yeah, the tablet does a much better job of feeding you info on what to hit and I like having that info as I rarely look up at the backbox when playing. However, it really should have been built into the backboard or a smaller monitor like hobbit/GnR and the tablet area could have been something more special. That’s just it with this game, it’s really fun to shoot and I like it a lot, but it just could have been so much more.

What part of my post is confusing you? The part that says the backbox is where scenes from the movie play during a lull in gameplay and are much more impressive on a larger display, or the part that says instructions are easier to read closer to the playfield?

The weird lean-back, then rotated placement of the monitor is the problem IMO. It's just awkward. Straight on in the backbox like GnR would have been better, and forget the laggy tiki video pinball.

The part where callouts and lights have been enough for most people to understand where to shoot the ball on tons and tons of dmd pins. I didn’t know that people now need it literally spelled out for them on a dedicated screen taking up actual playfield real estate.

Totally agree....the tablet was a massive cost savings event for JJP. If that tablet wasn't there they would have had to add a mini play field or cool mech which costs money versus the $30 tablet (I'm guessing) they probably get on the cheap from China. As many have said this is probably the lowest BOM by a large margin than any other JJP pin yet its by far their most expensive. This was all about a massive money grab that in my opinion will back fire unless they get back to actually putting cool stuff into their games.

The screen and controller in TS4 is about $10 in quantity. I checked. It's a pretty low res TN panel. Add $3-5 for the frame, frame LEDs and clear plastic protective shield. About half what you estimated.

You overestimate casual's skill set and understanding of pinball goals, especially on location. A lot of the ones I've seen when I helped with a route don't know where the flipper buttons are or how to start a game, so a screen telling them what to shoot for is welcome.

JJP is attempting to make games for everyone, not just pinball nerds.

Well there u go .... TS4 BOM has to be at historic lows for JJP

I personally don’t care what they do. Although, I myself like many others, were thinking about and expecting a killer eye popping game from Pat, being it was supposedly his last one! Oh well…..

I didn't say that. I was only talking about the playfield screen. If you've moved the machine or lifted the playfield, it's got a hefty BOM. The PF feels as heavy as every JJP with all the crap on it.

You want a crying towel? Don’t forget to “hold my pocket”!

I hope your not being”pc” on pinside cause you sell shit here….. your comment was fine. If someone gets hurt in the feelers, then that’s a personal problem.

Maybe on older games that may be true…welcome to the modern era where code is much deeper than shooting the castle…among other things the small screen imparts critical information as well as a countdown for specific modes so the player can track how much time is remaining without taking their focus off the pf…..but I get it…it’s cool to be critical even though the vast majority who actually play the game enjoy it very much…

I corrected essentially a wrong summation/restatement of what I posted. Because the conclusion was wrong. And I'd do that again.

If you have a TS4 (as I do currently, while I run tests on it - yes, I paid full price with my own dough), you know it's a heavy machine. Some people may not be happy with WHAT the BOM is, but to say it has a small BOM is flat out wrong, and I will call that out all day long. The coil count alone is BIG. And if I was trying to shill for JJP or play milquetoast, pablum-pushing pinmonk so as not to offend, why would I go to the trouble of looking up the quantity pricing on Alibaba for the screen and disclose how cheap that is in quantity? You need to really re-think your thought process or work harder on comprehension. You're arriving at very wrong conclusions, despite obvious facts laid before you.

Plenty to be upset about in my posting history for any particular fan or another if they like a machine I don't. Fortunately, I'm pretty helpful and generally nice otherwise and that seems to balance it out. I just don't have much of a filter. And may I remind you that I was one of the few that was telling people very unsubtly way before release that this was going to be TS4 and to kiss their TS1-3 dreams goodbye. That wasn't nice of me, but it could have eased people down from Mt. Expectations if they had only bought the ticket.

If you want to talk about the problems with the TS4 software, that's another matter entirely. I feel like it's very similar to Dialed In when it first came out when that slog through the cell phone mode wall was super boring after a while. It took a while, but they eventually added some other modes that broke up the progression a bit. I think that's what TS4 is sorely lacking - side/extra modes and a TRULY different ending mode for playing through twice. It needs some other non-carnival modes (plenty of options in the Antique Store) to break things up. I also think it's lame they hired a d-list mobile game company to do the sound. Mistake. Hopefully they're back in with Thiel now.

A carousel mech would’ve been more interesting and fit the theme. Maybe a spinning and opening physical ball lock or a spinning ball diverter for meet me at the carousel etc.

Honest question, naysayers need not apply. I am getting a high pitch, low volume sound from my game particularly during boot up but also periodically present during game play. Any one else experiencing this? Without inviting dumb humor about how much the game costs and it must be money crying, any ideas as to its source?

I struggle to understand the concept of "attempting to make games for everyone" with a $12k pinball game that is obviously not going to end up in a casual players home and the ROI is longer compared to so many popular, much cheaper sterns that hold up better in routed environments.

Clearly marketed towards location based play and sales to businesses that can offset/recoup/expense/deprecate the cost of ownership. JJP knows they can squeeze these places for extra cash when they dangle a shiny new toy with an approachable theme in front of them. Seems like they’re leaving the home pin/collector price territory and shooting for a business first strategy.

Well hopefully Stern and others don't follow JJPs pricing strategy. Not that pins are cheap, but with prices into the 5 digits i wonder how much more home buyers will tolerate.

Nope...I'm all good

With a 3 grand price increase? Opposite. I can’t see a lot of op’s buying up CE’s.

And at 2-3 grand over a similar Stern LE, seems like a collector cash grab and nothing more.

But don’t worry…

716B48BA-3249-42FB-96AE-5912D2CCF373 (resized).jpeg

Your mistake is assuming everyone is like you.

$1.50 vend (or 4/$5) and this pin is fine. We did that pricing with jjPotC 3 years ago and gave players 4 balls/game and it was the #1 machine on the route the whole time it was out. TS4 looks great in attract mode and will be very attractive to location casuals, so it will likely do very well. The locations I've heard that have it out are happy with it.

RF or ground loop issue. Does yours have a ground loop isolator installed? Are you using a grounded 3 prong outlet with the ground hooked up (sometimes the ground pin is just for show and not hooked up inside the box).

I agree.

Anecdotally, I have a non-pinball nerd neighbor with a game room. He purchased a Munsters Pro for 5-6k. He doesn't really like the game and I told him I was selling my GNR LE for 10k. He wasn't interested, saying 5-6k was already stretching his pinball budget (and he has plenty of money). He couldn't justify another 4k.

Many casual owners that simply want a game aren't going to feel comfortable spending 2x more for a game like TS4. For us, the tough critics and crazies, we are looking at shots/features that casual owners have no clue about. Many of us have no problem "paying up" for a game that looks awesome.

That is just one instance (small sample size?), I am willing to bet there are Disney/Pixar non-pinheads that will pony up for this title, but time will tell. If they move on to the next game in 3 months, clearly it flopped, but if they are running a full line through the end of the year, clearly there are sales to support the machines they are building.

Played TS4 today - it was ok, very long play times (my wife who plays little pinball put up 500M on her first game not knowing any rules and commented on it), cool to look at, liked the tablet and the info provided at the game level eyesight, jump ramp is way cool, no connection to the theme, feels way less sturdy than a WOZ, surely would not pay $12K for it (but will pay $13K for a Lebowski)...

According to Crazy and some others prices will just keep continuing to go up forever and ever. They won’t.

It may take a 2008/09 like deep recession to get people out of the mindset that we actually need these things.

We don’t of course and $15k is a ton of $$$ for any game, much less multiples of 5 figure games.

I also played it today. I liked the jump ramp, tablet, amazing lights. I thought I wanted to buy one. I think I would at the price of a stern premium. It’s not a bad game at all. It’s fun. Just not $12k fun. I did like it though.

Don’t see how people say this pin is so easy, I own one and I struggle to get past 2 mil and I think I’m a pretty good player. I do have the pin set up tuff.
Flippers setting are raised
Slings settings are raised
No rubbers in the outlanes.
I had friends over who are pretty high rank and they agreed it’s not easy as people say.

Are you focused on completing the game or playing for points? Heard people say you have to get to "Meet me at the Carousel" twice to fully complete the wizard mode, kinda the same stuff over again just harder with same ending result. Compared to a game like JP where it has three mini wizards, Escape from Nublar and When Dinosaurs roamed the earth it is an easier game

My wife put up 3.5m the first time she played it. She's ranked somewhere around 7 million globally..

I tried both personally, seems like I personally struggle. I thought this pin would be easy but it actually puts a challenge. I’m not saying this pin is the next big thing compare to Godzilla, but it’s fun and challenging. I personally think people play this on location and it’s not set up properly.

Guess she is natural and better than most people at pinball.

Shes definitely natural.. and not a great pinball player.. hence the "sarcasm" about being ranked 7 million globally. This isn't fun when i have to explain it. Anyway.. back to TS4 is outstanding!

I also struggle to understand the sense of making a $12,000.00 pinball machine for casuals. Don’t buy it for a second. Casuals are never going to spend that much money, nor will they see the wisdom in so doing. This is completely illogical and makes you appear as a JJP apologists, salesman or employee of JJP.

A legitimate 500 million point game would on average take around a couple hours to play...

Either she managed to find an exploit, something in the game was broken, or she actually managed to get a score of around 500k and thought it was higher.

Are you ever going to find a location that has blown their pinball wad on a $12k machine, not claim to be “happy” with their decision??? Time will tell, but this is not going to end well for locations trying to make a buck back on such a huge investment. Pinball is not that popular amongst casuals and arcade goers. A very large arcade near where I live says the only reason he buys pinball is because he’s into pinball himself and not for the revenue. Stating they are the poorest earners in his whole arcade except Stern pros, that are half the price of TS4, so don’t have to earn as much to realize a return.

Wisely, Stern is not raising their prices on the next title. Would be short sighted and foolish to do. They can clearly see JJPs colossal price hike is a tremendous flop and has been met with disdain from the pinball buying public.

Why do you think they have anything to prove or protect? It's the opposite... unlike hobbyist they treat their games like mules instead of personal trophies. If it doesn't work, they cut and run by selling the game early.

Meanwhile.. Scorbit is telling me ToyStory is earning great this week.

Happy for you, but we both know, its going to take an extremely large amount of “casuals” to pay off a whopping $12,000.00 mule. Wouldn’t it be wiser to put that $12k into mules that really payoff, as in far more popular machines with arcade goers like skill testers???

Same thing I've heard from OPs that have it out.

How about double the earning power with JP and GZ, 2 Stern pros for about the same money, if you’re really committed to arcade pinball? Wouldn’t those double earned profits make you even happier?

Here in Europe a TS LE COSTS almost 15 euro’s (and dollar - euro is now the same) …

I agree with the comfortability factor on pricing. And TS4 ain’t it.

Congrats JJP, you found the ceiling and hit it hard. Might wanna get a rag for that bloody nose.

I’m kidding of course, but at least the quick-flippers can fuck off.

Yep. I know people hate carguments, but here goes. When Acura decided to redesign the NSX in 2016, I was one of the first in line. When they finally released the details and pricing, I cancelled my order. With options, the car was around 200k. For an Acura? No thanks. The pricing just wasn't consistent with the brand. As a result, Acura sells 200-300 a year...3x less than the original NSX which was (ironically) 3x less expensive. Chevy will build/sell almost 9k Corvettes this year @ 1/3 the price. People understand value...the market will speak. I don't think there is any way JJP will build/sell 6k TS4's @ 12/15k...people aren't stupid. Even if it's a smash hit in arcades, I just don't think there are enough of them to pickup the slack in the home market. Time will tell.

That's two years of non-stop Toy Story 4 on the line @JJP's build rate. I don't think JJP was seriously shooting for that. No way TS4 is bigger than GnR, with or without the pricing, plus Steve has said his game is out next year.

They really thought going into TS4 that it was going to outsell the biggest seller to date in GNR, according to insider. I don’t think so either but you never know.

And pissed off a few real big distributors in the process. The ones where pin sales are minuscule to their overall sales.

Maybe they felt location guys would eat it up as a big earning “mule”?

I mean Jack clearly stated he was planning to start production of another game before the end of the year.

Being as they basically did GNRs only for 2 years. It sounds to me like they weren't expecting it to sell at the same rate.

I think they knew the increase in cost would have an effect on the quantity sold.

That all being said, I expect their profit margin is higher on TS4. Hence, they still may make more (in the money sense) than GNR. Even if they sell less.

GNR has sold around 4,000 units. 500 CE at $12,500 each, about 200 SE at $7k? Leaving 3,300 LE at avg of $10,500 (since there was a price increase)? That’s about $42M.
On day one of TS4, they sold $30M between CE and LE. I wouldn’t be surprised if they could sell another $12M worth or 1,000 more LE machines.

Or to put it another way, if GnR was $42 million over 2 years on the line, that's $21 million/year. Compared to $30 million TS4 for what will be less than one year on the line with currently booked sales. Strictly in a financial sense, that would mean TS4 was a huge success, bigger than GnR, on a year/year basis.