I understand and agree with you too. It is meant to be a fun hobby and we all work hard to buy pinnies! Buy what you want and enjoy it. When there are issues, get them resolved. Some take more time than others. Price point is becoming an issue even for us.

On a lighter note there is some seriously funny shit on this forum

All this debating on which company is better or offers more value reminds me of the old school yard argument as kids. Sega Genesis vs super Nintendo. Stern would be Sega. It was always faster, pumped out a ton of games, more violence but was never the highest quality. Jjp is Nintendo. Fewer games, system was slower play, family oriented, but the games were definitely better in overall quality. I was a Genesis guy arguing how we were faster, and more adult oriented games, and just better. Eventually I learned that I prefer the snes quality better. I look at this analogy and realize that some people will stay forever faithful to one company no matter what. I personally love both jjp and stern. They each provide a product that meets needs of different types of people. Enjoy both, but don't talk trash about the other. It's a great time to be in this hobby, just like the early 90's was for a video game kid. Flip on.

Playfield features considered only, Stern Star Wars is equivalent to Stern Star Trek. That's what I expected. I have a feeling that the end result Death Star on the Premium/LE is going to be different than the original video in some manner. In the latest Stern factory footage I think dated 6.13/17, Jody films a Star Wars Pro that has light saber decals on the plastic ramps. So some changes are still happening from the original release pictures and video. IMHO.

Almost always the case. Sometimes artwork tweaks, other times major change (Star Trek warp vuk).

That analogy works well although you left out Nintendo even today like JJP seems geared towards women and children, I'll take Sega.

Lol. I said jjp was family oriented. Like I said, I love both. Nintendo has a strong formula using classic family friendly franchises like Zelda, Mario, donkey Kong, and most new versions of these are played mostly by adults in their 30-40's. I appreciate a good adult theme now and then to, but still enjoy the family friendly ones to. Keep in mind to, star wars was originally made as a children's fantasy story to.

That's really interesting. I'll have to look for that. I wonder what changes to the death star could possibly be.

Would be cool if the Premium/LE would add the magnet in front of the LCD target bank back like in the original sketches.

There was a magnet originally? Is there a copy of these sketches anywhere? That would be cool with a magnet.

Well said! The golden age of pinball is now. I am 52 and cannot remember so many manufacturers with so many choices. Enjoy it.

Lets see some Star Wars.

I dunno. There's a LOT of pins now, but I think the last Pinball Golden Age was in the 1990's with about triple the machine count. Lots of great original themes, low prices, excellent reliability. A Medieval Madness for $3000 ($4500 in today's dollars), Indiana Jones, Attack From Mars, Big Bang Bar, etc, etc, etc.

That said, I think we could be headed to another Golden Age if prices even out and JJP drives quality back into competitors a little when they get more consistent release numbers annually. Stern, JJP, Spooky, American Pinball, there are a lot of great things happening. And even the Dutch and Heighway flameouts moved the competition forward and were a learning experience.

Looks like a magnet on the original sketch on the left.
http://www.pinballnews.com/shows/nwpas2017/82a.jpg

Here is the entire page:
http://www.pinballnews.com/games/starwars/index4.html

A magnet in that area would have been great. Heck, it would have been awesome if both pops were dropped and a motorized target bank with a shot behind it (AFM style) was put there instead along with the magnet in front.

Having 3 standup targets in the games central area instead makes the playfield feel very empty.

I caught this reference and laughed out loud reading this thread. This and the skelator picture from He man cartoons. Too funny

Honk if you logged onto pinside and saw about 80 new posts in this thread and got excited...

Honk!

Honk honk!

My memory is intact so my first reaction was "oh god what's going on now"

Honk!

no wanna wanga.

That Bib Fortuna line is one of the most quotable in RotJ. I think it's De wanna wanga.

Genesis still kicks the shit out of the SNES.

I don't know why designers don't get rid of the pops altogether more like Shadow, No Fear, and Judge Dredd. Those are some relatively expensive mechs. Use the saved $ to put something cool in their place and get rid of the flow killing pop bumpers! Yeah, they're iconic Pinball staples, but Shadow, NF, and JD are just fine without them. I mean...I don't miss them in those games.

They should go in the opposite direction - nothing but pops.

Yeah all those companies that can pump out nice play fields every couple years. Same goes for Cabinets & Decals. Go back to shilling for games that never get created, its what you do best.

Dwight introduced the 'slot awards' from the pop bumpers which is a very cool feature. I assume SW will have something similar. SW only has 2 pops anyhow and uses a sling on the bottom, probably because of space constraints with the mini lcd position.

Rob

Based on the bonus screen, looks like Star Wars will have some ridiculous scoring and bonuses just like Ghostbusters.Yoda2 (resized).pngYoda (resized).png

I hope not.

Im hoping for more balanced scoring like GOT.

hey now... I am batting over 80% on boutique games I have supported/been a fan of. At least I actually support new pinball rather than schilling for cheap crap no matter what the quality/theme.

Honest question >> Do you just prefer the 3 games per year model regarless of quality/code completion over the 1 game per year model with refined quality that appears to get better each game?

I would say folks that buy every new Stern without question are part of what will tank this all at some point. A bit more of a descerning spend is needed by both those that support the risks of boutique pinball and those that buy blindly from everything Stern pumps out.

Very interesting. I've never seen these before. Thanks for posting.

This question has way too many particulars, one game a year with refined qualilty sounds fine but not when I don't care for the games, Lets say JJP starts one game a year, DI, Muppets, Toy story vs 3 games a year so 9 pins where I have more choice in the theme and layout etc. I'm glad to have both but if I had to choose one or the other then its 3 a year, lets assume that the 3 themes (obviously Di is a reality) I mentioned are the next 3 JJP games over the next 3 years, that would mean I'm not getting anything new to buy till maybe 2020 and even then its unlikely. Just saying.

Nope. Not a JJP fanboy AT ALL [HATE WoZ and Hobbit is Meh], but DI is stuffed with toys and features, shoots awesome with very polished deep code on release. Compared to Stern LEs [similar pricing now] there is WAY more money put into the GAME than Stern does.
So to me, I'd rather have 1 polished feature packed game a year than 3 thrown together, rehashed games a year. And by rehashed I mean Aerosmith, Kiss, Stern IJ... c'mon Borg. Do something original.

I prefer jjps model better, but would like to see them get to two games a year while not sacrificing the quality. Stern I wouldn't mind if they backed off a game every year in order to put more into the games they release. I can't afford a new game every year anyway, so the selection after a year or two would be better and higher quality. I'm probably more concerned with saturation of the market when they put out so many.

Stern is trying to maximize profits. You do that with decreasing the Direct Costs, increasing price or both. Doesn't matter if they make 1 game a year or 10, their goal wouldn't change. So if Star Wars was the only game to come out from stern this year it would look no different imo.

nooooooooo (resized).jpg

JJP or any company for that matter are all trying to maximize profits and it absolutely makes a difference whether or not you are making 1 or 10 pins in year.

I understand that. I disagree however that it wouldn't change the quality. If stern made one game a year, and didn't have the investment of design and production of two or three other games, then that is freed up money. Some of that can you into more features of the one game. Seriously, a few magnets, another bash toy or whatever in SW is a pretty minimal cost. They would be much better off trying to justify the cost increase, while still making the same profit per game. While not endorsing the already high costs, I would rather pay another $100-300 for a more feature packed game with shaker, toys, etc.

Of course they could put more money into the BOM if they made fewer titles. My point is they wouldn't. They would just let those savings hit the bottom line. That's what I would do.

They definitely could just keep it as is like you say. I think the customer base would prefer more features, but as long as we keep buying, why would they change. I agree. This is why I prefer jjps model. They set out to build higher quality machines, and they are. Regardless of what some people think about jjp, they are trying to offer more and have succeeded. I like my Stern's, but his original question basically comes down to personal preference of quality vs quantity. I prefer quality. Now, still anxiously awaiting to see SW play.

Yep. Options are good for everybody.

The more I look at all three versions of this game, the more I wish that I could get the premium playfield features in a Pro cabinet with Pro translite.

Yes giving a company money and actually receiving a product for the money you paid is what is going to tank this hobby, lets forget about all of this blindly give thousands of dollars to start up companies that fold shop within a couple of years, that doesn't hurt this hobby at all. Its all the people who actually get a game for the money they paid who are to blame.

if people did not give money to JJP, Spooky, Heighway... then none of those games or companies would have existed. Just sayin...

In other words, despite you actually being a reseller of Stern games and obvious benefit for pumping them up, yes... people continually buying sight unseen games that turn out to be often left for dead in code, with MAJOR flaws in quality for the most important parts of the game (playfield and cab) is in fact a large detriment to the hobby as a whole.

Just use the numbers. SkitB stole ~300k from the hobby. If Stern sells 1000 games with major issues then they suck out 5million in funds from the hobby market. They hypotetically can do that 3 plus times a year. Reality is that Stern is currently still the largest player in the market which means they can also have the largest negative impact.

Neither are a good thing and my point was that both are dangerous practices. I would like to see EVERYONE to be a bit more cautious with their funds, but can atleast get behind those that are supporting the new aspects of the hobby rather than just blindly dumping in the rehashs with known QC issues and dead code in many cases.

Me too, and at pro price.

Has anyone purchased some Nifty leds because of this thread?
Nifty i think are awesome bulbs and have great flashers.
I also think Nifty is the marketing genius here by starting this thread.
Stern, you learn anything yet?

Do you just make $hit up in an attempt to prove your point? There's not a single manufacturer out there who hasn't had production/QC issues. Fortunately, they all seem to offer replacement parts etc to make things right.
All buyers should be fully aware that when you buy a game, you get the code that's on it, and anything more will require patience. Coding takes far longer than we'd like, but I'm not seeing numerous Stern titles "left for dead" as you have stated.
Geez. You weren't quite so jaded before being rejected by the Stern army...?

1. Heighway still isn't a viable company at this point in time, they are under restructure and until they start putting games on peoples door steps in large quantities they are still as dangerous as ever. JJP was on the edge for a long time, they have pulled out and that is great to see.

2. Im not a reseller of stern games, I am an operator much like yourself. I pick my purchases carefully based on what companies are actually putting out product wise and to this date can say I have lost $0 dollars from buying a NIB Stern game, because all of my games have been delivered so when im done with them I actually have a game to resale and make my cash back.

3. SkitB wouldn't have been able to steal that much money from this hobby if it wasn't for people like yourself shilling for them and assuring everyone everything was all okay. Much like you have shilled for Heighway for months, telling people not to pull their money, when in fact you yourself had no pre-order or money on the line.

4. We have had more money sucked out of this hobby by all of the boutique pinball companies taking peoples money with no games delivered then all of the lower resale hits people have taken due to Stern not putting out a killer game or loss due to cabinet/playfield issues combined (ie: WWE). The fact is most of people have made good money on Sterns resale wise due to them being good games and value going up after production has stopped (ie: Tron and Spiderman (untilled they VE it).

5. Stern is not without their short comings. They have issues, and I along with many other members have posted in many threads about disappointment with the isues, but to say they are part of whats going to kill this hobby, when up until a few years ago were single handedly the only reason NIB machines were being released is absurd and goes along with your track record/creditability of your posting.

I guess I'm not understanding how this would hurt the hobby to the extent that it's anything measurable. Whether a machine has issues or not, the money is still going to a pinball company that has been around for years and is established. Even assuming Stern has some epic meltdown and sells 1000 lemons, there are plenty of other companies eager to sell their product to a customer that's not satisfied with their initial purchase. We can even say the hobby loses 1000 costumers forever because of this. Stateside or worldwide, this realistically won't put a dent in the actual overall costumer base of pinball.

Honestly, something like this happening, would actually have the reverse effect of a negative impact to the hobby overall. It would cause another company's revenue to rise dramatically just because of the fallout. That money would not leave the hobby, it would simply shift to another corner of it.

And... back to star wars. After thinking about a premium playfield in a pro body, I'm really struggling justifying how much more a premium or even Le costs. We gain what for $2-3k more over the pro. I'm definitely wanting the hyper loop, but man, is it really a $2000 option with a cracking death star. I'm not at all interested in the pro at this point, but it just got me thinking