Feel the same way. While fun, recently let MMr go which will most likely be the last at that price point.

They don't have to make the purchase price back, they just need to beat the depreciation. If it brings in $4000 and they can then sell it for $6000 they're up.

Depends if you have to have the couple extra features (or features they didn’t just remove) I just bought a NIB for 5100 delivered. Just need to get out of the limited/beanie baby mentality. Premium would have been nice, but decided this was the smarter (maybe not as fun) decision for me.

JJP has Pirates coming out. I'm hoping they do one model at 8500 and hold that price point.

Stern is way out of whack with LE pricing and Premium pricing. The quality is not there.

Spooky is at the right price point for what they sell.

Homepin needs a LCD, but has a good price point.

Heighway pricing is insane.

Prices have been interesting in the last couple years and some titles have jumped while others like Hook, Barbwire, Blackrose, Hardbody have stayed relatively the same in pricing. I do believe the boutique pins have helped raise the bar but it all comes down to supply and demand. People have been commenting about how the bubble will burst and people will lose money. People who love money more than pinball should be concerned people who love pinball more than money will be flipping on as always. Rare Hero put it best- the only way the bubble will burst is if everyone liquidates all at once-very unlikely. I also stated a recession where tons of people sell for economic reasons-again unlikely.
I think the marketing departments for all of the pinball manufacturers have their work cut out for them trying to sell $7k+ machines in large quantities to distributors. If we have three legit pinball companies churning out $7k+ games, saturation may occur and discounts may need to be made to sell the units on hand. Again supply and demand. The whole price fixing thing with Stern may need to change as well and go back to sell for what you want to sell it for, in order to turn your inventory. It is good to hear that I am not the only one that thinks paying over $8000 for a pinball is a difficult pill to swallow.

I read a comment the other day that made me chuckle....In the days of 4k X-Files-nothing makes sense anymore.

Stern Pro is the way to Go!

Interested to see what JJP 4 will be and play but if it’s at the Dialed in Price I may not be interested.

Yep, my money is going cgc and jjp if I do buy nib. I will grab stern off secondary market if it's something that is proven with good code.

If they ever decided to go that route, whatever warranty that is currently offered on a NIB game would be out the window.

I bought my Metallica Pro at 4600 shipped. That was the most I was willing to pay, so I am no longer a potential NIB customer. My opinion means nothing....

So far, Stern pro's with the new LCD are best bang for buck and even with haphazard code updates, the boutique companies can't get close to coding games like Stern do.

JJP aren't boutique anymore and are becoming more and more of a serious competitor to Stern. More toys, deep code but they have yet to have their AC/DC moment.

CGC. Selling tons, but for those of us who have had their fill of 90's games, not much to get excited about.

As for the others, TNA seems like the best of the boutique games so far.

For the future seems like Stern still have the best themes and looking forward to Guardians, Iron Maiden, Elvira 3, with possibly Dead Pool, Pulp Fiction as well.

JJP's Toy Story should be a huge seller and could be their defining moment - we will see.

Im more excited for potc and all its features over toy story but im sure jjp will knock both out of the park.

What are you talking about?

Star Wars pins are EVERYWHERE on location and it seems a ton of home buyers bought them too.

Speculation that it didn't sell is complete nonsense. It appears to be based solely on wishful thread making thinking.

I have to agree. NIB pricing is getting too rich for my blood. 7k is where I will always draw the line.

I’ll sell my Dr. Who for 5k!

Anyone interested in buying my F14? I'm selling it at the blow out price of $6000.00 as I need to fund a nib pin. First offer over $5999.00 takes this baby home!!
Btw... code on this pin is now complete.

I bet Stern sold a slew of SW pro's for location.

Anxious to see the new JJP #4, already not excited about the price. I will always be looking at secondary market for pins. Hobbit prices are falling making it attractive to be my first JJP.

Well on my side of the border it's lukewarm at best. No operators have it on site (in my area), no collectors I know of have it (that's not speculation, that's fact). For the past 6 years either one operator took the new release or at least one collector that I know...that even includes shitfests like WWE. That in itself is a red flag. You have to look pass the states and look at the international market as well Levi.

If that sells, I’m raising the price on the Dr. Who.

Most of the collectors I know won't buy any model of any manufacturer even the Stern Pro because of the current exchange, has nothing to do with gameplay or lack of toys etc. My SW pro cost 8250 after tax that is just stupid but I only have one pin now and figured what the hell. I do know that operators have purchased them and they are earning on route, the cost of both NIB and used pins in Canada sucks, its really caused me to somewhat loose interest in this hobby, if the prices we have to pay were to become the norm in the states then NIB pinball dies.

I'm officially priced out of the NIB market. My last NIB purchase was MET, and with the possible exception of TNA, I don't see myself buying any more in the future. It's not even a matter of whether or not I can afford it. The fact is, I can no longer justify spending so much money on a single pinball machine. The prices have gotten absolutely ridiculous.

You have to look past your incredibly small sample anecdotal sample size and personal bias and stop pretending you know if a pin sold or not.

This is right up with "bill of materials" speculation as far as opinion that is passed off as fact around here way too often. You have absolutely no idea how Star Wars sold and basing an entire "stern is getting its comeuppance" theory on on your extremely
Limited personal experience is ridiculous.

Man, this ended up being longer than I intended.

As an operator, I'm close to done buying new pins. And if I do it will probably only be Stern Pro, unless CGC releases a remake title I'm interested in. I would have bought an AFMr classic if I didn't already have AFM.

The reason I'll at least consider Stern Pros is because they are reasonably priced for what they earn. And they hold their value reasonably well. The extra money for a premium isn't worth it in almost all cases. And an LE, no way. Stern's support is good and I've found them to be very reliable on location.

I can't justify the cost of a new JJP pin. Even if they earn great, they won't earn enough extra at my locations to make the investment worth it. All new games earn gangbusters for a few months, then drop off and the classic Bally/WMS stuff earns the same as the new game. Granted this may be different for other operators. I can only speak for what I see games earn at my locations.

I mentioned CGC above. I'll consider their games depending on the title and cost.

I won't consider running other boutique manufacturers. I simply don't trust the reliability and support. A broken game earns me nothing. I don't want to wait for parts and support. Their board sets are new, replacements are not to be found, and I'm not familiar with them.

So this brings me to operating mainly classic Bally/WMS games or older Stern games. There are many reasons why this makes the most sense for me.
-I can pretty much fix any Bally/WMS game and get the parts to fix it. I have extra boards for pretty much every era of Bally/WMS games so there's no downtime if something breaks.
-Schematics are available for all Bally/WMS games and most older Sterns. I can keep them running because I have the knowledge and skills to diagnose and fix problems. The main thing that gives me pause on new Sterns is the Spike system. It isn't documented and we don't have schematics. So far I've had good luck, but I dread having issues later on and having to wait for parts, if I can find them, let alone try to figure out a problem with no documentation.
-Every Bally/WMS game I've ever bought is worth more money than what I paid for it, even after operating it.
-Almost every used Stern game I've purchased is worth the same or more than what I paid for it, even after operating it.
-Every new game I've bought is worth less than what I paid for it. Granted, I've made money on the game so I'm still ahead. But if I'd invested that money in a classic Bally/WMS or used Stern game I'd most likely have paid less and my earnings might be less, but often they are not depending on the title. And in the end the game is worth more than what I paid.

So in my case the only reason to buy new is to chase the quarters for a few months before the hype dies down. It just isn't worth it because a classic Bally/WMS game remains popular and earns a steady amount as long as you keep the lineups rotated and fresh.

Another thing to keep in mind is as a business I have to pay sales tax on my game purchases and collect sales tax when I sell them. Sales tax in my city is 9.6%. So when I buy a new game I've already got almost 10% extra that I have to cover on top of the original sales price to break even. Yes, I can depreciate all this, but it is something I have to factor in when shelling out $5300+ for a new game.

Great post. People around here forget there's a real stark divide between operator reality and the "world under glass/build quality" fantasy we've created for the home environment. Two completely different things and Stern is the only pinball company that appreciates that.

This is why stern still sells - by far - the cheapest, most reliable, and most location-ready full-feature games in pinball.

NIB AC/DC Vault Pro
Team One - Stunning shape
Stars - Great shape
Beer - cases and cases
Pizza - for all my friends

I know how to spend 8.5 k better ways, but they still involve lots of pinball. I'll never put all of that into one game again.

Which are? And what is the newest theme

Let's talk about Price.

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4th largest city in Canada ummm

Now yes it's nothing compared to cities in the states but still it's a factor that needs to be added to the equation. I'm not saying SW is a total failure. I'm saying it's not selling as well as it should.

I'm pretty much at my ceiling price wise for NIB. There are very few themes out there that would get my wife and me to open our wallets up to for the prices that are out there. There's also a great arcade down the road that has a bunch of classics available. The idea of spending $20 is much easier to stomach than spending $5000-8000 on a consistent basis for a new pin. I've never traded before, but I'm at the point where my gameplan moving forward is to find used pins at the Texas Pinball Festival each year and get more involved in trading just to churn the line up each year.

Eternal legend!!

Still not sure what you mean with the poor SW sales? 800 SW LEs are all sold and out the door from Stern fully paid for. Distributors may have a few left if you call around but not many.

Is it interesting to me that there are only 156 Prem/LE SW owners on Pinside? That is a lot of LE owners not on Pinside/do not do the PS collections. Another thing is that folks say that DI is selling incredibly, but there are still less PS owners than SW LE/Prem. Could be folks are not putting them in their collections. Who knows?

Anyway I am playing my friends NIB DI in a week or so. I hope it is good enough for me to want one someday.

Pinball map shows two Star Wars pro on location in Toronto.

You don't know how many Star Wars have sold or how it's selling in comparison to other games.

I'm not trying to denigrate Canada or it's 4th-largest city. I'm just pointing out that polling your immediate circle of friends and Acquaintences in the pinball community is not a very good scientific method of determining whether or not a game has sold well.

But the podcast guy said it didn't sell...?

Nope, but I did talk to one of the main guy that sells them in Canada. Since Canada only has 1 Stern distributor, it's not too tough to find out a pulse. I don't have a crystal ball either but when I talked to him at the pinball show in September and asked him if they were selling he "beat around the bush" like a true used car salesman. Hazoff might be right in saying it's exchange rates + price hike.

It's a bit of all of it if you ask me but I'm no operator or expert.

I did talk to an operator that services the biggest arcade in town and flat out asked him why he wasn't buying one he basically said "got burnt on Kiss, GOT and GB". "Now with the price of these things and poor CS from stern, I will not bring in SW".

In that case I'm glad I don't live in the 4th largest city in Canada.

Literally every location I've visited in the last month in 4 different states had at least one version of Star Wars. Two locations had both.

But like you I'm not privy to production and sales numbers.

Yeah and I already posted, $8250 for the pro model up here, that's what killing NIB in Canada.

For things to change, consumers have to change. Walked out of a theater yesterday, through the gaming area, and saw of 10 spots, 7 filled with cranes. I'm pretty sure if they could pull it off there would be 10 instead of 7.

Seems like we have 'talked' about pricing before, if only I could remember where...

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3-3 Equilbrium_08 (resized).jpg

Wait a minute........

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Funny, that was only 1.5 month ago. Leaving the Stern army : )....?

To the original OP and everyone else: as long as people keep buying, the prices will keep going up. So simple, and yet, we have to talk this over every couple weeks.

The community did this. We keep buying. We can't help ourselves. We have to have the newest, shiniest "oooooooo, ahhhhhhh" toy to keep up with the Jones'. Stern knows it, and the others are quickly catching on.

Only hobby I have ever seen where more competition brought in higher prices. Just unreal how this hobby community keeps taking it. Almost Stockholm syndrome stuff here.

How do you know how many LEs have sold? Nobody but Stern has those numbers

It's pretty simple they made 800 or 799 or whatever and all of them were purchased by distributors. Not like the distros really have much choice as they are required to purchase a certain number to be a distributor. I'm guessing stern has no clue how many distros still have and I'm sure they don't care either.

Stern has them all sold and gone, cash upfront. Some folks like to bust balls and say they are not sold out and I guess they are not with some distros still having them for sale, but not many. Call around and see for fun.

Yeah I think that distributors get 2 LE's like them or not from Stern. Could be wrong on that. For SW LE dealers wanted and sold many many more than that.

I’m not sure what your point is? None of my games are 8 thousand dollar games? I’ll say one thing though, you sure do worry an awful lot about how other people spend their money. You seem to express that in every one of your posts.

I swore off pre-ordering but relapsed and put in for a TNA. Other than that I've stayed put pretty well. I have a trade for my very nice SS plus cash on a DILE waiting to be completed but other than that I have found the secondary market on pros (mostly) to be the sweet spot for me. Fun/$ ratio is hard to beat on some of these purchases over the last year or so (could be off $100 or so on the following figures...going off memory):

AS pro: $4600 (stock pretty much)
GOT pro (very nice with a few nice tasteful mods): $4600
Refinery MET pro $5200
TWD pro with color DMD, powdercoated armor, and a few other nice mods: $5200

Seriously, I have more fun with those than I do my GBLE, LOTRLE or Hobbit all of which were more expensive. Might be doing a local trade for a nice IMVE with color DMD and cash for my GBLE soon so I'll have another kick you in the face fun pro pin in the $5k range very soon.

I used to always want the newest, shiniest thing and I guess I still do but I've gotten better about always buying what I initially think I want. I'm sure others will counter that older titles can beat the fun/$ ratio and I'm sure that is true but as my short list above shows I think this does scratch my itch for the "new and shiny" desires I do have and the above pins are very reliable with good code and I don't want to have to work on pins more than simple fixes if possible.

If I buy a 8-9k pin, it better sleep with me.

Looks like I hit a nerve . Better not talk about pricing in a pricing thread ....and based on the discussion here, I'm not the only one paying attention to the problem.

Yes, you are right, I do worry about how this community spends its money, and you know why? There's a very obvious correlation between NIB pricing and the effect it has on the secondary market. Yeah, there's a bunch of new blood that didn't know what pinball was until "Pinball Arcade" and other emulators came out, but anyone who thinks that NIB pricing has no effect on the secondary market is fooling themselves, and it's annoying as hell to watch people pop crazy money for these toys, drive the secondary market to where games from 92-98 are nearly as much as NIB games now, and it prices some of us out.

Call me sour, I won't deny it, it's frustrating. People can write an $8000 check, but they don't know how to take the glass off the game or how to change a bulb. For the tinkers and the people who figure out how to fix and repair these games and don't have deep pockets, it is very frustrating to watch games appreciate extremely rapidly and in some cases almost double in under 5 years.

Of my 4400+ posts, I doubt "every one of my posts" is about my discontent with current prices. Thanks for paying attention to my recent diatribes/opinions on pricing though . Makes me feel loved

No you didn’t strike a nerve in me at all, but there is a few (many actually) things that you need to realize. Nobody gives a F*** if you are sour about what direction the pinball hobby is going in and what is happening with the secondary market etc, you need to realize that. I just don’t know who you think you are to be talking sh*t on someone who makes enough money to go buy an LE or a Super LE Pinball machine for 8 thousand or 15 thousand dollars that can’t change a light bulb, so what? If he wants to own 20 new LE Sterns and pay the local pinball guy to maintain them, who are you to care or complain about that? That seriously f*cking blows my mind.

Pinball is like any other product, they will sell them for what the market will allow them to. Do you think I or anyone else likes how much pinball machines cost? Hell no we don’t but what am I suppose to do, not buy any games because you don’t want me to? I don’t think so hero sorry. I go to work and bust my ass every day, I will buy whatever I want to no matter how foolish that it may be in your eyes. It’s my money not yours, understand? I stated that I will not personally spend 8k on a pinball machine and I haven’t like you tried to insinuate that I have. I want Elvira when it comes out but guess what? If they price it like BM66 and no Pro model, I will have to go without it probably. If they start pricing pins above what I’m willing to pay then I will buy used, if I can’t afford used then I just won’t be able to buy any games.

Do you also complain about the rich guy that drives a Mercedes or a Lamborghini that can’t even change his own oil? I mean seriously dude....waaaa waaa waaaaa, you need to get over yourself. There is a lot of things that I can’t afford to own that I would love to own, it’s just the way it is and it’s life, and I have no choice but to accept it. I think your parents must have forgot to tell you that life isn’t fair sometimes. You seem to be on this big crusade to put Stern and other new pinball companies out of business. I have some bad news for you, it’s not going to happen anytime soon. Buy the games that you can afford and I will buy the games that I can afford, and the really rich guys can buy the JJP games and the Super LE’s and stuff. There are pinball machines for all of us out there no matter what our financial status may be.