as far as boards under the playfield. I know when did my custom game I did that to reduce wiring. Besides it saving a lot of money (wire is not cheap), it was nice not having so much wire going to the head, especially when I had it on a rotisserie

Yeah, that whole it might weigh less is a real deal killer for me

I'm not an expert, nor a tax attorney, but deal with taxes from an eCommerce standpoint. In the internet world, which I believe reflects the real world in this case, you pay tax when you buy something from a company that has a physical presence in your state. Many states expect you to pay the sales tax for the item on your state tax return if you did not pay the sales tax on an out of state purchase (yeah, bet this happens a lot -- not).

PPS does not have a location in Illinois, so the act of picking it up in Chicago should not result in a tax burden, if you have bought from them. However, if you buy from an Illinois based distributor, that is likely a different scenario. If you buy from a distributor in the state you live in, you are likely going to pay tax. I am not sure of the scenario of buying from a distributor in your state, but picking it up in Chicago, my guess is you will pay tax, since you bought it from someone with a physical presence in your State.

Gee, maybe he has been more focused in processing paper work and communicating deposit receipts, talking with distributors (and non-distributors who are taking deposits), answering questions here on pinside (some good, some not so good), responding to emails (which I am sure they are getting a ton of), talking with Williams lawyers, dealing with other suppliers, talking with the production people, and oh yeah, the prototype is half way across the country from where he is, so he needs to get someone else to stop what they are doing to take some photos.

Don't think he is lazy, and don't think it is purposful, just not his highest priority at the moment. I'll gladly given him another week or two to get some good photos for us. Not like it is the most critical thing in getting us our machines.

Used to be illegal to do that, but that changed at the start of this year (although still can't charge more then a 4% fee), however, it is still illegal in 10 states. Regardless, I'd rather see a discount for cash/check or maybe even a 'voucher' for parts, etc.

I have no issue with the Credit card companies charging a merchant a fee, it offers protection to them, gives them sales they might have otherwise not gotten and also protects the the consumer and the CC companies are entitled to make money on their services -- now saying the fees are too high (given the monopoly/collusion of the industry), is certainly a valid complaint/issue.

P-ROC has hardware interfaces to Williams and Stern boards (and their own boards). Won't work with this unless that interface gets created, which won't happen. You could always completely re-wire the game to use one of the other board sets, as well as re-create ALL of the code, oh, and then you have to be careful with what you do with it, so you don't violate the copywrite of the sounds, images, etc. So, bottom line, never going to happen.

There would need to be a lot of machines produced to go through that effort,, and of course no one has seen the details of board yet to know what would be involved, and it would likely be a very different interface needed vs the Stern and Williams interfaces. In addition, the guy behind the hardware is trying to get his own pinball company up and running, so doing this would not be a high priority for him, by any stretch. Setting aside that challenge. Lets say that happened and you went through all of the trouble to totally re-create the rules from scratch. Figured out how to get all of the sound and the dots. What then? While you could use what you have done for your personal use, you cant commercialize what you have done, given the copyright material involved, unless PPS and Williams let you, which Rick has said, is not going to happen. Even if you don't do it for money, just distributing it could still get you into hot water. I have no doubt Rick and Williams are going to be focused on protecting their assets, especially on any machine that is desirable enough for a remake. JMHO

In my custom game, and not saying it is the same, the boards are about 3"x8" and are mounted on brackets perpendicular to the playfield. I would not see why the boards in this case would be any bigger. I also placed them where there is the least amount of under playfield items, but also central to the items they were driving, to minimize wire distances.

Not sure why out of the question. I could see the question being at what price point could and sell and be profitable. You obviously would not use old EM logic, and programming it to run on todays technology (or 20 year ago technology) would be beyond simple. But I would want old style score wheels, which could certainly be done. just wonder how many people would buy one, at say $4K

I can understand how guys who grew up way past the EM era don't 'get EMs' the way others do. It has always been my goal to have a game from each 'era', and would like to add a wedgehead and woodrail when I can find space and the right machine. I think it is part of the history and they also have a play to them that can be fun and relaxing (and who doesn't enjoy a good drop target game).

I have also found that working on EM has given me tremendous respect for the guys who designed these 'computers' using relays, steppers and score motors. I've enjoyed learning about them and how to trouble shoot them. Part of that is the 'geek' in me, part of that is the 'pinball enthusiast'.

If you are an engineer or a software developer by trade, and you have never owned an EM, you should get one, at least for a little while, just to get a hands on experience with the early days of computing devices. You are really missing out if you don't.

I'm not a big mod guy, but do like the troll eyes, be nice if that was on the LEs, but I know that would piss off the purists.

PL/1 one of my favorite languages -- and yes it counts!!

I do. I pay a relatively small amount (less then what they 'suggest' based on the rest of my return). My thinking is that they will be far more likely, when looking to audit for use tax, to go after people who don't declare anything (as if it is likely that anyone making more the $40,000 would have no out of state purchases) then going after me thinking I under paid. This is becoming a very big topic for the states, and with most, if not all, having revenue short falls, I expect we will see more states get aggressive in going after this tax revenue. Certainly having a high price/insured items shipped to your home is a red flag. No clue as to the legal grounds for them to get this info from shippers and the like.

I think what Rick was saying, when he said something like "I like the black look, we will look at that", is that maybe they would add a third option. 'standard' and 'gold trim' are both going to happen, I have absolutely zero doubt in that. Now whether the gold lives up to all of the expectations of what people want, that is a different question, since clearly there are a lot of different opinions on how that should be done. I think a third option would be great, since the look of black seems to really appeal to people.

Rick wants to make people happy, and will do what he can, within reason, to achieve that.

shipping from different places I believe.

More pinball manufactures will effect all of them, ultimately the market can only absorb so many new games per year. However, nothing improves the products in a market place like competition, so ultimately we the buyer win.

Obviously the price of an MM14 will drop as soon as you uncrate it, if for no other reason that someone who wants one can get NIB for 8K (for some period of time), so they will not pay that for a HUO. Ultimately the marketplace will decide how much more a NIB is worth over HUO. Is it $500 is it a $1000, I don't know, but certainly doubt it will be much more then that. A pinball machine is for the most part a depreciating asset, so it will naturally drop in value, in most cases. However, I don't really care, I have no intention of selling mine. While I like my machines to hold or increase in value (and most have), it is primarily to explain to my wife why it is okay to keep buying them.

BTW, while they have primarily been through email, I have had plenty of conversations with Rick on this and other subjects.

If two or three or four new companies are selling X number of pins, then the percentage of the market Stern has is less, and therefore is losing market share, purely by definition. However, if the market is growing, then there smaller share of the market can still be worth the same or more then it was before their share shrunk. Clearly the overall market has grown over the last few years, over time it will all work itself out. As I've said before, over time competition between manufactures is good for the buyer, whether better product or pricing.

I am in on MMr, and that is 8K I had NOT planned to spend this year on pinball, so it is not taking away from some other manufacturer or some other collector selling a game. I have only space for X games, therefore, when I do decide to change, I sell (always painful) to buy , so while that might require me to put more money in, it would not be 8K. Reading between the lines, you can see I'll be selling something to make room for the MMr. I have never bought NIB. First off I would never buy a game I have not played and experienced, and if once I play it, I decided I want it, I'll look to find one HUO, and save a little bit of money on it. I saw this as a unique opportunity, and the reason I decided I would go NIB.

I do believe that MMr will have a lower turnover rate then other recent new games.

Of course it does. X pins sold, they got Y of X. Lets say there were the only company in town, and sold 10,000 games, they had 100% market share. The next year, 11000 pins get sold (their 10k but PPS 1k), so they sold 10000 of 11000, and accordingly they now have only 90% of the market. That means they lost market share.

Whether they made less money is a different issue. Also the market share by dollars will be slightly different, but they still lost market share.

The growth of the market has nothing to do with market share. Market share is what PERCENTAGE of a market (whether units or revenue) a company has. As I had said, it is possible for Stern to have a smaller market share and be making more revenue, if the market is growing faster in revenue then they are losing share.

They have clearly lost share, for all practical purposes they had a 100% share of the market, and now they have less the 100%, as WOZ machines have been sold. Their loss of market share can not be debated, it is fact. They will continue to lose share as MMR, Predator, P^3 and others actually get sold, unless Stern increases production enough to compensate, but they will never be at 100% again, at least not for the foreseeable future.

I think the shear size of it makes it jarring when you look at it. If it was smaller boards, as we have seen traditionally, I don't think it would appear so shocking, regardless of it being SMD LEDs vs sockets. It would also make folks more comfortable about any issues with replacing it.

I think in general most folks would prefer sockets, since it is what they are used to, and for those who love to mod the lamps in their games, it would be harder to do so, but you can certainly change out SMD LEDs. Would not surprise me if some form of a cover that can be placed over the SMD to get your preferred color. I can also see 'replacement kits' to change the boards to smaller socketed once, but how successful that would be would be based on the power driving the lamps, may be enough for socketed LEDs, but not incandescents.

As long as it has the original look, then I'll be fine with it.

At first glance, did not seem to be it would be that hard to remove the board, and hopefully would never need do.

Maybe it just semantics, but not sure I would say 'non issue', it is an issue, and I am sure it is on the 'issue list' they are working through. Having said that, I think all of these 'issues' are items that can certainly be resolved with a reasonable effort, and are not things to get worked up over, at least not at this point in time.

As others have said, other issues will pop up, but suspect 99% of them can be resolved with software tweaks. I can say from experience that it took several iterations for me to get the 'pulsing patterns' right on coils in my game to get it to do things 'just right' (and not blow fuses and burn coils), something similar to getting the castle to behave correctly.

Does not appear that any of the 'issues' that have been identified from the short video would be the types of thing that will be major roadblocks to manufacturing getting started early next year, since they all seem to be software related.

I think we are in violent agreement.

so can he also show the back, so I can get the cvv and use that to pay for my MMr ?

I am no expert on LEDs and of course that technology is evolving rapidly (especially with the phase out of traditional incandescent bulbs). In most cases people want brighter light, whether for the car headlights, Stern machines or room lighting, and accordingly that is what we see (although I'm sure the home market will be demanding warm light, just like we saw with CFLs).

So, I have no clue what it takes to make them look like a traditional bulb. I'm sure Rick and the team are working hard on this since it is clearly a major concern for many, probably the biggest concern that has come up in this thread.

As the late great Lou Reed wrote, 'the first thing you learn is you always have to wait'. I'm patiently waiting for Rick and team to get it right. I'll worry about this when the time comes.

I think a 'production candidate' is a machine that is fully representative or 99.85% representative of what the production machines would be. A prototype is an early example, that is used to test capability, functionality, processes or aspects of the project. A first whitewood is a prototype. A fifth iteration with art, can still be a prototype.

You should always view a prototype as a work in progress. A "Beta" product or "production candidate" is something that is believed to be ready or very close to being ready for full production (In theory it should have been built close to the expected production processes).

You east coast guys must have lower standards

Plus at that level poor Rick would likely be assaulted with "the entrance to the ramp is off by .01 millimeters".

Given they are built by hand, and get different play on them, I'd say that pinball machines are like snow flakes, no two are exactly alike, at least not after a dozen or so games are played on them.

Not happy about this, since before it was a no brainer for me to go stainless over gold, but now I have to think about it. Damn you Rick for listening to your customers!!

I think this is what you are looking for . . .

old_pinball_smell.jpg

I guess some might prefer this, not sure why, but I guess you can get any fragrance you want . . .

pinball-machine-smell.jpg

Well, this went from being a potentially difficult decision to an easy one. Original silver

I tend to think that Rick wants some quantity of games to be in owners hands by expo, especially if he has any plans to announce a next title.

As others have said, you need every single part to be at Stern before production can begin (especially given the speed at which they can build the games). I would also believe they have to be all there before Stern would even schedule it.