Wisconsin Pinball

Certainly, a huge mega event in the pinball world. I was at home, under the weather the last few days, and watched it all unfold via the internet. Its still hard to grasp the full implications of the MMR rebuild. Certainly, it must have been exciting to be at the pinball expo and watch these events unfold live.

There are a million unanswered questions circling MMR. Will it actually be produced & delivered in Q2 (June) of 2014? What will be the nature of the quality of build? Will they build pro models at $8K indefinitely?
Etc etc.

These are heady days within the pinball hobby.

There is much speculation about the market price for a MM now - and what these new machines will do to it- but in driving home from expo - I can't help but think the entire pinball market itself is going to change. Forget the other possible B/W remakes - why would I spend 2-5K on any of the B and C titles when I can get a new MM, or maybe a new CC, AFM, etc? Even after the announcement - many of the games for sale at Expo had their prices reduced - and I didn't see many being sold.

Besides EM's and your subpar 1,000 priced machines - I believe the overall market price for your average pin just decreased a bit - not just MM.

Methos wrote:I can't help but think the entire pinball market itself is going to change. Forget the other possible B/W remakes - why would I spend 2-5K on any of the B and C titles when I can get a new MM, or maybe a new CC, AFM, etc?

My answer is because I like many of them WAY more than MM, AFM, CC, etc...

So what are you selling

B and C titles are my wheelhouse, esp if prices are dropping.

Keep in mind that not a single MMR is available currently and LOTS of things are going to unfold between now and when/if they do get made.

I look at it like this. Reality is that Stern is still unfortunately the only maker of pinballs that are readily available for purchase. JJP is getting there but not quite yet and it has taken them 3??? years to do this. Predator is a ways off after seeing it at expo and all the other botique pin makers are in the same boat. IF MMR happens it is going to take a WHILE for 1000 plus to even go out the door. I just don't see anything having a huge impact on the market. Till readily purchasable machines are in high supply, why would prices go down. Has the perception alone been enough to swing things? We will probably see a few people jump ship on the hobby and prices may have a slight downtick, but my best guess is that they will stabilize quickly in a similar place as they are now.

I sure hope that this MMR thing makes a dent because I would love to buy lots of DMD pins if they are back under $1500. I just dont see that happening. If it does it would be great of it was in another year when I hopefully have more $ to buy more games.

Methos wrote: I believe the overall market price for your average pin just decreased a bit - not just MM.

I think the price of potential remakes will drop and people will pay more for games they don't think will be remade. That's just me, though.

I am looking forward to more $8k games that other people feel like they should own. It opens up the market for games they have to sell to fund that purchase (or make room for). I didn't think MM was a 4.5k game when I had the opportunity, a 7k game when I had the opportunity, and certainly not an 8k game with the opportunity.

It is cool they are doing remakes (just like king of diamonds) but I don't think the market for nice originals will fluctuate that much. Originals are originals in the collecting world.

I am curious to see what the market will bear though, as something has to give. Pinball is a much smaller hobby than other ones out there, and there is only so much money that is going to be thrown around for machines. The market is already becoming saturated by sellers that overpaid within the last two years (when they were new buyers), and now when it is coming time to recoup their "investment" they are hearing crickets.

This is a single title at $8K. That's a LOT of jack for one game IMHO. I have guilt spending $$ on a new Stern Pro. The whole LE / Premium / Pro thing is just ridiculous - just make a single game, and if you want to really make an LE then simply add some cosmetic crap on there. They're now catering to a relatively limited home market instead of where they should be - route operators.

Only other WMS titles they'd be able to build that people would spend that much on would be CC, AFM and MB. Could make an argument for IJ and TAF, but at that price I just don't think they'd sell. With the price of a new game now solidly set at $8K (Stern, JJP and PPS are all doing this) I feel it's pushed the market prices up for all DMD pins. EM's and older solid state games should hopefully remain steady. Just my 2 cents.

well, it made me sell my AFM. It leaves tomorrow. Dom is going to be sad. Too bad, i like money better.

noncommittaldave wrote:well, it made me sell my AFM. It leaves tomorrow. Dom is going to be sad. Too bad, i like money better.

Congrats on the sale... Way to pump and dump before you took a remake bath.... I have a TSPP coming in, you interested?

ralphwiggum wrote:

noncommittaldave wrote:well, it made me sell my AFM. It leaves tomorrow. Dom is going to be sad. Too bad, i like money better.

Congrats on the sale... Way to pump and dump before you took a remake bath.... I have a TSPP coming in, you interested?

Thanks. I am not a huge tspp fan but your prices are always so good i probably can't resist. send me a price.

I was thinking about how I could justify buying a 8 thousand dollar pinball machine when I've never paid that much for a car or truck!!

MM is a cool game and all (I've never owned one), but I've played it enough to realize that paying over double the money as equally cool games (or even a NIB Stern) is crazy to me. Also, there's so many other things in life to spend $8k on. I'm perfectly content with a fairly low budget collection.

Tim said it perfectly, and this whole thing reminds me of the saturated pinball market just before Williams closed the Pinball division. There's so many great games out there and at some point these high dollar games aren't gonna sell for what folks want.