Welcome everybody to Canadus Pinball Podcast. Happy Monday. Hopefully you had a good time watching some good football yesterday. And it got me thinking. It got me thinking about the pinball market. And we haven't really gone around the pinball horn and just looked at, like, what is it like if you were to wake up today and want to go grab a pinball machine? It's actually a really, really, really good buyer's market. and I'm going to pull up the prices of what the current list price is for the creme de la creme version of a lot of games that have come out across the pinball universe over the last few years. Let's look at what they were new. Let's look at what they are at right now. We're waiting on Pokemon any day now. Maybe it's this week. It's going to be within the next week or so. there's nothing else really happening other than Beetlejuices are going to start to go out the door in just a few days. Spooky's introduced tokens, which I like. You can play the game and do achievements and get tokens which unlock different wizard modes later on in the game. It is now January 12th. There are a lot of people that love pinball around the world. A lot of us have been in this hobby for a long time. Some of you have been in this hobby just much more recently. And I know what it's like when I got into arcade collecting. I know what it's like to not know what things used to go for. I also know what it's like to remember this used to cost that, and now it costs this, and how that triggers so much anger. These little Neo Geo cabinets I have, They used to sell like 20 years ago for like $1,500 to $2,000. Now they're more like $8,000 to $10,000 if you can even find one. Now, the thing I like about what I'm about to do is every single game I'm about to list is available for sale today. No waiting, no having to put pre-order money down on a dune topper eight months from now. everything that I'm about to say, you could reach out to the seller and make an offer and maybe have the game by next weekend. And this is all real tangible pinball. No speculation here. And the numbers don't lie. Love that phrase because they don't. So let's start right now with Stern Pinball, a company that is really making the most pinballs out in the world. I think everybody out there has a little bit of a love-hate relationship with Stern. We appreciate everything they've done. We appreciate the fact that they make four machines a year, some Cornerstones, some remakes, more like four to five, if you think about the anniversary editions and the remasters and the Cornerstone games. But I think universally, everybody's just struggling with Stern's new price point. It just hasn't really worked out for anyone who's gone in early on any of these Stern games. So let's go down a list. Star Wars, Fall of the Empire, a $13,000 machine just a few months ago, a couple months ago. There is one that just sold for $9,900. So that just sold. That seems to be the price where these things will move at, which is over a $3,000 loss in just a couple months. and there is one unsold right now for $10,500. There are a lot of these things new in box, not even opened up for around 11.9 they're asking. I don't think they're going to get that, especially with an open one being worth around 10. There's no reason why anyone's going to spend $2,000 for the cardboard box because none of these games have any plays on them. as we all know, Star Wars just was an abysmal failure. It doesn't mean it's not a fun pin. I should have said that at the very beginning because I can hear people be like, well, I jumped on it and it's fun and it's a great game for operators. This is not what this podcast is about. It's about if you were to buy one of these new in box, this is what you can now get it for in pretty much perfect condition. And so Star Wars didn't do well. There is no data right now on the Walking Dead remastered Elyse. I think we saw some self around like 11.5. I think some dealers and distros were making some deals. But right now, I tried to look it up. I didn't find anything on Pinside. Let's go to King Kong, man. King Kong Elyse, Ed Robertson favorite game on tour. King Kong Elyse, another $13,000 game. There is one for sale right now that you could have for $9,800 or best offer. So what does that mean, right? The good old OBO, which basically means shave at least $500 off the price and you'll have a deal. So we're looking at Kong, Ellie, another game, a Keith Elwin game, right? The King of the Monsters didn't hold, didn't do very well. Let's go to the next recent game, Dungeons and Dragons, Ellie, The Tyrant's Eye. Seth Davis's eye. He's got his eye on the market. Another $13,000 Stern available today if you want to buy it for $9,800. Do you see the pattern here, people? That the world considers Stern Elise to be worth around $10,000. remember when Godzilla came out it was $10,500 everything is sliding in the stern world to 10 nothing is sliding from 13 to 15 anymore let's keep going because there's a game here now which I think some people are like no it's not true Kaneda there are some games that have gone up in value. Metallica remastered LE. I remember when this game came out, people were spending over to get one. They only made 500 of them. The new art package, new code, sexy game. People dropped 18 on this game. It is now for sale if you want one today for $12,950. So look, it hasn't gone up. it went down 50 bucks, but it's holding. It is holding, but you see, this is more the anomaly than it is the everyday occurrence. We go to Jaws LE, another game that has been bolted to the floor. There is one available for sale right now for $11,995. Not a big loss, not a big loss. And we all know what happened to Jaws LE. The damn 50th anniversary with the nicer play field is the reason why these LEs are now going to keep going down. Stern keeps burning its own customers. They did it again on Jaws. We're seeing people with LEs swap in the 50th anniversary play field because they love the theme so much. Stern needs to just really reevaluate this strategy. You just never want to make people who love the theme so much ever have to feel like a nicer version of The thing they love has come out after they bought the top of the line version from you. There are some deals out there though, people. Let's keep going. The Uncanny X-Men, another $13,000 game. How much do you think you can go get an LE4 today? How about $8,500 is the best price you could offer. Again with all of these prices remember none of these things are sold You could always negotiate more money off unless it says firm But nothing firm in this hobby Not even your ding people Okay so X Huge loss there. That is a, whoa, whoa. I'm trying to do the math right here. That's $1,500 on top of $3,000. That's a $4,500 loss on an X-Men LE. Now, here's the crazy one. this game got like made fun of more than anything stern's done recently people like made so much of a big deal that there were no guns on the artwork and yet when you go and try to find a john wick l lee guess how many are up for sale zero zero and there are wanted ads this is nuts so out of all these games, you can go get everything else I just mentioned. There's Godzilla LEs for sale. There's Elvira every edition. There's even a Batman SLE up for sale right now. A Super SLE Batman is up for sale, but yet John Wick LE, impossible to get. Crazy, which means that game's going to hold decently if that is the case. Now, I think the reason why there's none available is they were all selling for around $8,000. So don't think like for a minute, anyone who bought an Ellie New is happy because you are not getting anywhere near 13,000 for this game. And the reason they all got gobbled up is I think the John Wicks were selling for even less than X-Men. So a lot of these things were sold in trading hands for almost a $5,000 loss. All right, so let's go on to James Bond. Ellie, another $13,000 game right now. James Bond, Ellie, $8,950. A beautiful $4,000 loss. The 60th anniversary game. Originally $20,000. You can go get it for $12,500. That is the single biggest loss of any Stern in the history of Stern machines. Even if they won't admit they originally priced it at $20,000. The biggest loss ever. Foo Fighters LE sold out quickly back in the day $13,000 new now $8,250 Godzilla LE baby went up a little bit still the greatest game maybe of all time is it number one is it number two is Jaws number one right now Godzilla LE $12,500 firm for that game is it worth it $12,500 I don't know I never really loved the LE package of Godzilla. I actually think you'd be happier with maybe the black and white edition. But you know what? We got to give credit where credit is due. And again, it just goes to show you, when Stern had an LE at 10.5 and made a great game, it went up in value. And when they stopped doing that, everything's crashed in value. And these are crashes, people. These are not normal depreciations. every single game losing three to four thousand dollars and that's your collectible version of the product talk about then the collector part of the market is dead like it is dead but it is not we are going to see some games or maybe the only ones worth collecting these days so kiss i was curious because now that the rumor is that kiss is coming back this is a game that with a topper, people want it like $16,000 to $19,000. Now there's a Kiss LE for $13,500. See, that's like right at the price the new LE is going to be. If you have a Kiss LE right now, I hate to break it to you, but your game is now worth $8,000 or $9,000 because if they make the new one nicer, again, I'm just going off of what happened to stuff like The Walking Dead, what happened to the old Metallica's, it's kind of over. And unlike Metallica, where they really redid the art so that the other one felt almost completely unique, I think they're going to make this look exactly like the game you have, just better in every single way. And also the Kiss Topper. Remember when this thing was going for like five grand? It was unobtainium. Now there's one for sale for $2,500. And they know that most likely they're going to make it again for all the new remasters of Kiss. And Jason Knapp says he's pretty much 100% certain it's happening. And I really do trust him when he gets this certain about something. All right, let's go to Jersey Jack. Has Jersey Jack done any better? Well, you know, yes and no. There's some games in the Jersey Jack portfolio that have held nicely. And then there are some that have just been like way bigger losses than anything over at Stern other than James Bond 60th. So we got to start with Harry Potter. Harry Potter CE. I'm really, really surprised that not many of these games have gone up for sale. In fact, there's not a single Harry Potter CE for sale on Pinside for less than 15, which means people are just selling the game brand new. And what this means is it's a great game. People don't want to get rid of it. And this is the new trend in pinball. Just buy a great game you love and then you never have to worry about the resale value of it. I'm never selling my Dodge Demon. I'm giving it to Killian later in life when he's like responsible enough to have a car with that much power. But I'm not selling it. I don't care about the money. It's gone up. It's gone down. It's kind of held value. I don't really care. I don't look at the values of demons because I'm keeping mine. It's got my name on it. It's got my name on the vent. It's got my name on everything. Okay. So Harry Potter seed, but I did see on Facebook, there was a dude selling one with low plays for 14, five, which if I were you, I would just buy a new one. Saving 500 bucks is not enough. I'd much rather get a brand new, that new pin smell it arriving at my house in a brand new box versus someone's used game where something could happen. Because also remember people, the warranties are non-transferable. So if you buy a new game for 15 and it arrives and it's damaged and something happened, you're protected. If you buy a used game from someone for 14.5, you know, I have a hard time believing you're going to get the same help and protection as if you bought it new. So Harry Potter, holding strong, Elton John collector's edition, another $15,000 CE game. How much do you think Elton John? Now look, Elton John is a great shooter. And so because of that, it's held decently. It is at $12,500 is the cheapest you can get an Elton John for a loss of 2,500. Okay. All right. That's a pretty decent appreciation, but also like 12.5 is not exactly like giving the game away. We're going to see some other of these $15,000 JJPs that have absolutely plummeted. All right, Avatar CE, not as popular as Elton John, not as good of a shooter, but it is a somewhat interesting pin if you ask me. It's still very beautiful, 15,000 new. The best price you can get an Avatar CE for today is $12,000 or best offer. Again, on that OBO, you're looking at probably $11,000 to $11,500. Someone would take it. Because remember, at $12,000 or OBO, it's not moving. Like these games are still for sale. All right, now we get to the real difficult sort of pill to swallow if you bought one of these two games. Godfather CE, originally $15,000. Jack Winari's dream theme in a box, right? Godfather CE, today, nine grand firm gets you on a loss of $6,000. Is that the biggest loss in the history of JJP? No. there's another game that is a much bigger depreciation Toy Story Collectors Edition instead of doing Andy's Room we did Forky and Bonnie and that is why Toy Story CE in great condition firm and you could get one now this is where it nuts people like think about that for a minute It not a terrible game It still a beautiful Jersey Jack machine It comes with the topper and everything. Eight grand. That's $7,000 off the MSRP of a Toy Story, one of the biggest IPs in the world. It's a Pat Lawler game. Are you telling me you're going to go buy a brand new Stern Premium for like $9,500 when you can get a Toy Story CE for $8,000? Just goes to show you how badly they missed the mark on that game. And then, you know, I had to throw Guns N' Roses CE in here, the game I own. Now look, there's only, the cheapest you can get it for on Pinside right now is 12,000 or best offer. I'm not, I am not going to pretend like I have not seen Guns and Roses CE sell for around 10,500 to $11,000. They have. So this is a game that is very polarizing. They made so many of them. And I think if you really want to move your CE quickly, you're around like 10 to 10,500 and you'll get a buyer. But I don't think much more than that will make the game move. All right, let's go to Barrels of Fun. Labyrinth. How much was Labyrinth new? I think it was around the same price as Dune. I think it was like $11.60 around that price. Maybe, I don't know, maybe it was a little bit less. I'm not sure if they had a price increase, but you can go get a Labyrinth right now. There's a few of them for sale. The cheapest price is $8,300. Another game that really didn't catch on, and there's like a decent amount of Labyrinth games for sale. What there's not for sale, there are no dunes up for sale. So they did the last call and I went on Pinside and nothing. There's just no numbers. There is no secondhand dunes for sale. There are also no secondhand spots being traded for Winchester's Mystery House. So we all know Winchester is going to go for a pretty penny the moment people start speculating in the market, I would say right now, you could easily get $5,000 to $7,000 over for your Winchester spot. And I am very proud of this community where not a single person is doing that. I don't understand. I would take the money. I'm telling you right now, the reason I would take the money, I would take like $5,000 to seven grand sell your spot because a year from now when all these games are out and barrels moves on to their next game i don't think winchester is going to go above much above like 11-6 and so think about that if you sell your spot for seven over and then a year from now when the code is done let's say someone even wants 12 for it all right so you just got a 12 000 winchester for five grand because you just sold your spot and then you bought back in when the game was finished, when it was coded and you made such a smart move. Are you telling me nobody out there is thinking this way? What happened to you guys? Get some guts, do some scalping. It's fun. All right, let's go to spooky baby. Spooky pinball. I kind of want to go from the bottom up. I want to go from the bottom up with spooky. So Scooby-Doo I looked at and maybe that's not the bottom up, But Scooby-Doo right now, they made a lot of them. I don't think they made all of them. They said they were going to make 1969 of them for 1969, the year the show came out. Way too many. They know that. They've changed their strategy wisely. You can go get a Scooby-Doo collector's edition for $6,600. I mean, that's crazy. Price of a Stern Pro, it's a wide body. It's got a lot more in it than a Stern Pro. I think the code is pretty fun. Might be too easy for most people. And so, yeah, but that's not the worst, man. The worst is Ultraman. I got out of my Ultraman deposit. You can go get an Ultraman today for $4,900. I mean, even that, man, I've seen some Ultraman go for like high threes to get rid of it quickly. Halloween, the platform that shared itself with Ultraman, $5,800 or best offer on Halloween, right? Good prices out here. Like I said, it's a buyer's market. Now, this is where it gets bad. Think about that for a minute. A $5,800 Halloween. Guess how much the only Evil Dead for sale is right now on Pinside. There's only one available. $19,000. $19,000. That is almost $14,000 more than what you can go get a freaking Halloween for. Is it really worth 19? I mean, supply and demand? I don't think so. I wouldn't pay that for an Evil Dead. I don't know how you stomach paying that for an Evil Dead. I think Beetlejuice is going to end up being an even better game. But man, talk about a company now. Both Spooky and Barrels are really the only two companies with these crazy, appreciating, collectible items. They're the only two. Name me someone else out there that has anything headed north like this. Nowhere. So speaking of that, if you want to go get a Beetlejuice spot, there actually is a spot for sale and it is $4,000 over the deposit. So if you give the guy $4,000, you then pay full price for the entire game. That $4,000 does not include the $2,500 deposit on the game. Okay. So yeah, Beetlejuice. As I said, Beetlejuice is going to be another game, much like Winchester, much like Evil Dead. These games are not going to come up very often. They're going to be bolted to so many people's collections. And if you ever get a chance to get one, they're going to be very expensive. So good job on Spooky. Good job, Barrels. Boys, you now have done what you want to do. You've created a lot more demand than supply. That's not the case over at Stern. And like I've been saying with these boutiques, the reason why the value holds so well is there's never going to be another run of any of them. And that is the number one reason Stern Pinball has lost all the confidence and all the trust between the collectors and Stern. They just kept remaking stuff and they're doing it again. Because imagine if Spooky did another run of Beetlejuice during an anniversary year. or another Evil Dead, or another Rick and Morty. You absolutely then send everybody packing, and they will never buy from you again. I still don't think Stern understands that very simple concept. All right, let's keep going, baby. CGC, Attack from Mars. You don't see these games come up very often, and there's not many for sale. If you want Attack from Mars LE, the cheapest one is $14,550. zero, $14,550. You know, I think Attack from Mars and Medieval Madness are the two most popular CGC remakes. Monster Bash LE is $11,500. That's a little bit over what it was brand new. Remember, CGC games were around $10,000. So again, they all went up a little bit, but one that has not is Cactus Canyon. The Cactus Canyon LEs, I think they botched that whole thing. the wait to get one, the upgrade kit, the wait for the code, all of it made people sort of not really love the Cactus Canyon Return. It's also the worst out of all their games by far. Even though it has a lot of toys in it, it's not considered the best gameplay experience. So at Cactus Canyon LE, $8,475 or best offer, which means I bet you could sneak one out for like $7,900. Medieval Madness. So they had the LE, which is $11,000. They've got the Royal Edition. The cheapest you can get it for is $15,000 or best offer. And then they've got the new Merlin Edition, which the cheapest you can get it for is $11,000 OBO. Remember again, around $10,000 new. They keep remaking Medieval Madnesses to the point now where I don't think any of them are really worth more than around 10 or 11. I would never spend 15 on a Royal edition. And there's just something off with CGC lately I think they lost a lot of the goodwill with the community And I think because of that people just don care as much anymore about these CGC games Dutch Pinball The Big Lebowski Remember The Big Lebowski, the only game they've made next to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. So The Big Lebowski, I want to say this game was like $13,500 when they remade it and they brought it back, wasn't it around that, like $13,000? You can now go get a mint condition Lebowski for $10,500. I mean, hasn't held value, not a huge loss, but you see the way the market's going. The next stop for the big Lebowski, especially if they get to back to the future, is definitely going to be in the $9,000 to $8,500 range. I went to see if there were any Alice machines for sale and there are not. But I did see some sell for like around 11.5, I think, new in box. So it's not going up in value. It's not crashing in value, but I don't think Alice will ever go up. And I think, again, once things start to slide, they're going to keep sliding. The more time goes on, the more these games become yesterday's news, especially if these games are not great, right? That's really what it comes down to. If all this was amazing and the code was phenomenal and the mechs were incredible and the gameplay experience was, you know, talked about with accolades and praise, it'd be a different story. But it's kind of the opposite. You know, it's a beautiful game. They made J-Pop's vision work. But next to modern games, it's not going to be a rewarding gameplay experience for most of you out there. And because of that, the price will reflect that. And people just don't care. They really don't care anymore to walk in and see one of these J-Pop brain fart games in your game room does not telegraph anything anymore. Like people just don't care. All right, so speaking about not caring, P3 Multimorphic, let's see, Princess Bride at $9,500 or best offer, Portal at $10,620, which is basically like a new in-box game that's $1,000 off. It's really hard with Multimorphic P3 because, or P3 Multimorphic, because they've got all the kits. And, you know, look, one of the biggest financial losses you'll ever take is if you buy one of these things and all the kits and then try to go sell it. Like you will literally lose at least like 10 G's if you bought all the kits. It's just nobody wants all of that. It's just such a weird strategy. He's never going to change it. I'm not even going to discuss it anymore. Pedretti Funhouse Remake, $7,200 or best offer. Nobody wants that game. Pinball Brothers Alien, $7,500. Turner Ninja Eclipse, which was once going. I think people were trying to like fluff this thing up to around like 10 G's once. $7,200 or best offer. And the new one, Merlin's Arcade at $8,500. All right. So look, the key takeaway is this, people. All of these games, all of these games now, except for just like two or three, are losing money. And there are some of them are just normal depreciation, which is fine. I don't think anybody has a problem sort of like buying an Elton John, enjoying it for like two, three years and you go to sell it and you lose like two grand, 2,500. That seems a little normal. I mean, you don't love that, but whatever. It is what it is. It's the stern machines that are the most concerning for me because they're losing so much instantly. And that instant depreciation, I don't know how they like convince people to keep buying. And you know that their customer is not even you and me. It's the distros. How are they going to keep convincing these distros to put in orders to get their allocations when no one wants them. Like just nobody wants them at these prices. And you know a lot of dealers and distros are doing the backdoor deals. They're taking the money on the table, right? Their margin might be like $2,500 on the game or a little bit more than that. And they're willing to cut that margin in half just to get the game out the door. Because now they got to go sell all those premiums and pros they also committed to. And so I love seeing the way the market is dictating this hobby when it comes to buying. Now, you know me, you know me. I think it's still a wait and see market. It will always be a wait and see market now forever. I like what Jersey Jack is doing where their new emphasis is on just making the greatest games they can make and they're not going to do any FOMO shenanigans and they're just going to like, if you want the nicest version of Sonic, we'll make it for you. I like that. Because you pair that with Spooky and Barrels, two companies making very limited runs of games and never making those games again, that's going to scratch the itch of the collector. And then I look over at Stern and I'm like, what's the strategy? What really is the strategy here when your LEs instantly are worth the price of the premium, which means your premiums are not worth anywhere near $10,000. And then you just look at it like, well, maybe I'll just play Stern pros on location and have fun because the code is exactly the same. That's what I love about this hobby is you had a company like Stern that was dominating with a strategy that was working so well. And then they priced themselves out of their own strategy. And now it doesn't work at all, in my honest opinion. And I do think that this hobby is going to start to see the enthusiasm and the momentum happening around JJP more and the boutique space more. And now that all these companies are making phenomenal products, I mean, you put these games next to the Stern machines and they make the Stern machines look so cheap. And I know there's people out there that are like, Canada, you become anti-Stern. I haven't. I haven't. I'm just observing what a Stern Star Wars looks like for $13,000 next to a Beetlejuice for 10 next to a dune for 11.6. It doesn't look nearly as good. It doesn't look like they put as much effort in. It doesn't look like the value is there. And if it was just me saying it, I wouldn't be able to do a show like this that just showed you if you bought every Stern LE over the last like three to four years, on average, you're losing $4,000 a game, a game. And so if you buy three Stern LEs a year from now, you just lost $12,000 on just three games. This has never happened before in the history of pinball buying. And for those people that say it's normal, it's like a car. No, you need a car to get from A to B. Do you need all these new machines? And also, like I just proved to each and every one of you, if you just wait, if you just wait it, You can march in now and go get all of these games and save that $12,000. That's the smart move. You know, I've noticed the reason why a lot of the content creators in Canada, the ones we used to have issues with, we all get along now because they all see it. They all see it. The drum I was beating, they've all felt it now. They got bit by the pinball bug. They came in. They were excited. They were enthusiastic. They were buying every LE. And then they realized, wait, what just happened? How did I just lose all this money? This little guy over there in Connecticut, Canada, is saying, wait and see, and you will be able to march in and get everything. And I think that's still the case. I'm really excited to see what happens in pinball this year. I don't think Pokemon's gonna be one of these games that skyrockets in value. I just don't think there's the overlap, enough overlap between the Pokemon fans and the pinball buying demographic. I just don't see it. And I don't think Gomez is gonna design a Pokemon game that's going to blow us away. We shall see in just a week or so. Everybody, love you. Happy Monday. Kaneda out. you