Your opinion means nothing to me. Millions of fans around the world. NEXT!

would make a great translight!

Looks like this theme will be available to a new company who will actually make games soon.

Your avatar is one of my favorite Movies, I want that… Thing in a Pinball

Crazy Taxi - no
Space Taxi - YES!

Space Taxi - no
Fake Taxi - YES!

Could you imagine?! Id be all over it.

Another flashback. I had that game on Dreamcast (another of my great investments) but it was addictive. I can almost imagine in my head the route through the city for the times trial thing. But yeh agree, Offspring pin not getting made anytime soon.

I wonder how much Godzilla LEs will be going for? Think Stern will make 1000 this time?

If I had to take a wild guess, $11.5k

Was told 9500 msrp. If distributors charge more, I won't buy it. I understand a cost increase due to shortage of parts and labor so not concerned with that, but I won't be gouged by them.

It will be interesting to see if the upcoming price increase will impact sales.

All the people who keep guessing astronomical price increases ( and have for years ) are the ones normalizing those prices and signaling to the manufacturers that you’re willing to pay more . Congrats ! Your plan worked & it will keep working for as long as you implement it . If I produced widgets and my primary customer base on a widget forum speculated $1000 price increase with each new model you better believe that as a manufacturer I would meet those expectations .

I understand. I was referring to the people who are willing to be gouged. Many paid in excess of $12000 for Mando LE whether to dealers or flippers. Something tells me that GZ LE will be the same.

For myself, I am not willing either. I buy LEs because they have the most in them and also usually hold their value the best. Now that you have to lock in on LEs way ahead of time or pay a huge price, I will be sticking to premiums if I buy NIB. The additional advantage to buying Premiums is there is zero FOMO. Premiums come out last and them make them for years if it's a good game.

I am hoping Stern make 1000 GZLEs or maybe even more. Enough to satisfy demand and stop the flipping. Pinball pricing is crazy and unsustainable.

Hi,
A long time i didn’t have logged there.
Can someone be nice enough to recap me when approximately the next stern would be announced and which titles are likely been coming out (or still rumors)?
Thanks

I guess for me it will come down to artwork. Im sure I can get my le for msrp, even a bit less as in the past. My problem with a premium is its usually 6 months out, and I'm bored of the game by then and ready to move on. But this may be a special game ,so who knows????

September is Godzilla or "Godzilla"
December is Rush and/or BTTF
March is BTTF or James Bond

I do not think price increases are going to go over to well and ultimately backfire down the road.
Especially if people are having to wait 6-8 months to get told they have to wait another couple months.

I know a lot of the middle class families are not going to spend an extra 500 - 1000 bucks in 2022 as
they are not going to be getting the full tax credit. That will put a squeeze on NIB purchase for some
as they won't have that Tax money. Also think after a year of supply chain waiting and not happy campers
people will spend elsewhere.

How do you follow up Mando anyway? Godzilla ( maybe ) not sure a BTTF will hold up against folks
who still want some of the other titles.

Unless - something else changes the game.....

Agree with your point that if Stern made more LE’s to meet demand, then prices would not be crazy. So what if for Godzilla, let’s say Stern said they are selling no more than 1,750 LE’s at $10.5k. They would plan to run and sell the first 1k LE’s immediately, with follow up runs tbd. The first run may be enough to satisfy demand and if not then more runs of up to 750 LE’s could be made. While disappointing some because they would not be able to flip their LE’s for guaranteed profit, it would keep their market price close to MSRP level. In that case everybody wins. Guy buying game initially pays msrp, guy buying nib from dealer when Stern makes another run a year later pays msrp, guy buying a HUO pin can expect to pay close to msrp. With this approach, we have just reduced the risk of price gouging in the product’s lifecycle.

A side benefit of announcing a ridiculous number of LE’s is that it gives one pause about how special that LE would be. It might influence many of those buyers into the premium model instead and they would feel good about it. Some LE’s have nice extra’s and better graphics, while others do not and might not be worth paying more for.

I'd prefer they keep the le at a maximum of 750, 500 is even better. Not for resale, but to give a person who wants to have something special. I have no idea how to keep them out of flippers hands tho

Selling consumer direct is no east feat when you're putting out as many games stern does in a year. there are many reasons not to go consumer direct - Tech service being a huge one. They may modify their distribution channel to commercial only and home retailers but i would highly doubt they'd ever want to go all consumer direct. They also don't want to piss of their distribution network by directly competing against them. The only way i see them going consumer direct would be on special LE models and to the influencer's in the pinball world (which they kinda already do with the Stern Army/ IFPA rewards program).

Yes exactly. I think the manufacturers need to increase the LE supply to meet demand. Exactly as you have said, make enough so everybody that wants one has the opportunity to buy one direct from the manufacturer within a certain time frame. This will get rid of FOMO and flipping for profit.

Pinball nearly died a slow death in the early 2000's. Really high pricing and people could not see the value so stopped buying and operating games. People had less access to games so stopped playing all together. If pricing for machines keeps going up, the same thing will happen again.

Bah. Just buy a premium and quitcher bitchin.

Each to their own man...Conversely, I couldn't give a stuff about BTTF personally as much as there are a ton of people clamoring for it! But bring on Godzilla...

Yep been wanting to see this for years now. By the sound, it's not on the Stern agenda for a bit if we have Godzilla, BTTF, Bond as next possible titles. So I guess we'll wait a while longer. Mind you some good titles on the way to tide us over if rumours prove correct.

If Sterns next line of pins is godz, rush, back future, bond… It’s going to save operators a lot of $$$. That group of titles screams 4 flaming turds on location.

Does any body know the line up as far as who’s turn is it to design a game. IMO that will make a big difference in my purchase decision. Would love to have an elwin on BTTF but fear he is probably Godzilla.

Data East BTTF (while being a steaming turd of a game) tends to be a top earner on many operator routes.

An Elwin Godzilla will earn well on location with pinheads AND kids who love anything that resembles a dinosaur.

Bug at Spooky says The Thing is his favorite flick so maybe we’ll get two John Carpenter pins in a row from them. It sure as hell won’t be Stern who does it haha.

While i have no interest in Godzilla and even less in Rush whatever the designer, BTTF and Bond are great themes in my book, in the top of my wishes regarding Bond, then there are pins i would like to own if done right

In many ways we are fortunate to have themed pins where they actually license the real product. Many years ago they wouldn't do it, but give you something "close". I rember the crazy Beatle years that gave us the pin "The Beat". Any one play "South Carolina Sam"? That's only because Indiana Jones didn't come out in 1964. Y'all can complain all you want but in many ways these are the good old days of pinball. I've got my fingers crossed for a Godzipper or Black Sabbatical.

That would be a dream list for sure.

Even though I'm a big fan of Rush I didn't really want another music pin...until I played Led Zeppelin which is the machine I now like the most at my local pinball place. So now I'm curious to see where they'd go with a Rush pin. BTTF I very much want, and Bond could be cool depending on the generation they go with.

George Lazenby Bond… J/K lol

When will Stern announce the next game?

People dog it because it was a one-off, but it's actually a pretty great Bond movie.

Supposedly mid-late Sept.

Is it possible Stern picks up The Matrix license?

Next Saturday marks 4mo. since Mandalorian was announced so something must be coming soon...

It’s horrible in my opinion because of the angles of the camera shots and quick cuts they do throughout the movie. As far as George, he breaks the fourth wall in the first scene and it throws me off the rest of the movie. LOL

This for sure my wife would dig. It would be a great choice imo.

Idk. I was in High School when the first Matrix came out and while it was amazing at the time, Id have zero interest in it as a pinball theme. Its not a movie id go back and watch these days. It was just an above average 90s action flick. Id rather have the cheesier 80s action flicks if thats the case.
Tango and Cash the game

In the oeuvre of Bond, there are WAY worse 007 movies than On Her Majesty's Secret Service. It probably ranks somewhere high in the top third of a list of all of them. It also has Telly Savalas (Who loves ya, baby?!) and Diana Rigg. Great action scenes, too. Way ahead of their time.

Completely agree.

I know it’s not the worse but it grossed the 3rd lowest amount in the franchise.

That's because people wanted Sean. That was THE first changing of the guard in the Bond series. Of course there would be backlash. People not going to see it simply because it wasn't Sean, etc.