Exactly. The details were known to insiders weeks before his classless leak. Such a tool. Even still, Stern did a great job of hiding the 60th version even though most knew Bond was coming for a long time.

For sure. This is as much of a reward for the dealers as anything. Normally they are strongly encouraged to stick to MSRP even on LEs. On this game the dealers are only given a minimum price they can charge. There is no MSRP and the sky is the limit depending on what people will pay. This gives the dealers a chance to rake in on some FOMO instead of the flippers. Stern makes their buck on the volume sales of the cornerstone pro/pre/LE sales. They will surely make money on the 60th too, but with only 500 made you factor in the development costs are higher per machine and the extra cost of the license. The lack of premiums (Elvira) or golds (Beatles) means these 500 will be it so the value should hold pretty firm (unless the Goldfinger LE is based on the classic playfield version!!).

I'm just glad I know at least one person getting a 60th so I can play it. I love the single level, classic style playfield in the Beatles and hopefully Elwin added his own magic to this great theme. I've heard it's fun as hell to play, but it simply is too rich for my budget even if it does hold its value. I just wish they had a trim level suited to the normal premium/LE buyer like me!

I love single level games and obviously Elwin is a big draw along with the theme. Back when I talked to my distributor about this game I told him my limit was $18,000 and he said it was much more. I might have gone 20k if it was Sean Connery only. The fact that the SLE is multiple Bonds hurts this game with me. I also factored in the excellent looking Playfield on the regular Cornerstone version of the game. If the SLE was Connery only and the regular game looked as crappy as TS4, I might have just pulled the trigger and said F it.

If by "not coming" you mean in the next year or two, you are probably correct. Who knows beyond that? I doubt Sonic, but I think BTTF has a chance in a few years. My guess is that even Gary himself doesn't know for certain beyond 18 months or so in the future. Buying up themes years ahead makes sense. There are only so many designers, so green lighting a build makes no sense much beyond the standard development cycle time frame.

20 years ago for me...

My distributor still doesn't have a price on these...

If it comes with a topper, that alone is worth an extra $5000.

Gameplay looks really great, but I love the old school single level games. On a whole though the idea of having all of the Bonds in one game makes my skin crawl. Seeing it in pictures and videos confirms that. This is definitely a far lesser theme to me than the cornerstone. I'm so glad that my LE is only Connery. If it was the other way around, I'm not sure I would have bought a Bond at release.

Personally I'm glad it's a letdown, they just saved me over $20,000. Hopefully at some point they re theme this Playfield layout with something that isn't an extremely expensive license and sell it for less than 10K. At that point being an old school solid state lover I might actually consider buying one.

Assuming this game with ALL of the Bonds and the Beatles are by far the most expensive themes ever, I wonder what it comes down to on a per game basis? Stern and the distributors are certainly making their share here, but how much is the licensor raking in? I assume it is somewhere between a big and a huge cut of the profit. One thing for sure is the license holder is the one truly making the easy money here.