You nailed it. All of it, but especially the mono part, especially for such a music-centric machine, is just infuriating.

Stern could probably milk large-fanbase rock bands as themes for the next 3 years without breaking a sweat....

They may have also unwittingly tapped-into pre-sale-hysteria-genius by coordinating LE sales with fan clubs as well....

The market is showing that with the right licensing/theme purchase, they can sellout a machine without anyone ever plunging the first ball.... why make a big change?

I think Stern has the luxury of sitting back and watching JJP for a year or so and see how the machine is received.

There was an interesting exchange about this in the movie, "Tilt, the battle to save pinball." When they were developing pinball2k, they all kind of figured out that players cant watch the PF and the monitor at the same time, hence their innovative design to merge the 2.

It would seem JJP missed that movie.... Or, more likely, they just wanted to do something to "shake things up"- even though it couldn't really add much to actual gameplay. I suspect its absolutely gorgeous for spectators though- however- thats not a huge selling point for me.

Coming from also having a Virtual cabinet, this is a funny conversation.

In the virtual cab world, all the rage is swapping out the LCD's for "real" DMD's.

Obviously thats for authenticity, but still a bit humorous that the folks that are starting with LCDS paying MORE to make them look more like old DMDs...

Im more frustrated they cant figure out stereo sound.... I mean- come on now!

back to back rock band pins and shitty mono sound? thats just lazy.