My first impression was...jarring. I'm just not a huge fan of the Ultimate style I guess. Looking at it more, I do like it, but not nearly as much as the original. Venom is completely awesome though. Spidey needs a cheeseburger. Price is ridiculous. For that there should have at least been color changing LEDs to take the place of the brightness changing lights on the original. I wonder if they are going to try to replicate that somehow, or just drop that feature altogether. Overall, it's pretty cool and I can't wait to see the dots and hear the audio. I can't see giving up my original for one though, even as a 1-to-1 trade (and mine is not mint or HUO so that's not even close to happening).

While I agree for the most part, if they would have left off the custom armor and shaker, it would have been a pro and should have been priced as such. If they wanted to include those things, it should have been as a "Vault LE" in addition to the pro level, not instead of. If the above sales info is true (and I have no idea if it is), I would say the market is telling them this was not the right strategy. Nothing wrong with the fact that it was SM, or even the new art package in my opinion. The failure was the "forced upsell" to a higher level machine.

Yea, yea...not forced to buy. Forced to take the upsell items such as armor if you want the VE at all is what I meant. I think they would have been much better off offering a standard version at the pro price, and then slap on the armor, shaker, etc at the premium price. But...I'll be the first to admit I know nothing about their business and they have churning out great machines for a very long time, so they are the ones that know what works...not me.

I hope you know me well enough to know I do not fall into the complaining to hear myself talk category. I'm also certainly not expecting them to drop the price at this point. I wouldn't be 100% shocked if they added a stripped down pro version at some point (stranger things have happened), but I am definitely not going to hold my breath either. I'm perfectly happy with my original version so it doesn't really affect me either way. I just want to see them succeed.

That's a damn good point...hadn't thought of it from that perspective. I guess I'm stuck in the mindset that they should always want to sell as many as possible, especially after going through all the effort to make new art/sounds/dots/etc. I guess driving volume isn't always the point.

The rest might be under the playfield. Some machines use them to cushion/insulate sockets or assemblies. Can't remember off the top of my head if SM is one of them. Of course there is no use in swapping them to fancy rings...