I see the opposite. You think BOM is bad now...just wait. Unless the people LOVE pinball (and I don't know them) it will be corporate profit and a deteriorating watered down product. Might not happen immediately...but it will happen. That's how all companies that want to 'grow' eventually go when someone else takes over. Especially if they have no attachment to the product they are making. On the plus side they'll probably be pumping out games so quickly you'll actually have to pick and choose your theme, while the layout remains mostly the same, more so than now and you'll be able to get them overnighted from Amazon.

The problem with those kind of changes is they sound great on paper....for NEW factories that had it planned from the ground up. They rarely work well trying to shoehorn them into existing lines. I've been through it, multiple times. Every time was a failure. That's not to say you can't improve production....but this is rarely about improving production, and more about trying to streamline and cut costs at the expense of other things that they aren't willing to spend the money on to adjust for the changes.

I'm sure we all hope we are wrong.

Just wait, shift to pachinko machines coming in..3...2....

Honestly, I don't know any broke people buying pinball machines, now or 5 years ago. Those of us with money...mostly still have money. (I include myself simply because I can afford pinball machines, even if I don't want to pay the cost).

I doubt the people you are referring to represent a very large portion of the hobby...unless we start looking at beercades that generally don't make much profit.