Alright guys, welcome back to another episode of a pinball podcast and it is officially Mando mania time. We are roughly 24 hours out as of the recording of this podcast from the Mandalorian, a Star Wars story or whatever Stern's going to call it, but we're about 24 hours out from the full game reveal. Some somewhere right around there and I'm telling you guys right now in case you guys have been living under a rock or just not paying attention to anything at all. This has gone from zero to 100 very fast in terms of not much going on with pinball to all of a sudden one of the biggest, if not the biggest release in pinball history, or at least in modern history, I would say in the last 20 years, at least. This is just insane that the things that are happening right now and these things are happening so fast, too. It's almost like I have whiplash. And this just goes to show how truly nutty this hobby is. All of us, we know. We know we're all pinball owners or pinball players here. At least I would assume about 99.9% of you out there listening, minus my own mother. Shout out to mom after Mother's Day. But I would assume the majority of you out there play pinball or collect pinball machines. And I think most of us out there can say that this is just a fever pitch time, the likes of which the vast majority of us have not seen before. Now, I know some people are comparing this to Ghostbusters, but no, no, no, no, no. I think that this is even bigger. This is even bigger. Something about this is different. And a lot of this is the theme. And we're going to get all into that right now. Now, in terms of what my personal excitement is and my hype around this, yes, I'm extremely hyped up. Yes, I'm a huge Star Wars fan. But I will say I am approaching this with caution. I'm telling you guys right now, approach this with caution. Unless you just want to be hyped. If you want to just be extremely hyped, by all means, go for it. Me personally, I'm going to approach it with caution. And here is exactly why. At the end of the day, with everything going, I feel like I need to see the pin. I've heard different things about it, but I need to see the pin. I need to see the code. I need to see how the shots actually shoot. I need to see all these things. And there's very few themes out there that get me truly excited to buy sight unseen. And I'll tell you guys what. if this was about a year ago, I probably would have got this pin sight unseen. And a big reason why I haven't is just because of the issues I've had this past year with my LEs and with my other pins as well. I'm the type right now, I've decided to pull back a little bit, even though this is basically one of my top five themes that I want, but I want to see it first. I want to see it. So I am passing on the LE. I know that sounds crazy this day and age, but hey, I'm not out to make money on this or anything like that. That's just not my style. I would have wanted to play it anyways. And so I'm going to hold back, but I'm still excited, but I'm kind of, I'm keeping my excitement down until I actually see it. Now, once I see the full trailer, maybe I'll go a little bit nuttier. Once I see the features, maybe I'll go nuts. But again, we don't know for sure. All the details I've heard from different people, The details are a little bit murky. Some of them are right on over the target. Others, not so much. So, I mean, this is like Bigfoot right now, guys. Everybody claims that they know what's going on. They claim it exists. We don't know. We don't know until we see it. And we're going to see it here in just about 24 hours. Now, how do you guys feel about it? First and foremost, if you're listening here, email in at apinballpodcasts at gmail.com. Or if you're on YouTube, just comment down below. How do you feel about this theme? Are you excited about it? Are you hyped up about it? Now, just as I said a second ago, this hobby is obviously nuts. I mean, let's face it, guys. It is May 10th right now. And it was just, what, about eight short months ago that Jersey Jack Pinball released Guns and Roses, or at least debuted it. And we're still waiting for all of those to get out. It still has not happened yet. and we were told by a lot of different people that hey this is a game changer everything's going to be different in pinball now jersey jack has shown us how to do it and you know that is me it could be true i don't know the light show is awesome it's definitely different than anything i've seen before it's definitely filled with assets but here we are guys here we are just one release later from Led Zeppelin coming out, right? And now we've gone all the way to saying, we need a world under glass. We need an asset filled thing. We need a concert in a box. We need storylines. We need, we need, we need, we need, we need. And then we went to Led Zeppelin to where it was, I mean, it took some hits. It took some hits from there's nothing in the game. It's barren. It's nothing compared to Guns and Roses, yada, yada, yada. What is Stern doing? this, this, this, you know, everything, guys, everything. And now we've gotten to the point to where Stern is releasing a pin just eight months after all this, five months if you're counting Led Zeppelin, and you cannot find the LE anywhere anymore after this weekend. And this is the most hyped release in the history, guys, and let me repeat this, The most hyped release in the history of pinball and all Stern pinball had to do was release a trailer, a teaser trailer that said Mandalorian. That was roughly 20 to 23 seconds long. And that's it. That's it. And now all of a sudden, just a fever pitch. That's how fast this hobby can just go. So we have to get off the train. I don't want to hear it anymore. I don't want to hear it anymore that everybody's been talking about that Stern has to load these games to get people by. No. All Stern has to do is put out a killer theme that appeals to all ages, not just rock bands that are 40 years old that appeal to a certain very specific demographic. And now they release something that has been around, obviously, for decades, but it's still relevant today because new content for this particular IP is coming out today. And we're talking about all the star Wars content coming out. It is huge I I don know anymore guys if we can keep talking about world under glass and everything has to be in these pens When we are just going nuts and getting in line for an LE sight unseen like this Where there's 750 of them out there. And they're not only just sold out after this weekend. I mean, there could be one or two. I actually do know of some people that got an LE just this past weekend. One of them for MSRP, which is just insane. But when we talk about all the variables that go into this, it is just flat out amazing. And this just shows that theme alone and a couple of rumors can make everything. It's like a match into gasoline, and it just goes. It just goes. I mean, think about how crazy this is, guys. Think about how crazy this is. It's just like I talked about. We've gone from wanting to see certain things in a game to all of a sudden just $15,000 up front, sight unseen, or theme alone from the largest pinball manufacturer in the world. That has legitimately happened just this past week. And it is amazing. It is amazing, and it shows you the power of theme. It shows you the power of having goodwill to your customers. It shows you the power of being a manufacturing powerhouse. Guys, Stern Pinball is a manufacturing powerhouse. And I might sound like a shill right now, but these are facts. These are facts. And I said it right after I was talking about the Twippy Awards. We were talking about the fallout for this. And I said it several months ago when I said that Stern Pinball was ecstatic when they saw all the CEs from Jersey Jack for GNR sell out for $15,000. because that told them right then and there where this was going. They knew. They knew where this was going. And I'm telling you, it's going to keep going higher and higher and higher, and it's going to get crazier and crazier and crazier. But, guys, we are so lucky that we do have a pinball company, that we are involved in a hobby like pinball. And in this day and age, we have a pinball company that's not only capable of delivering games when they say that they're going to deliver games, But they have some of the best designers, some of the best coders, some of the best engineers, some of the best pinball minds in the world underneath the same roof dealing with the themes that we want to see that excite people. And they're getting these machines out and they're putting them out in such volume during a pandemic. I mean, hats off to everybody there. It is just utterly amazing. It is just amazing. we're going to end up with at least three cornerstones this year. And it is quite possible that they are going to put out five to seven pinball machines before the second biggest pinball manufacturer puts out their second one, comparatively speaking to the amount of pins that have been put out during the same timeline. Excuse me for one second, guys. Got a cough here. All right. That feels so much better. But you guys understand what I'm saying? And that's what makes this so crazy to me. And, you know, when we look at Mandalorian, again, great theme. And I'm going to keep rehashing this over and over and over again. And we could speculate here a little bit later what could possibly be on there. But the reason why, too, that I've kind of got my expectations a little bit in check, and I'm hoping it's awesome. But the reason why is because we do have to look into all the other variables that go into making a pinball game or a pinball machine. And what's interesting about this, as much flack that LZ or Led Zeppelin got when they brought it out compared to GNR, we have to remember that right now the people making the game decisions overall, to my knowledge, they haven't changed. the people that are working under the roof of stern pinball hasn't changed and these teams they have continuously come under a lot of criticism for not creating the quote unquote world under glass for not creating certain moments for players for not creating something in which it feels like you're doing something magical with the ball you're doing something magical with your time you're just a freaking wizard i guess playing pinball i don't know But now all of a sudden, we've gone from that to everybody is being encouraged to get in line as soon as possible to buy up this pen. And we haven't even seen it yet. Does that not strike anybody as a little nutty? Just a little, just a little. For me it is, but again, power of theme. But that's why. This is exactly why, guys, that I'm having my expectations a little tempered. Just a little bit. Because the MSRP, and we're going to move on to this right now with how the distributors are approaching this. The MSRP came out from Stern, and it did not change compared to Led Zeppelin. It did not go up. Now, I don't know the premiums off the top of my head. I should have wrote this down. I know that the pros are right around $61.99. I guess premiums might be $76.99, $78.99. I don't know for sure. LEs are $91.99. And if you were able to get in for an LE, congrats. If you were able to get in for an LE at MSRP, congratulations even more. If you have found a distributor that's willing to sell you a Mandalorian Limited Edition pinball machine, please send those people flowers send them chocolates send them a gift card to a restaurant to send them a grow goo doll do something for your distributor because that is i'm telling you guys that in itself is amazing because anything like these distributors they are not obligated to sell at msrp that's just the manufacturer suggested retail price that's all that is it does not mean that a distributor has to charge you that price. They can charge anything above that just as long as Stern Pinball, who happens to be the manufacturer in this instance, just as long as they don't have a certain price ceiling on it, which in all intents and purposes, I don't think that they do. Now, obviously, they have a map. There's no way in hell anybody's getting an LE for map. There's no, that's not happening. Let's throw that out the window. But if you were able to get in for an MSRP price, congratulations. I mean, that's free money right there, fellas. That is free money right there. I mean, because anything above that, the distributor, that's profits for them. And in this instance, I would not blame distributors at all. I would not fault them at all for raising their prices, because again it is straight profit And there are people that have their money at risk for their business They do have to pay people They do have employees They probably have insurance At least I hope they do. I mean, there's all this overhead that they have to do. And games like this don't come around too often, especially new in box, in which there's an actual justification for charging over MSRP. Now, when it comes to Mandalorian, compared to other themes, I honestly do believe that Stern has missed the boat in terms of their MSRP. Now, that's their strategy. Obviously, dynamic pricing really isn't in the cards right now. I thought it could be possible that it might be. But this pin, honestly, guys, I think it's at least $2,000 underpriced, MSRP-wise. I think at least $2,000. And the crazy part about all this, the bomb is obviously still within that $91.99 MSRP price. I don't think the bomb has dramatically changed. I don't think Stern is trying to take a wash on this pinball machine, on this IP. I don't think that they are. They're still out to make money. So I'm curious of that. I could be totally wrong about that, but you never know. Looks like my wife just walked in. Hi, sweetie. Welcome back from work. I'm glad you put in three hours today. Congratulations. But you guys understand what I'm saying? I would be shocked if the bomb ended up being any higher than what it normally could be. And so we're still working within that ecosystem. We're still working with a game that's going to have the normal Stern LE bomb, at least in the range. I mean, are they really upping it that much? I don't know. I mean, maybe somebody might tell me I'm wrong and it might be true. And then all LE owners are just, everybody just hit the lotto then in that case. But just like I said, I'm not going to fault companies for doing what they think is necessary. Now, there are some interesting things out there going on though. I mean, there's been reports that have come out that certain companies or certain distributors out there have actually sold their allotment for over 12, 13, some cases even $15,000 for LE. That is amazing. And this isn't twisting people's arms either. We're talking lines that are 60 clear up to over 100 deep for these games, for an allotment of maybe 8 to 12 games, somewhere right around there, give or take a few. And then there's some, some smaller distributors, I guess, weren't aware of what they had. I heard from one person in particular that decided just on a whim that on Saturday they were going to call around, or it might even been Sunday, they were going to call around to different places and just check in and see if there's any LEs. Took them a couple hours. They found one distributor that legitimately had two LEs, and they were keeping one for themselves, and guess what? They got theirs for MSRP because nobody else had even contacted them at all. That is amazing. And here we've been told for several days that the LEs were already sold out. And it turned out, wasn't true. That they're still, I mean, they're legitimately, I think that the LEs could pretty much be spoken for, but let's face fact, guys, like, money talks. If you have 12 to 15 grand sitting around and you happen to love this theme that much and you want this game bad enough, you will probably be able to find it. I would be very surprised if all the LEs hit the street this year. It would not surprise me one bit if a few of these distros or whatever you want to call it, a few of these distributors end up keeping the game back. And I don't know. I don't own one. I don't know whether that's the right thing to do, the proper thing to do. I just know that they are out to make money and I don't necessarily blame them for that. And I'm not going to tell somebody how to run their business. Now, obviously this might piss off some people in the pinball community to where they think it's price gouging, but I really do think it just happens to be supply shock because with the pandemic and everything going on, there's more demand than supply for these games. And then Stern Pinball puts out something like Mandalorian that's a crazy-ass theme that's highly desired, and they do this with keeping in their normal MSRP at the same time, in a time in which money has just, there's just so much money out there, guys. This is happening in a time frame in which $30,000 plus is being spent on a Pirates from Jersey Jack. In which I actually heard that somebody bought an Elvira Super LE or whatever it's called for over $30,000 just a couple of weeks ago. I mean, these games are going for so much. And we're seeing Stranger Things LE going for $12,000. We're seeing Jurassic Park LEs going for $12,000. And these are used games. and now we're seeing a theme that is so much more desirable than those themes in general to just so many more people and we're seeing it come out new in box with the msrp where it's at and that's why this is happening and it wouldn't shock me one bit if some people start flipping this game i know that that's going to still piss off a lot of people as well but it is what it is it's going to happen and i think we're going to see those games be anywhere between 15 to 18 thousand dollars i think we could possibly see it is very likely that we could see the first twenty thousand dollar stern pinball limited edition he sold third-party market it is quite possible that's new in box now tron somebody bought it for 25 so let me correct that new in box so we could see the second it is again just crazy just it just goes to show you even more that I feel like that this is very much underpriced. And I'm actually shocked as well that the premium, the prices there have kind of stayed steady. I think the premium is going to end up being a very excellent buy. I don't think people can go wrong with that, especially with the LEs getting to where they're going. I don't know what else could be added on to the LE that you couldn't necessarily get for the premium if you actually tried. You know, it would be awfully hard. I guess different art packages, that's about it. You know, the way that the mirrored back glass is. At least I think it's called that. I think that that might be about it. But other than that, it should pretty much be the same. And so that's why I think the premium would be a pretty good buy in this instance. Now, in terms of what this game could be worth later this year, used, I could still see it not only holding value, I could even see used still going up even by quarter four around Christmas time I think once people because there probably not as many people or there probably more people out there that don even realize that this game exists yet and yet we're going to have all these press releases go out. And I've looked around, and I have not noticed any press releases put out by Stern Pinball yet, but they're going to put them out. And so the Star Wars fan base, Like the true blood Star Wars fan base is not aware that this product exists yet. So I am curious that once they do realize, and they will come tomorrow evening, once they do realize, and if you're watching this right now and you're one of those people, congratulations, you just entered a whole new territory of nerddom with pinball. but I wonder how is that going to affect things because we are going to have a whole new slew of fans and people in Star Wars diehards that are going to realize that this product exists and they're going to want this product and yet when they try to figure out how to get it it's not going to be able to get gotten you know what I'm saying? it's not going to be around and so I'm curious to see how that affects the dynamics of third-party pricing. I'm curious to see how that affects the dynamics of people reselling the game. I'm curious to see how that affects the dynamics of certain distributors that might be holding inventory back and waiting until that first wave comes. Because that second wave has potential to be even larger than the first wave. It really does. This is the type of game in which the premium is probably going to set records in terms of sales. This is the type of game where it is likely impossible that the pro could even keep pace with the premium. And so when Stern comes out with a theme in which the pro keeps pace with premium sales as well, you know that they have a home run. And so I think that there's distinct possibilities that that could happen. Now, what do I truly expect to happen besides that? Well, the question that we have to ask ourselves, Is it possible that this game could be disappointing when we see it? Are we so hyped up and getting so fired up due to, you know, whether it's other podcasts hyping it up, whether it's due to the Kaneda effect, the leaks? I mean, hell, Kaneda, kudos to you, brother. You have done Stern a solid as much as you push this game. And, I mean, it's crazy. And so will that end up? Has that gotten people so fired up about this game? and Stern hasn't said anything about it yet. Stern hasn't really said anything. Just that 23-second teaser trailer. What will happen if this game does not match the expectations that are out there? Will there be blowback from that? What happens if the person coding this game isn't the one that you want coding this game? What happens if we don't like the R package? These are things that are extremely possible. Now, I'm not saying they're probable. I'm just saying what if? What if? Are we setting ourselves all up to get so hyped up about this game that it is inevitable that it will be some sort of letdown? Right? It's definitely possible. And I don't know. I don't know. Has the hype exceeded what is possible to be delivered? And I think that certainly it's, I don't know. I think it's just possible, guys. I don't want to rain on the parade too much. But if this game does happen to deliver, because again, it's not a super LE, right? It's still a Stern LE. It's still working in the confines of a Stern limited edition bomb. They still have to make money. So I don't know if I'm necessarily expecting to see something that is just mind-blowing. Now, it is interesting, though, because if Brian Eddy is the designer, which by all I mean, we pretty much know that that's who it's going to be. That means the pressure is on him that he has to deliver something that matches the expectations that everybody has set up for themselves in terms of what they are going to see. And pinball designing is not easy as much as we want to critique it, as much as we want to analyze it, as much as I even want to break down what I'm seeing. the type of skill that goes into developing these pens from your mind to paper to autocad to whiteboard to foam board to whatever it could be it takes an incredible amount of skill and an incredible amount of patience and i hope that whatever Brian Eddy has come up with does not only match expectations out there but i hope that it does exceed expectations because if it does holy crap we all might as well get on that rocket right now to the moon because that will send pinball into a whole other stratosphere if it happens to be that the design is on point that it's universally loved if it happens to be that the code is even halfway decent i mean that's all the code has to be for this pin to be well received it just needs to have an above average layout and a halfway decent code. That's pretty much all it needs because it is Star Wars. People love Star Wars. It's going to sell a lot the first week. It's probably going to sell a lot the first month. It's probably going to sell a lot the first year, and it's going to keep on doing that for the next three to five years. This is a theme in which it's pretty much made any other theme that any other pinball company comes out with this year feel relevant. It just is. I don't see how they become relevant at all. And I'm kind of aware of what the other themes that are coming out. I'm not going to spoil them here, but I just, I don't know how other companies can compete with this, especially when this is just the first release from Stern this year. This isn't the first and only. This is just the first release. We still have one of the greatest game designers or pinball designers of all time waiting on deck. That is scary. That is scary. Stern Pinball is in an excellent spot. If you're in the pinball hobby, we are all in excellent spots right now. It's a great time to be a pinball fan. And I hope what we see matches and exceeds expectations tomorrow. I'm excited. Let me know down below, guys, what do you think? Is this going to match? Are you happy? Sad? If somebody out there wants to see a different theme, I mean, I don't know what to tell you guys. It is Star Wars. other than that I guess we'll just strap in and we'll find out tomorrow have a good one guys later