We are talking competition and Stern market share, I’m just telling people what I saw at Expo... and MBr was getting lots of love, and the lines at the Stern booth to play DP were not stacked 4 and 5 deep like all three MBr machines at CGC’s booth. Oktoberfest was getting more booth action for API than DP was getting for Stern...
Not a Stern hater, not a total CGC fanboy, but there is the fact that CCC can and did at one time make all the cabinets for everything, plus playfields and backboxes... that is a lot of capability. You point that capability at making complete pinball machines, and the latest MBr says two things, we can put out just as flashy a title as you can, and we can ramp it up quickly, which is what the agressive schedule for MB production is all about.
How many people just getting into the hobby know the history behind CGC and Churchill Cabinet Company and all the cabinets they made over the years? That is a testament to their ability to adapt and grow and change rapidly.
Stern has manufacturing capability too, but they have development costs that are higher than CGC right now, so the direct comparison is not fair to Stern. We don’t know how CGC will fair doing original IP and are not just remanufacturing and updating old designs. But nobody seems to think CGC is serious competition, and I think IMO they are the most dangerous lurking competition to Stern, not API, or JJP, or Spooky, or Deeproot, or Mafia, or TPC, or Homepin or Multimorphic.
They have deep industry ties, they know everyone in the supplier chain, they have preexisting arrangements with suppliers of a lot of coin op equiptment, and they know the industry inside and out. That is a lot of a head start.