Thanks for this, watching it now! Looks cool to me, not something I would buy but could be something I'd buy as a gift. Like my young niece and nephew visited me recently and loved my pinball machines, but they are too big and expensive for them to ever have and their parents have zero interested in buying a used pin. This could be something I could buy them as a christmas gift depending on price range and size. Does anyone know the dimensions of this machine? I think at $2999 this would be cool, at $3999 maybe a bit much, have to wait and see what retail price is I guess.

Does Costco sell anything in the $4k+ price range? Honest question as I don't go to Costco so I have no idea.

Ok so I guess it could work there. At first I thought maybe this new machine was to get a new type of buyer, those hesitant to pickup a pin but at $4k I still can't imagine that would be low enough to make such an audience pull the trigger. Instead now I'm thinking maybe it's just about making one more purchasing tier and nothing more, so that they will now have Home/Pro/Premium/LE going forward with each step adding ~$1500 to the price.

Well I meant in store of course, you'd figure part of the idea is random foot traffic seeing the games in store as a way to grab a new audience, not people who already actively search pinball online.

Yeah I agree. Maybe that is part of the reason for the cheaper price point, to get in to places like Best Buy, Frys, etc. Perhaps they have been turned down in the past by such places because of the price point was too high or maybe not enough of markup for the store itself to warrant floor space. Not sure, but maybe Stern are going after that now. I do notice Best Buy has basically become a store of mini stores, where most of the floor space is carved up by other companies to use and showcase their products so a Stern section to be would be right at home in there.

Was this nationwide or a test case? I ask because I never saw them in stores here in LA. Having said that Best Buy as a store has changed quite dramatically over the past few years, so maybe it's time to revisit this idea.

My best guess is the combination of two things:

1) From what I saw on Deadflips stream, this one looks and plays very well unlike past "home" efforts, so it should still satisfy that pinball feel without feeling cheap.

2) It's priced to where they have left a good amount of meat on the bone for traditional brick and mortar stores like Best Buy, etc, to consider selling it.

Without a good margin it makes no sense for such stores to take up floor space with this kinda stuff, but given the msrp maybe this time around there is enough margin there for them to consider it. Combine that with a true pinball experience and maybe this will work this time around. Just a guess though.