and throwing an LCD, RGB LED’s, powder coated, mirror backed, shaker motor included bunch of parts into a self manufactured, mediocre quality cabinet and selling it to us. Now when the stars align, and the universe is one with the Zen of pinball, we get one of these boxes that goes not only above, but so far beyond what they had been offering. Then we, their loyal fan base, just accept that it’s the genius of the designer alone that made it happen.

Now $tern needs to plumb the depths of “just how little for just how much” they can deliver and ride this concept of “it’s the genius of the designer alone” idea, so they arrange an exclusive with not much going for it but a global name of BOND and the industry name of Elwin. We limit it to 500 units, then we gird our loins because we know this will be a painful, nut-crushing experiment, but dang it, run that puppy, because we need to know just how much ignorance our market contains and how much margin it can support.

I think they found the limits of our tolerance for these kinds of “experiments” , don’t you?

I do like the boat....WAY overpriced, too limited, and looks just like a dingy to me....

( made an attempt to derail w golf and bourbon...not much traction)

Yes, yes....boat derail please!!!

Talk about way overpriced, cash dump, zero ROI!!!

Im painfully in the market for one now...( by default of property location)

Pinball Machine = Boat minus water.

Both are a hole in which to throw money, one just happens to be in the water.

Agreed Doug...
Was certain I'd broke the chain when I bought Halloween INSTEAD of Godzilla ( love both by the way)...rather than buying them both...my way of backing off...
Really had zero intent to buy Bond60, but swear there is something about it that really appeals to me...
My " futures" are going to be very thin, as it's getting harder and harder to look away from the insanity, price wise.

Completely agree!!! No middle ground at all....just $$$ and pain/ liability...

Admirable comparison, but have lost major $$$ and untold grief on the seas...boats are pure, stupid $$$ ...$20k doesn't touch anything, and worth pennies on the dollar in a matter of years ( after they self destruct)...

I'd still pay top dollar or trade a high end pin for a Rolex GMT-Master II Lefty in green/Sprite. .

Someone mentioned why everyone wasn't so up in arms when JJP released GNR at the prices they did... well GNR was well thought out and the art/package was amazing (so much that the art/package makes up for what's missing as toys IMO). Plus, you couldn't touch a GNR for MSRP on the secondary market for about 9 months even with the playfield issues... so the market thought it was worth it. Not so much on any of these accounts with Bond..

JJP -- Immediately clear exactly what was in (and not in) TS4.

Stern -- GG: "Jaws? Oh yeah!! He's in there"

Same was said for BondLE.

Simply put, I am of of the decreased buying pool. For me, buying a pinball machine is a BIG purchase. With the recent increased in price, its nearly impossible to justify buying any games, let alone a 20k game, and I know of A LOT of people just like me. Hell, I know plenty of people who can still easily afford to buy but have either stopped all together or who went from buying most new games when they come out to maybe 1 or less a year. Is it sustainable? We'll just have to see I guess.

It was immediately clear Toy Story was not in TS4.

Very stagnant market here in FLA everyone's insurance is going thru the roof and pockets are getting tight. Plus ya know the recession on top doesn't help.

Come on Levi, you left out #6, the apologists, where Stern does no wrong. Of course, that would implicate yourself!

BTW I am covered by #2. Looks good, price is stupid! Hope to play one!

Edited cause #4 and #5 were already taken by the peanut gallery.

There's literally zero of your #4s here. If I'm wrong, please point them out.

Im firmly in the #2 camp along with you.

Sounds fishy, but welcome aboard!!

Also BOAT = Bust Out Another Thousand.

yeah for once there don't seem to be a lot of apologists, just people who want the game defending their purchase. Maybe we truly have hit the ceiling.....at least until the next theme everyone wants.

So 15 years ago you bought Family Guy then swore off buying Stern ever again. Cool.

Seems like the consensus is this release isn't for a majority of pinsiders (who tend to be players, collectors, hobbyists...ya know, passionate pinball folk). It's for trophy collectors that tend to have more money than genuine love for the hobby (yes, I realize not EVERYONE fits into that box MK6PIN. The game Stern directed at "us" was the Gomez edition with video assets and the standard Pro/Premium/LE lineup. When I think of it this way, it makes a lot of sense...just like I don't pay attention to Stern's "home pins"...not a product I cared about. In fact, the only reason I've care about this release is Keith was leading it. If it was being led by Koris Borloff, I wouldn't have given it so much attention (https://www.thisweekinpinball.com/spooky-announces-halloween-pinball-deep-dive-in-depth-overview-of-the-machine-features-rules-and-more/).

Man, you're missing out on a lot of great games if you stopped buying after Family Guy.

Good thing you put the disclaimer in, lol...

Back to the boats!!!

I just find discussing this stuff interesting. I'm not particularly interested in the vitriol, or the conspiracy theories about the CEO. I don't break out in hives when someone whispers "Disney", nor am I asking Keith to blink 3 times if he's being held hostage and forced to put spinning hats on playfields.

The release is, imo, disappointing. But talking it out helps me clarify my thinking at least. I think there could have been a package at $20k I wouldn't be opposed to, this just ain't it.

If I was to throw my spinning hat into the theory ring I'd say this is about licensor, but really who cares. Stern is no more being held at gunpoint than we are.

If they did this for every cornerstone people would quickly put them to rights as to the success of that strategy, of that I have no doubt. I don't think this hurts them otherwise, not really. If you're mad and not taking it anymore that's fine, but I don't actually believe you were about to buy the next 5 games sight unseen.

I just got a call from a dealer that I was on a list with for a Bond LE. They never contacted me about Bond LE but just called saying they had a Bond 60 left. I asked for the price just to see if they were dropping them, but no, it's $19,999. Just FYI, they are still available.

BOATT = Break out another Ten Thousand

Fixed that for you....

And that's that...truth

Actually this isn’t just about bond 60. It’s the entire line of new games being jacked up in price to take advantage of a limited supply caused by economic shutdowns from Covid, and scalpers taking advantage of the lack of product and fomo. I really don’t care about the stupid prices of a made to cause fomo game like bond 60 or even the LE games. Those are for suckers. It’s the pro and premium games that get jacked up so much that affects the majority of their customers. Don’t fool yourself, Gary and his top guys are in the room creating this fomo plan and pricing, constantly looking for ways to make us believe we have to have the newest toy. I get it, but it’s taking advantage of us due to limited supply. As for them forcing us, you’re correct. We don’t have to, unless we want a new game, and now by jacking up nib prices, the huo market suddenly thinks it’s worth as much as the high nib prices. So, thanks stern and jjp for creating fomo, raising prices, giving less in games, and rinse repeat until our next convention laughing over drinks.

I really don't care what the price is - it all matters what I am receiving. A single level playfield with no movie clips on the best theme to come around in years and a $20k price tag (or $10k for that matter) makes no sense to me. The pro version should have been the 60th design. The premium is fine the way it is. The LE could have been the top machine with a $15k price tag with a nice topper or a real SLE with low production and far more toys.

Why is there fear of missing out? What do you miss if you don't buy? How many different themes of pinball are out there? My banker couldn't believe that I wired $14k for a pinball machine. After I sent the money, I couldn't believe I did either, lol.

Long story short - If a machine is too expensive for you then don't buy it. That is where I am today. There are a ton of good games out there to be had for $4-6k (RNB, NGG, XMEN, DRACULA, etc). If titles like that don't interest you then you have 3 choices: 1. Pay the price for a new machine, 2. Don't buy a new machine, 3. Build your own.

The funny/strange/sad thing about the CES reveal of Bond 60 is that they got zero press from it. I searched news items and all I found was their own press release.

Not sure why its funny, sad, or strange.

Do pinball machine reveals usually make the news?

Well, here is Pinside’s biggest problem in a nutshell… you all assume that you need to own a machine to enjoy a machine. Where I, on the other hand, find I only want to own a machine that is a good value for my money. I almost bought a Deadpool, until I found out it wasn’t a Ryan Reynolds Deadpool. I was ready to purchase it anyways until I played it, and the fun and value wasn’t there for the LE at the initial release of the machine, the code was awful.

I don’t need to own a machine to appreciate or condemn it. Just because I haven’t bought a $tern since Family Guy does not mean I haven’t played and enjoyed them since then, or that I did or didn’t want to purchase a machine outrageously priced like JB60SLE. The same day I decided against Deadpool I bought a CGC MBrLE NIB at $8 grand thinking I was some kind of idiot. That turned out to be a brilliant purchase decision.

Buy JB60SLE if you want, or not, but where I start caring about your purchase is when it emboldens $tern to overcharge the next fool standing in line for their next Godzilla-like blockbuster, who just might be me.

Again, I buy my machines for my pleasure, for my game room, for my life until the day I die. I don’t flip pinball machines, I flip flippers on pinball machines.

I've told this story many times, but here we go again because I have no social life...

On vacation, my wife and I played EHOH on location. She loved it, gave me the approval to buy it after she got over the shock of the $8599 price. I got on the list for the next run that was to be in November.

Next run pushed into new year, now $8900. Ok, well shit. Still waiting. Next run pushed into 2023, price now $10.5.

Now we are out. We can't be the only ones. Not blaming $tern for profiting when they can, just disappointed I can't afford them Elvira boobies anymore.

What was the point of waiting months to do a big reveal at a huge show?

I've seen other pinball machines get coverage by technology or gaming websites/magazines. Since CES has thousands of other exhibitors, this was easily overlooked. Now if the pinball machine was also a robot...

So just looking around, it seems almost every major distro has units available to buy. Like nearly a week later this is readily available pretty much everywhere? The big online dealers got em still available, the two local distros by me have units also unsold. So are these dealers all set in stone to be buying these units or can they still back out? It seems theres alot of unclaimed units for such a small run.

I don't know. Was it a "big reveal?" Was there pyro and celebs on hand to draw the attention of the national press?

Stern is always at CES. WWE was revealed at CES. It's just a thing they do, I don't think the goal is to get on the front page of the New York Times.

And the premium started at 7,899 when they first cam out. At least that was show price at the Houston Expo.

If they don't get press coverage from the 4700+ media registered at that show then they just wasted a lot of time and money.

https://www.ces.tech/

Not surprising, since most of the distributors "bread and butter" are folks like us...the crowd that this game is unlikely to appeal to. When Stern did the Beatles Platinum/Diamond dance, distributors sat on them for quite a while IIRC (Stern made 350 of the pricey Platinum/Diamond editions).

I was convinced showing/marketing Beatles Platinum/Diamond at the Beatles museum would have caused them to sell out immediately, but they didn't. At the end of the day, Stern is pretty lousy at reaching non-pinball addicted buyers. Back in 2004, they actually marketed through Sharper Image and various sporting goods stores (TSPP right along side ping pong tables, however that was short-lived (but actually how I got into pinball...saw a LOTR at a Sharper Image).

Then they waste a lot of time and money every year, even when the "big reveal" is something like WWE.

Just throw it on the heap of decisions that make zero sense to many Pinsiders.