sd card, 5 bucks for 32 GB
Ethernet cable 5 foot CAT6 1.69 from Monoprice

Love my insider kit!

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I figured we'd start to see them available soon but I didn't realize they were giving them away at the KFC drivethru.

If I'd get one with a bucket of Chicken I'll gladly send it on to somebody that want's it. They don't even have enough people to staff a former KFC near me. That actually closed prior to the pandemic. Bet it's about impossible to find folks to choke the Colonels chicken now.

So most of the older pros will need a new apron, significantly increasing the price of a retro kit. Would it be possible for someone to design a 3d box to house it outside of the machine, and if someone was to do this, could you move it from machine to machine? Maybe wiring would be too much of an issue?

There would be the possibility to design something to mount it on the leg bolts? Or to fit in the Tournament button?
What i know is that it should be attached to a board with an ethernet cable. You could buy spare ones and route them trough the machine to the outside and attach the scanner to a machine you want. Problem here will be the internet connection. There is a wifi - Dongle with the kit that need to be moved too. This one is attached to the board via USB. This needs to be either moved too. Or you route a cable through the machine to extern too too. Or you connect the machine with an ethernet cable to your network.

i am not sure how the machine will behave if you switch it on and prior configured inside connect stuff is missing. (if you are too lazy to move it over).
Depends if you can skip the error message about missing scanner and so on.

so i think there will be possibilities to have several machines connected with only one kit, if you only use one machine. With routing cables outside it will be a homepin only solution.

I am fighting with myself if i will buy a kit or not to try this out. If yes i could construct some enclosing for a 3d printer.

Don't buy it, be strong.
Don't fall for Stern latest cash grab.
There are 40 years of " Modern " pinball machines, to choose from.
You don't have to buy NIB Stern.
Pinball never needed internet connectivity, or " achievements " to be fun.
I just bought a 1965 Gottlieb pin, and its one of the most fun pins I own.

Don't be a lemming, like the whole pinball network shill crew, falling over themselves to lick Sterns boots.

Message from the Freeeek Kingdom .

Do the achievements vary depending on the number of balls the game is set to?

Honest question-- if someone is genuinely most interested in and drawn to the bleeding edge releases from Stern, and if Stern also happens to be a business that wants to make money, is it really fair to say that person is a "lemming" for wanting to buy from them?

It's the nature of consumers to be interested in the latest (objective) and greatest (subjective) thing out there. I don't know if it's fair to say anyone buying a new Stern is a "lemming" for doing so. Also don't think podcasters covering the new machines and releases are shills for what they choose to cover. Most of these podcasts are essentially covering the news.. root word, "new."

That 1965 Gottlieb pin you describe may be a blast for you to play, but somebody else's entertainment mileage may vary with the same machine. I guess I just don't think it's cool to "yuck" anybody else's "yum." Anybody who cares enough to read/post on pinside about Pinball obviously enjoys playing... it's okay for folks to enjoy it in different ways, right?

I’ve heard a few times now (forget if it’s been Stern podcast interviews or other articles) that each game is registered with stern when the kit is added. Then it would need to be de-activated if moving the kit to another machine, or if the machine changes ownership. So while you could probably use a single kit on many machines, it’s gonna be a frustrating process of registering, deactivating, registering…….

Looks like they want to track and watch each and every single machine and each and every user who utilizes interconnect. You can bet they will be mining the data... Buy your kits if you want them. George Gomez said they will be reasonable cost or something to that effect.. Whats another $200-$300 per machine to retrofit them.

Don’t buy pinball machines, be strong.
Don’t fall for the second hand pinball cash grab.
There are tens of thousands of years of other hobbies to choose from.
You don’t have to buy pinball machines.
Hobbies never needed flippers or bumpers or “scoring systems” to be fun.
I just bought a blank pad of paper and a pencil, it’s one of the most fun things I own.
Don’t be a lemming, like the whole pinside network shill crew, falling over themselves to lick old Williams leveling casters.

mining my data?!? man, i'd better be careful, else they may learn i'm really into pinball.

Knowing more about the customer allows them to develop to what players enjoy. Right now they don't really get feedback on that scale. I'm not sure how much data they will gather for this use but doesn't seem like a bad thing at all.

Certain things could be useful. For example, if Stern sees a key shot or feature only being achieved by 1% of users, maybe they could decide to change a rule or setting so more than 1% of users experience it. Unless it's defeating a wizard mode or something that is designed to be extremely hard to do.

I suspect Stern is far more interested in using IC to drive incremental revenue rather than product improvements.

product improvements = more people playing and wanting a Stern = more revenue

Yes! When a business is run successfully, these all should go hand in hand.

Unregistering and registering again isn't as frustrating as it sounds. Had to change accounts over the weekend and it wasn't hard at all.

People are buying new LEs and Premiums sight unseen on rumors and hope. Significantly increased prices haven’t seemed to matter. Any additional game sales revenue based on IC data will almost certainly be rounding error.

New video up.

Edit: This miiiiiiiight just be the old video reuploaded?

Hate to break this to you, but...

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Almost the same. Seems they made some edits. I'm not sure the exact changes but it felt slightly different.

where can you buy a kit?

When available you'll be able to buy them straight from Stern's website or a distributor. As of last week distributors still didn't know pricing or availability.

What?

Goat mania is the topper based mode, so to get that achievement you'd have to play on a game with the topper installed. Which essentially puts that achievement behind a paywall.

At least, I think that's what he was getting at.

I hope there is some sort of mod that we can install on the older machines. I'd love to be able to scan my phone at the coin door or something.

That would imply they’d be on top of code updates, and we know that’s not happening.

A 1000 times yes to this. No way in hell they are considering product improvement with this. My AIQ shipped with a locked on pop bumper coil.

stern wants the gold in golden tee

1st Verified Florida location!

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3D printed bracket shouldn't be too hard, but demand is totally tbd.

Talked to my local distributer today, biggest distributer in Canada, and they currently don't know when the non-Godzilla ones will be released, and don't have pricing. He said "November or December". Also mentioned they were having supply chain issues.

Except... that's exactly what I said...
"Making some achievements exclusive to paid opportunities, etc… also natural fits."

That achievements could readily be made for events, behind exclusives, paid opportunities, etc. So not sure what he's breaking to me...

What's the process for being verified? Is it just applying or is there more to it?

10/20 update: 34 of 93 Godzillas are verified connected on location. Not bad.

Proud to be one of them.

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As someone who plays pinball on location, I'm still not seeing the appeal of this system for players. Is it just a way for people to track achievements? I'm not really interested in that, but maybe others are. If they use it as a way to offer free games, I'll sign up immediately but otherwise I just want to put my money in and play.

How do you register the game to a specific location? My location isn’t showing up on the list.

it was a bit confusing, but after some hand holding by George and Evan, I got it rolling. Basically you need to apply for verification with Stern. You do that by first registering yourself as an operator by opening a 'Pro' account. I have a link for the registration. Once registered, your personal player account (that i assume you've already set up) becomes a pro account (an operator account), which is basically all the features of a player account PLUS operator features, such as commercial machines stats, Managing location info, etc.. When you first log into your new Pro account, it prompts you to apply a location to become verified. Stern will review that application and assuming they approve you, your location will appear on that list. Once you're verified, you'll have to unregister your machine and then re-register it under your new verified location. Right now, it's registered to an unverified location, so it considers it the same as if it's in a home environment. It's less complicated than it sounds. I just tried to recreate all the steps I went through for you.

Then I’d sign up if I were you!

Thanks so much! Found the operator link at the bottom of the site. Registration pending.

awesome! for me, it took them a day or two to get approved.

Is it actually being used that way now? Or is that functionality that we expect to get added at a later date? I haven't seen any Godzillas on location yet, so there's no rush.

I'm not trying to bash IC, just saying that as a player I don't see the appeal (yet).

good to see the Operation registration pages live and the location count going up! Now if stern would move the pages past placeholders and actually have things like filters, location, searching, etc... we can start to have some magic. It's live, let's iterate!

GG will be on PINTECHLIVE today at 3 Eastern to discuss Insider Connected.

https://www.facebook.com/sternpinball/photos/10159815106129244

Remember, if you don't know what the product is.....

wait for it....

IT'S YOU!!!!

$199.99

Woo hoo! will order for all my titles soon!

$199.99 per George Gomez for the retrofit kit.