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Scorbit - Bulk order

Julian

Registered
Joined
Mar 23, 2014
Messages
738
Location
Bromley
So I am thinking of getting a few Scorbit boards, they do a good discount for bulk.

$299.99 for 1 unit
$269.99 for 2 to 10 units
$239.99 for 11 to 25 units
$199.99 for 26+

Does anyone else fancy some?

Shipping costs, VAT and import duty to be split.
Up-front payment of boards, I will pay shipping costs, VAT and import duty, then will collect this when I know what it is and the split.

@Neil McRae You have loads of them any suggestions or points we should know?
 
Great idea - Great solution - Unfortunately well overpriced for me :(

Good idea on the Bulk Buy though!! :)
 
If you look at what they've done there has been a huge amount of engineering effort gone into it, so the price isn't too surprising.

With what they've got they could probably do more than "just" snoop on scores - for example providing some GPIOs which can be programmed to alert on certain game events, enabling 3rd-party mods to react to them. That might help their value proposition.

That being said, their business model only makes sense for older machines IMO. With modern (e.g. spike 2) machines, there's no reason to stick their expensive hardware in it. Just plug a $20 wifi dongle into the board and off you go (of course some extra software will be required).
 
I was getting close to placing an order also Julian so good timing!

No gotcha's really its all plug and play! But I'd note that there are different versions, so you have SAM DMD

You should note though that the cost for the scorbits is dependant upon your own use. i.e. if you have 10 people buying 5 each, you won't qualify for the 26+ order.

I've been working with the Scorbit guys closely so let me ask them what they might be able to offer and see what they come back with.

I'd be amazed if they aren't looking at more devices.

Neil.
 
If you look at what they've done there has been a huge amount of engineering effort gone into it, so the price isn't too surprising.

With what they've got they could probably do more than "just" snoop on scores - for example providing some GPIOs which can be programmed to alert on certain game events, enabling 3rd-party mods to react to them. That might help their value proposition.

That being said, their business model only makes sense for older machines IMO. With modern (e.g. spike 2) machines, there's no reason to stick their expensive hardware in it. Just plug a $20 wifi dongle into the board and off you go (of course some extra software will be required).

Assumes Stern will support that approach which may not be the case.

JJP GNR runs with no extra hardware!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
I spoke with Jay he is going to follow up here.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
I can see stern and others seeing a business opportunity here. ie recurring revenue from subscriptions. as have scorbit.

hopefully there will always be a free version

As a home brew supporter i’m hoping someone creates a free version with a cheap hardware to pick up the scores and send to a central server. - if my bally project to intercept scores works, then it might be me! gulp 😃
 
nothing is free Alan, your spending "money" developing your free system and buying a server etc...

What won't be cheap is fragmentation - the problem is you need to support all machines otherwise its a fail. Scorbit have done for a HUGE majority of games and built a great system around it. With the right engagement from the manufacturers it can be super low cost (GNR is in effect free from a hardware POV).

Getting the score out of some games is non-trivial but also scorbit is more than just the scores. £150 a year for unlimited games support doesn't feel unreasonable to me.

Cheers,
Neil.
 
fragmentation isn’t necessarily a problem if you have open systems. eg scorbit could easily allow third party hardware to talk to their servers via an api . a rival to scorbit could allow scorbit devices to talk to their servers, etc.

i’d like to see them succeed, support a massive variety of games and sell loads so can reduce the hw and subs costs.
 
Fragmentation will only be avoided with open APIs, letting folks like Alan integrate with the system.

Any walled garden approach will lead to fragmentation, which is unfortunate.
 
fragmentation isn’t necessarily a problem if you have open systems. eg scorbit could easily allow third party hardware to talk to their servers via an api . a rival to scorbit could allow scorbit devices to talk to their servers, etc.

i’d like to see them succeed, support a massive variety of games and sell loads so can reduce the hw and subs costs.

fragmentation would be a disaster in a market that's the size of a pin head! (a literal pin head!).

You mean like how JJP is talking to their platform now? :D

Neil.
 
I hope not because the market really isn't big enough. but its pinball and not exactly filled with the smartest of people.
 
Well hello folks, sorry I'm late to the discussion!

First and foremost, our API is open, to everyone. Stern is welcome to use it the same way JJP and other manufacturers are now, as is anyone actually. As it is, almost all the manufacturers have given us their commitment to it, so we're good to go there. As soon as a manufacturer has a connected capability, we will help them get on board as we have with Jersey Jack and Spooky. The history of the Internet is littered with walled gardens, and I can tell you no one wants to use an AOL account anymore. Our numbers are growing fast, we have a lot of experience building Internet infrastructure, and we will respond with services that are valuable to both players, collectors, and later on, operators.

To be clear folks, if we could just give you hardware for free, we would. It's likely one day we will. We don't make one cent on the hardware (actually, we lose money) and it's a necessary evil to make all this work with all games. I hope one day it is totally unnecessary!

As for dropping the cost on certain games, what I can say is we are actively working on different hardware for situations where less features are required, less processing, etc. Those solutions will be less expensive, but will take time and manufacturing volume to get to everyone. In the meantime, let's find a solution that works for everyone and get's people on the platform.

Which brings us to the group buy! As a one-time Pinball Info group buy friends-of-McRae deal, we are willing to offer $185 each for 10 or more or $165 each for 20 or more. Is that interesting? If so, we would take the final list, and assign custom coupons to everyone on that list, along with a free subscription for a year for the units. The list has to be finalized and can't be re-opened, though. Thoughts?
 
Well hello folks, sorry I'm late to the discussion!

First and foremost, our API is open, to everyone. Stern is welcome to use it the same way JJP and other manufacturers are now, as is anyone actually. As it is, almost all the manufacturers have given us their commitment to it, so we're good to go there. As soon as a manufacturer has a connected capability, we will help them get on board as we have with Jersey Jack and Spooky. The history of the Internet is littered with walled gardens, and I can tell you no one wants to use an AOL account anymore. Our numbers are growing fast, we have a lot of experience building Internet infrastructure, and we will respond with services that are valuable to both players, collectors, and later on, operators.

To be clear folks, if we could just give you hardware for free, we would. It's likely one day we will. We don't make one cent on the hardware (actually, we lose money) and it's a necessary evil to make all this work with all games. I hope one day it is totally unnecessary!

As for dropping the cost on certain games, what I can say is we are actively working on different hardware for situations where less features are required, less processing, etc. Those solutions will be less expensive, but will take time and manufacturing volume to get to everyone. In the meantime, let's find a solution that works for everyone and get's people on the platform.

Which brings us to the group buy! As a one-time Pinball Info group buy friends-of-McRae deal, we are willing to offer $185 each for 10 or more or $165 each for 20 or more. Is that interesting? If so, we would take the final list, and assign custom coupons to everyone on that list, along with a free subscription for a year for the units. The list has to be finalized and can't be re-opened, though. Thoughts?
I’ll grab one for NBAFB(best machine ever made!) at that price!
 
Well hello folks, sorry I'm late to the discussion!

First and foremost, our API is open, to everyone. Stern is welcome to use it the same way JJP and other manufacturers are now, as is anyone actually. As it is, almost all the manufacturers have given us their commitment to it, so we're good to go there. As soon as a manufacturer has a connected capability, we will help them get on board as we have with Jersey Jack and Spooky. The history of the Internet is littered with walled gardens, and I can tell you no one wants to use an AOL account anymore. Our numbers are growing fast, we have a lot of experience building Internet infrastructure, and we will respond with services that are valuable to both players, collectors, and later on, operators.

To be clear folks, if we could just give you hardware for free, we would. It's likely one day we will. We don't make one cent on the hardware (actually, we lose money) and it's a necessary evil to make all this work with all games. I hope one day it is totally unnecessary!

As for dropping the cost on certain games, what I can say is we are actively working on different hardware for situations where less features are required, less processing, etc. Those solutions will be less expensive, but will take time and manufacturing volume to get to everyone. In the meantime, let's find a solution that works for everyone and get's people on the platform.

Which brings us to the group buy! As a one-time Pinball Info group buy friends-of-McRae deal, we are willing to offer $185 each for 10 or more or $165 each for 20 or more. Is that interesting? If so, we would take the final list, and assign custom coupons to everyone on that list, along with a free subscription for a year for the units. The list has to be finalized and can't be re-opened, though. Thoughts?

Now that a bit more enticing at the 20+ Price point...

Could you advise please @jayadelson on any monthly charges for hobby people like me (and lots on here) to use the service??? Thanks :)
 
Yes, so to begin with, know that much of this is subject to change over the course of the next year (never more expensive) as our own costs drop, etc.

Also, JJP machines are 100% free of any monthly or annual charges for our standard features, period.

Also, we are giving a 1 year off on any subscriptions as well.

Our service is based on licenses, and we have two types. Standard and Pro. Pro is not designed for collector/hobby people as you're asking about. To be clear, pro has machine monitoring, payment systems, and other commercial-oriented features are are worth paying for only if your total coin drop is increasing and your uptime is increasing (thanks to alerts, etc).

So for our standard plan, for 1 license it is $40.70/yr ($3.99/mo). For 2-10 licenses it's $69.72/yr. For 11-25 it's $69.72/yr, and for unlimited it's $191.90/yr.

By comparison, if you're an arcade owner and have 100 machines all on the Scorbit platform, with all the tools, tournament integration, visualizations, achievements, app integration, etc., the most you can pay is $19.99/mo, before discounts or promotions.

We get asked these questions a lot, and I need to also point out: We're operating an infrastructure that costs us higher per sub costs at lower volumes than later at higher volumes. The key is around economies of scale. We're in it to serve the community first, not as an annuity, so we will revisit (like all service providers) these costs as we grow. However, tell us what you think, first year is on us.
 
ok assuming we can get to the $165 rate I'm in for 15 :D
with Russ that's 16

Four more? @Julian ?

Neil
 
@jayadelson Awesome pricing, thanks so much.

I will take a card for every machine I have that will take one, so 12;

TZ - Has pinsound is that OK?
ACDC Prem
MET Prem
Simpsons Pinball Party
RBION
Judge Dredd- Has pinsound is that OK?
ELVIS Gold - Has pinsound is that OK?
Shadow
Dr Who- Has pinsound is that OK?
Tommy - Has pinsound is that OK?
Road Show- Has pinsound is that OK?
Bram Stokers Dracula - Has pinsound is that OK?

Come on folks just need 8 more for the super low price of $165 ea.

I think you made a mistake above on subscription, what is the 11-25 machine subs? $69.72/yr?
 
First and foremost, our API is open, to everyone. Stern is welcome to use it the same way JJP and other manufacturers are now, as is anyone actually.
So, are you saying that someone could create their own hardware and use your API's to communicate scores to the scorbit server and the only cost would be the annual license fee per machine?

The only reason I am interested in doing this is because I'm just starting a project to pick up the scores off Bally / Stern SS machines - the ones that only have 6 digit score displays, because I want to upgrade the score displays in the machine to 7 digits - my rules are that the game should run the original ROM code (not a 7 digit hack/bootleg) and there is no additional wiring to the score displays needed. The score displays themselves of course need upgrading from the old 6 digits to 7 digit units.

I am going to have an arduino (ESP32s actually) sat there intercepting the score display data - then handling the extra 7th digit, and keeping track of a 7 digit HSTD etc. I've designed the new 7 digit LED score display units. The issue of how to communicate to 7 digits when there are only 6 digit wires in the wiring loom has been sorted (Im going to use 3 of those 6 existing wires, and use binary encoding - the display units then have an additional binary decoder chip to work out which of the 7 digits to illuminate).

What would be really awesome is if you could also handle the 6-7 digit scoring upgrade as part of scorbit, and a configuration that allows for the native 6 digit displays (using the 6 wires) or allows for upgraded 7 digit displays using a binary encoding on 1-3 wires (Protocol to be agreed, published - to support folk like me who can make their own displays). You could also offer your own display upgrades?
 
So, are you saying that someone could create their own hardware and use your API's to communicate scores to the scorbit server and the only cost would be the annual license fee per machine?

The only reason I am interested in doing this is because I'm just starting a project to pick up the scores off Bally / Stern SS machines - the ones that only have 6 digit score displays, because I want to upgrade the score displays in the machine to 7 digits - my rules are that the game should run the original ROM code (not a 7 digit hack/bootleg) and there is no additional wiring to the score displays needed. The score displays themselves of course need upgrading from the old 6 digits to 7 digit units.

I am going to have an arduino (ESP32s actually) sat there intercepting the score display data - then handling the extra 7th digit, and keeping track of a 7 digit HSTD etc. I've designed the new 7 digit LED score display units. The issue of how to communicate to 7 digits when there are only 6 digit wires in the wiring loom has been sorted (Im going to use 3 of those 6 existing wires, and use binary encoding - the display units then have an additional binary decoder chip to work out which of the 7 digits to illuminate).

What would be really awesome is if you could also handle the 6-7 digit scoring upgrade as part of scorbit, and a configuration that allows for the native 6 digit displays (using the 6 wires) or allows for upgraded 7 digit displays using a binary encoding on 1-3 wires (Protocol to be agreed, published - to support folk like me who can make their own displays). You could also offer your own display upgrades?
ESP32 is a fantastic micro-controller so freaking cheap for how powerful it is and with wifi/bluetooth it really is an impressive little bit of kit and ideal for these situations
 
So, are you saying that someone could create their own hardware and use your API's to communicate scores to the scorbit server and the only cost would be the annual license fee per machine?

The only reason I am interested in doing this is because I'm just starting a project to pick up the scores off Bally / Stern SS machines - the ones that only have 6 digit score displays, because I want to upgrade the score displays in the machine to 7 digits - my rules are that the game should run the original ROM code (not a 7 digit hack/bootleg) and there is no additional wiring to the score displays needed. The score displays themselves of course need upgrading from the old 6 digits to 7 digit units.

I am going to have an arduino (ESP32s actually) sat there intercepting the score display data - then handling the extra 7th digit, and keeping track of a 7 digit HSTD etc. I've designed the new 7 digit LED score display units. The issue of how to communicate to 7 digits when there are only 6 digit wires in the wiring loom has been sorted (Im going to use 3 of those 6 existing wires, and use binary encoding - the display units then have an additional binary decoder chip to work out which of the 7 digits to illuminate).

What would be really awesome is if you could also handle the 6-7 digit scoring upgrade as part of scorbit, and a configuration that allows for the native 6 digit displays (using the 6 wires) or allows for upgraded 7 digit displays using a binary encoding on 1-3 wires (Protocol to be agreed, published - to support folk like me who can make their own displays). You could also offer your own display upgrades?

Scorbit already handles 6->7 displays when I roll meteor it knows it’s a million...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
^ But it doesnt support 7 digit hardware - if it could then that would, as I say, be awesome! How does the scorbit connect to your meteor - is it the large 32/34 pin connector at the top of the mpu board or is it another mpu board connector?
 
^ But it doesnt support 7 digit hardware - if it could then that would, as I say, be awesome! How does the scorbit connect to your meteor - is it the large 32/34 pin connector at the top of the mpu board or is it another mpu board connector?

Our hardware does already support 6 or 7 digits, including modifications made after-market.

Our system also does support roll-over, meaning if you have any amount of digits, and the game rolls, we keep counting.

So, are you saying that someone could create their own hardware and use your API's to communicate scores to the scorbit server and the only cost would be the annual license fee per machine?

Yes. We have a developer API, but it's not front-ended yet (though will be soon). This being said, because we are strict about identifying machine types and authentication for validation, if you're going to be a source of new machine data, you're essentially (to us) looking like a new pinball manufacturer. So in that case, we would expose special capabilities.

What would be really awesome is if you could also handle the 6-7 digit scoring upgrade as part of scorbit, and a configuration that allows for the native 6 digit displays (using the 6 wires) or allows for upgraded 7 digit displays using a binary encoding on 1-3 wires (Protocol to be agreed, published - to support folk like me who can make their own displays). You could also offer your own display upgrades?

So in this specific case, the answer it depends. If you are outputting the same signal to the 7 digit displays as the mods that exist today, and the display bus is identical (albeit enhanced), we already work. We decode the display data as if we were a display. However, if you are encoding it with a new method, we just need to understand that and work out an interface from you to us, either to the Scorbitron or to the API. Our hardware uses two components: A Scorbitron (main unit, with USB C ports) and a probe (Display, or later CPU). We have probes for DMDs and solid states. The probes sit interloping between the MPU display output and the display bus connector. If you have the score info via serial, USB, etc, we could take that into a Scorbitron and already have a specification for that. (This is how Spooky, American, Stern, and some others work).
 
Ok fair warning everyone: While we will honor every single person in this group buy, know that when it gets beyond 30 units or so, we will need to refresh some of our inventory for certain components depending on what machine bundles are specified! Based on our current manufacturing orders, wait time is probably four or five weeks worst case, but again, depends on what machines people want. Despite COVID our CM has been pretty great though.
 
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