Episode 5: Is New In Box Pinaball Dead? & Godzilla 70th is Beautiful!

The Flipside Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·25m 54s·analyzed·Jul 15, 2024

ba2233a0-d514-4a20-b2b8-3932db4ac91b

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Secondary market shows buyer's market with deep discounts; Godzilla 70th Premium looks amazing

Summary

Retro Ralph analyzes secondary market pricing for pinball machines using Captain's Auctions data, finding significant discounts (up to $3,000 off MSRP) on new and lightly-played games, suggesting a buyer's market. He also discusses the new Godzilla 70th Anniversary Premium edition with striking black-and-white artwork, expressing personal dilemma about whether to upgrade from his heavily modded Godzilla Premium, and shares tournament play experiences.

Key Claims

Limited Edition pinball machines are currently priced at $12,999 MSRP
high confidence · Retro Ralph citing Stern MSRP pricing baseline for analysis
Jaws Limited Edition sold at auction for $10,300, which is $2,699 off MSRP
high confidence · Specific auction data from Captain's Auctions Warehouse
Mods on pinball machines typically do not return their full value on the secondary market
medium confidence · Retro Ralph's personal observation: 'if you put two grand into the mods, you're not getting that two grand back out of it'
Godzilla 70th Anniversary Premium will remain in production as long as there is demand
high confidence · George Gomez statement in official Stern trailer
Godzilla 70th Anniversary Premium will be revealed at Southern Fried Gaming Expo before San Diego Comic Con
high confidence · Retro Ralph's confirmed information: 'the rumor is that there's going to be... it's going to be at Southern Fried Gaming Expo first'

Notable Quotes

“if you want a game, then you're going to pay for that game, right? ... if you want something that's new in box, you're going to pay full MSRP price for it”
Retro Ralph @ early segment — Establishes core thesis about new-in-box pricing market dynamics
“It's definitely a buyer's market at the moment and we're going to get into why I think it's not so much a seller's market too”
Retro Ralph @ opening analysis — Sets up market analysis with specific observation about current conditions
“this brushed metallic foil... they took this shot during it that's just so sexy because it's got the LE artwork and in the middle, bam, Godzilla in Japanese lettering with this red accent. It just looks so damn good”
Retro Ralph @ Godzilla 70th segment — Demonstrates enthusiastic response to aesthetic design choices on new variant
“I'm not going to have both, but I feel like it could be dumb to get rid of this highly modded, very unique Godzilla just because I'm so hooked on the... it looks like the way I want it to look”
Retro Ralph @ Godzilla dilemma section — Expresses personal collector conflict between modded existing game and new premium variant
“Godzilla is one of my favorite games. It's probably my favorite game in my collection just because it's so fun. Like the game itself is fun. It puts a smile on my face every time I play it”
Retro Ralph @ game assessment — Establishes emotional attachment and gameplay quality judgment on the title
“when you're playing in a tournament, it's different, right? Because when you step up to a game and you're by yourself at your house, you play all three balls one after another... there's a psychological element to it”
Retro Ralph @ tournament experience section — Identifies psychological differences between home play and tournament competition
“the biggest thing I have issues with is... if you go up and you have a bad ball now, while you're waiting for the other people to play, all you're thinking about is like, wow, what just happened? Like you start getting in your own head”

Entities

Retro Ralphperson George Gomezperson Chrisperson Zombie Yetiperson Dwight SullivanpersonSteve RichiepersonCaptain's Auctions WarehousecompanyStern Pinballcompany

Signals

~
sentiment_shift: Positive reception to black-and-white Godzilla 70th Anniversary variant despite some past criticism of similar Elvira variant, suggesting evolving aesthetic preferences or IP-specific appeal
medium · Retro Ralph: 'I know not everyone loves the black and white look... but oh my gosh... I can't help myself. It looks like the way I want it to look'
?
competitive_signal: Stern's accessory ecosystem strategy extending to Godzilla 70th with matching black-and-white toppers, art blades, and mode content distribution, differentiating Premium variant despite same price tier
high · George Gomez: 'full line of matching accessories including the topper art blades and all the rest' plus exclusive 'King of Monsters' challenge mode for all buyers
?
event_signal: Godzilla 70th Anniversary will premiere at Southern Fried Gaming Expo before San Diego Comic Con, contrary to earlier expectations
high · Retro Ralph: 'Even though it's said that they're premiering the Godzilla 70th at San Diego Comic Con. No! It's going to be at Southern Fried Gaming Expo first'
$
market_signal: Pinside secondary market listings showing price stagnation; sellers either lowering prices or holding inventory without selling as demand softens
medium · Retro Ralph: 'games that people are expecting to get more for, they're either having to lower their price or they're just holding and not selling'
$
market_signal: Secondary market showing significant discounts on new and lightly-played games ($1,500-$3,200 off MSRP across multiple titles), indicating buyer's market conditions and potential pricing pressure on new releases

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.078

0:00

Hey guys, welcome back to the flip side your pinball podcast. I'm your host retro Ralph. Thank you so much for all the support of the podcast. I couldn't do it without you guys. But let's get right into it. So things have been pretty exciting lately. The title of this episode is actually going to be called is new in box pinball dead. And I want to start by saying, well, it's not dead, but if you want a game, then you're going to pay for that game, right? The thing is, if you want something that's new in box, you're going to pay full MSRP price for it. But there's nothing really wrong with that, right? If you want it, then you're going to pay to get it, right? And the reason why I bring this up is because when I entered the hobby, you could buy a pinball machine still and probably sell it for what you paid for it or even more, depending on if it was a really popular game. So I'll say the first game I bought was Jurassic Park. And when I sold Jurassic Park, I actually sold it for just about what I paid for it. I didn't really put a lot of mods in it at that time. I wasn't really into that yet. but that was something I got into later. So, but here's what really the reason why I want to bring up this topic is because I, if you're watching me strictly for pinball content, then you probably are unaware that I've been a big supporter of Captain's Auctions Warehouse for a long time. Chris over there, he's awesome. He's the owner of Captain's Auctions. And he's allowed me to do a lot with my arcade collection. I've sent arcade games there that I've restored. I've sent projects there tons of stuff I've gotten lots of arcade games from Captain's Auctions but because I wasn't so into pinball I kind of really just ignored the pinball part of the auction but of course now I'm more interested in that so the last auction that went by I was looking at some of the prices and I was like man you can get some really awesome new model Stern pinball machines or other manufacturers for really good prices right now so it's definitely a buyer's market at the moment and we're going to get into why I think it's not so much a seller's market too. But let me just go over some of these prices because you're going to be blown away. So like let's say you're someone new and you want to get a pinball machine. Well, you know, when you start looking at some of these prices, you may question whether or not you want to go down the new inbox route. Now I'll say this right off the bat. Getting a new inbox pinball machine at your house and unboxing it and setting it up is an awesome experience. So if you're new to the hobby, it's good. I gotta say, like, I'm not trying to steer you to new in box, but it is such a fun experience. But keep in mind, when I start sharing with you some of these prices, and I think these are the prices for right now, you may want to question whether you want to do new in box or not. So check this out. So during the auction, well, first, let's let's set a baseline. So most of the games I'm going to be referring to are Stern games. So I'm going to give you the Stern MSRP prices. And then you'll I'll tell you what that game went for. And then what the difference is between the MSRP price and what it sold for. Now keep in mind also, I'll say this real quick, when you're dealing with Captain's Auctions and you're a buyer, there is a premium you have to pay. And then if you're not in California, you do have to ship it. So you have to keep those things in mind, right? So if you do buy a game from Captain's Auctions or any other auction warehouse, there's usually some kind of buyer premium, which is some percentage over what you paid, and then also a shipping cost, right? But I'm assuming if you're in the Southern California area, you could just go pick it up. So but just just keep that in mind. So when we're talking about MSRP pricing, a Stern Pro is $6,999. A premium, this is weird, premiums usually say $9,699. But on some distributor sites, they have them as $9,599. I don't know why there's that $100 delta. If there's someone that knows that, put that in the comments. I'm not sure. Some some distributors are $100 more than others, and I don't know why, but that only seems to be the case on the premium machines. And the limited editions are really expensive. Limited editions are going for $12,999 at this point. So LEs are really rich, really, really expensive. Okay, so the first game I'm going to tell you about that sold, this is not a Stern game, this is actually an American pinball game. So this is the Legends of Valhalla limited edition. So this game sold at auction for $5,000. The MSRP on this game is $7,995. So this game didn't have a ton of plays on it either, went for $3,000 less than MSRP. So, I mean, you start looking at $5,000 is actually still very expensive. I'm not trying to say that's cheap, but that's quite a savings over the $8,000 MSRP price. Okay, so that was an American pinball game, an example of one of theirs. All right, Jaws Premium, brand new game, basically. That went for $7,800. That's $1,899 off of MSRP. That's kind of crazy, right? I mean, so that's almost $2,000. So are you willing to forego the new inbox experience on something like a Jaws Premium and save yourself like two grand? It's kind of smart, right? If you're not really interested. So this is where it got kind of crazy. There's a Jaws LE. Now people have been claiming that Jaws LEs are hard to get, but maybe they're not so hard to get because this was a Jaws limited edition. It went for $10,300 and this was $2,699 off of MSRP. So, so far we've had $3,000 off MSRP, $2,000 and then like $2,500 plus off MSRP. So these are like quite savings. Now keep in mind, and captain tries to do a good job of this sometimes he will say things like this was a route game or this was a home use only game keep that in mind if it was a game that was out on route you're probably going to expect it to be beat up more than others now see electric bat is in town that's my local one of my local arcades if a game came out of electric bat those guys take such good care of it like kale and rachel take care of their games like crazy buying one from them if I knew it came from them I wouldn actually feel like really bad about that But with captains you don know what arcade location it came out of So you have no idea how they treat their games So keep in mind that just something to look out for if you decide to go this route All right there was a Godzilla Limited Edition This went for This was only $1,500 off MSRP. What I think is interesting about this is now we have a new entry into the Godzilla family, which is the black and white edition, but let's save that for later because I want to talk to you guys a little bit about that. We're going to rip through the rest of these. So there was a Godzilla Premium that sold for $7,100. That was $2,600 off MSRP. There was a Foo Fighters Premium that went for $6,500. So that's $3,200 off MSRP. I did not expect that with the Foo Fighters being a newer game. So that was kind of shocking to me. There was a Jurassic Park Pro that went for $4,700. That's $2,300 off MSRP. Jurassic Park Pro, in my opinion is very well equipped that's the one i had i'm not like huge on the whole some of the some of those mech stuff is cool but sometimes it doesn't like have any bearing on the game for me like god or um sorry jurassic park with um the t-rex head moving around i don't really care that i really truly don't and then on bond the jetpack thing is really the only major thing and there is a physical ball lock but it didn't make a difference for me on bond so the pro seem natural on bond i guess if you care about those things but i think the jurassic park pro is a great machine then now this is where i was like holy crap a bond pro which i love that game by the way went for 4400 that's 2600 off stern's msrp price now this is where it gets kind of nutsy cuckoo there was a tmnt pro and i know that i don't know i get this like feeling that that there's a lot of just people that generally don't like the tmnt game and i don't know what it is i know my only thing i really it was really hard for me to grasp about tmnt is that the pro or not the pro the game itself the game is a low scoring game so it just doesn't make you feel great like it makes you feel like man i'm working so hard and i'm not seeing the results on the scoreboard so that that kind of affected my maybe how much i enjoyed it but i also haven't put a ton of time on it. There'd be one that I would really like to find a barcade that has it and just play it for a while. But that went for $4,200. So that's $2,800 off MSRP. So I feel like right now, before I tell you the last one, I feel like right now, if you're interested in getting into the hobby, you can get some really good deals. And I did scrub this for to sort of look at these prices in comparison to the pin side prices. And what I'm noticing on pin side is the games that people are expecting to get more for, they're either having to lower their price or they're just holding and not selling. So it's definitely interesting. It's definitely interesting. So we're in a down period, right? So it's good for someone that's trying to get into the hobby. And again, I'm not trying to suggest you don't do new inbox because I did the experience twice already and loved it, like actually unboxing it and all that, which was so fun. But you're going to spend more for it. and you do have to think i'm not i don't want to get into that whole argument about is is buying a pinball machine investment and all that stuff because um it's tough because there was a period of time i think where you could buy them and and offload them for almost the same price and if it was a limited edition you could you could for a lot more and those days at least for right now seem to be over um the iron maiden pro which that's a fun ass game i gotta put more time on it but rudy and i played that at player one arcade for a significant amount of time and we had a lot of fun with that game and stern is i think rerunning that one too the pro but it went for 5100 so that's about 1900 off of msrp so anyway the last game i want to talk about this one hurt a lot this one hurt a lot i have to refer to my notes here so this is um it's an older pinball machine okay it was designed by steve richie and the code was done by dwight sullivan dwight sullivan was the one who took us on the tour at stern he's actually a current stern employee and Steve Ritchie is a Jersey Jack employee at this point. But Dwight, great guy, super nice. But in this game I'm talking about, there was 15,000 of them made, so there was a lot made. And it's Terminator 2 by Williams. So this is a game that I've wanted for a while because this is the one, if I were to go back to what my modern day pinball roots are, it'd be this game because this is the one that I remember playing when I went to visit my sister at college. So there's some, I have a little bit of nostalgia for it. So, this one, this kills me, by the way, because everyone that knows me, that's close to me, knows I've been wanting this game for a long time. It went for $3,200.

12:11

All right, so what am I, like, what's the whole point of this? I think we already hit on it. It's just, I don't know, like, you just have to at least, this information should at least make you have a little bit of caution when you're thinking about what to do. like especially if you're newer to pinball like do you want to enter the market and have the whole new inbox experience or does that not matter as much to you and you're okay getting a game with like 500 plays on it and you're saving two two thousand to three thousand dollars i mean you're still gonna have that pinball machine you want you're just gonna spend a lot less and then maybe some of that money you saved you can put into the mods if the game doesn't have any so i think that's kind of just kind of food for thought is what i is what i talking about but the next topic i on to cover is the Godzilla 70th because this one a dilemma and a half so it looks freaking amazing to me i know not everyone loves the black and white look i know there were people that didn't like the elvira like blood kiss edition or whatever it is which was very similar with the black and white instead of the splashes of red but oh my gosh so they're using the le artwork on the side and they're using the same stuff they put into the recent John Wick LE machine where it's like that foil artwork. But man, in the trailer, I'm going to actually play the trailer. I know if you're listening to this on the podcast platform, you're not actually going to be able to see what I'm sharing. But I thought we'll just kind of play it and then I'll sort of talk over it. So in the trailer, you know, George Gomez is explaining the game. But you see this like cool splash screen says Godzilla 70th, which got me all hyped up, right but let's hear what george has to say real quick hey everybody it's george gomez at stern pinball and today i'm going to show you around a very special new premium model godzilla okay so this brushed metallic foil if you haven't seen the trailer go back and watch it it's this brushed metallic foil that's got me it's got me because so stern isn't always the best when they're doing these marketing videos but with this one they the way they did this camera shot and i can i can say that this is true to how this looks in real life not this one but it does on the john wick when i'm walking because you can see that pinball machine when you're walking down my stairs and depending on how the light is hitting it you can kind of see like the foil kind of like glimmer at you and they took this shot during it that's just so sexy because it's got the LE artwork and in the middle, bam, Godzilla in Japanese lettering with this red accent. It just looks so damn good. I won't play the whole thing, but we'll just hear a little bit more from George and then I just want to tell you what my current dilemma is around this game. ...70th anniversary premium and the original full-color premium model are available at our current premium model pricing. And like all of our premiums, they will stay in production as long as there's demand. this new 70th anniversary premium will also have a full line of matching accessories including the topper art blades and all the rest but wait as they say there's more okay so he's basically saying the thing is freaking amazing which it is it's it looks so good it's crazy it looks amazing so if you are watching this on the on the platform uh because i do upload these to youtube too you'll see some of what i'm talking about but i'll just skim through it really quick he does go into the fact that they're going to um have a line of accessories that are also black and white they're also going to um release the uh shoot what is it called i think the king of dragons mode they're doing like a new or sorry king of dragons thinking of uh what's he called game of thrones but uh the king of monsters challenge mode so that that was something that i think was exclusive to le but that's going to be available to everybody which is pretty cool but But hey, the thing is, he's saying that if there's interest in this game, they will continue to make this game. I can't imagine this doesn't go over well. Godzilla is one of my favorite games. It's probably my favorite game in my collection just because it's so fun. Like the game itself is fun. It puts a smile on my face every time I play it. It is challenging enough too. So really, really fun game. But I'm personally digging it. It looks like it's like kind of the, I don't know, it seems like it's going to end up being the definitive version of it, which is kind of, I don't know, maybe that might make some LE owners kind of a little bit upset because this has a lot of what the LE has to offer, except it's not an LE. It comes at the premium price, $9,699. So if you're looking to get into the hobby and wanted a Godzilla and you dig the black and white, I think this is probably the way to go for you. There were people that, I wasn't obviously as into the hobby at this time when Godzilla came out, but there was like all this talk, I guess, you know because it seems like every release someone complains about something and i guess there was a big complaint about like it being too colorful i don't know i thought it zombie yeti to me does a great job on the artwork on this no part of me is like oh my gosh it's too colorful but i just really dig the idea when you think about godzilla you kind of think black and white right you think back to the originals and it just does it it just looks on brand for the original Godzilla and how you expect it to look. So I don't know. To me, it's pretty amazing. So here's my dilemma. I have a highly modded Godzilla. It's a Godzilla premium. I have every mod, right? I've got the, what's it called? The Tokyo sign. Excuse me. I have the Nogali. I always say that guy's name wrong, but I have that building. I have the, is it Atomic Godzilla? I have all the mezzomod building mods in the back which make the buildings just look so amazing i have the diverter for the tower so it doesn't send the balls all draining down the middle uh i've got speaker light kits in it i've got the whole entire thing powder coated in this green it almost looks like it looks like godzilla scales uh i've got a subwoofer in it i've got did i say speaker light kits already i think i did my list of mods on the thing is amazingly long actually let me let me like pull up the list so I can actually see it and remember all the mods I had on it. Of course, I'm not going to be able to find this list in a timely way right now because I need it, but let me see if I can find it. Just bear with me one second. I know I have it here somewhere because the reason why I have it is because, all right, here it is, because it's listed on Pinside right now, and I don't know what I'm doing, but this is the other thing. So it's got the Godzilla custom side armor with the powder coating. It's got the green powder coating. It's got the speaker lights, it has a shooter knob, the custom shooter knob by Stern, it has the oxygen destroyer, it has the Lali UFO mod by Stumbler, it has the Tokyo Neon, it has the Mecha Godzilla interactive shield mod, it has the Nagali oil building, which I think I'm saying that wrong by ditties, it has all of the building mods by Mezel Mods, it has the Godzilla strike towers the Tesla strike towers it has the Atomic Godzilla the Boom Boom 3000 subwoofer the Invisiglass by Jersey Jack has the Stern Godzilla Art Blades By the way I like the Jersey Jack Invisiglass better than the Stern HD Glass I don't know why, just it's weird. I feel like it's a little clearer and I like it better. The Mazer Cannon by High End Mods, which I didn't install yet. And then I have these street ramp decals on some of the ramps. So yeah, that's a lot of money invested in this thing. So it's like, but I really love this one. It's crazy. So I don't know. I don't know what to do because I'm not going to have both, but I feel like it could be dumb to get rid of this highly modded, very unique Godzilla just because I'm so hooked on the, I just, I can't help myself. It looks like the way I want it to look. I, it's not like I don't love the zombie Yeti artwork. It looks great, but I just feel like, man, I just look so good. It looks so good. But then, you know, if you're the, if you're the mod makers, honestly, everyone's got to be stoked because this was a game that almost everyone you talk to that has it, has modded right everyone that has this game has put lots of mods into this game i don't want to say every single person because my buddy ryan doesn't do any mods to his games he just plays them all stock but the majority of my other friends mod their games it's just something they do and there was just so many cool mods i mean i know i told told you this on a prior podcast episode but the original godzilla inside the game is this tiny mini like he just doesn't do it justice so when you start looking at the um i always forget the name of that one by the way shoot what's the name of the um oh when you look at the mojo mods atomic godzilla it's so freaking epic looking it's so cool and it just fits it perfect and when you hit the when you hit the magna grab the it lights the spine on his lights like it's just amazing it's amazing so i don't know man i don't know what i'm gonna do if you're if you're watching this on or listening to this on YouTube, you can comment. That's the only thing I'm not liking about the podcast platform so far is it's kind of a one-way conversation, so I don't get a lot back. So I do enjoy still putting it on YouTube so you guys can actually post comments. But yeah, if you are listening to this or watching it on YouTube, I'd love to say, like, would I be totally dumb? Because I know I'm not going to get the value out of it, especially right now when they release the new black and white. But I realize not everyone's going to be into the black and white and this green powder coating I have on it looks pretty damn awesome. It looks pretty damn awesome. So the last update I'll give you guys before I go is I've been doing pretty well in this tournament. I mean, not like amazing, but good for me, I think. So the last couple weeks, we're on week. It's a six-week tournament. Last week was week three. I think I ended in like 18th place out of 38 or 39 people. So it wasn't terrible. Like, I don't know, for me not being a tournament player at all, it's been pretty eye-opening. I'd say the biggest thing I have issues with is that when you're playing in a tournament, it's different, right? Because when you step up to a game and you're by yourself at your house, you play all three balls one after another, after another. And with the tournament, like you can kind of like, there's a psychological element to it because if you go up and you have a bad ball now, while you're waiting for the other people to play, all you're thinking about is like, wow, what just happened? Like you start getting in your own head. Uh, that's one aspect, but that's just me. I get in my own head all the time about everything. The other thing is I have a hard time because you usually can't hear the game and there's such a pinball is such a like tactile responses from the game and the music and the code is has call outs so like you'd be surprised how not having that present or not being able to hear that affects your overall ability to play so i see a lot of people at the tournament that i go to they're always wearing headphones and i asked them why they do that actually ian over at nudge magazine who's a buddy of mine too i asked him too he's like oh i always play music when I play, which is weird because I'm so used to hearing the gameplay. It's too bad. Honestly, the ultimate would be if every single pinball bar had headphone jacks to plug in, I would bring my headphones and that'd be awesome. Maybe some do. But anyways, it just, it distracts me. So maybe I'll do try the music thing. Like it, cause what I'm, what's happening is I feel like I'm fixated on all the other things that are happening around me, you know, that it's harder to concentrate but it sounds probably sounds like an excuse but it it has affected me a little bit but for the most part like i'm having a really fun time and i've met a lot of really awesome people that's really what why i wanted to do it i just wanted an excuse to get out of the house and what's cool is i'm meeting all these other people that are into pinball that live right around me so it's it's pretty neat so i would encourage you if you do get a chance and you um you know go to pinball map find your location near you that has pinball and see if they run tournaments because man they're so much fun there's so much fun i don't know where i'm gonna land on this one it'll be interesting to see because it's like i said it's a six-week tournament so we'll see anyways guys that is pretty much mostly what i had for today so i appreciate everyone joining you know this is uh this has been really fun this whole uh pinball podcast thing so hopefully you guys are enjoying it and uh we're coming up i'm gonna be at southern fried gaming expo this uh next weekend. So not this weekend, but next weekend. And the rumor is that there's going to be. So even though it's said that they're premiering the Godzilla 70th at San Diego Comic Con. No! It's going to be at Southern Fried Gaming Expo first, baby! So I'm excited about that. I'm really excited about that because I'm going to take so many pictures and photos and videos of this thing. I'm going to be one of those stupid content creator whores and I'm just going to have my The camera's out all over this thing, gushing all over it because that's because Godzilla is that good. It's that damn good. Anyways, hopefully it looks as good as it looks in the pictures in the video. And if you are in the Atlanta area, come come say hi. Come over to Southern Pride Gaming Expo. I'll have a panel and it'll be a lot of it'll be a lot of fun. It's the one show I go to where I get to actually play a lot more. And that's always a good time. All right, guys, that is it. we will see you on the next one.