4 years? MBr was introduced 2.25 years ago.

I'm sorry, BBB the holy grail of pinball? Far from it. It LOOKS fantastic, for sure, but the game itself is maybe a little above average. (We could say the same thing about, say, Cirqus Voltaire.) I was at Pinball Expo 1996 when Capcom introduced the game there... it evoked interest but didn't blow up the show. BBB's mythos is all about its rarity and the infinite stream of fascinating stories around its creation, failure, re-creation, almost re-failure.

That said, I suspect that if BBB was re-re-created, quite a few units could get sold.

I guess I don't understand what point you're making, @Warzard. I would say that much of the mythos of Alien, Predator, and Magic Girl are also due to their rarity and legendary stories behind them, same as I said about BBB. I'm guessing a solid majority of people here have never played any of those 4 games, let alone all 4 of them (I can only claim 3 myself). Most folks' judgments of these games are based on looks and those background stories. At least Alien and Predator get an extra boost by having themes that are widely known and liked. With Alien now in production again, hopefully more people will get a chance to play it and form their own personal opinion about it. Speaking of which, I'm sorry to hear that you didn't like Alien, although I'm not sure what software flaws you're referring to.

BTW, I like Cirqus Voltaire and own one. I mentioned it in this context because to my eye, it has a lot of similarities to BBB: very striking visual appearance; interesting mechanical toys; average gameplay; unlicensed theme that no one was asking for before the game was created. The huge difference is that there are 15x more CV in existence than BBB. I believe that if 2,700 BBB had been produced in 1996, BBB would hold about the same level of esteem in the community today as CV... which is to say, not a "grail", but simply a decent game.

IMHO, I find it difficult to proclaim ANY pin as "THE holy grail of pinball". There are so many factors that make people covet (or not) a game -- theme, artwork, audio, layout, rules, lighting... and yes, rarity -- that getting a true consensus is tough.