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NIB prices


Gav

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What are people paying for NIB? Stern pro’s are listed at $9450 everywhere, but is there discount available? Most new items at this price point have “wiggle room�. It’s been a while since I bought new and want to add a TMNT to the lineup😀

Cheers Gav

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What are people paying for NIB? Stern pro’s are listed at $9450 everywhere, but is there discount available? Most new items at this price point have “wiggle room�. It’s been a while since I bought new and want to add a TMNT to the lineup😀

Cheers Gav

 

Listed price has always been the only price I’ve been able to get from zax and amd.

 

I haven’t bough every machine so I don’t know if others are getting better deals because they are “better customers�.

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Listed price has always been the only price I’ve been able to get from zax and amd.

 

I haven’t bough every machine so I don’t know if others are getting better deals because they are “better customers�.

 

Thanks mate

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A millionaire in the 1970's once told me when I was a kid there is only two ways to sell for profit.

 

1/ A high turnover with a low profit margin. I,e food, sweets, alcohol etc.

or

2/ A low turnover with a high profit margin. I.e Jets, Cars, Mansions etc.

 

Anything in between is just the opposition & they wont survive in business long term. I don't know where Pinball fits in this equation. :unsure

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A millionaire in the 1970's once told me when I was a kid there is only two ways to sell for profit.

 

1/ A high turnover with a low profit margin. I,e food, sweets, alcohol etc.

or

2/ A low turnover with a high profit margin. I.e Jets, Cars, Mansions etc.

 

Anything in between is just the opposition & they wont survive in business long term. I don't know where Pinball fits in this equation. :unsure

 

 

 

low turn over (relatively), high(er) profit margin (stern only tho).

 

If rumours are to be believed Stern are selling machines to distributors at atleast double if not triple their per machine bom depending on model.

 

However creating a machine is more than just the cost of parts.

Factory operating costs, staff (probably the biggest cost), original machines development that occurs months before the machine even starts production.

 

Whats that bring the margins back down to?

 

Net margin for entertainment industry is only ~ 11%*

 

 

Just for the hell of it a quick google to give some form of comparison.

 

http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/New_Home_Page/datafile/margin.html

 

 

 

None of those industries are triple figure margins.

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low turn over (relatively), high(er) profit margin (stern only tho).

 

If rumours are to be believed Stern are selling machines to distributors at atleast double if not triple their per machine bom depending on model.

 

However creating a machine is more than just the cost of parts.

Factory operating costs, staff (probably the biggest cost), original machines development that occurs months before the machine even starts production.

 

Whats that bring the margins back down to?

 

Net margin for entertainment industry is only ~ 11%*

 

 

Just for the hell of it a quick google to give some form of comparison.

 

http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar...le/margin.html

 

 

 

None of those industries are triple figure margins.

 

Yeah its no where near triple, not even close to double.

 

Straight from the horses mouth a couple years ago... but I didn't write down the exact words, so paraphrased as close as i can remeber.....

it was something along the lines of:

There's basically no profit margins on a pro model, they're as cheap as they can possibly be to try and entice as many public locations to site them as possible. On the other hand, premium and LE models have very little extra costs involved to produce compared to a pro and thus have much better margins.

So basically the price difference from Pro to LE is profit for stern. Which when you think about it, for business thats very little.

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What part to do think is the most expencive part on a pinball machine?. It used to be the coils, the transformer and the plasma displays in the 70-80s. We still have coils, although they use less copper running higher voltages, and a transformer but no plasma displays.

Now take out all the expensive US made GE light bulbs and replace them with cheap Chinese LEDs.

Replace the US made plywood with Asian sourced plywood.

 

No longer do labour intensive and time consuming silk screen playfield and cabinet artwork replacing the cabinet artwork with printed stickers and modern far cheaper playfield printing processes taking out the time these parts used to have to stand simply drying.

Cut the copper wiring down to about a 1/3 of what used to be required and now you are really starting to see just how much money has been shaved from the production costs of a pinball compared to one made in the 70-80s.

 

Swap the white pure rubber rings with synthetic silicon rings.

Further, start looking at all the generic parts used across the different makes such as front doors rather than manufacturer made doors with cast parts.

PC Boards are no longer designed, made and assembled in house now made by machines in China and probably under $40 a board when you consider volume.

 

I could go one but honestly if they are not making a lot of profit, they are doing something very wrong with modern machine assembly processes. It's a pinball machine for Christ sakes. The machine could virtually be assembled on an assembly line without a human touching it these days.

Questioning the cost of such robots to assemble pinballs?.Remember, they sell these things for a half to a third of what you can buy a car for with a 7 year warranty. They are selling enough to cash in on such technology.

 

It is a wooden box with a PLC controlling coils, a display and speakers.

The one thing they don't do any more they used to do is make the owner money, pay for themselves and make a profit afterwards so when you consider the actual "original" purpose of these machines these days is no longer a stand alone, money making machine for the owner, why are they so expensive?.

 

Just as a side note, are the very latest Sterns still using light bulb sockets to hold the LEDs?.

I could never understand why they were still using these metal manufactured parts when soldering the LEDs directly to a PC board is not only cheaper but also far more reliable. If they designed such a PC board correctly, it would also use far less "expensive copper wire".

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Chinese labor is cheaper than American or Australian labor, otherwise why do so many manufactures set up shop there. There not there for the weather.

My understanding is that they set up there for the ease of accessing locally built components more than anything else.

 

I've been told that the entitlements of staff is even greater than what staff here in Australia have. More paid days off etc as well.

 

It could be wrong, but it's what I've been told.

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While the pinball component costs may have reduced (relative to the RRP of the machine) and logistics & manufacturing lines streamlined, almost all new machines are licensed as opposed to very few back in the 70's & 80's. Operational costs, especially labour, would also now be far more significant in relative terms to the number units being produced. So I wouldn't expect any lowering of the US price, but the biggest variation here in Aus is the fluctuation of the exchange rate.
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