you can easily find one around the 17 -20 grand mark. only a handful made

The base machine for this redo is usually a Gottlieb "Continental Café" which is a true EM.

4 to be specific. I only know where one is, but I honestly doubt any of the owners are looking to sell.

Your best bet is to hope that Stern makes a run of them, which has been kicked around as a possibility for a while.

some people have made some custom home versions. which is also pretty neat, not sure if thats included in the 4 total

Yes and you would have to build your own or pay thousands of dollars for one of a handful made. I believe the Playfield, Plastics, and Backglass are still available, so you just need to buy a Gottlieb Continental Cafe pinball machine as your base. The project should be as easy as changing a fuse.

Ken

The 4 is just the "official" ones that Greg and Dennis built with their little team of helpers, I don't have any clue how many home brew versions might exist.

It's not all EM. WNBJM is EM and Solid State.

don't forget bryan and TAG (part of the "helper" group)

Do you figure if they did a run of 250-300 they'd be able to make a machine like that less expensive than the other boutique ones? (Predator, Lebowski, Spooky, etc.)
I read someone comment in the VonnieD reactions that boutiques should stop trying to reinvent the wheel with new features and just come up with a more affordable, simple, pretty machine - sounds like WNBJM to me.

It's fun to see, I love that they built it, but it's basically a reskin of an old EM game. Little more than that, but not much.

If you like that kind of thing then hey, great. Personally after playing it once I was bored, but I'm not a real EM player. People would probably be mostly buying it as a collector piece I would think, for the art etc.

No idea what the BOM would be like. People who buy EMs are used to machines being cheap, I wonder how much they'd be willing to pay for a new one?

I'm a real EM guy and I was bored.... I felt there was no flow. I love the artwork, etc. but it just wasn't fun for me.

Well ok, I am an EM guy, but I never did play that one. But for the sake of argument, let's say they were to build one from scratch that would be fun as far as EMs go.
I'm just wondering if we could do a simple rule of three to determine how much cheaper you could get a machine like that to be.
I guess Predator doesn't have any outlandish stuff - just regular pop bumpers and ramps (besides for that glow in the dark thing), and how much is that, 4500$?
You probably couldn't go much cheaper than that with a similar number of machines, right? (250 is the number I think?)

for wnbjm, not nearly as much they would cost...

give us a "real" remake of one of the classics though, with a price tag of $3-4k, and i think at least some would swallow very hard and reach for their wallets... anecdotal evidence would suggest that there might be a market for out there for something like that... i have seen more than a few very very nice examples of certain machines sell in that price range, and imo, at least some of those purchasers (and those that could have purchased) would buy nib if they could push a button and order one...

i like cheap machines, but there are at least a couple that i'd figure out a way to buy if they were available brand spanking new... and realistically, if you want a REALLY nice em, you are gonna pay good money for it anyway, unless you happen to get really lucky...

3 issues...

- they'd have to be "real"... play/sound/feel like the original... no cheating... all the same relays, steppers, exactly the way it came back in the day... if i pulled out a schematic for the original, i should be able to use it on the remake...

- i think the cost would be prohibitive... "think", not know... but if you are going to make any decent number of them, you can't be relying on donor machines, plus a nib machine ain't nib if it is made with used parts... that means a whole bunch of tooling and manufacturing of parts...

- us "em guys" would be highly unlikely to buy into the "give me money now and if you are lucky, you may get a machine somewhere down the road" business model that is employed by boutique manufacturers of "modern machines"... it would have to be along the stern business model, e.g. "here is a machine, buy it"...

build it, and we will come...

Fab Fan tried that with King of Diamonds. there was no second title.

Does anyone know how well (or not) the King of Diamonds remake sold?

http://retropinball.net/king_of_diamonds.html

I'm guessing it didn't sell very well, because Retro Pinball has yet to release another title.

(Edit: kbliznick got in before me)

Just one game was built outside of those 4 as far as I know. The owner usually has it at PAGG.

not very well...

it fails miserably on the "real" part...

How much did it cost?

Is that the one that was at the 2013 PAGG? By the WOZ prototype?

I've learned to appreciate EMs more lately, but I just don't think that you'll ever see a true NIB one again. Not in the sense of

Maybe a 'fake' one that had the same play but modern guts. People might hate that too much though, I dunno.

Edit:

So maybe not?

Yup. Brad (organizer of PAGG) built that game with some help from an AMAZING cabinet guy. Game looks incredible!

I lump digital KOD in with Exidy's Old Time Basketball and Benchmark's Ten Strike Classic. Good effort, but ain't nothing like the real thing baby.

a bit north of $3500, i believe...

nope, i don't think you will either... as much as i love em pinball, i just don't think it is feasible... pick any mechanical object made in the 50s/60s/70s, and the same would hold true...

nope, definitely not... it isn't an em... it is a ss machine... and it looks different... and so on...

Sweet. I've played the "real thing" too, and it's a lot of fun to look at. Just not a ton of fun to actually play ...

_{Post edited by Aurich: Edit: put real thing in quotes}

Here's a NIB EM:
http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/rds/clt/4511074392.html

(and one that's been 'opened'):
http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/rds/clt/4520980124.html

If you could get it to cost closer to something like 2.5k I could see a nice original with modern guts and score reels for that old timey look, more elaborate rules than your typical EM (made possible with an MPU) and a fun layout could work.
Let's say Predator is 4.5k, you remove the glow in the dark stuff, the license, the DMD and the ramps and maybe you could shave off a thousand?
I don't think that model's really been tried yet. A modern implementation of 70s style pinball.
Maybe that wouldn't attract the average pinhead all that much, but for the regular guy, I'm sure that would work better than "The Pin".

Chinese made with a plastic PF.
I played it then passed.
If I was to get a KoD I would rather have a battle scarred original.
I don't think they sold well at all and I think you can still get one if you wanted one from Retro Pinball.

Oh my, no tight ass has flagged it as inappropriate yet?! "Don't post that stuff cause I am at work slacking off and can't have that pop up". I hate those comments. Carry on now.

So 3.5k, Chinese made with a plastic PF... that answers that I guess.

I believe the playfield was a mylar sheet on blank wood, not plastic.

Greg's artwork is phenomenal on this game- couldn't resist it... and no the pf is screened - at least my sample is.

IMG_2544.JPG

I don't think a new EM would work ...

1/ the BOM would be horrendous
2/ the customer grizzles would be horrendous because EMs require maintenance
3/ EM guys are used to paying peanuts for EMs so they probably wouldn't buy one

However, I do think a SS remake would work.

1/ lower BOM
2/ DMD guys would be interested
3/ reliablity would be good

I've got a few nice SS at my place now (genie, paragon, future spa, Gorgar etc) and the DMD guys just cream their pants when they play them. It's like a whole new world to the new guys.

Imagine a brand new Gorgar! How cool would that be? It'd be bitchin!!

PS I have my name on Dennis' list for a new WOAH NELLIE! so I'd buy one. Its cool.

rd.

Most EM guys like to work on their own stuff, partly because we're cheap and partly because it's fun! If we liked to work on SS games we'd probably own more of them.

He was talking about the King of Diamonds remake, the Woah Nellie playfield is printed just fine.

I'd love to see some early SS remakes for good prices, some games there that really do hold up still even for more modern players. Kind of a middle ground.

Also, I like breasts as much as anyone, but can you self tilt if you're going to post blatant stuff like that? Some people are in places where being ambushed could get them in some hot water (not me, just thinking of others).

Those look like over-ripe melons!

but mostly because we're cheap...

nah... i'd own arcade video games....

One of these shows up at PAGG and I have played the heck out of it.
It is, by far, my favorite EM of all time. And not just because of the outstanding
(snicker) artwork. The game play is excellent.

Given the choice between a new Stern, or A-list pin & Mellons, for about the same $'s,
I'd get Mellons.
Steve

big mellons.jpg

Melons and pinball.
Like peanut butter and jelly.

Here we go again!

Yee-haw!!!