POTC? meh. But i would consider it because it could be MUCH better on the X factor and immersion scale than DI.

Toy Story? meh. I agree with SKB. Still MUCH better on the X factor and immersion scale possibly than DI.

Cars? Better than the two above for me.

You make me laugh. Thank you.

Quality of theme is completely a subjective opinion, and varies by each person. I personally would love a potc, toy story, Muppets, and star wars pin. That's my opinion. Nothing more. DI, while not a world wide franchise, actually is a pretty cool theme. It's different than anything else in the last 20 years. Embrace change. Don't have to buy it, but be open minded. Obviously it's selling well and has killer reviews, so again, theme is subjective opinions. I'm a huge theme guy, and star wars is my #1, but if the game lacks originality, and is simply relying on videos and sounds, then I'm out. I can get that experience for $30 on a Blu Ray. For $5000-9000, I need to be amazed. $9000!!!!! DI isn't for everybody, but it's a fantastic change.

You are of course correct, for some people that is true.

For others, theme is not as important as the interactive toys, a packed world under glass and how well a theme is implemented.

For some, BOM vs price is a factor, others couldn't care less.

Nobody is wrong and nobody needs to be chastised for where they place their value.

Each manufacturer only needs to put out a machine that appeals to enough people to stay in business and hopefully be profitable.

Theme does matter. I love Star Wars.

However, when it comes to pinball and the amount of money spent on a machine, the gameplay matters more.

And in both respects, Star Wars is a winner. If you like slow paced games that are easy to play and need a Toys R Us in your game, sure, maybe Star Wars isn't right for you. There's no harm in that, not all games are for everyone, of course, theme be damned.

-BUT-

If difficulty, speed, flow, beauty (whether light shows, DMD, or playfield(pictures really do NOT do the game justice)) are your thing, Star Wars probably *IS* a game you'll enjoy..a lot. Besides, there's plenty of room for adding more mods and toys.

That being said, I think Dialed In looks like a really fun game too, and I'd love to own one of those also. No reason to stick to one camp.

DI clearly has lots of good reviews based on this thread alone. Any rumors on sale numbers? Would be interesting to hear how it's stacking up against Hobbit (I'd assume Hobbit > due to popular licensed theme, but who knows?)

I will quit talking about pinball forever if people start talking about "X FACTOR" regularly and really try to make it a thing. That's possibly the worst metric for measuring a pinball machine anybody could ever come up with. When you don't have anything, make something nebulous up!

Pinball has become gentrified. The new blood collector that puts fun and challenge behind other stuff just confuses me. These are the people who will walk by a Skateball or White Water to play a dog like Batman '66 because of the theme. I guess if they're enjoying themselves, whatever. It's just exactly like those brat kids that think that video games started with Call of Duty 4.

After giving it more thought I'd be down with a Despicable Me pin. I wasn't much of a fan of the Minions movie but the first 2 movies were great! I wonder how expensive Steve Carell would be for callouts? Music would be great too. This would make for good general game music as well:

You will never sell it then. Ha!

Destroying the Ring is a great though. Done that and went beyond. That is beyond half way no?

DI.. Star Wars does not live up to what it could have been.

Your welcome #1 JJP club fan man

Back up 7 yrs ago. Whatever level of fandom you take JJP love to, ratchet it up to x 10, that's where I was with Woz. Go back and read some of those love fest threads

I guess that's really all you can do is smile since you know I'm right and make great unbiased arguments

Exactly, that's kind of what rose colored glass JJP ers do when they try and tear down Stern to justify what they think is value in their minds.

It's all about the BOM value for some, that's fine to each his own. Stern sells thousands and thousands of pins doing something right.

And when i look at my ASLE or my GBLE that sits right next to my Woz, which doesn't get played much, the LAST thing i think about is how "stripped down" that Stern pin is. In fact, its "stripped up".

My ASLE pf CC is as good or better than any pin, and last time i checked that is where the balls roll around.

Also, the build quality is excellent and FINE for Huo pinball

The Stern business model is to provide OPTIONS for everybody. The JJP model isn't. You get the higher BOM and Bentley finish, problem is, it ain't no car, and nobody cares wtf is sitting in your garage except you.

Now maybe if I could put my Woz on wheels and drive it around town then i might understand the Bentley effect, for now it just sits in between my ASLE and GBLE and BOM means NOTHING to me.

haha these two games are not in the same ball park... heck they are not even the in the same sport lol.. DI all day long

Funny people talk about value a being somehow related to the weight of the machine. Three years from now when Star Wars LE are selling for more than they did NIB and DILE are selling for a loss, what is the value really based on?

Also all this talk about quality? WOZ was the worst NIB unboxing experience I've ever had and the least reliable new game I've ever had. Just replaced the SSD last week in fact. Still trying to fix/adjust the lock bar receiver that some gorilla bent at the factory.

I work with server and desktop hardware.

You cannot blame JJP for a faulty SSD. They are made in another country, and often fail regardless of what machine they are installed in.

Come on.

Same is true for SD cards. They often fail. Stern cannot be blamed for premature SD card failures.

Right?

At least the CPU portion of JJP games are not some proprietary hardware. Surely you see the value in that...

Literal LOL when I read this.

If a pin is fun to me, I can get past the theme. Example: I'm not Zombie fan and TWD disgusts me really. But the gameplay is SO good and the updated sound package makes it my clear favorite pin in a long long time. With WOZ I can't get past the theme/music. I've played it many times but it's still a big, complicated machine based on a musical. It's well done, but it's not my cup of tea.

With SW, it's a dream theme, but there's just not value there to justify the cost for me.

DI is packed with things to do, but that theme. That guy holding the cell phone. Oh man. And I think the music and sounds aren't as good as Road Show.

So anyway, in short, I have no idea why I'm posting this.

My takeaway: screw SW and DI, you're buying a Road Show and spending the remaining $2-$5k on Judy Garland memorabilia.

That's because the music and sounds on RS are great and hilarious!

X Factor Fun immersion is a thing, its a huge thing.

Some of the best X factor i ever experienced were the baseball tournaments we use to have back in college on the Baseball Intellivision game.

Pure awesomeness fun with a pong like interface.

BOM junkies, there you go. It ain't black or white.

I blame them for a shitty design that has a whole PC in a metal box in the base of the machine. I'd rather replace a $5 SD card any day.
And I'd much, much rather have dedicated hardware that I control everything. Every time Ubuntu or the COTS mobo is changed how much unknown stuff is affected in a JJP machine?

What about gameplay? before I think A GAME is more beautiful than other one or the price refers to all the hardware I prefer to know if the gameplay is better or not.

I have to agree that it's unfortunate they called it Dialed In and wished they'd have gone with a more "disaster" themed name. So, I'm just going to call it That's Armageddon and smile thinking of a scene from the Kentucky Fried Movie:

You're a Legend in your own mind.

I bought DI and feel it's a much better product for the price than SW but I'm not sure if that automatically makes me a "JJP defender"? This was my first JJP purchase. I absolutely loved the mechanics and build of Woz but the theme was just too outdated and blah for me so I did not buy it. I have absolutely not interest in The Hobbit movies but the theme is not a deal breaker like Woz was. However, I think The Hobbit game itself is super-boring and incredibly easy, so I did not buy it.

As I said in my prior post, it's the combination of many things that makes a pin great. Is Dialed in Youssi's best art? No. But it's not Stern photoshopped images either. Is Star Wars a more exciting theme than the phone/chaos city theme? Perhaps, but I feel Stern got an outstanding license and totally blew it. If SW was made to be a truly killer game, if they stuffed it with cool toys and they really put a lot of effort into it, and charged a premium over their normal prices - and it would have sold like crazy, obviously....DI is selling like mad and its $8k-$9k. The bottom line is if you feel you like the SW theme enough and great shots/cool toys are not a high priority, get it. If the theme is not super important and you like a fun, challenging pinball game, DI is a great choice.

Your Pulp Fiction reference sure as hell didn't go unnoticed .

First off I am buying a SW so don't call me a JJP defender. JJP hardware is pretty straightforward and you can repair it yourself or get replacements. I will give you that JJP is reliant on underlying software but that doesn't worry me, they don't have to upgrade it they can stay on an old version.

SPIKE still scares the hell out of me, particularly longer term. All of those expensive node boards cannot easily be repaired and if they are not available down the road you have an expensive brick.

I far prefer JJPs approach to hardware/software.

Hm. Let's compare apples with apples here.

The whole PC in that metal case does all CPU, graphic and sound processing.

A SD card is only for storage.

How much is the CPU board in modern Stern? I think I read about $500?

How much is the computer in the metal box (which again, includes a motherboard, a CPU with heatsink, a SSD and RAM (memory))?

$200, on sale on JJP.com.

OK, I will grant you this, a little. If the motherboard's chipset and x64 infrastructure stays generic (for Ubuntu drivers and such), swapping a motherboard should not cause an issue. BUT, you're right. If Ubuntu's missing a device driver that is needed and not found on the new motherboard, then yes, there's a negative impact here. You're right. But Linux's known to "run on practically anything"...

Again though, pros and cons, and $500 proprietary versus $200 generic. I don't call that a "shitty" design, but a smart choice.

I want both but I need to sell my TZ to get DI and my DESW to get SW. However, I won't make the decision yet until I played DI and SW. I hope I can play these two pinball machines in NZ. Anyway, based on the videos I saw in YouTube I will buy DI.

Lol. You really think Stern pays that much? By the time you pay for all the extra mile of cabling, the box, SSD, labor, etc the JJP setup is much more expensive and amounts too a square peg in a round hole.

Dedicated hardware is the way to go. That is why back in 2011 JJP said they absolutely were not going with a PC solution. That tune changed when it turned out that wasn't so easy. Not to mention their designers couldn't design LED boards properly let alone a complex embedded controller. It is my observation they ended ended up with this bloated, expensive system system as a fall back as the schedule was quickly slipping.

We can agree too disagree in this, but I will take Spike every day and twice on Saturday.

I've been playing SW for 3 hours now and for me its way better than DI, I said for me, while DI taps into that old school Lawlor style feel which is good SW is sheer pinball bliss, If ur into speed and heavy adrenaline style action it makes DI seem boring, sorry thats my view.

Playing SW and DI at Pintastic taught me one valuable lesson: packing a playfield with toys doesn't necessarily make a game more fun.

Nothing to be sorry about. That's a fair opinion.

I can agree with this. It doesn't always. However, the bare playfield in a theme with sooooo much potential has been the #1 complaint here. I agree with you though, it's not always better.

Unless it's Dialed In.

No. Wait. What? I never mentioned what I think Stern pays for their boards. Of course it's cheaper wholesale. I thought I had read that Stern charges the consumers $500 for their proprietary CPU boards (the main board, correct?). That's all I said.

Well, maybe in 10-15 years we won't mind that there's more cabling in WOZ when compared to node boards that you can't find or repair anymore? There's a whole forum thread about the sustainability of Stern's new node boards, so I won't summarize it here.

Of course we can. I mean, you're wrong, but sure.

Seriously, I enjoyed my time on SW when I played it. I also enjoyed my time on AS (Pro and LE). I also like playing GB. I'm not a Stern hater. Just saying, it's fair to mention hardware in this thread because for me and others, hardware is a factor when purchasing.

Having said that, I really wanted to say "Wow!" when I saw SW Pro. SW is my dream theme. I had fun playing, but I didn't say "Wow". Is that bad?

The CPU for spike 2 (video) is close to us$ 1k. Of course it costs stern much less but that is what we would have to pay.

No argument about the lack of BOM on the playfield. But the fun factor is really off the charts. And I didn't even get a multiball, and didn't really like it the first time I played it.

You haven't played both and you're defending your purchase. I get it. I have played both, and while DI is a great game, the theme is SO annoying to me that I could never own one. Just too much like toys you would find in the closeout aisle in Wal-Mart.

In conclusion: DI, great game with stupid looking toys and crap theme. SW, better game with no toys and a great theme.

Still think it would work. Lots of exciting action scenes to work with, lots of memorable characters (good and bad guys), lots of quotes to work with, good humor, tons of toy possibilities, fantastic brand recognition, and yes good music! Even without using the movie scores, just put David Thiel to work on creating originals and music isn't an issue.

Wait till you stack 2 mode multiballs with tie fighter multiball...pure adrenaline fun

I like both of these games but I'll give the current edge to Dialed In. It delivers something we haven't seen in decades, a GREAT Pat Lawlor game. Star Wars is another great Steve Ritchie game but we get one of those every few years.

I've played a lot more Dialed In than Star Wars though, and the SW software isn't done yet so who knows how it will shake out.

Comparisons are inevitable but not really appropriate, since these games really couldn't be more different. It seems like TONS of locations are gonna have both games, so shouldn't be too hard to play and choose. But Star Wars is Star Wars and Dialed In isn't, so I expect the decision is already made for a lot of prospective buyers who only have the budget for one.

Nope. To each their own. The great thing about this hobby is choices. People should play and/or buy the games they like and eff what anyone else including me thinks.

Yeah but this is Pinside so you have to choose a side

Usually before you get a chance to play either. Dig those heels in and shout.

That simple, game over

DI isn't even in the same league, ballpark or galaxy!

Again buy what you enjoy playing and don't worry about what other's think. If you want unique toys and layouts go with jjp and if you like a typical fan layout and speed go with any stern pin made in the last 6-7 years. No wrong awnser to this ......all pins are not for everyone.

From a theme standpoint yes. That is why I bought one, I know people will play it. Video screens do draw people in too. How long they will play it remains to be seen. If my regulars don't like it I will see the impact in coin drop in a month or so. If it drops off quickly I will sell it quickly. If it earns like WOZ did I will very happy.

DI will not do as well theme wise but I know it would do well with my regulars. I suspect the selfie thing will go down really well at my location too. The only reason I am not buying a DI is it costs so much more for me primarily due to the import costs. I may still get one though at some stage when they are more available. I really wish JJP did a bit more with the app on this too. I emailed them some ideas.

What's irritating about the whole conversation is you can't make a critique against stern without incurring the wrath of their white knights. They instantly label you as a "jjp defender", which is the most ridiculous part of it all. Stern has had legit issues. Jjp has had legit issues. Honestly, the whole thing is a complete joke.

The reality is I am interested in both. Already have DI, and once I can play SW, I'll probably get one. Theme is important, but so is code support, QC, gameplay and perceived value....the name of the manufacturer means nothing to me.

The truth is people defend what they like, I get it. If either company put out "Bill Cosby's "she can't say no if she's unconscious" Pinball Adventure", people would probably still defend their fave manufacturer.....maybe that was a little too far, but Im sure most see the point.

OK look, I've put enough time in, and I'm gonna make a call:

Right now, Dialed In. It's a great layout with an excellent, intuitive, balanced ruleset that really calls to mind the best of the 1990s.

On Star Wars THe playfield is a blast the usual fast flowy Ritchie fun.

But this mega X multiplier shot stuff (on every shot! The entire game!) and the bonus payouts are out of control on Star Wars right now. The software needs some tweaking. I don't expect them to fix it on Batman, cause who cares, it's Batman and hardly anybody is gonna play it anyway. But Star Wars needs more balanced, normal scoring.

CrazyLevi

"OK look, I've put enough time in, and I'm gonna make a call:
Right now, Dialed In. It's a great layout with an excellent, intuitive, balanced ruleset that really calls to mind the best of the 1990s."

Is it possible the hyperspace ramp, exploding Death Star on the Premium/LE, and software updates would tilt the scale toward SW?