I own a MM and I am happy people will get a pinball machine they want. I have a couple of friends that purchased one that probably would not have had a chance before. I can only report how I feel, and I honestly feel good about the announcement. I obviously realize my machine is worth a little less than it was yesterday, but I don't plan on selling it anyways.

and....

I am equally empathetic to the people who recently bought a MM and are upside down. With supply and demand one group was going to win, and one group was going to lose. Why anybody would be happy over another persons misfortune is beyond me.

I don't know if you were being sarcastic, but I would venture that most people that can write a check for that amount have jobs. The perception that MM owners look like the character from Planter's Peanuts and have velvet ropes draped around their pins is inaccurate, but kind of funny. Every person in the hobby I know, regardless of how much money they make, earned the money to buy their pins.

I do agree with your assessment that it is a good thing that will bring even more people into the hobby.

If you really want to look at it from a different angle, 99% of the people I know would consider the people dropping 8k on something you can't drive to work in as too rich to relate to.

Everybody in this hobby is insane to the average person, and we need to stop acting like only a small percentage is.

Except that is the price, not counting tax, of a new MM. In California, it really is a 9k price. Games are still priced too far out for the average person to afford them. Instead of paying 12k for a used one, people now can purchase a new one for 9k.

This hasn't changed the demographics of ownership, it has just changed what affluent pinball collectors are going to buy this year; a NIB Stern, JJP, or MMR?

Best case scenario is that some of these end up on route to attract new people to the hobby, but even then, I don't see a true price adjustment bringing pinball to the masses.

I had a deposit on 5 years ago on another MM remake and then it was only 5k to get one.