Why would you give it a thumbs-down? That's asshat behavior. If you don't like it, don't buy it, but why would you want to try and prevent the intended market from finding out about it?

Why?

Yep. They'll probably just turn off ratings though. 11 up to 3 down.

Hey, it's got a TOTAN like spinner! Haven't seen that technology in 10+ years. Friggin sweet!

People will still find it, despite the rating. That's like saying censoring unfavorable comments is good. That would be like Robin deleting this entire thread because Gary gave him $100. It's not trolling, it's legitimate feedback, which is otherwise being censored by whatever poor soul is wasting his life away moderating comments.

I will say after watching that video Its not as bad as I thought. The only problem I really have with it is the price. It does look like it has the feel of a regular machine.

I think most of us fully understand who Stern is targeting with this machine. As I stated before, the problem is not the game itself, but the price. I'd even argue that they could price the TFLE's at $3,000, and they still wouldn't sell that many more of them to non-pinheads. Other than operators and hobbyists, there simply aren't that many people willing shell out $3,000 for a pinball machine. That's a ton of money, particularly given the current economic climate.

I agree with you on the point that it is foolish for the moderator of that channel to delete negative comments (just as foolish as when they do it on the Stern Facebook page).

Cant you get a used Transformers LE for 3K

LMAO!

That $3000 price gotta be a bad joke. This is a $599 machine.

Reminiscent of 'Subliminal Man' from SNL:

"It's a real pinball machine (buy it) and it's fun for the whole family (Stern rules). Gomez did a great job (buy it).

thnks for the vid. i wanted to see that

the happy family all together playing pin… LMAO

I just realized.....with Stern calling it "The Pin", it's probably destined for the Hammacher Schlammer catalog. Everything in there starts with the word "The", as if it's the only one.

That would explain the price, too.

With them saying its real pin and great all the time makes me distrust everything they say.

Would love to see a trial play test sith regular non pinball people with this vs a real TF pro.

It makes me think the setup is the biggest obstacle to a real pin, meaning its heavy and hard to set up. This is something more easy to install and play but otherwise does not look like it would be as good as a real pinball machine.

I agree Miguel, the only place I'm gonna see this thing is 30,000 feet in the air in SkyMall

$3,000? That is insane.

New technology! Strobing LEDs, ZIF connectors, and phone line ports! High resolution alphanumeric displays!

The sad reality is the son secretly hating daddy becasue he didn't get the "real" pinball machine he asked for...*sniff

As a novice OP, I really want to play one and open it up and see whats inside. As a player, I even want to play one.

The "home market" is not in my blood. I put games out in the wild and I play my games out in the wild.

I'd buy one if it was on sale for $499!

Imagine what would happen if you put that thing out on location...

Like several have pointed out, this machine is not marketed toward us. Maybe this is Gomez's answer to the lack of code update for Transformers. Who knows...

Regardless, I think it will sell fairly well with the Transformers license. Maybe not like gangbusters, but for bratty kids that get MTV pimped-out sweet 16 birthday parties.

Well, gomez confirmed it. He wasted months of time working on this thing, time that could have been spent elsewhere. I WILL give this project one bit of thumbs up, anyone else think that the integrated pcb's under the playfield is a step in the right direction (a nod to jersey jack)? If only they could impliment this on the commercial pins and eliminate the "more wire than a ford taurus" mentality. Copper wire weighs and costs a LOT (both in materials, and paying some factory worker to create wire assemblies on a nail board). This doesn't completely eliminate it, but it sure looks like it reduces it a lot. Maybe it's hard to compare since this is a home model?
modular_playfield.jpg

Popadiuk should be wringing his hands at this, his zizzle retailed for $249 just 5 years ago:
http://www.pinballnews.com/news/zizzle3.html

Where does stern justify $2750 in extra cost?

Sidenote: Wonder if Stern could give me the phone number of that family, mine gets nowhere near that excited to play pinball

They had to say "real pinball" too many times to make me believe it was real

Hopefully they don't jack up the prices on their real pins (or cheap out on) to make up for the loses their going to take on this. Price point needs to be 1k or lower for this thing to sell.

I would have sold tons of these when I was still managing a high end AV store. I also hope ideas like no coin doors carry over as a cost cutting option. I would love an LE a few hundred cheaper for not spending money on the features I don't care about.

i gotta give stern and gomez credit for not breaking out laughing doing this. those guys have balls trying to flog this pos with a strait face

I'll just take the phone number for that "mom", thank you.....

The problem with this I see is this- this is time and focus taken away from making our pins better, whether it be code, R&D, etc., this certainly took a lot of resources to get off the ground and make.

And I wonder if Lonnie and Waison worked on the code on this since they did the TF pro/LE code? Probably the reason all of us with $6500 X-men LE's are wondering why the code hasn't been updated in such a long time.

Plus, when they lose money on this one, either by the ridiculous price point that flattens sales combined with the likelyhood that they'll have to send out repair technicians on the ones they do sell (talking from experience here), Stern will make up for it buy charging us more.

the most interesting thing to me is the driverboard at 2:10, sd card slot, 2 usb, and looks like 2 rj11/rs485? sockets...

Gary needs a gold chain to go with that open shirt. sexy bastard

ROFL!!

.

TF_stern_home_makeover_ed.jpg

This is hilarious. Stern has BLOCKED my YouTube account, LOL! Just for posting my opinion!

What did you think would happen?

Well I guess we I'll find out. Will be easy to see what happens.

I think it's silly for all the bashing being done here. This thing isn't made for us. An average family isn't going to do well with a 20 year old used pin with no tech support. The game looks kind of fun to me.

Are you getting one?

Once again, Gary taking the profit we gave him and making a foolish investment that will hurt Stern in the long run. What a joke. Classic case of a company that does not know their consumer base and does not have a clue in how to grow their consumer base.

Why would I be? One of the first statements I made was

Nice commercial. This forum can sometimes be like the Real Housewives of Pinball Collecting when it comes to gossip and negativity. So I don't expect much praise here.

It seems like a well done effort for the target demographic. I'm not interested, but might have been a few years ago before my first game. If Namco or Atari made a MAME, it would be like this.

At what price would you think this thing would sell? If they have to sell this at $3000 to turn a decent profit, something is wrong there.

I didn't think so, but you said that. It does look fun...just not $3k worth of fun.

When, exactly, do you think Gary will make a profit on this machine? I see a fair amount of engineering into a "toy" that will not sell. I understand that this machine is not marketed towards collectors, but to build a new base of customers is going to be a struggle at 3k a pop IMHO.

As a business owner, I have been in this place before.....and it is not fun. You know you made a mistake almost the moment you signed the paperwork. Things just go down hill from here. Trust me, there are some serious conversations happening at Stern right now.

Greedy!

I like the video. I guess Tim Cook must not have been in the office the day of filming.

It will be worth 10K by Christmas!

(10,000 Kaputniks)

Now that I think of it.. Gomez/Gary reminds me a lot of Dommie/Kubla

OMG, that's funny...

rankin/bass reference! nice!! thumbs up for you.

time to go watch the tf vid