just for fun ..how about lets change tune and see how being a little more supportive instead of propagating 2yo banging works out?

yes yes .. again you demand that everything other than your opinion is bullshit.. we got that message thanks.. its noted.

You seem to be doing just that.

Just for fun, lets see a pre order game actually be delivered on time.
Now that would be something worth supporting!

if you had not cancelled i would barrack for that to support the money you had on the table. but in general i think the entire preorder model needs to die a fast death.

That is an entirely different discussion. Can't say I would disagree either.

Mike is a top bloke, not many people know that he donated the Hankin Arcade machine that the Newcastle Pinball Association raffled last year to raise money for the local Starlight room at Newcastle Hospital.

Agree, I have seen first hand some of his acts of generosity and donations, some much larger than the one quoted.

Mike also designed some custom boards for me, sourced the parts and even assembled one - the cost would not have covered the parts. As discussed above, PR skills have room for improvement, but i am pretty sure his vision for his company is based around a quality product designed well, and designed to be largely repairable by the hobbyist in years to come. I agree wholeheartedly with wiredougs comments regarding not trying to fit Mike ino a PR/sales rep stereotype - that is not his role. He will get on with building his factory to build multiple machines, and let the product speak for itself.

This has turned into a love or hate Mike thread.
All those pre order guys( how many? )must have had some correspondence by now. Surely they can post what they received on an approx. date or any progress made?
I keep looking at this thread and its not funny anymore, just very, very sad for the pinball community.
Maybe Mike should stop this unnecessary garbage and just add something of interest in regards to the pinball.
Regardless of pass history on Pinside ( or other forums ) it would be appreciated with a positive/ informative response from him.

Mike has provided update to all pre order customers. I will not post it here.

In short most constraints and roadblocks from last year now overcome. Parts in different stages of manufacturing, some sub-assemblies already bagged on shelf waiting for all parts to be ready. He is not in a position nor will commit to a date. It will be ready when it's ready. He did state it will come together quickly when parts complete, so let's hope it's not to far away.
FYI - this update was extremely difficult for Mike to complete and took many attempts to write it, due to the passing of Karen (married 38 years and his business partner) and the emotional connection this created. I admire him for the fact he is doing his best to keep their dream alive, it would have been easy to just walk away.......it's just pinball at the end of the day.

He also showed pic of Back box side art .... Looks cool with a twist!

Hopefully Hulk signs these LE's, too.

bird_lips_(resized).jpg

I appreciate you standing up for him, BUT why won't you post what you have? are you restricted by a privacy act? This would surely put the knockers at bay and help the people like me who are questioning not only this pinball release but also HOMEPIN. I am sick of seeing the verbal abuse on all his posts in various forums which, mind you he usually brings on himself. It has to stop and soon.
I understand/ empathise with his personal issues, but to me this is not an excuse when in business as you should have contingencies in place. People want to see HOMEPIN succeed but all this secrecy is utter bullshit. Does he or you really understand how detrimental this is for his business?

I have a few unrelated questions based on the posts above.

I had heard about the passing of his wife which must have been tough. I assume she was in China with him but was she in poor health?

Homepin makes the Hankin arcades, correct? Are these just multi-cades?

I am interested in seeing this pin come to life. I was never a big fan of Thunderbirds growing up but it was always intriguing to my young eyes. For those in on the preorder, was there a final MSRP?

I am pretty sure the pre-order price was $5432.10 (Get it 5-4-3-2-1 take off) with regular price $6k after that but not sure as delays etc.

Basically Mikes been pretty quiet lately, hope hes got good news soon.

If your interested all hes info is below, worth the effort reading some of the threads

http://www.aussiearcade.com.au/forumdisplay.php/87-Homepin

Because there is no information to share
There is no picture of a playfield, whitewood or finished
There is no picture of the back glass
If you look at the homepin Facebook page there are lots of pictures of the machine that make the parts

There is less secrecy with Homepin than with Stern, people know the title of the machine, and some general specs.

I would be pretty sure that the poster does not wish to share the information given to pre-order customers purely out of politeness, and most likely a request from Mike.

If someone had talked to Gary Stern about the next Stern title that no-one knew about, would it be their obligation to spread the work across all forums about a private conversation???? Probably not, and it would not be the respectful thing to do.

In terms of it damaging his business, i know for a fact that squeezing every last dollar out of the business is not Mike's motivation, rather, to realise a vision, build a factory and strengthen this great hobby. At the end if the day, its Mike's business, so he can run it how he sees fit

Mike seems like a pretty solid guy to me. I wish him the best.
Wally

Thanks for answering nothing. good grief

I want to see something happen after all the chest beating and finger pointing.

confused yet? I certainly am.

given you dont have any money on the table? are you entitled to see anything?

I want to see the next mustang that isnt released yet too.. ford are such dogs for not showing me hey? . hmm nope.. doesnt work that way.

Really...because he knows his business best. I'm not going to tell him how to run it.

But to be honest why would you bother posting it here it would just be a troll fest. Or is that utter bullshit.

Just accept you will have all the informalion you need when it's ready. So sit back and wait For now!

If looking for answers on a public forum/ discussion site is enough to be called a troll, then troll me up big boy. In fact I guess we all are TROLLS . I have tried on both Aussie forums and my posts usually get deleted by Mike as he is the moderator or the same people get offended on there as I ask simple questions and/or give what I call input on what is an exciting project for us Aussies.
I haven't even heard a response from the debacle with the Homepin you beaut pinballs either! WTF? have you or is this privy info also.
Stop defending and start asking yourself some questions too.
BTW I wouldn't put any money on any new company just to get some so called info, thats just stupid and a mute comment. But those that have would surely want some decent info by now and I hope you enjoy Thunderbirds WHEN it is ready.

My dummy spit is now over! FFS

If you need to know the info so bad, buy a Thunderbirds pinball machine.

Why would I buy on here say? I know virtually nothing, NOTHING about it! That's my point.

Is that the opposite of there say?

no its Information heard by one person about another. ie .. what half the pinball industry is based on.

now .. if you didnt preorder, you have to wait until its out.. when its out you will know all you need to.. in the meantime if you dont have money in the bucket and you still think you're entitled to be a whiny self entitled git and demand to know all the secrets of the mission you arent even on .. tough .. no soup for you.

Yep you win with insults, let's hope That money bucket you speak about doesn't get thrown away hey? A mission, pfft.

I also wouldn't call it being entitled mate, i would call it being inquisitive. Thanks again for the insult. Shows the caliber of person you must be. Oh well, I will live.

sorry i dont remember directing anything at you specifically? it the cap fits you're welcome to it but it was a general shoutout. typical it has to be all about you hey. theres a cool theme here.. all the people "being inquisitive" resort to personal attacks about my character ( which im happy to confirm is blunt and direct) .. when its pointed out they should keep their noses in their own yards.

BFD It's his vision, blood, sweat, and tears - not yours. Let him play it out without all the sniping and judgement. Give the guy a break. He just lost his wife.

What is your problem....no one called you a troll, but as you took it personally you must be felling it. You only have to read through this thread to see all the knockers, negative non value adding posts.

I have answered your question multiple times now,,,,what 'more' information are you looking for? Now your insulting me for what being prepared to provide information on a public forum. Just because I won't post the update from Mike which I would see as being un professional...I have summarised it! Then you attack me...big buddy!

Please don't tell me how I should spend my money....but the difference is I put my money up to support a new pinball company as I did with spooky. You should be thanking me for supporting the growth of the hobby. When I put my money down I knew the risks and accepted it.

Re defending Mike...no just trying to look at it objectively. I could easily be on here kicking him for being late, that would be easy....I've accepted his position and now like many waiting for the next update.

So are we FAB now...

He wanted to give the Chinese counterfeitters a head start on running him out of business if the vaporware ever materializes.

I read this in the Predator thread, I read this in the Magic Girl Thread. I still read it in TBL thread and I'm still reading it here. You true-believers need to escape your wishful thinking and move on with your life. If the guy is successful, we'll all have a chance to buy one, but if he failed, many of you who have already paid for the failure will need to accept reality sooner or later. Enjoy your denial, True-Believers!

It's too bad that he has personal as well as business problems to overcome, but that doesn't change the fact that he accepted money for something he's struggling to complete. Is your "investment" insured against his untimely demise? If I was going to do a preorder, I'd demand a completion bond with liquidated damages for late delivery... regardles of the reasons.

Since this is so unlikely, I will never pre-order. If a guy can't source the capital to be in business, the business is a non-starter.

Sniff....Sniff....the back and forth posts between backers and skeptics smells familiar.

Ah yes, its the odor of JPOOP.

This is total bullshit! Suffering the loss of his wife does not exempt him from previous commitments. If it did, he needed an insurance policy to repay the prefunders. The loss of a loved one warrants one month reprieve at the most. This project is much longer off the rails than that.

Ease off man.

Homepin was so bullish I'd normally enjoy watching him get roasted for missing his deadlines, but not this way. Losing someone like that is no joke.

You can not compare Homepin with these other failed ventures. Homepin are producing product now....yes it's not pinballs yet, but it's setting up the business for when TAG pinball is ready to assemble. If I was concerned I could get my money back tomorrow. So I am confident at this point the pin will be launched, but like a lot of things in life it's no sure thing.

It's like you can't wait to see this fail, stay positive for now it's not going to happen tomorrow. Btw why would anyone pre order if they couldn't afford to lose the money...it would still suck thou

Moving on with life now....going fishing see you in a couple of months, will help to get over the denial lol

It took Jersey Jack two and a half years for WoZ
It has taken another three years to produce Hobbit

I'll give Mike the same leeway when it come to building TAG

Thunder Are Go? Nah, it's TBAG.

Dunno why there are so many whiners ... particularly Australians, who you'd assume would be more informed with the updates that get posted on AA.

No playfield or art has been shared publicly, but to me it looks like they're taking an extremely thorough approach to building the machine and the platform that future games will sit on. Really belt and braces, no shortcuts .. and they literally are building or subcontracting (the building of newly designed parts of) everything except microchips. That takes serious time and commitment. I think it'll pay off for both them and future owners though. Particularly like that they're using roller bearings in the flipper mechs, rather than cheapo plastic bushings.

The side art on these is definitely going to be something else

Because some people are just plain grumpy
Nothing new is good
All themes are lame

They probably also stand in their front yard and yell at the neighbors kids for having fun

That's rubbish Pete.

Mike is a hypocrite, plain and simple. He bagged JJP for taking so long with WOZ and bagged us for preordering saying he would never take preorders and insisted his machine would be make on time.

I would have had no problem with either except Mike kept banging on and on and on how he would be different.

Guess he isn't any different

Build a bridge dude

Good comeback. Not.

Says you
:p

He seems less of a hypocrite than many on here ...

Sounds like Popaduik, designing hinges and vent covers, but skipping the actual game part.

Nah. They're designing, engineering and producing crucial components of the game and showing those, rather than rehashing and tweaking the cabinet art and cosmetic details 1000 times and showing that. They've also gone into full production on other (non-pinball) cabinets. Seems like a world of difference to me.

Can someone summarize the last 24 pages?