Stern Pinball to Sell New Jurassic Park Home Edition Plus in Partnership with Costco

[Spacegoogie]

Just found out about this. https://www.costco.com/stern-pinball-jurassic-park-home-edition.product.4000272133.html

I wonder what the quality will be like? Let's take the brand Lucky Jeans. $150 to $200+.  These jeans found their way into  Costco and were sold for  $29.99 but you can tell the difference in quality yet they are still sold as "Lucky Jeans" and not a cheaper ver. of the famous brand. What's your thoughts ? What are we thinking for price range also?

 

 

[Darkstar]

Stern has been trying to pull the “laymen market” in for awhile and though I can’t see thier records, it seems mostly bound to fail. I now get the joy of needing to turn off Stern ads pointed at laymen because apparently normies think pinball machines come from Mars and they couldn’t possibly get one of those being a regular civilian….thus they feel the need to let them know they too can have the heart pounding action of the arcade at home while listening to your favorite Spin Doctors album. 

 

Snarkiess aside, your average person just isn’t in the market for a 5K (the price isn’t a mystery) pinball machine no matter where you plop them down for sale….heck I was getting pros for that price just a few years ago. They may put a few on the floor for people to try out, but I’d bet most will be broken within a month or two. 

 

Pinball at home is mainly for enthusiasts period. At least in my travels there are very few folks that just “casually own one”. A good for instance is I was thinking of trying to sell one in my small neighborhood just today, by putting up an ad on our community mailboxes. My girlfriend came back at me like I wasn’t thinking properly and she was right. Her basic message was “who the heck do you think around here wants to buy a pinball machine”….and she’s right. Perhaps I live in a really unhip area, but I’d think most of us when we think of our neighbors, very few would even think of wanting a pinball machine. 

 

Another example I have…some women that my friend knew that liked to play pinball at the bar he worked at asked if they could come over…and they did. I had offered one of the machines for 6K if I recall right, being they really liked it, and they were actually lightheartedly offended. They just straight up couldn’t afford something like that, and I probably came across as kind of a dick, though my heart was in the right place. 6K is cranking 10 percent of what your average American in pulling in annually. My only point again is “regular people” don’t really buy pinball machines…enthusiasts mostly will. 

 

I could be wrong. As best I can figure those home machines are just made of parts Stern probably has mass overflow of. As far as quality they very well may rush them, and the playfield will be inked poorly on some, dimples etc. Quality control at Stern has always been about the  same as KFC. 

 

I’m pretty sure they will be the exact same game as it’s been for years though. I know places like Target will sell cheaper versions of high end brand names, but are still “real”…in this case I think it will be a spade and a spade. Like I say…those home machines are just dealing with the most basic parts that Stern uses by the truck load. 

 

Neat find BTW. It shows the direction they have been trying to go for a while. In this case it seems low risk, but also likely to fail in my humble opinion. 

Edited September 5, 2024 by Darkstar

[Spacegoogie]

6 hours ago, Darkstar said:

Stern has been trying to pull the “laymen market” in for awhile and though I can’t see thier records, it seems mostly bound to fail. I now get the joy of needing to turn off Stern ads pointed at laymen because apparently normies think pinball machines come from Mars and they couldn’t possibly get one of those being a regular civilian….thus they feel the need to let them know they too can have the heart pounding action of the arcade at home while listening to your favorite Spin Doctors album. 

 

Snarkiess aside, your average person just isn’t in the market for a 5K (the price isn’t a mystery) pinball machine no matter where you plop them down for sale….heck I was getting pros for that price just a few years ago. They may put a few on the floor for people to try out, but I’d bet most will be broken within a month or two. 

 

Pinball at home is mainly for enthusiasts period. At least in my travels there are very few folks that just “casually own one”. A good for instance is I was thinking of trying to sell one in my small neighborhood just today, by putting up an ad on our community mailboxes. My girlfriend came back at me like I wasn’t thinking properly and she was right. Her basic message was “who the heck do you think around here wants to buy a pinball machine”….and she’s right. Perhaps I live in a really unhip area, but I’d think most of us when we think of our neighbors, very few would even think of wanting a pinball machine. 

 

Another example I have…some women that my friend knew that liked to play pinball at the bar he worked at asked if they could come over…and they did. I had offered one of the machines for 6K if I recall right, being they really liked it, and they were actually lightheartedly offended. They just straight up couldn’t afford something like that, and I probably came across as kind of a dick, though my heart was in the right place. 6K is cranking 10 percent of what your average American in pulling in annually. My only point again is “regular people” don’t really buy pinball machines…enthusiasts mostly will. 

 

I could be wrong. As best I can figure those home machines are just made of parts Stern probably has mass overflow of. As far as quality they very well may rush them, and the playfield will be inked poorly on some, dimples etc. Quality control at Stern has always been about the  same as KFC. 

 

I’m pretty sure they will be the exact same game as it’s been for years though. I know places like Target will sell cheaper versions of high end brand names, but are still “real”…in this case I think it will be a spade and a spade. Like I say…those home machines are just dealing with the most basic parts that Stern uses by the truck load. 

 

Neat find BTW. It shows the direction they have been trying to go for a while. In this case it seems low risk, but also likely to fail in my humble opinion. 

Thank you for the read, I can't see this lasting either. 100% I still wont be buying one, My wife's car was broken into the other night they made the car undrivable, We cant even afford to fix that.

 

[Darkstar]

Rumor has it Stern has been hurting since after COVID. They got greedy and increased prices about 40 percent overnight. 

 

I was pretty open on Youtube about my feelings at the time. To be 100 honest, I’m the target for Stern sales. I have no problem spending a few more thousand dollars per pin…as to say my bottom line doesn’t change….but I decided to give a hearty “Fuck You!”, and protest with my wallet. When you add up the people that are now out priced, with the people like myself than can afford them, but feel gross in doing so….as South Park said “Your gonna have a bad time”. These machines aren’t worth even close to what they are trying to sell them for. People will claim it’s because of IP rights……….sure Jan

 

Lately I’ve been more into supporting my friends around me by buying and trading their pins, while keeping an eye on new comers like Barrels Of Fun. I’m not anti-Stern, I’ll just only buy the “greatest hits”, like Godzilla for instance in the future. I’d probably still buy even this mid games if I could still get them at 5K (and I don’t pay taxes)

 

Who knows, I may make a video on this if I’m in the mood 😛

 

Hope you get your car fixed soon.

Edited September 5, 2024 by Darkstar

[xenonph]

Check out this "Making of Jurassic Park Home Edition" video toxie uploaded here...

https://www.vpforums.org/index.php?showtopic=54126#entry539663

 

"Visual Pinball is mentioned and shown multiple times in the video (first time 3:51), apparently Sterns Jurassic Park Home Edition was proto-typed with it by Jack!"

 

Pretty cool!

[Spacegoogie]

9 hours ago, xenonph said:

Check out this "Making of Jurassic Park Home Edition" video toxie uploaded here...

https://www.vpforums.org/index.php?showtopic=54126#entry539663

 

"Visual Pinball is mentioned and shown multiple times in the video (first time 3:51), apparently Sterns Jurassic Park Home Edition was proto-typed with it by Jack!"

 

Pretty cool!

That was a good watch,  I see JP Home Ed. was done in VPX! So...... it should be a perfect playable copy on our setups lol.