The prototype for your new MM

Just kidding. At least they can build a pin. Basically this company has been building pins and other amusement devices for a long time. It will get made, hopefully well.

Yes...and how are the manufacturers going to respond to get an upper hand on their competition?

If JJP is making this how does the pre-order cost more than the WOZ pre-order. MM is a fun game, and I love blowing up castles as much as the next guy. But I can only shoot the castle so many times. WOZ seems like a deeper game with more replay value.

This kinda sucks. Paid $7500 for a MM beater a couple of years ago and put another 4k into it to restore. I suppose the CC, MB, and AFM guys will be feeling the same when they do those titles down the road. I know i wont be buying those titles as long as there is the possibilty of them doing remakes. On the positive side, I may finally be able to get a CC at a much lower price point.

JJP isn't making the game, they are just a distributor.

IMO and it is only that, pins with original themes like CC, AFM, & MM would likely be remade others not so much.

Wow I missed a big day! I wonder what tomorrow will bring?

announcement that they're going to remake this beast (don't tell anyone `till tomorrow).
DMD/LCD is still up in air.

ballyhoo_side.jpg

No, that was specifically covered. It did sound like there would be color support at some point though.

I don't think you will see licensed games like MB remade - the fees that would have to be paid to Universal would truly make this a 10k pin.

A company's brand means a lot.

Why is it so much to get the license? Pinball Arcade has been able to square away that stuff, and they're not dealing with nearly the same kind of revenue.

...and that is how you raise a million dollars in free capital in a day

A license does not have to be expensive.

CPR even got the Marlyn license for Taxi reproduction.

I think there is probably a little less 'pain in the ass' factor with non-licensed themes as well. And the revenue part is a key factor - the money will go in their pockets and not in fees. PPS made a killing today. All the creative work was done 15 years ago....

Just got my email from jack that I'm confirmed and to go ahead and send my check. #1189 FYI

Overnight, I received a second "send a check" email from Pinball Sales.

Please don't make other orders with other distributors as that will cause a mess.

On Monday we will e mail you an invoice for the game.

We are processing these with checks only to be sent to us within 7 days to hold your order. The sooner the better to lock the order in.....No credit card has or will be processed.

Please make your check payable to:

Jack Guarnieri Service Co., Inc.
1645 Oak Street
Lakewood, NJ 08701

www.PinballSales.com

Thanks for helping to create a Renaissance in Pinball!

Talk soon,

Sorry if you may have received this twice, we are covering our bases and didn't ant you to miss out!

Best Regards,

Jack Guarnieri

(732) 433-4333

Have we heard anything else about how the games software will run? With the game using an LCD and the hardware being PC based will the games software be emulated off of the original? Even though I put in a preorder I guess I still have some concerns regarding how well the game will actually play and if I'm paying $8k for an emulated version of the game with new hardware. I would think when you turn the game on that their will be a boot sequence similar to WOZ as its also PC based, an OS will load in the background behind a logo and then the game's software will be loaded up.

Unless they are based on a 6809 CPU (which is obsolete), it has to be running in emulation, assuming the original ROMs are used.

The pictures we've seen are almost certainly a BeagleBone Black. It's not a PC, but it will still be running an OS that will have to boot before the 6809 emulator can start to boot the game software. An ARM Cortex-A8 can boot Angstrom Linux (a minimal embedded distribution) in about 10 seconds. The CPU on a BeagleBone Black runs at 1 GHz, and would be emulating a CPU that runs at 2 MHz. Even if you add in features like coloring the DMD output, the new CPU is overkill for the task.

Depending on how it communicates with the power driver / switch inputs, there could be some additional latency, but if done correctly, it would be minimal.

Soooo many to flip, so little time!

The original MM prices will be only lower slightly because of the absent of the collectors that don’t care about this being a copy of the real thing. The only MM owners that will be selling will be the ones that were holding them for profit. The pin collector are laughing because they have the original. This should be really good for the ops. Though 8k is a steep hill to climb to break even on location.

But 8k for a knock-off, that’s just wrong. What a rip. The work was done by Williams years ago. People are paying 8k on a WOZ, and that had to be built from the ground-up. Even Stern has more R&D and production cost with their new games and they can build it for less 5k. Who is getting fat on this one?

LOL Someone said NEW vs. Used (original). Funny stuff! Once you play a ball on the NEW one, it also becomes used.

Yeah, my sense of humor is often cynical, but in a loving way I promise. Like someone else said who responded to my post, if someone is spending $20k on a MM, then there were cheaper options available to them for MM ownership, but they went with an HEP option, ie. The Best. And it's still The Best.

The new MM's will have this odd condensed board system, led lighting, not Color DMD compatible, won't say Williams on it anywhere, etc. I honestly think that, after the dust settles, the original unrestored MM's may be even more desirable. More people will experience and fall in love with MM now, it's reputation will grow, and the originals will always be originals.

I doubt the value of original unrestored MM's in the $12k range will go down much at all in the long run, honestly.

The pool of potential buyers of original MMs has just shrunk by 1000, and those 1000 will be entering the used market after release. Original MMs will remain appealing to a certain subsection, but that group will be much smaller now and it will push prices down for certain.

Good point frolic...I am interested to see how many they are willing to run of a standard model once the smoke clears on this first 1000

So true! People are acting like Williams just revealed they have thousands of games in a warehouse and they are going to sell 1000 of them with gold trim.

We have no idea how long these will REALLY take to be made (are they as invested as JJP? - how many games are they kicking out once they finished their factory?)

We have no idea if the games will feel the same, be built as well etc.

We are paying 8k for a game with less technology in it than a stern ST pro that goes for $4800

I put a deposit down but let's not fool ourselves that this is a golden goose.

Game play is king, are the top rated pins coveted because they have the latest technology? If this were the case Funhouse and Whirlwind would be total dogs at this point.

The price comparison is just to identify the profit being made here. Funhouse is a great example... Would you pay 8k for a remake? The price they are getting is based on the limited availability of the original. Once that is gone it comes down to - is it worth 8k? Not sure.

personally, I think that it's a great move to get a great playing title into the hands of people who can afford one but couldn't back in 1997

from a collector's perspective (for all of those whining about it decreasing the value of their originals). did the Shelby Cobra reproductions cause the original cars to depreciate in value? I don't think so. there will always be a market for people who want to original the original, and now there will also be a market for people who just want to own one to enjoy. I think that it's a "win-win" for both parties.

if anything, it adds 1,000 more potential customers for the mod community if enhancements can be made that will work in both machines

Of course not, the demand for FH is nowhere near MM. I agree that more profit is to be made since typical factors in making a new game aren't required for the remake. As many have mentioned before, this is a chance for others to get there hands on a pin that they once believed was unobtainable at a $12K+ price tag. Does $8K seem too a high to pay, yes....but they still sold all remakes in what I believe is less than 24 hours....hence huge demand

When Jersey Jack posted that JJP would not be manufacturing reproduction games, he knew about this upcoming announcement. It appeared he was squashing the rumor, but he was really just further confusing people. He technically told the truth, but it still bothers me.

So did anyone else who ordered over the phone with JJP get an email about sending a check? I was probably within the first 5-10 people to order on then phone with them (before the online web link was even available), and I have yet to receive an email. Is it possible they won't make the first few of us send checks?!

I just heard that the MMr is going to have an LCD in it showing the dots. I'm guessing they will work with ColorDMD in the future to just put some kind of intermediate board in place to change them to color.

FWIW color dmd is an lcd display. Not sure why it is still called a color dmd when it is an colored lcd.

I don't see it as a one-to-one ratio. $8k is still a steep price. Some people with money to burn for MM will still prefer the original because they can bling it out with LEDs and a ColorDMD. Even if it does play the same, high end collectors will want to know and be able to say they have the real thing and not "The Pin" version...

I wish this venture the best of luck, but don't think it will have much of an impact on original MM prices.

1) it may not actually happen in quantity suggested.
2) since all boards are being redesigned, they may not work seamlessly or without crashes
3) probably won't be available until this time next year so that means one year wait at best, and production of your machine may take another six+ months before it is made and shipped.
4) if quality doesn't match existing, people will go apesh*t
5) if quality doesn't hold up after six months, people will go apesh*t
6) as they are offered at $8k, that means they probably plan to produce them for $5k to allow for licensing fee, profits by manufacturer, organizer and distributers plus enough to cover warranty, inventory storage and repairs. This seems unrealistic.
7) some existing mods may not work work unless redesigned - translucent backboard, color dmd etc
8 if metal plating is not top notch it won't add much value
9) remake probably won't impact price of originals as much as you may think as they are two different products
10) if everything came out perfectly in the remake, who's to say the price of the remakes won't rise to $15k and originals stay at or rise higher?

This company builds a top quality product.

In the next 15 years It will be just as it has been for the last 15.

How is the transite lite anyway, did anyone see any photos of that?

LED's (hope so), fluorescent light (yuck) etc and are there flashers in there just like the original?

In fact, it is the SAME company that built the cabinet and playfield for the original MM.

If you guys watched the video, EVERY part of the game has to look and play exactly like the original, or Williams will not approve the production.

Unfortunatley videos didnt run on my machine, so I'm flying blind here...

Dibs on your LE when you decide to sell?

What are you basing this on? They only ever made playfields and cabinets for the original. The only complete game they ever "tried" making was Vacation America (to the best of my knowledge) which seemed to be a far cry from "quality".

What, theres a video??? Can you send me a link?

I owned an Arcade Legends machine. This was not an ordinary 50 in 1 jamma board machine. This thing was built like a brick, had perfect cabinet artwork, and original game code, not an emulation. And carried a price tag accordingly.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/39954191

That's great and all but assembling/tweaking a mechanical pinball machine is nothing like assembling an arcade video game.

Why is it $8k new? They don't have to put together an art package, whitewoods, etc. Seems like that should cut a decent amount off the overall price. I would have expected it closer to $6k. I know they still have to build and ship them, obviously.

It's the Expo video on the Expo video thread. You're going to have to watch at least 15 minutes of video to get it all. However, everything he said is exactly true.

And I think we should be paying $1.80 for a gallon of gas.

The boards will be better than the crappy originals.

Modern power supply.

No burnt, underspeced GI connectors.

10000x faster processor.

Stereo sound.

You guys have to remember that the processor in the original was designed before any of you were even on the internet. Before AOL, before Prodigy even......