Quoted from Gov:I don’t think anybody is arguing that it isn’t a big upgrade. I am debating on if it is a $2k+ upgrade.
A lot of parallels to my debate when I purchased JP. I didn't see a Premium as being worth the $1,200 when the table first launched, so I went with the Pro. Now, I'm regretting the decision with the additional work and features Stern put into the T-Rex head. The additional interaction in the game, eating the ball, and throwing the ball are awesome. Do the T-Rex motions change the score or rules all that much? No, but they do make for a more memorable experience.
The Raptor gate on JP is another good example. It doesn't add a ton to the Premium, and the Pro certainly has a viable alternative. However, when you start Raptor Capture on a Pro, the ball exits to the Control Room shot and sits idle on a post while the unskippable gate animation plays on the display. It's the same process for the Premium holding the ball on the post in the Raptor pen, except the gate is actually rising out of the playfield.
For Godzilla Pro, when you start Godzilla MB, the ball just hangs out on the Newton magnet while the BOC music starts and a similar unskippable movie plays of Godzilla smashing the building. On the Premium, it's the same animation, except the building toy is collapsing and releasing the physical locked balls off the roof instead of the Pro dropping the one ball off the magnet and auto-launching two more balls into play.
Plus, we're looking at the interaction and how things exist in .80 level code. There might be more coming in later code updates, and the differences in ramp feeds for different building floors becoming a bigger influence. The Mechagodzilla seems to be the biggest impact as it looks to make the standup target shots safer to hit. The Pro is mostly an upper flipper shot where the Prem/LE targets are more accessible from the lower flippers.
At the end of the day, only you can answer how much the additional mechs add to the overall experience in the long run. Living through my JP Pro decision regret, the Premium upgrade is worth it for me. On top of that, Godzilla really doesn't seem like a game that is going to drop significantly in value if/when it's time to sell it, so most of the $2k will likely come back.
Not until distributors get official word/invoices on how many of the machines they ordered from Stern they're getting in the first run. For example, they could request an order of 30, and Stern might only fulfill and ship 8, 14, 22, or all 30 from the first run.