Anyone have any idea approximately how many non-LE games they'll do per run of any given game? I have no concept of how many games are in "a" run. 100? 500? 1000? I understand that sales/forecasting will differ between games, I'm just curious on what's considered "average".

Someone asked earlier about toppers and accessories and how they fit into all of this. I'm curious about that too - I'm guessing they probably DON'T factor in and that the manufacturing of these items is contracted out?

Oh boy one more run of RUSH this year. I'm trying to be patient, I'm trying to be cool, but I'll admit I'm very nervous that my day-one Premium pre-order isn't going to be met. I contacted my distro about my line position, didn't hear back - keeping my fingers crossed!

I'm impressed you're getting that much clarity from your distro! I wish others were a little more forthcoming with that info, but I can also understand "for business reasons" why they aren't.

That's actually less than I would have guessed. No clue where in line I am with them at this point for mine. I'm hoping for this month but won't be holding my breath!

I'm thinking the same. Hopefully I'll be receiving a RUSH Premium in the next run, and I'm trying to figure out what the threshold is where I accept minor damage and work with my distro on fixing it after the fact vs sending back. I guess anything structural is an immediate "send back", but it seems silly to send back due to something cosmetic if that means waiting another year for a machine.

I'm sure it's distro to distro, but do people who receive a damaged cabinet to to get bumped to the top of the line for replacement? LOGICALLY, as someone who has worked in various service industries my whole life, I can't imagine a distro saying "ooh that sucks, back of the line for your replacement" so I'm assuming someone who receives a damaged cab is taken care of as quickly as possible.

Does Stern go out of their way to repair and re-ship a shipping damaged cab outside of normal production lines, or does the damaged cab disappear into the aether while a complete replacement is provided?

Oh boy - y'all getting your "launch day" RUSH pros are restoring my hope for my "launch day" premium....

I'm trying to figure out what would be on a Pro that wouldn't be on a Premium - static ramp and cabinet art are the only things I can come up with.

Out of curiosity - once Stern knows how their allocations are going to shake out amongst the distributors for a game that is actively on the line, does the distro get a single notification from Stern saying "Hey - we're making RUSH Premium right now. You're absolutely going to get X in this run, please collect payment as appropriate" with X being the absolute final number for that run?

Or is it a "trickling" in where a distro could be told "Hey - we FINISHED X of your RUSH Premium orders today, heads up - X units will be ready to ship in two weeks." where X could only be a portion of their total allocation for that production run? There would then be the possibility that a notification like this could come in every couple/few days.

I know the situation is "fluid", but the first scenario would be much less fluid than the second scenario. Obviously it would be best to ask a distro this directly, but I hate to bug one if this is otherwise common knowledge amongst the group here.

Thank you so much for clarifying! So this explains why we see games seem to go out (and therefore get reported as shipped here) in waves, rather than a dozen customers of a single distro all chiming in at once that their game shipped.

Very interesting! I'm not at a point yet where I'm worried about eventually getting a machine, I'm just trying to figure out when I should stop watching my email for a "your machine is ready, pay me!" email.

Congrats! If he's that accurate, sounds like my "April to late summer" timeline is probably closer to late summer!

Love hearing this sudden news of June/July RUSH production - Zach seems to be the main source for production line updates, so seeing it from multiple sources has me feelin' good. I'm sure that since I haven't heard by now about my order that I'm in the June run - I placed my order within a couple hours of the announcement, after all...

He keeps a running thread for his podcast postings. His most recent Stern production update was in episode 100. He didn't have an update in this most recent episode.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/the-pinball-network-

If anyone wonders how a "day one" order is a year behind, this is how lol.

I truly wonder how many distros have "put me on every list, you know I've got the cash for it" lists that start way before the "day one" or even "month before day one" crowd can join.

Interestingly, someone just posted a RUSH Pro in the RUSH thread that was manufactured on May 4th. That should have been firmly in the May GZ run.

Wonder if that is just some last minute overrun from the late-April run, or if the whole schedule is shifted by a week compared to the information that we have?

I have an order for a Rush Premium from Flip N Out. Day one, no deposit nor any ask for payment. He did send out an invoice, but when I asked about it I was immediately told to not worry about it and told twice that he would ask for full payment "about 2 weeks before the game ships". I know someone else who was in the same boat with Rush. He isn't super forthcoming with "where am I in line?" questions beyond his initial estimate, but I didn't blame him for that given that I didn't put down a deposit and he probably gets that email several dozen times a day. If I had paid in full, I probably wouldn't be so accepting of a non-response.

Maybe Zach changed his policy and was taking full payments in 2021 before a game was close to ready, but that doesn't sound "normal" based on my experience and the experience of another buyer that I know.

I was told a couple days ago by a large distro that allocations at least through June were passed down by Stern. I was also told the RUSH run at the end of the month was 99.9% the last RUSH run for this calendar year.

Right - "almost absolutely certain" that the end of month RUSH run is the last run for the year.

Just got a payment notice from Flip n Out on my RUSH Premium. Holy fucking shit I'm beyond stoked. To paraphrase "should be this week or next, so pay up". Looks like Stern is on schedule.

George Gomez reiterated tonight on the Deadflip stream that he was uncertain that it would truly be until April 2023 before non-location buyers started seeing Bonds. He didn't say for certain, but this is the second time I've seen him publicly say that the rumor that non-location buyers wouldn't see Bond until April 2023 was inaccurate. He wasn't very wishy-washy in saying as much - he seemed about as confident as he could without saying anything for certain. Zach indicated that he received "not quite a wrist slap" but some level of communication from Stern implying the same in the most recent TPN episode.

The only reason I could see them going through that effort with an old title while new titles are selling out consistently would be to maintain a licensor relationship, or maintain an IP to show it's still "in use". They don't "need" to re-release anything old while they're new machines are selling out consistently, even if the market is finally equalizing/cooling off. What IPs or licensor relationships could we see this being a case for?

The suggestion of Spider Man seems reasonable. There's always something "new" with Spiderman coming out.

Metallica would be cool, but bands seem to be very easy to license so I'd bet they have the next several band pins in sight already.

I wouldn't think it would be Walking Dead since the main series is over.

I think LOTR could be the best "long-con" from Stern if they opt to re-engineer and re-release:

LOTR was made during the old ownership of the IP. With the new series on Amazon there could be a new "LOTR"-adjacent machine on the horizon through Rings of Power. Even if the show is "meh" in season 1 (personally I loved it, but "the internet" seemed torn), based on theme alone it would sell like hotcakes, and we've all seen many "nebulously rated" properties get a cornerstone. The show is planned to run 5 seasons, so there is plenty of time for a RoP machine to be developed and released. I could see them wanting to secure the license ASAP, but wanting to sit on the license until at least season 2 is out, both for potential hype and for more assets to be available. Is it possible that Stern would re-engineer and re-release a modified LOTR just as a means of creating the relationship with the new owners of the LOTR IP immediately and having a product sooner than later, therefore bringing the new IP holders to "their side"? Presumably the relationship forged with the new IP holders would help open the door to Stern forging a relationship with Amazon for RoP.

In this scenario, worst case would be that Stern could sell a metric shit-load of Spike 2 or 3 LOTR, which would make everyone (Stern, Licensor, fans) happy, even if they didn't get the RoP license. Best case we get LOTR and a Stern RoP. More pinball is (almost) always a good thing!!

If not for the new IP ownership of the LOTR universe, I would automatically assume JJP would have dibs. But with new ownership, I should see all bets being off and Stern swooping in.

Ah - bummer!