For a novice pinball collector would someone mind to please fill me in on how this usually works? Is there a usual date every so often that they announce games? Does one just have to keep checking their website, or is there another place to look? Do I have to be a Stern insider? If a game is announced and I want one do I just call up my local dealer right away?

Sorry, only Stern I ever bought was a Sopranos NIB several years ago, seemed it was more simple back then. Call a dealer, pay the money, get the pin.

That and the Jelly of the Month Club ball drain.

Same here. Mrs. is the classic rock fan in this house and the game is being bought because of her.

It’s great because we’ll both equally enjoy it. Her for the music, me because who doesn’t want another pinball machine in the house. She’s even talking about having all her friends over to play it (once it’s safe to of course).

Dream themes for me:

Music:
The Chemical Brothers (tons of perfect songs and lots of theme possibilities)
Radiohead (my favorite band, but I am the first to agree their music may not be suitable for pinball)
The Grateful Dead (while I can appreciate their music, it's the fact my wife would agree to one immediately, I can also envision an excellent art package)
Pink Floyd
Daft Punk

Movies:
Anything Tarantino, but ideally Pulp Fiction
True Lies (still an all-time favorite)
Scarface
A Clockwork Orange
The Fifth Element

Rushmore!

Something like Ready Player One???
Sounds good to me.

Any reason why Stern posted a thank you to Daft Punk on Facebook today? A Daft Punk pinball would be an immediate purchase for me!

I just died inside.

Oui s'il te plaît!

There's a reason my wife told me it was not a machine that would be welcome in our house.

Okay, I wasn’t horny until that.

I checked in with my distributor yesterday. Was told not to expect a new game announcement for a while as they are not only dealing with filling old orders, but also running into issues of parts availability from vendors. Notably a lack of availability of steel (I don't know much about this market), and processors (I do know this market as I work in semiconductors, the whole segment is on its head right now). Both of these issues could be causing them major problems in getting games out the door.

I for one love my Star Wars Pro. It's an excellent game with deep rules that is fun to play. Yes, it is a fast, ass kicker of a machine, but it just makes you a better player.

Fuck yeah! Twin Peaks it is! Day one purchase for me!

I’d take two of those. Beastie Boys and Daft Punk.

So you're saying lots of hair on the play field then.

Completely agree.

Called my local distributor, trying to get a game before the price increase. Unfortunately all that he has in stock is one each of TMNT and LZ pro. Everything else is gone (he usually has lots of stock). He’s not expecting anything other than pre-orders for the rest of the year.

You mean my favorite game in my collection??? One could hope it gets that kind of treatment.

You must be talking about some stratospheric high end audio equipment if you're holding on to any value. I've got about $40k into my home theater, if I had to sell that stuff I'd be happy to get back half of it. Last thing I sold was a projector for $900 that I paid $5,000 for and it was maybe five years old. Heck, I've got a B&K amplifier and a Lexicon pre-amp boxed up in my garage, close to $10k worth of gear that's not even worth the trouble of trying to sell.

Radiohead would be a much better choice than Foo Fighters or Muse. Isn’t Muse just a wanna-be Radiohead anyway?

I’ll admit, I was stirring the pot a bit with the Muse comment, I think it to be true, but I understand we all have different tastes. I can however think of several Radiohead songs that would be fantastic on a pinball machine:

Creep (Not a favorite of mine, but I know it’s what a lot of people know them for)
Planet Telex
My Iron Lung
Just
Airbag
Paranoid Android
Electioneering
The National Anthem
Idioteque
The Gloaming
Myxomatosis
15 Step
Nude (Slow for sure, but you could do some great lighting effects with it)
Lotus Flower
Burn The Witch
Ful Stop
Polyethylene
Palo Alto

That’s just off the top of my head. But Radiohead has been my favorite band since Pablo Honey.

All in on a Total Recall pin.

3 boob multiball would be epic!

Perfect call out for when the action button comes into play…

33544923-4151-4E8C-9D60-7EFE6CF3C2E4 (resized).jpeg

I stopped using Facebook about a month ago. It was because of pinball.

I was doing like I did and wasting time on that awful platform. Was looking on a pinball group. Someone who I had no association with whatsoever other than being in the same pinball fan group posted a picture of their machines. In the picture there was a table next to the machines, on the table some cool wooden movie projector. So I zoom in on the picture to look at this movie projector thing.

Hour later go back to my phone and go back on stupid Facebook. What is being advertised to me??? That fucking wooden projector.

Nope. Not having it. Wayyyyy too creepy. Done with Facebook.

We need an EDM pinball machine.

I propose The Chemical Brothers. They've been around since the early 90's, still making Grammy winning albums. They headline massive festivals world-wide, and sell out arenas on their own. And the visuals and music would be PERFECT for pinball!

I don’t disagree with you on Daft Punk. Their music is on another level when it comes to the EDM genre! However, other than the pyramid and their logo, I can’t see what other visual assets there’d be. The Chems however have a trove of visuals they’ve employed in their live shows that would be very suitable towards a machine.

That would be Def Leppard.

Twin Peaks!

Bought my opening weekend Dolby Cinema tickets this morning!

God I hope so, at least then it will be a theme I could care less about!

Here’s a theme that I can’t believe hasn’t been brought up yet and I’m sure would sell well.

Formula 1

It has blown up in the United States, and for sure it would sell as a theme in Europe. With Drive To Survive on Netflix there are so many people interested in F1 that weren’t just a couple years ago.

I’d be down for one, and there’s so much you could do with that theme.

Interesting, I didn’t realize that, but it makes a lot of sense. I can see why they named it Grand Prix rather than Formula 1, I’m sure back then Bernie Eccolstone would’ve asked a fortune for the license.

Too bad it wasn’t a particularly good game.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Daft Punk = INSTABUY!!!

I have that Spanish "bootleg" disk. Yes, it is arguable whether or not that is a "bootleg". One thing you can't argue though is that it is the best option out there. Other than some softness on shots that I also remember from my Laserdisc copy, and a bit of a PITA figuring out how to set the subtitles (so they will show up when he speaks Farsi, but not when you don't want them to show up), it is the best looking and sounding representation out there. And it is in 5.1

Oh man, I totally see a Royale avec Fromage. Pulp Fiction pin confirmed!!!

I’m on a flight back from Asia tomorrow. If there’s like 1000 new posts in this thread by the time I land I’ll know we heard something.

200 new posts! Yay, we know what the next Stern machine is. And it’s…

AIDS

Lame.

Ha ha. I’ve been going there for years and used to go 8-10 times a year, it was my first trip since Covid. Singapore and Malaysia this time. So it was super weird to be back, but cool as well, and interesting to see how different things are there. So happy I got to have some food I missed and meet with some very friendly people again. Let’s see if I can find some cool pictures to share…

2F6A7E48-B459-4BAE-A933-855D2B5A7CE6 (resized).jpeg

A226A3F7-58B7-49B9-B0D1-E0BE9DE08CED (resized).jpeg

A618DBCD-4ED8-4062-BE8C-6B0FDE90F8BC (resized).jpeg

B0835E12-8EA0-4941-BD13-781B899C2909 (resized).jpeg

And now it all makes sense. This should be the next Stern. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it…

9E8ABDE6-3796-47E6-A219-137FE3FA5E9D (resized).jpeg

OMG!!!! It's out. Development is complete.
[quoted image]</

Hard, hard pass on that one.

Was a bit strange to see the shrunken head from Ripley’s Believe it or Not.

China would like to have a word with you.

Agreed, but I'd prefer it under its international name, Le Mans '66.

Sorry to quote myself, but... You heard it here first ladies and gentlemen. Confirmed 100%! I found the connection...

Batman '66 and...

Le Mans '66!

Username checks out, day one purchase!

Mourning.

The license is about as British as they come. The game literally says "Her Majesty's" on it. Read the room. Stern did apparently and I applaud them for that.

Did someone say Le Mans???

I like facts. I just downvoted because no one else had and I didn't want you to be disappointed.

I would hardly consider Mando a three flipper game. Are we saying Mando premium is a four flipper game???

Well, KME was wearing a Gorillaz shirt on the Bond60 stream. So… ‍♂️

It’s because comic art was retired quite some time ago.

Just so you know buddy, no one from California calls it Cali. But hey, I hear Buff is nice this time of year (and only this time of year).

I'd like to be added to the list of folks who considers themselves to be priced out by Stern. I've been in total agreement with iceman44 on this subject, he speaks the truth!

I bought my first pin in 2005, a NIB Sopranos (I still have it, wife won't let me ever sell it). Somehow I was okay with having one pin for 15 years, never considered getting another. Then like many Covid hit and I went a little nuts buying machines. I used to dump $5k or so a year on upgrading home theater/stereo equipment and decided to move that to pinball instead. Then got into playing in league and some tournaments and stretched my money to justify 2 or 3 games a year. Plenty of room to expand and didn't intend to slow down until this last price hike. I just can't see the value in these prices, it's become absurd. Bond was a theme that really worked for me and quite some time ago I'd gone to my distributor and asked to get on the list for it. I was all set to pay $11k for my first LE, and then what do you know, that was when the price jumped to $13k and I said thanks but no thanks. Not for this guy.

Technically I guess I haven't slowed down in buying games yet. It's just that I'm not buying Sterns. Last one was a NIB Godzilla premium, since that one have bought an Alien LV, an older Williams game, and paid a deposit and have money set aside for Pulp Fiction. Stern needs to wake up and realize that they're not the only game in town and they have in fact jumped the shark in their pricing and efforts to force people into the higher end models (which at $7-8k I was cool with, $9k plus, nope, you lost me as a customer).

Rant over, but just wanted to make my voice heard. As we've seen our numbers are growing and Stern should be very concerned.

Not sure if it's kosher to list distributors by name, but if you look at where I'm located and then look at the Stern distributor map it won't be hard to see that my local guy goes by the initials PP. I've seen a Beatles NIB there for a while. Now is it priced at MSRP? That I don't know. But maybe worth a call...

Same distributor also has multiple Bond 60s. And is cool enough to have one in the back on free play.

I don’t know much about these sorts of things, but would the actors and writers and whoever else may be striking in Hollywood not have an effect on the licensing aspect of Stranger Things???

Isn’t that supposed to be JJP???

A car? A boat? A hot tub?

A pinball machine is NOT an investment. An asset, sure.

Alien is amazing! Favorite game in my collection for a while now. I hope you end up with one, you won’t be disappointed.

My absolute dream theme. Pretty obscure, but would be epic.

05E04994-6BC0-4A5F-8287-D1228C34C686 (resized).png

CashMoney would like a word….

Isn't the rumor Dutch Pinball rather than Pinball Brothers for BTTF??? If it is Dutch, seeing how long it takes people to get a Lebowski I think might as well forget about ever getting a BTTF. If Pinball Brothers I will actually be happy based off my experience in owning an Alien.

As someone who’s been in the semiconductor industry for 20+ years now. I can tell you that you’re correct, there’s no shortage, rather there is now a glut of inventory .

The theme of Rush is for a very specific buyer and I still can’t believe they made it. But there’s no denying it’s a great game.

I do the same. It never seems to work.

Totally agree on shot geometry with Spooky games. Rick and Morty was a total clunk-fest.

Who you calling a whore?!

I’m guessing Dune???

Got this poster for my Deadhead wife last year when we went to the final shows (I’m still not convinced they won’t tour again). Agreed that there is just so much artwork they can pull from. And there’s definitely some tunes that could fit well with pinball as well. I’d be stoked if a Grateful Dead machine got made because it would be a no-brainer addition in our house!

IMG_0373 (resized).jpeg

I’m also looking forward to seeing it in IMAX, and I guess a lot of other folks as well…
The best theater bar none to see an epic movie in our area is the AMC Metreon in San Francisco. The screen is in the top 10 biggest in the world and they’re showing it in 70mm. (Saw Oppenheimer there in 70mm as well and it was incredible). I went on their site the day tickets went on sale and the best I could do to get decent seats wasn’t until the third weekend it’s out!

Would the pyramid be on the playfield or better as a topper?

Curiosity made me watch that video start to finish.
Who is that guy kidding??? “Oh no, I never go into porn shops”. Goes into a porn shop.
“I’m not going to open the used panty container”, immediately opens the used panty container.