The reason for 9K pins is simple

You have people that seem to think X Pin is worth X amount and are willing to pay .

You have Stern ,JJP ect that want max profit and make pins . They are also smart enough to realize that we are in a huge bubble at the moment , and quite happy to keep pushing the prices up ( its good business )

When the bubble pops is anyones guess but until it does Stern JJP ect will be there to feed the frenzy .

WOZ, without question is universally praised for its "build quality", that costs money. I would guess the original $6500 price was grossly underpriced by the time they reached the finish line.

Jack in the past has stated that operators will pay any price as long as the machine makes money, and that is true, but he may find the limit of what the home collectors market will sustain in any sort of quantity.

I can tell you I had a few vendors come to my house and try the woz - they loved it - but when they do the math they decided to buy 4 star trek pros instead.

the operators want to make money and woz is just to much for these vendors - they kept going back and forth about what they could charge for a game of woz on location. I couldn't give them any answers - in the end they went with 4 new st pros.

thanks ed

If what you're saying is true, JJack is assuming his game is better than MM. Minus a screen and some LEDs, it's just another pinball machine. A slow, cluttered, no flow no humor pinball machine.

Just because WOZ is new, doesn't mean it's better. A screen and some multi colored LEDs is not really that innovative if you really think about it.

The castle toy in MM is still one of the best most interactive toys in pinball. The one toy alone presents four different shots, it's pretty epic.

"If they'll pay $8K for a 16 year old..." BS. People are paying $8K for a great game brand new, not a 16 year old game. Age has nothing to do with it, people just want great games.

It would be nice if these guys could work in their improvements (not really innovations) into some great new games.

You can price a pin at 20 grand but at some point you are pricing people out of the market. New car prices are an example that when the cost goes past a certain point its no longer affordable to buy new and the used car market gets more action and drives up the cost of good used vehicles. Pins are toys or route equipment so cost is broken down differently depending on the buyer.

Hey, we are talking pinball here.

You nailed it and its straight math.
If you can get more games at a lower price point the return and payback is better / faster. I know of one OP that has some system 11's routed and one that is usually broke down ( and turned off) "earns" money each week being black and turned off. His more complex games get many of the features disabled to keep them running without error ( TZ clock as an example). The OP wants nothing to do with more complex games especially ones running a PC or proprietary items that are hard to fix in the field. With the people that posted for failing light boards on WOZ I am curious to see how one holds up on location a year from now. More expensive and more complex is not what a lot of OP's want.