Why rush to throw money at the game? To lock in the price and potentially get a much better value.

If you don't mind tying up the money, there isn't much of a downside since you can get a refund if you don't think the final game is worth it.

Worked great for WOZLE at $6500.

HobbitLE isn't as enticing at $7500 but we'll just have to wait and see what the final game and pricing looks like.

Personally, I like the characters around the cabinet and the way the cabinet tells the story as you work your way around it.

It's been a long time since I read the book but to me, Bilbo, Golem, Gandalf and the rest of Middle Earth were more captivating than Smaug.

It's too hard to tell from the photos but I'm hoping it looks like hand drawn photo-realistic artwork instead of photo clip-art.

By enticing, I meant pre-order versus waiting until the game was out, not in relation to the competition.

With WOZ you knew you were getting a $1000 price break. With Hobbit, it's only a $500 price break.

I think it depends on the price of the standard.

If the standard turns out to be $7500, I would still prefer the LE for $8k even if the only difference was the invisiglass, shaker and powder coated armor.

I know that's important to many people. Doesn't really matter to me, I'm more interested in the value of the additional features versus the standard.

Still, using WOZ as an example, it's not easy to add trim to the standard that exactly matches the LE.

This is very unexpected. The Hobbit has no lower flippers! I wonder if it's magnetic like the Powerfield in TZ.

Since JJP doesn't have everything nailed down at the time they collect pre-orders, I expect that the initial list of features and artwork may change as the machines get closer to production.

I seem to recall them saying something to this effect but don't know where to find the exact quote now.

I think the way they get around this is by offering a refund if you're not satisfied with the finished product.

Sometimes not sticking to an initial list of features can be a good thing. In the case of WOZ, the machine turned out to be so much more than what was initially stated. In my eyes, the RGB leds, crystal ball, direct print cabinet, headphone jack and wide body more than made up for the dropped "interactive topper" feature.