I don’t know if you’re still looking (this is an old thread), but I have in the last couple of months bought a ‘new’ pinball machine - having never played full-sized pinball machines growing up.
We didn’t have a fixed budget, but we were worried about being sold a turkey if we bought second hand from a private buyer, due to our inexperience. We didn’t know, at the time, whether it was going to get played enough to justify the cost either.
We eventually picked a Fish Tales as:
1. We’d played it (a lot) on the Williams app;
2. The Fish Tales we bought was cheap for 90s-era Williams pinball machines and cheap for retail (it was missing its fish topper, for starters), and thus felt ‘lower risk’ than something costing £5k plus (e.g. a new Stern or a TAF!);
3. It was regarded as a simple-to-maintain machine with very few moving parts;
4. We figured we could use our combined A-level electronics experience to fix the machine;
5. It has a family-friendly theme.
Fish Tales is from 1992 and about 60-80 on the Pinside Top 100. It’s well regarded, but not exceptionally covetable or exceptionally highly rated.
We absolutely LOVE this machine. It is seeing 10 plays a day at the moment, more on weekends, and has made my four-year-old son absolutely obsessed with pinball. The machine arrived with a few problems, e.g. the wrong-sized rubbers on the left slingshot, but we managed to fix this problem with some help from the FT owner’s club on Pinside. We’ve subsequently upgraded the machine with LEDs throughout and a ColorDMD screen, and I have a ‘monster fish’ mod still to fit.
I would try the Williams or Stern apps on Steam/iOS if you can’t get to a physical location to play pinball (try the Pinside Map for sites). Get a feel for the sort of tables and layouts that you enjoy. I, personally, enjoy tables with difficult shots where accuracy and timing are essential. FT is a notorious tournament machine where even world-class players can’t get the very high scores. This type of machine is NOT the recommendation to n00bs and it isn’t automatically served by newer, or more popular, machines (Twilight Zone and Deadpool are complete dogs, IMO).
DO NOT assume that older machines are worse, either in physical build quality or in playability - this simply isn’t the case. I have played several currently-in-production Sterns since getting Fish Tales (DeadPool, A:IQ, Stranger Things), and the only one that holds a candle to 90s-era machines, such as Medieval Madness, is Stranger Things (because it’s basically a copy of
AFM/MM, but with lower production values and a child-unsuitable theme).
DO NOT assume that kids will like the newer Sterns either. My four-year-old son’s favourite machines are Medieval Madness, Cirqus Voltaire and Black Hole, in that order. Young kids do not understand the complex rulesets of the modern Sterns and the playfields aren’t visually attractive enough to make up for that. Having seen both older ’blinged out’ machines and Sterns, on location, it is possible to retrofit an older machine to look as good as a newer one and the high-definition LCD screens don’t add much to gameplay.
The newest Stern machines have components that are apparently not user-fixable. I am now considering a second machine and liked the idea of JP2 (I haven’t managed to play it on location), but am REALLY dissuaded by the idea of having to call someone out to fix it. So, you have any inclinations to be a ‘tinkerer’ (i.e. someone who fixes things) then older machines are better value-for-money IMO - both on purchase and in the longer term.
One final thing - I wouldn’t buy retail if I were you. I’d post in the Wanted section, with a couple of ideas for things you’d like, and see if anyone bites.
Hope that helps!