Hmm, most of the ones that post on this page drop ship direct . . . so you are not really saving the shipping by having them ship it to them so you can go pick it up since they would be drop shipping it to you direct from Stern . . . I guess it may be somewhat cheaper since they are doing bulk shipping to themselves (presumably anyway), but not much.

How did this fall through?

Wouldn't it cost more in tax to get one local than to pay the drop ship rate?

There are still plenty available. Automated Services in CT has about 40 as well as others.

for me, I was told I could pick either one after the pics were released. So after the pics were released, I said I'll take Wolverine and was told he didn't have any left. I may be looking for another dealer as well.

A lot of the dealers are going through the same thing.. All of their orders were cut because of the high demand for it overseas. It is not the dealers fault.
derek

Unfortunately Dealers were cut. Both are incredible games and the game play will be the same on both. I have other dealers calling me if I have an extra Wolverine and I have to turn them away. I don;t have many Magnetos left . Both games will be in high demand down the road. Demand by overseas vendors came in higher than expected. I heard a 100 of each went over seas. Game play will determine everything, but looking at the desing, layout aand Borg's recent track record. Well enough said

I think it is going to be a great game and it does not matter if you get Wolverine or Magneto. I don't like the Stern model of not having a Premium model but the reality is there will only be 550 games that have the LE upgraded features. The LE model with the magnet spinner, night crawlers and movable ramp is going to be a rare and hopefully kicka$$ game.

If Wolverine is getting hard to find it just means that you need to get the better looking LE anyway: Magneto!

Yes.

I reserved Wolverine. I shouldn't care much though as I am not an avid X-men collector. I just like blue better. Glad I pre-ordered. Now, I just have to keep it unlike my Tron LE

Is it me or does anyone else get nervous waiting on their NIB? Like, I told my dist I wanted wolverine, he reserved wolv, my invoice says wolv, I paid in full; but still, with all this talk about wolverines sold out and distributors getting their feet cut underneath them from stern, i get nervous for some reason. Heh.

More Stern shenanigans, awesome.

Mine WLE is reserved. My dist. got 6 WLE and 6 MLE, the WLE are already gone, but he sold "only" 2 from the 6 MLE so far.

The strange thing is he told me yesterday that shipping to Europe for the LE's is within two to three weeks or so. The payment will be done this week to Stern. I thought i read somewhere that the US will get the LE's first this time?

Interesting. Anyone think the Magneto versions will get heavily discounted to move them?

Ha! not going to happen.

It does have me considering to pay in full now, just to maybe bias against someone who only had deposit in.

If they start shipping to Europe in 3 wks, It will take like 3 wks to get there. We should start seeing the LE hit US homes before 6 wks from now...

There are only 300 and 250 for the worldwide group.....you would think they would be gone overnight....

Same here....

I'm trying to see if anyone has an over/under bet on how long you keep this title. Totally teasing my friend. I like how you rotate through the flavors of skittles - wish I had the same motivation to sell/buy.

If I had the space and budget I would keep them all.

the problem of most people!

I changed dealers since my dealer was cut on his order, and it was more difficult to find a Wolverine. All dealers had a Magneto, however. Some dealers also wanted $100 more for a Wolverine.

I'd personally be happy with either one, the gameplay will be the same anyways. At first I wanted a Magneto since it was the one that struck me as looking the best at first, but after a day of looking at the pics I decided on Wolverine. Glad I did.

Before pics were released I said if the cabinet was anything like this image, Magneto would be it, so I was not disappointed. I'd be happy with any of the 3 sets of artwork.

Magneto.jpg

I Still have a couple of Wolverines left. But very few. I also have a few Magneto's left too

Not just you, I felt the exact same way . . . this was one reason why I note only paid in full but ordered a number as well (No. 003). I figured there is no way possible I can not get the game if I have a number assigned and paid in full.

I changed distributors for this game as well. I switched to one of the ones that posts regularly on this board (figured I'd support a pinsider) and am happy I did. My old distributor was more of an arcade guy and seemed disconnected from the pin community.

JJ is a great guy - I would highly recommend him if you are looking for an X-Men. Great customer service.

There are supposedly 40 LEs coming to Australia via the distributor, I'm not sure on the split.

They had to buy one and one - one Magneto LE for every Wolverine LE? At least, from what I understood. Maybe top distributors were able to get a sweeter allotment. But I don't think so.

Its hard to tell exactly how many LEs will end up here as a lot of people parallel import them from US distributors.

Price here is $AU8950 = $US9140. You guys were buying in the low $6000 range, quite a difference.

That's really not an easy thing to do.. Due to the Software protection that the board features. US/Canada Games are setup to only work on 60 cycle power

I know its not going to happen but, man they need to run a premium on this thing. Use the cabinet art from the pro and features of the LE. They would certainly sell out of them quickly.

I buy all my games through the Australian distributor, that said, I know plenty of people who don't. There are ways around it.

When AC/DC launched here it was $AU9250, which at the time due to the higher exchange rate was $US9712. When there is thousands of dollars in it per machine, people find a way.

For what it is worth, over 100 AC/DC LEs came through the Aussie distributor.

You make a great point If LE sold out before video and sound then why are they holding back

Now, if they announced a premium the buyers of the LE would never pre-order again...Stern would rather note the higher demand and announce there will be a premium of the next game or increase the number of LEs for the next game. They won't burn these LE pre-order people. At least I presume that is the case.

I'm not sure why this would burn LE buyers. They still get the limited editions, the backglass, the exclusive art package, the limited number plaque, and powder coated legs. Its not like Stern would be producing more LEs, just introducing an edition between Pro and LE, just like with AC/DC.

It would just cause some of the LE folks to back out of their deals and move to a less expensive deal. I for one bought for the gameplay difference not the LE aspect.

I know GEX has had these and at least 1 other dist does that i can confirm....this feel like another hype thread.....
Theres another person who has made it public that he has bought more than 1...1 to keep ..1 to sell......
I personally know someone who bought this just to sell it.. so....yea

Totally different from acdc where they announced there would be premiums when they announced the LE. Here they only announced three models and disclosed what made the LE elite, they advertised this...they are stuck.

The only rationale that makes sense for Stern to limit production (and I'm talking all models) is because they know there is a very limited market. For example, saturating the market with 10k Trons just means there will be 7k less buyers of TF, ACDC, X-Men, etc., and Tron hype will be that much diminished. Hype sells games.

That, of course, doesn't exactly address the LE situation. With LE's the pressure is on Stern to deliver more so than if they just built to demand (premiums). The only way to keep selling out LE's is to deliver a great game every 4 months. At some point if Stern stumbles and produces a crappy game with a sold out LE run, trust me, the LE thing will disappear quickly, or at least be limited to a once a year offering like Premiums.

Until then, it's pay before play.

Yep, me too. I would have preferred a premium version with full game play and the standard artwork without all of the extra bling. If Stern announced this after the fact, they would loose me as a future customer.

Scott

If they would have offered a premium version over the LE and it would have saved me $700 or so, I would have totally been all over that! I don't think Stern will go the premium route on this one and will stick to their guns with the announced numbers.

It all says "subject to change" at the end of the features. After all the features on both models, what if they really give you bang for buck on the LE's for being loyal. I mean add more because this is there holy grail, and they didnt realize this at first. I seriously wouldnt complain

I sort of agree, but the only rationale that makes sense for Stern to limit production is not because they know there is a limited market, but because they know they are selling to a "collectible" market, which they are. There are a not insignificant amount of 'gamblers' out there that buy machines as investments. Heck, there are a LOT of people on this site that clearly do, as if they can't sell a machine for more than they paid for it NIB, even a Pro, they complain that it was a bad deal, but we'll get back to that in a minute, we're talking about LEs.

So anyway, for an LE, it doesn't matter if it is actually a good game or not, so long as the average game actually does appreciate with time. If the average LE game loses value, especially significant value, the question of if it makes sense to buy an LE or a Pro becomes *only* about the gameplay.

LEs hold their value better because of the collectors market. As for Stern stumbling and producing a crappy game with a sold out LE run, I think the argument could be made for both Avatar and Transformers being that game, and yet they didn't impact anything that came directly after them. On top of that, at least in the case of Avatar, the LE which in my opinion has dimished gameplay has held it's value significantly better than it's Pro counterpart.

There is a reason that they moved away from the 'low end' model. Those weren't selling. These are.

The Pros is where Stern should be satisfying the market fully. It is clear that in *certain circumstances* they have not always satisfied the market fully immediately. Tron springs instantly to mind. The thing though is that Stern is set up so that they can easily run a different machine if the business atmosphere tells them to do so, so anyone thinking they could never rerun Tron again for instance doesn't know that side of it. Stern absolutely wants Pros to depreciate when you open them, because otherwise it shows that they didn't produce enough of a product to actually fill the demand for that product. They don't want them to tank though.

LEs on the other hand HAVE to increase, to ensure people will continue to take risks on them in the future. In some cases, like perhaps this one, the number they are producing may be less than what they should have produced. But, the fact is that they HAVE to create a market where they are selling less machines than the market wants to ensure that if the game doesn't do really well, the market is high enough to ensure that any potential loss is minimal.

They are playing their cards perfectly right. I felt confident to put down a payment on an X-Men LE that I am still hoping to afford, and it is about $4000 more than I would have ever spent on a machine a couple years ago. That means that at least to me, the strategy is definitely working.

There will be more stumbles down the road from Stern and JJP...

Certainly 1,000 is not "limited" and I don't believe 550 is either...especially since the majority of these will stay HUO and in great shape...