The more NEW title pins being made, the better.

Some of JPop's patents that were leaked look very interesting. I'm excited to see what's in store!

Let's keep moving forward.

Gene told me he made every BBB he had Capcom CPU boards for. He initially had 183 boards, so that's how many he sold as numbered games.

He did find a few extra boards late in the run, so those games had a serial number of EXP . This gave an additional 8 games to the run.

The Capcom CPU has a custom ASIC chip that would have minimum run of 100,000 to ever make again (again per Gene). This is the same reason that the MMr is not using the Williams CPU board, there are not 2000 Williams ASIC chips left on earth.

So just like the MMr, a new BBB would be using a modern processor emulating the old Capcom ASIC.

Everything else is just plywood, plastic and wire, lol.

Yeah, but you don't need to know anything about business to know that the profits of each company are ending up in the same place...Jack's pocket...since he owns both companies.

But that's not the point. But again, you already know that too.

People are acting as though Pinballsales.com and JJP are one and the same. They are not (at least not as far as I know and nobody has said differently). So in theory JJP could go belly up, and Pinballsales.com could stay afloat and make healthy profits, or vice versa.

OMG the Cult of Jpop, I can't take it. You're talking about his 3rd game when the first one isn't even remote close to being finished!!! We'll all be dead by the time Alice ever shows up! Enjoy the present, stop swooning for vaporware.

For the record I love Jpop games...I have CV and TOM ...but we see how hard it is for companies like Stern and JJP to make a game with a full staff and support...I honestly don't see how he's ever going to get finished products out. If he does, rub it in my face later. Life's too short to put any faith in it now.

Bally is Williams. PPS has those rights.

Stern owns Sega. Data east, Sega, stern, same product line and evolution.

I need to save this off somewhere ...

Wow, nice condescending statement and talk about being arrogant and big headed. Not surprised though considering you have all HUO and HEP titles. I already own a HUO MM so it's not a matter of me being able to afford one, so please get your facts straight before making assumptions. Unlike you I don't feel entitled to own games and welcome MMR so others can now get their hands on one. It's a great game so why shouldn't more collectors have the opportunity to own one in their collection and enjoy it? Isn't that what pinball is all about? Forums can bring out the best of people and thanks for confirming it.

I'm holding out for "Popeye" and "Bugs Bunny's Birthday Bash".

I've only seen the few speculators on this, but I think the overall consensus is 8k is the price point of these remakes, regardless of titles. I definitely expect that, and if at the time I can't afford it, I just won't buy.

On another note it is getting old for people to be upset at the price since no one is forcing them to buy.

A big mistake to charge 8k for the other remakes? Sorry, not 100% sure what you are saying here since I agree on most of the rest of your post.

Nope. You don't know that at all, and it could actually be very far from the truth. That is making all kinds of assumptions that simply cannot be made.

If it costs them $5500.00 to make AFM, they earn $1 million selling at $6k if they sell 2000 of them.

At $8k, they earn $2.5 million in profit if they sell 1000 of them. So in that case, selling half the units for more money earns them significantly more profit.

So my example makes a big assumption too (and I don't think it will cost that much to make it), simply for the sake of making the point. It all comes down to what their cost analysis is.

I sorry to much SWAG going on here.(Scientific Wild Ass Guessing)

1 None of us have any clue what the profit margin is vs actual cost.
2. If there is a good profit, Are they looking to reinvest?
3. Do they wish to become a fulltime Pinball manufacturing Co.
4. What will the future market hold?

Right, it's all pure speculation at this point. Like I said, it comes down to their cost analysis.

It's fun to speculate and predict though. If AFM cost them $4000.00 to make, and they sold 2000 of them in your example at $6000.00, they would have a profit of $4 million.

If they sold half as many (1000) at a price of $8000.00, they would also have a profit of $4 million.

Of course none of that takes into account the fact that they could earn additional profit by selling more units because that means that they can sell more replacement parts in the future when the pin breaks down. And from what I understand, pins break down.

Got it. Yeah, regardless it just won't happen. Always best to sell a handful less for a higher dollar amount.

Sorta. Might come down to larger discounts for 2000 as opposed to 1000 and if assembly line is up then keep that bad boy going since there is a fee for simply setting it up to make the games. Might be minimal, but could always be hundreds of thousands of savings in the end.

I kind of doubt that there would be any significant savings. They are the ones already making most of the parts. Not sure what kind of volume discount you could get on the other stuff (cabinets?)

Centaur - $5-6k, could be run on a teensy or arduino or something. Heck, just make a kit with PF and harness/hardware/transformer. Please...

I have been in the finance/accounting world for over 25 years. Have worked for Mom and Pops to Fortune 500 companies.

Even then - I could only guess at the actual cost. Unless you have ever operated a business, your lack of knowledge is so high - it's off the charts. I'm sure there are costs to this project that even I can't think of let alone try and figure out their overhead or indirect costs.

Unless they are a public company or you have a financial interest in their capital - you have neither the business, nor the right to be privy to any of their margins, OCF, tax liabilities, or how to choose their reinvest their profits.

That's their business.

BBB sold for $4500 with the end cost actually being $7300 and that was with 70% of the game already in stock.

So if BBB was remade, now with *nothing* on hand, the selling price would probably be $10K or more.

Keep in mind, Kingpin was slated to cost $8K......five years ago!

Maybe, maybe not.

As of December 2012, less than 150 people had signed up for Kingpin.

That number is often called into question.

We all know how Gene likes to quote big numbers.

MM is more complicated than KP, and probably on par with BBB.

The only thing "different" on BBB is the lighting on the tube ramp, and the tube dancer herself. Otherwise it's all plywood, plastic and wires.

I've edited my original post. I think AFM would be Planetary Pinball's next remake if they do one at all.

Kim
http://www.WrongCrowdProductions.com/

No more remakes please... let have new games.

More remakes please... Let have finished games.

One has nothing to do with the other. Planetary was never gonna make new games and their remakes won't stop Stern, JJP, Heighway and others from making new games.

Not enough money to go around! If remakes continue to be made it will definitely hurt and maybe even kill Stern and/or JJP. If it continues you would be talking about millions and millions of dollars a year going to PPS for remakes... how do these other companies make up for those lost sales? Something will give so yes it could easily stop Stern, JJP and others from making new titles.

It will put definitely more pressure on them to deliver TOP machines.
"If" I could spent 8k on a new pinball machine.... which one would I take...
- WOZ
- Star Trek LE
- MM

MM at this time...

And next time????
- Hobbit
- Whatever Stern LE
- CC, AFM, MB or... CV, TOTAN, SS

That will be a tough question! Not good for JJP or Stern! There is NOT endless money in the market (my opinion).

Exactly... many can't seem to understand this. I would much rather see Stern and JJP competing for people's money with new, cool titles as well as seeing what some of these other groups continue to produce like JPOP, Spooky etc.

Honest, not trolling question: How exactly did they step their game up?

Then Stern and JJP need to step it up and put out some great games so people buy them over remakes. There is a lot of money to go around in this hobby and just look at some peoples collections. Collectors would be selling their older games if there was something worth buying that is new. Plus the unfinished code gets old after a while and people are fed up. With duds like TF, XMEN, and AV it's a crap shoot if you will get one like that or good game like Tron or AC/DC.

If they are losing sales and not making money that's the last thing they will do is 'step it up'... more apt to 'step it down'

But at least we'll have our twenty year old originals and twenty year refakes! HIP HIP HOORAAY!

Wayne had 10,000 ASIC chips made. He was selling them on his site a few years ago.

If they produced better games at a decent price point, then no one would want the older remakes would they?

You don't see anybody remaking old EM games now do you?

For years Gary said that home buyers were not his target market, operators were. Well during that time things slowly changed and I think the home buyer became more important than was let on.

The home market is not the same as the operator market. Home buyers DO care about unfinished code, they DO look at the value proposition differently, weighing game fun factor and replayablity of the title in lieu of earning potential.

The hobby part of this market is heading more and more to boutique games, and that includes remakes like it or not. It's what the hobby part of the market is demanding. The dollars will flow. Everything is changing. Compete or die.

how much can a license be if skit b got the license for predator, and according to something i read his mother said they have already secured 2 other licenses.

maybe kevin can give some insight on the cost of a license.

thanks ed

**if** that is true, then somehow it was less money for PPS to redesign a whole new board, than buy Wayne0's 10,000 ASICs....

They stepped it up to $8,000.00

I truly believe people have crazy overblown notions about how much licensing something like this costs. I believe part of the Skit B license deal was the 250 machine limit though, so I imagine the size of the run affects the cost structure. Can you honestly see more than a couple thousand MB machines selling? That's still small potatoes in the world of licensing.

All I have is informed guesses though, so who knows!

If it's really BBB I see the prices not much higher than currently for the Airborne by the end .
Furthermore BBB's gameplay isn't that impressive ... its just the figure of having some special / rare which is keeping the price up. That would be a small desaster for the current BBB owners.

Stern could remake IM, POTC, SM, LOTR would all probably sell if priced under $6K

All of these Stern/JJP doomsday scenarios assume that a.) all of the remake sales are cannibalized from other sales and b.) that Stern/JJP won't benefit from the remakes bringing net new purchasers into the hobby. The first of those points is TBD; certainly some percentage of MMR sales will be made with existing pinhead money that would have gone to other manufacturers, we just don't know how much.

I think the second of those points hasn't gotten enough consideration. I'd bet that right now, there is a not insignificant number of people who get into pinball via Pinball Arcade on their mobile device (on which MM/MB/AFM are catnip), get the thought that maybe they could own a MM, go to ebay, get their hair blown back by a 15K price, consider the difficulty of supporting an old machine, and decide it's not worth pursuing. Consequently, they never enter the hobby.

What'll happen when they instead see an 8K warrantied NIB MMR available instead? Some of them are going to buy. And we all know that once you get a machine in the house -- it's not alone for long. Some of them are then going to make a Stern or JJP their second purchase. It's hard to say how many, of course, but I wouldn't be too surprised if the new money that comes into the hobby as a whole as the result of the remakes balances out the cannibalized sales.

Obviously you would simply prefer "new" games and that's fine, but...it can't really be about competition. If it was you would have to apply the exact same argument about Jersey Jack Pinball or any of the smaller start up companies. The market will dictate the future of pinball. In the mean time an increase in supply will benefit the consumer, period. As a consumer this is great news.

That is still a sizable purchase.