I got lucky and saw a post by Jeff at Mad Pinball on Facebook. Ordered immediately with him on Sept 26, arrived On Oct 24. He only had a couple, but less than one month from deposit to delivery is about as lucky as I could get.

No luck there. That was just good old fashioned proactive action to lock one down instead of passively waiting on a deposit to come through.

That's another point, too. Subscribe to ALL the distributor's mailing lists.

I’ve had an Elvira on order since June of 2021. I actually even have a topper and Medisynl Mods, plus a camper mod just waiting for the game. I was told by my distributor that Stern will “probably” make one final batch and he was told by Stern he would be unlikely to have his entire order of EHOH pins fulfilled. So some people on his list and many others lists are probably going to be disappointed. Definitely not a win for him or his customers.

Interesting - I had been on his list since April and he recently told me I didnt make the cut for this year. Did you pay MSRP?

Yup, I'm in the same boat as you..... but it's not just EHOH orders that are going to feel the pain as Stern cancels all the other older games too.

They want a clean slate, and flush all the 2019+ games they didn't fulfill deliveries on. LZ, TMNT, EHOH, JP, DP, IM, GOTG, SW....... all gone. Maybe even AIQ and Mando too.
Too many new games coming in 2023 to maintain the current roster. Slice and dice.
Only thing we can hope for is a proper "last call" with premiums instead of the typical force-fed run of Pro's or Stern's absolute favorite thing to do: "Oh you have a deposit on a premium? How cute.... F-U the game is canceled!!!".

Stern is tired of people asking when their game will be on the line, they're gonna flip everyone the bird and move on to the next game, and then move on to the next game, and move on to the next game. 2023 will be swamped in new stuff and a bloodbath for old stuff.

Oh man….congrats! Hope mine is next. Since placing the order in August, it has been quite the rollercoaster!

While I may use slightly less colorful language and not attribute bad feelings from Stern to their customers, I indeed agree that their line is too diversified at the moment. It seems that they are a victim of their own success. It is time to cut bait and ditch the bottleneck created by too many games. Quite frankly, I was ready for them to do this on the Turtles I have been waiting on (thankfully, they did not). I don’t personally know how anyone waits over a year for a title with a deposit hanging out there. With so many great games coming from Stern, maybe the deposit makers ought to cut their own bait and move on to another title and just enjoy pinball.

Anyone else think it's crazy that the newest Stern you can buy came out 9 months ago? This is nuts. I hope we see another release by January 2023 but people don't even have their Bonds yet.

Yes - but what’s crazier that or the new pricing in 2023?

Pinball is popular. Supply chain/parts issues have slowed thing down considerably.
It just took 11-1/2 months to get my GZ Premium.

I expect to wait at least a year or more for the CCR plus Topper that I ordered in the spring.

Ordering a new Stern Premium is now almost equal to ordering a boutique Mfg machine when announced. Unless you were already on the preorder distributor list before the title is even announced.

I expect there will be a very long wait for Bond Premium as it appeals to a VERY large amount of non collector types. Unless it’s a turd, Bond will probably be the new Playboy pin in that it will be the most common single machine in Rec rooms/ finished basements all over the world .

Anyone get any shipping notifications this week? Or since Tmnt on Friday?

My distributor told me Friday morning, before stern posted the TMNT video, that it was delayed and Stern was waiting on parts. Just seems odd when the video got posted that day.

Glad I stopped in here. My distributor said he was getting Godzilla’s OCT but they never showed up. I was getting nervous maybe he was giving me the run around. Looks like a parts shortage put the GZ out of production for a few weeks. So maybe my GZ will still show up this year after all!

My distributor called me today to tell me that his led Zeppelin premiums are shipping out tomorrow, some were built a few weeks back but the next batch was on hold waiting for parts for the expression lighting.

Got the notification today for Godzilla ordered in January

Still waiting here…

Nothing yet for my TMNT pro order

Now Stern can waste most of the month building home-pin versions no one wants.

Should satisfy demand!!!

I had a good feeling this morning when I saw others had posted about their games now shipping. Sure enough, right afterwards I got the email that my GZ Premium was in transit. Only ordered this thing about a month ago while half-thinking there was no way I was actually getting one this soon.

Wow, that's amazing. A lot of people have been waiting a year.

Basically.

Just got my shipping notice for Turtles.

Did you order a pro or premium? I still haven't got anything for my pro order.

premium. Heard there may have been parts acquisition issues causing the delay.

Turtles just showed up of #FactoryFriday though it looks like the premiums are up on the line. Hopefully there are some pros in there also.

Nitro has pros ready to ship. So, they are getting out there.

We just received our TMNT Premiums today, and Pros are set for next week. We have some odds and ends left from previous shipments like an Avengers premium, Guardians pro, RUSH pro and Premium, Star Wars pro and premium, Zeppelin pro and premium, and Mandalorian pro and premium. So if any of those are on your short list, all games will be the same pricing as 007 come 2023.

Hopefully the first 007 pros are coming next! I am very anxious to get one here at our shop.

Greg M
Pinballpro.com

I see this in a lot of distros. This titles are not sellling? Or is it that actually nothing is selling?

Sales are slowing down for sure..... and heaping on another price increase surely isn't going to help.
Who's going to pay Bond prices for old titles? I'm not.

A premium should be $7800....... not $9000, and absolutely not $9700

What are you getting for the extra $1900 paid? NOTHING!!!
People are slowly figuring it out.

I got both pro and premium TMNT in this week. Some are spoken for, but i do have extras if anyone is looking

For most titles the Premiums are back to selling at a pretty significant discount. I have a feeling Stern may have a hard time pushing this price increase.

Stern price increases are being met with very little enthusiasm around the world. They were foolish to increase LE prices a whopping 17% over Rush LE, which was already priced high. Premiums rising to $9700? That’s an outright fleecing too. Only pros managed to escape such plundering, at a small 1% rise in MSRP.

Except the UMRP went up on the pros a few hundred - which basically just means no one is going to get a deal on a pro going forward. The pro is $7k. I would suspect you’ll see distros selling the premiums at UMRP to get them moving, so you’ll have to call them to get their best price and it will be less than $9700!

9500 delivered is the best I could do with the new price on the premium. Also all on CC.

Distributors are sitting on stock now. I see them post in game threads announcing the have stock, trying to move it. Stern and JJP have really shot themselves in the foot with their price increases.

The Le’s sold out, fast. So I understand that…. But legacy premiums… good luck with that

To me, it seems that the demand for every NIB game except GZ is down. There are distros sitting on stock of just about everything else. If people aren't buying now, why would they be buying after the price increases? Only games that are big hits are going to sell well going forward. The lesser titles are going to fall flat. If games really can't remain profitable for manufacturers at lower prices than this, we have hit the wall, imo.

Just bad timing with the interest rates making the real expenses, cars and houses significantly higher. Together with everything else getting super expensive, the “let’s blow the bonus on a $10k toy” times are coming to an end.

On the plus side for Stern: Their online store (why do they even bother?) is sold out of almost everything so if they need some free money, they can bother to restock. If I want to blow almost $200 for a shooter rod egg (GPM like what, 95%?), I can’t because “out of stock” LOL.

For whatever reason Avengers aren't moving. Prices came way down.

Ya.. End of pandemic, more supply, softened economy and inflation are all hitting this year. I agree, price hikes will be tough to push through. I have a GZ order in and I may pull it if it's not filled at year end.

My local distro 11 months ago only had one LZ Pro in stock. That was it. I had to convince him to sell me a floor model from his showroom. That's how tight things were last year. As of his website this morning he has 8 different models in stock of Stern alone, multiples of some of them, plus a few other games/titles from non-Stern companies.

Automated this time last year was similar, almost no new Sterns in stock. As of this morning they have 22 different pinball models in stock, 16 of which are Sterns! Most of these titles have been sitting for weeks.

If they aren't selling now, a January price increase isn't going to help. If you don't want a Pro for $6700 (street price) now, $7K (firm floor price) in a few months isn't going to sweeten the deal.

Then you have to look at what Stern ran this year and break them up into groups. The runs in the first half of 2022 of the more "A-tier" titles were all quickly scooped up - Deadpool, JP, Godzilla. Then you have the titles which were popular in their day, but the 1000th run of them at higher prices mean many already have the game by now or have mentally moved on - SW, Mando, AIQ. Lastly you have the games (I don't care how much any one person likes a particular title, sales are sales) where they just weren't received overly well and the runs just use up existing parts, kept the lines running, and built inventory back up - LZ, TMNT, Mando.

Just so happens that the more desirable titles were built earlier in the year and the less popular titles were being run from August - present. Now those are sitting at a ton of distro's and many buyers are simply waiting for Bond, the next Stern, CCrLE, or the next AP. If not, each distro wouldn't have Pros and Prems of Mando, LZ, SW, TMNT, GOTG and Rush in stock (plus 2-3 models of SW/JP home editions!). These getting jacked up in price will just add to the dust layers on the boxes.

I bet this is why they held off running JP’s and EHOH until next year. They have a better chance of pushing the price up on those games

I just got into this hobby recently and have put in an order for the Godzilla Premium with a local electronics store here in the Chicago area that is an authorized dealer for Stern. The price is high, but I am getting 24 months, no interest financing that starts when the game is delivered (sometime in 2023 is my guess). So that financing certainly helps lessen the pain.

What you have to be aware of is that Stern doesn't allow you to be locked into a price. So if it comes in let's say late 2023, you may be paying no interest, but the overall loan amount may be higher.

My friend had a Mando Prem on order for about a year. Premiums had a big price increase between order and delivery and though they paid a deposit, they had to pay the balance on the higher price once the game shipped. Totally bogus IMO, but until someone is offering better deals, Stern controls the market and the rules.

Stern doesn’t sell games to customers other than a handful of direct sale LEs.

For the average player it's too complicated and the on-screen stuff and sound package is underwhelming. The weakest Elwin is the reason it's not moving. Once enough casual players came to that conclusion, commerce ground to a crawl on it.

And Amazon, and perhaps direct through the IFPA rewards program.

But my point stands. Even if you put a deposit on a game through your distro, that doesn’t lock you into a price.

Meanwhile if one of my company’s distributors quoted a price to a customer, that’s an official offer of business. If they put down a deposit or send a letter of intent, we’d never try to up the price on them during the validity window, even if we have an annual price increase along the way. It’s not the customer’s fault we offered a price and couldn’t deliver a product within a reasonable timeframe.

Kicking the can down the road (especially withholding production of certain popular products until a price increase hits) and then saying that no one’s deposits to their distros mean crap, ain’t the best way to run business, let alone a “lifestyle brand”.

Frankly this is more on the distros then stern. But stern has created the situation . distros know the situation with stern is not a committed order with fixed price. yet they are often communicating to customers that they have a full sale closed… instead of a reservation or simple deposit to secure a spot.

It’s the mismatch in what is being ’sold’ that leads to to customer grief.

Yes, stern could lock prices when they collect the dealer commits… but they don’t and that is a known behavior. It does pass the buck to distros who are put in the hard spot about trying to lock in orders so yhey don’t get caught holding the bag as they are the ones making the commitment to stern for requested units.

At the end of the day, stern is muddying forecasting with orders… and it puts distributors in a hard spot when the forecast is across many quarters.

It wasn’t nearly as much a problem when there were less outstanding titles being committed to. But now soliciting over such a long future window just begs to span pricing changes.

Prior to COVID, most distributors had pro/prem games in stock and you could find the same gently used titles for $500-$1k under MSRP.

My guess is the price increases will return the market to the pre-COVID model where most people buy used unless a new title is a dream theme.

It seems like toppers and accessories are also sitting on shelves. The prices for a block of plastic and LEDs have gone past the point of sanity.