I was hoping before the reveal that the side rails would have copied STLE (Enterprise and Phaser fire) but instead with an X wing and "red" laser fire on one side and a Tie Fighter with "green" laser fire on the other. And to really top the package of Lightsabers laser cut and led light (one blue "obi wan" one red "vader") into the lock down bar with them meeting/clashing where the lock down button is. The fact the lockdown button didn't have a laser cut plate around it like all previous releases kind of made me hopeful it wasn't finished and something like that could have been added.

Lets be honest we are all on this site because we share an interest/love of all things pinball, to say anyone on this site wants to destroy this hobby is foolish. Also pinball manufacturers providing NIB sales are not the foundation of this hobby, we are, NIB sales are just a choice for us within the hobby to purchase, if all pinball companies closed their doors tomorrow, we would all still be here trading or buying and selling games between us keeping the hobby alive.

I totally get where your coming from and what your trying to say, the part I disagree with is you cannot blindly defend any manufacturer if their practices are becoming questionable and having a negative in pact on pinball sales, it is insane and will only increase your lack of supply and pricing woes.

Look at it this way, if Stern continue to rise prices and reduce features leaving buyers on the fence or backing out all together (look at SW as a recent example of this) how many NIB games do you think your fellow pinheads will buy? Compared to say if Stern pack their games with features and get a grip of their quality control offering every pinhead better value for money and a product that is hard to resist? The later reaps better rewards for Stern with more sales, which would in turn bring more games to you in Australia.

That's the thing after the lean years, Stern was selling machines packed with features, hey they can still do that to this day GB is packed, TWD is pretty packed especially the premiums, SW was an error in judgement I think on Sterns part thinking the licence would sell any old layout and features list, I don't think it worked out as planned. My point being is everyone here wants Stern to get back to those feature packed days and grab a hold of those quality issues so more Sterns can be brought with confidence.

A couple of years ago Stern where producing LEs with mirrored backglasses or 3D translites, shakers, additional and substantial playfield features, extra blind led side rails, stainless steel speaker panels, in rare cases additional code. Again going back to my point above, we all want to see this level of feature rich service to (us) their customers, better value for money make its harder for us to resist which ultimately lets Stern flourish more which in turn creates more supply for you in Australia and us here in the UK, we have to stick together on these little islands of ours