Gambit was featured well in the very forgettable Wolverine movie. I sure do wish that movie was better, as I saw it 3 times in the theater, simply because the theater is across the street from my house and is a bar.

I'm interested to see how this game is going to shape up, we're probably looking at a July or Aug launch, making it direct competition with WOZ so I wonder if they'll be pulling out all the stops.

Yeah you'd think with it being the head to head with woz, it's going to be top notch. But maybe that's what they are using AC/DC for? A little worried that ac/dc buzz is going to hurt x-men (rightly or wrongly, we'll see soon).. How hard is it for them to knock 2 of them out of the park back to back? I'd like the x-men theme better , but the buzz has me looking really hard at a ac/dc pre. I'm also someone who doesn't get the TRON love at all, so Borg makes me nervous. Prob cause I'm a toy whore and TRON doesn't have anything that engaging to me in that regard.. Which also has me on the fence about ac/dc.. Bell seems cool but no MM castle.

Theater is a bar? Where is this mecca of cinema of which you speak?!?

I love Borg games. He is my favorite designer going back to GnR. Everyone has their favorite designer for their own reasons.
I'd be more concerned with Avengers at this point than Xmen.

Xmen is going to be something special I think.

Yes, this will be the first "Stern Borg" with a realistic BOM and also (hopefully?) a polished set of rules. Borg should thank JJP

This is my 2 cents: The guy who said "Lets only make 400 Tron LE's" needs to rethink things BC IMO if stern made 1000 units their profits would have been much larger and thats what its all about, PROFIT and survival nothing else. I have ran my own company and if I had made a mistake like this I would be rethinking my whole production department. Companies make mistakes all the time. Its how they recover from them, learn from the mistakes moving foward and the ability to adapt to the changing market that ensures survival and growth. In the mean time you have people cashing out bc of supply and demand making some of that profit that stern has left on the table.

I disagree completely. The 400 Tron LEs were the best thing they could have ever done. It helped to instill the "gotta pre-order my LE or I'll miss out!" mentality for future models.

The difference between Stern and JJP, with regard to the # of LE vs regular run is twofold:

1) They make more $$ on the Pros, and sell more Pros to Europe than any other machine, anywhere else. That is their primary concern as far as filling orders, as it keeps them profitable. They can't bog down the line with 1000 LEs, zero of which would go to fulfill European orders.

2) Stern produces multiple titles every year. JJP has the line time to devote the entire factory to producing LEs. Stern doesn't. They do produce at least 1000 LEs every year (just like JJP) - it is just that Stern makes multiple titles of LEs. And sells them all. Swap the numbers however you want. If Stern took the time to crank out 1000 TRON LEs, it would just mean that fewer AC/DC LEs would have been made. Or fewer X-Men LEs, or whatever.... They don't go dark on that factory floor for days at a time, so it isn't as if the line is dead today and they could be building TRON LEs. They are on to something else.

Very interested in a Borg X-Men pin as it should be fast and furious.

HOWEVER I am concerned that this may be the last DMD. So, I spend serious coin on X-Men LE only for Avengers to come out with a totally new LCD system that immediately dates DMD's ( and WOZ will be out ).

This is a dilemma I am wrestling with. I am going to try and hold out for Avengers ( all those movie clips on an LCD screen and hopefully a shaker for Hulk Mode

What do you think Stern wanted to do in this situation? Make more profit? or Scare consumers into pre-orders?

So you think that Stern left over $1 million in profit (this is just a guess) on the table to scare you to "gotta pre-order my LE or I'll miss out"? Now that does not make sense to me. The real reason your scared it bc you feel the production will be limited and there wont be enough to go around Hence Stern leaving "MORE PROFIT" on the table again. Does this sound like a smart thing for them to do....as a surviving company that wants to make profit?

They aren't missing any profit from LE sales, because they are building LEs that sell. Just not TRON LEs. See my post 2 above yours.

I do agree with you. But it is a problem that they have.

They should be thinking about a way to make 1000 LE without sacrafice to other titles. Wouldnt that be smart on a profit end? Expand to the supply and demand "or" leave profit on the table. If im running the company I will chose any option that does not leave profit on the table.

So you think that if they were able to produce more tron LE's the AC/DC LE sales would of suffered on a 1 for 1? So 300 more tron le sales would = 300 less ac/dc le sales? Im sure some people would of not been able to afford an ac/dc le if there were more tron le's but few and far between. Also any company would trade a "sale in 5 months" for a "sale today".

Since Avengers LE is rumored to be a Super LE just like AC/DC it will be close to if not over $7K. Ughh.

Keep in mind, a few years ago pinball was circling the drain. Although prices are up, game play and design is being pushed to a new level. I honestly i am just glad pinball is back and pushin the envelope. I now have a chance to buy nib a game that could be the next holy grail. Of course we miss the days of 2-4000 dollar games being a dime a dozen but realistically we all hope for what is in front of us. It's now like cars I can buy the stripped down version or save and plan to afford the one with all the beeps and whistles. Maybe it means fewer machines in your basement but it also
Means there is a larger group of collectors to meet up with and play other machines.

Interesting but again I do not agree with your take on it. Why do you think they're not going to continue "premium" models? I believe it's to continue this mindset. If you aren't willing to roll the dice on a full featured game you haven't seen, you'll miss out. As far as profits go they can continue to raise prices and sell a similar number of games.

I think you misunderstand what I'm saying about Stern though. I didn't say this was Stern's long term design with limiting Tron LE to just 400, I'm saying this was the effect.

Pics! Pics! Pics!

If its LCD, make that 8k. That's why the X-men is appealing to me, it may just be the last NIB I can or will actually afford. Though for a kickin RE pin, I may have to stretch the budget some.

Ahh but the fact that Stern has survived this long says that Stern AND ONLY STERN has been making the right decisions all these years and gives more weight to RobT's take.

Pappy

Why do you think LCD means more expensive? LCD technology is very cheap now. Now if they were going to put an OLED screen that would be something different.

Because they have to recoup the cost of the investment in programming the tech and getting new boards made.

It will cost more.. how much who knows. I guessed pro's would go up 300. So Distro cost would now be 4100 instead of 3800

As AkumaZeto already pointed out, its going to cost more for the change over of their boards, programming, design, ect. I'll bet it will drive the price up more like $500 each unit. Also, it gives them a justification to run the price tag up some for the new feature so, you have a markup effect as well.

Bingo!!!

This is exactly what I've been saying. Add this to what Gambit said above about releasing multiple titles per year, and it makes sense (and is obviously working for them).

The Tron LE's didn't sell out immediately. There wasn't a huge demand for them from the very start, that came after the pin was released and people started to realize how good it was. So now people will have a stronger inclination to pre-order the next LE so they don't miss out. Exactly what Stern wants.

Did they leave some profit on the table by not making more Tron LE's than 400? Obviously. Hindsight is 20/20. But look what they did with AC/DC, they've made more of them in anticipation of higher demand. Looks like that's going to turn out good for them.

Good grief! Folks should have to be pretty smart to pay for these expensive toys. All retailers forecast. And its better to come in short and use all your resources than to be left holding the bag. Just good business. Once they finish they stay on schedule for the next production which has labor, parts etc bid out and ready to go. It is idiotic to think you stop your entire production to try and guess how many more of something to make and the time and energy to re source everything. You move on. Yes, you wish you captured every profit dollar but if you are moving forward and keeping costs and production in line then you are a viable company.

I don't mind LE's but what is the point of an X-Men Pro if it only has magnet but no spinning disc?? I could live without mirrored glass, powder coating, even extra code but not the main toy being reduced.

Stern just lose a sale if they do this.....

Still just leaking hints on FB. Just posted some cells in the shape of Xs with a mutation.

Repost that stuff here if you wouldn't mind

I am excited for the PRO model since I could NEVER justify the pricetag of the LE, but if they drop a main toy on the PRO and only offer it on the LE, they lost my sale too.

At least with TRON they had the vision to add bling and lighting for the LE owners and leave the gameplay the same. I'm hoping we are wrong and the PRO has the same gameplay, if not this is a major mistake for Stern.

From Stern's Facebook page today

551583_10150904514499244_136972659243_.jpg

X-Men Facebook

551583_10150904514499244_136972659243_.jpg

Deja - vu!

Way to go Stern. now ya got me figuring out what I need to do to buy one of these dang things. Especially if it is the comic art. Anybody want to come over and buy some machines!

I have my deposit waiting! Rumor is that it plays better than Tron!

Is it as fast as IM? Or faster

Douche Bag owes me a 100 bucks but we have not heard from him in some time huh.

He doesn't owe it until the announcement is official. Which seems to be never coming....

FB post is gone. That was all of 2 seconds...

That is how Jody doubles his work load for the day. Put a pic up, 1/2 the work. Take it down, the other 1/2.

I just keeping thinking how good this game is going to look next to my TRON! side by side ..........ahhhh where are the pictures! Lets go bub!

More posts on FB..
STERN PINBALL, INC.
What is your favorite Disney movie?

Since so many people have money tied up in woz, it makes sense to do some counterprogramming for this title, including making it cheaper. Hence a very different license (different ftom what stern usually does and way different from woz) and a much lower price. That there isn't going to be a premium seems to imply that the pro and the LE are not very different gameplay wise. More Tron than AC/DC, if you know what I mean.

One of Stern's strong points from a consumer perspective is to move onto another title rather than milk a title until no one wants it any longer (which is JJP's business model). I think here you are missing this piece in your analysis:

There is no reason Stern is required to cap production to 10k annual production numbers and try to distribute those counts amongst 3 titles w/up to 5 models per title. They should be able to expand their production output to meet demand so that unexpected ACDC demand doesn't cut into X-Men production, and so they can re-run more Trons or SMs.

A short term alternative is to change their current allocation of 8500 Pros+1500 LE/Premium to, say 5000 Pro+5000 LE/Premium (or whatever, based on demand), so they make more money without the cost and risk of expanding the assembly line, but they chose to limit the LE production and Premium availability regardless of demand. It is an odd business model and a bit of growing pains for them, but I'd like to think they'll get back on the right track after X-Men.

That does it.....I just put my deposit check in the mail for an LE!

You area assuming a whole lot about Stern's books. First, they sell way more Pros than LEs because there is more overall demand of Pros than LEs. Again, Stern has repeatedly acknowledged that the European Operator market is what keeps him afloat. Second, we have no idea of Stern's margin between a Pro and an LE model. The LE takes obviously a significant amount more $$$, resources, labor and time to produce. My guess is that they realize similar profit margins on both Pro and LE models, but can produce Pro models at a rate of 1.25-1.5 to 1. Extrapolate that out on a timeline of production, and the choice becomes clear as to which is the better business model.

Ultimately, the clamoring for more LEs is about TRON LE. And it is the people that didn't buy it but want it now, after it turned out to be a home run, that are doing the complaining about Stern's "Business Model." No one is crying for more Avatar LEs. Or LOTR LEs. Or even AC/DC LEs.

Agree to disagree I guess. I and others think they should always offer premium and are leaving some dollars behind with such limited LE runs. And for the record I could care less about the Tron LE I love the game but decided not to get it when it came out and am fine not having it now.

I would guess the per unit margin on LE's is a good deal more than on a Pro. Just based on the MSRP difference of 1500-2000. There isn't that much more machine in an LE, there's probably a couple hundred bucks more in parts and a few more hours of labor. Development cost difference are a bit more cloudy; either they pay more to decontent the original design to pro level, or pay to content up a Pro.

And the demand created by artificial limits probably sells more units than if they sold them as premiums. Plus they can forecast resource allocation better, which has a reductive effect on cost. LE's move pre-orders, premiums not so much because the perception is 'unlimited, I can wait'. When in reality all a premium is is a limited run where the limit isn't announced. But ultimately they don't keep making them to meet demand. If the promise of a non-LE was truly unlimited, they would still be running Tron Pro's.

The reality is that Gary, and maybe to a larger degree his investor are still trying to figure out the most efficient way to make money. So these inconsistencies around pro/LE/premium appear to be some thrashing as they work their way along the learning curve to that golden formula that will most efficiently move our dollars to their wallets.

My $0.02 anyway.

Also, I'm in for a Good Guy LE, SNIKT SNIKT!