Word on the street is Stern releases LOTR right as JJP tries to get the Hobbit out the door.

Tron was just run last year in March 2013, might be too soon to come from the vault. I'm thinking Spiderman, LOTR and perhaps Striker Extreme Vault LED lol.

I think it was mentioned before there would be issues getting the Spiderman rights since the pin is not based on the new series of movies.

I can't see them getting the rights to LOTR anytime soon. I can't imagine the license holder would want 2 competing pins going after each other.

I agree 100% about not seeing Spider-Man.

I really for my bank accounts sake hope Stern doesn't make a TRON VE any time soon, because if they make one I'll buy it.

License holder is probably only concerned with $$$$.
Not concerned with competition between companies who have already given them their $$$$.

Most licensing deals work off of a guarantee and then a royalty once X units or dollars or whatever are hit.

It wouldn't hurt the LOTR license holders to be collecting on two pinball deals at once.

Brand saturation is another story, but who knows what their strategy is there. A LOTR or TSPP run make the most sense to me.

If licensing or rights are an issue with SM or LOTR, I would think Tron would be the next VE. Seems there's likely enough demand.

What about another Tron movie? Inquiring mind wants to know.

LOTR's MPU is Whitestar. Won't that present problems with the present day SAM system?

Couldn't they just program it for SAM?

Off the top of my head, Tron would make the most sense to me. It's a SAM game, there's still people who want it (even with the recent run last year), and most importantly for Stern, it has a low bill of materials (similarly low to iron man) compared to the other games mentioned in this thread like lotr or spider man.

Nascar!

I hope it's LOTR! I want one at a reasonable price.

1000% that it will not be Orbitor 1

Is it really a VE if the pin was in production in the last 12 months? The vault means old dusty buried in a vault. Seems as silly as saying a walking dead vault edition.

What's all this crazy TRON VE talk!

A whole new generation of NIB LOTR. Imagine. What a wonderful world that would be.
You may say I'm a dreamer.
But I'm not the only one.

As much as I would love to seen TRON VE to be sooner rather than later, he has a good point. A TRON VE would get a nice bump in overall aesthetics, LEDs, DMD, etc. - so that would be very cool. I think Stern is going to wait a bit and let the masses increase desire by making sure that the prices for NIB/HUO are high for both PRO and LE for a while so that when they do TRON again it will sell well.

Of course a TRON Premium is another story and I think that would sell well anytime they are ready to do it. But I could be wrong, I am kind of a dreamer in that regard too.

What if this happened?
image.jpg

It did happen

But if it 'happened' again that would be just #$%(& awesome as (#&#!

My bet is on a new Metallica premium.

What would that have that the other two MET Premiums don't?

Whatever Stern you just paid too much for.

Why? Plenty available now

Tron vault is a guarantee. They can't get any code done on new pins so this one is a no brainer for big bucks. And they obviously don't give a shit about the sacred nature of the "LE".

Yeah, I believe Tron and LOTR are the top 2 VE targets. But I still hate this idea of "vault editions".

Whiplash.

I was thinking that it could be a multi-color DMD and some different artwork.

TRON Ultra LE with 4 additional toys and more Daft Punk plus Arcade mod

Gaaaaaaaary.....make this so!

I was thinking if it had come with Whiplash from the beginning like it should have, I might not have gotten pissed off and sent it down the road. Yeah, I know about browser, but not including this song with the game was just wrong.

I have a MET Premium, I love it. But I was told by a major distributor that the only Premium that sold any numbers at all was ACDC (which I have as well), hence Luci, and no new MET PRE or Walking Dead Pre.

The first color DMD wont be wasted on an VE but on a new game.

Did you vote for Whiplash when they added 2 songs awhile back?

I guess it really made no difference. Majority rules. But if anyone has ever seen Metallica live or knows their history... oh never mind......

What I am referring to is using the new/future LCD system but only colorized dots for MET. I believe they already have a colorized dots software when they produce the dots but the present DMD displays are monocolor, so I doubt it would be that hard to convert that to an LCD screen once they have the LCD hardware sorted out for future game titles.
It would be awesome if Stern could sell an upgrade kit (hopefully for under $400) for most of their older titles that would in effect do what the ColorDMD people are doing with Bally/Williams games. That would be a huge new stream of revenue if Stern could pull it off.

LOTR LE (or the correct abbreviation, LOTR HD ) uses a Whitestar CPU, and a SAM driver board. I don't see why that would need to change.

--
Rob Anthony
Pinball Classics
http://LockWhenLit.com
Quality Board Work - In Home Service
borygard at gmail dot com

I heard it will be another run of The Pin.
the pin.jpg

There should low demand for a vault pin you can get for less than 4.5k which is LOTR. I know of 3 I can get from area operators for 3.5 k in pretty good shape. They made a bunch of these and there out there.

True, but maybe a new Tron wouldn't necessary be a VE . Since Iron Man we've had new MET and ACDC Pro LED models, so along these lines maybe Stern will run Tron in the new cabinet with brushed metallic decals and a few other minor additions.

If Steve Ritchie is the King of Flow, John Borg is the King of Whoa

http://replygif.net/209

Not up here they're not. Routed ones go for $4500 -$5000 now and HUO $6000 and up. I would never pay that for one which is why I hope a VE comes out.

If they finished the LE run of LOTRs and did the last 500 of them....damn, I would be all over it. That's the only remake I could see myself buying right now and it would have to be the LE.

Availability... Here in EU, MET Premiums are not available NIB (and I really want one).

You would not pay 6K for a HOU one, but likely ~ 6-7K for a NIB one seems a logical price you would jump on? (including shipping, taxes, and exchange as I see pins being sold in USD at this point).

Then you "need" to add the side rails, old school lockdown bar and mech as well as lollipop rails just to get you where you are hardware wise with the VE (and never mind the crappy new head locking mech).

BUT... you might get LED's (that look crappier than running through and LED OCD?), decals, and a higher resolution translight (cause that's what the fans have been screaming about all these years, Damn Stern and their low rez translights )

Not trying to attack, just trying to undersand the logic here. I don't value the thrill of being able to open the box that much.

A NIB LOTR would be extremely hard for me to pass up!

Swap posts out for proper service rails..yes
Replace Lock down bar..no
Lollipop rails..not on the original
Head lock mech..totally fine

Then you will get LEDs, that will be socketed on a matrix so you can run LED OCD.
Hi res translite
Metallised cab decals.

Sign
Me
Up
Now

If they can still make the Whitestar CPU and have the license this makes sense and would easily sell a few hundred - especially with updated cabinet art. It would be nice if they had the figurines too. Hopefully they would make the regular VE editions and leave off the ugly gold trim and huge cock on the backglass. As a spin off they could sell high res cabinet decals to collectors to update their machine with. Same with The Simpsons.

What gives you the impression that the LOTR LEs were not all made?
Automated Services had a stockpile of them up until mid 2012. The games are not numbered so there is no way for us to know if they were all made unless someone from Stern explicitly said they were not all made.

The whole Vault thing has everyone spooked (look at HUO Tron selling prices lately) but I think it's a tempest in a teapot. They aren't gonna be doing many of these - probably not more than they have in the past (Stern has ALWAYS done reruns of popular titles, which is why the whole "Vault Panic" thing seems pretty funny to me).

Iron Man was the right title to do - cheap game to make, big demand, few on the street. Those stars aren't going to align for many more titles.

I saw what was supposed to be the last Whitestar board that Stern had in stock, so they would have to start manufacturing them again if the LOTR code can't be converted to work on the SAM boardset.