What's new
Pinball info

Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

So how much is too much for a NIB?

Historically the world had a tiny elite that owned everything, the rest were peasants, living in homes owned by the elite, child workers etc

This prevailed for hundreds of years, but the two world wars reset the system in the developed world. Many think fondly of the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s when there was social mobility, affordable housing, decent jobs, rising living standards etc

But the world is reverting to the established order. Top end sells. Businesses focusing on premium succeed, the rest cut each other's throats in a race to the bottom as their customers are growing poorer. Living standards for the masses are declining. Christ, the youth of today are even shagging less than their patents did

How much you spend depends on how much money you have, your drive to keep up with the jones, and your perception of value

My old firm used to do top end wine tasting as clíent entertaining, chateau lafite, chateau mouton level. Call my bluff format, guess whether it is A, B or C. This taught me a huge amount about money and folks' perception of value. They did not have a clue what they were drinking, yet wine prices have sky rocketed.

I look at the new ghostbusters or kiss or whoa nellie. All are overpriced to me compared to proper, made to last, tried and tested wpc games

I would pay 5k for a wpc nib. I can't ever imagine buying myself a nib from the current manufacturers (surface mount nightmares down the road, dot matrix printing, crap clearcoat, photoshop art, will it still work in 5 yrs time, parts availability in the future, build quality, cośt of spare parts ...)

For 7.5k i would buy an addams, scared stiff, paragon and a shadow. But, I am delighted that others take a different view, buy these new games and keep the industry alive
 
Last edited:
Why pay 8 k for a snide looky likey mm or afm when you could buy the real thing, I wouldn't buy a fake Rolex no matter how close it looks to the real deal
 
Go back about 4 years, a pre order AC/DC back in black was about £5800. a year later the Premium was more. fast forward to now with the exchange rate what it is, the SLE of Batman 66 will be more than 3 times as much. unbelievable.
 
chris b said:
you sold it too cheep then
Click to expand...

It was listed for weeks with no interest so found it's own price. Fairly sure the couple sold after that went for a similar price too.

The light boards are a ticking time bomb so there's no chance I'd be paying £8k for a NIB Woz. If JJP ever goes bust most of the WOZs in existence would be unplayable within 5 years
 
Last edited:
I may well buy a nib again when the market has re adjusted i.e when I bought a iron man ve a mm was about 1.5 k more expensive, so the iron man was good value.
So for the near future I can not see me buying a stern unless they are valued a lot less on the second owner market.
 
jonathan said:
The light boards are a ticking time bomb so there's no chance I'd be paying £8k for a NIB Woz. If JJP ever goes bust most of the WOZs in existence would be unplayable within 5 years
Click to expand...
I never thought I'd live to see you say that Jonathan, as you were always Joisey Jock's no.1 fan ...... but I agree with you.

In the late 90s the number of pinball companies dropped to one, right now with popularity high (but still very few out there in the wild) there's suddenly at least 3 proper companies and possibly up to 6. I wouldn't be surprised if that drops back to two or even one again within 18 months because of all the greedy price hiking, and I reckon Joisy will be one of the casualties as he's the greediest shyster salesman of them all - if I cared more for his stuff, I'd be stockpiling spare plastics, boards etc now.
 
I still like his games and would love to own a Hobbit one day. But after owning one of the first WOZs I know first hand how utterly ridiculous the design for the lighting was. Part of the reason I sold it was because I was sick of having to trace and swap out knackered LEDs
 
jonathan said:
I still like his games and would love to own a Hobbit one day. But after owning one of the first WOZs I know first hand how utterly ridiculous the design for the lighting was. Part of the reason I sold it was because I was sick of having to trace and swap out knackered LEDs
Click to expand...

This is a problem and wish I knew all about this before I got one, had 3 boards go out in one go, the faulty one took out the board before and after it, not cheap at £400 for a handful of boards.
I was really thinking about the Hobbit so I could have the 2 next to each other.
I know they have changed the Woz boards to ones with buffers fitted, but what has upset me is that JJP will not supply a full free set of boards to make the Woz stable.
They even told me in a email mine will go out sooner or later as I have the early 5v boards which do not have buffers fitted.
So its because of that reason I will not bother with another JJP pin, you have to look after your customers if you want to keep them.
 
  • Like
Reactions: JT.
That's ridiculous. I was still getting free replacements when I sold mine so didn't push to have them all replaced. I would be tempted to open a small claims case or similar as the machine is clearly not fit for purpose in its original state
 
Not fit for purpose.... especially if there is a design flaw that they will not address...
 
I have sent a few emails to JJP, they wont help, they recommend I change the full set at $650 plus shipping which works out at £574, then the customs which is like a lucky dip sometimes as you never know what they are going to charge, but should be around £120.
So £700 for a new set, I am already £400 into the boards I had from Phil, I have 5 new boards fitted with buffers and then I think its about 30 of the old boards left.
So if any more fail Im better off just getting a full set which means I would of done £1100 on light boards !
 
@Nedreud Wants to start making boards for the pin community. Perhaps he can help out making new ones for WOZ?

Who would buy a WoZ now, knowing its an expensive nightmare waiting to happen?
 
robertlucas1970 said:
I have sent a few emails to JJP, they wont help, they recommend I change the full set at $650 plus shipping which works out at £574, then the customs which is like a lucky dip sometimes as you never know what they are going to charge, but should be around £120.
So £700 for a new set, I am already £400 into the boards I had from Phil, I have 5 new boards fitted with buffers and then I think its about 30 of the old boards left.
So if any more fail Im better off just getting a full set which means I would of done £1100 on light boards !
Click to expand...


Bloody disgraceful mate
 
Personally I think 10K for a NIB is pretty crazy. Even if I had a lottery win, there aren't any NIB pins I would even want to own. Modern games feel cheaply made compared to 90's games. You are only ever going to take a hit on that sort of money, same as buying a brand new car. 5K is my limit....and even then it's not easy to justify.
 
Firstly Dan, where the hell do you get these embedded 'video clips' from, very funny (I used to like Kermit!).

Secondly, usual stuff, supply and demand, pushing the boundaries, exchange rates, increase in interest etc etc.

Although not as big as the US, I'm guessing that the UK is a fairly decent market for Pinball manufacturers, If you don't want to pay £10k for a NIB just don't. I wouldn't. I appreciate the costs involved in the new games but extorting more money from your core user base is nothing new. Without the buyers there are no pinball manufacturers.

Hopefully the new manufacturers will gain a larger slice of the pie and ultimately level the playing field.

Operators will/cannot make money on this basis and will therefore not buy in. At best a machine on route will take £100 a week. £5,200 per year. Even this is being optimistic. Minus maintenance cost leaves £4,500. So 2 years to break even (At best!!!) for a £9k machine. Yes there is re-sale value but it's still a cost that sits on the balance sheet. No operator is going to get rich on this basis. No return on investment really.

For home use, buy because you love it. If it's expensive and you really want it, syndicate it. Time share a pin if you will. Move it around with friends, share the cost. Otherwise suck it up.

I would love a Dialed In. The question is how much would I love one. MMmmmmm?
 
Rus121 said:
@Nedreud Wants to start making boards for the pin community. Perhaps he can help out making new ones for WOZ?

Who would buy a WoZ now, knowing its an expensive nightmare waiting to happen?
Click to expand...

When it works its a great pin, the best I have played so far, but if we have to pay for updated parts and fixes then its the aftercare that will let a great pin down and in the long run give this company a bad name............
 
Out of interest. What goes wrong with the WOZ led boards?
They just look like an rgb driver chip, diode and 50 50 led?
 
Sounduser said:
Out of interest. What goes wrong with the WOZ led boards?

They just look like an rgb driver chip, diode and 50 50 led?
Click to expand...

Yes not much to them, today I just got 5 new singles and one bigger one, just over 400 quid, a little bit different to just swapping a 20p lamp !
I think there are 30 small ones and about 9 of the bigger ones in Woz.
Every one that has failed on mine its the driver IC which then takes out a few other bits.

20161021_163948.jpg
 
This bloody appalling. I played WOZ at NLP and loved it. Also played Hobbit at TILT and loved that too. Both of them felt like they would be excellent home use machines and I had idle thoughts of owning them them one day.
This thread has put me right off.
Such a shame


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
robertlucas1970 said:
Yes not much to them, today I just got 5 new singles and one bigger one, just over 400 quid, a little bit different to just swapping a 20p lamp !
I think there are 30 small ones and about 9 of the bigger ones in Woz.
Every one that has failed on mine its the driver IC which then takes out a few other bits.

View attachment 37663
Click to expand...

It's very hard to see £400 of value in that.
 
JT. said:
It's very hard to see £400 of value in that.
Click to expand...

£400 got me one big board and 5 of the small single ones, my worry is there is another 25 single boards and 8 big ones that dont have the buffer on, so when the next ones fail I am going to have to get a full kit as getting the odd couple here and there is going to cost a whole lot more.
 
Sounduser said:
The size of those chips will put people off trying to reflow / rework them.
Click to expand...

Tell me about it, I have repaired 2 smalls units, but its not easy as have to do it all under the scope, I also had to remove everything off the board so I could get the stencil in place to apply the solder paste.
I did try to just reflow fresh solder on the pins to the A6281, but would not work.
Also the big board has an IC for every LED, its just a bad design, its a good design if you want to make money on after sales.
Why didnt they use a driver IC that can do all the LEDs on each board, and have it in a socket so the user can just swap it out.

I did make a useful little test rig that uses some script to fire up the RGB LED, I dint want to try them back in the machine and when trying to find out which board had gone its now very easy to test a board just by plugging in the input and power lead from a little black box that runs from a PP9 battery.


20161020_135422 (1).jpg 20161020_102826.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
robertlucas1970 said:
Tell me about it, I have repaired 2 smalls units, but its not easy as have to do it all under the scope, I also had to remove everything off the board so I could get the stencil in place to apply the solder paste.
I did try to just reflow fresh solder on the pins to the A6281, but would not work.
Also the big board has an IC for every LED, its just a bad design, its a good design if you want to make money on after sales.
Why didnt they use a driver IC that can do all the LEDs on each board, and have it in a socket so the user can just swap it out.

I did make a useful little test rig that uses some script to fire up the RGB LED, I dint want to try them back in the machine and when trying to find out which board had gone its now very easy to test a board just by plugging in the input and power lead from a little black box that runs from a PP9 battery.


View attachment 37669 View attachment 37670
Click to expand...

So are the new boards designed differently, or is it possible (likely?) the same issue will arise again given time?
 
I was told by JJP the first 5v boards were failing, so then they sent out 7.5v boards and a new power supply, but still they failed.
So then they now fit a buffer to each board, so still the same boards, but with a buffer fitted.
This is still not 100% and they can still fail, but not in the numbers they have been.
The one on top is one of the new ones I got today and as you can see its got a buffer fitted, I have no idea what this does or how it works.
Its on the output side, so it must be doing something to the clock,latch and data before it gets to the input of the next board.


20161021_200724.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
DRD said:
For 7.5k i would buy an addams, scared stiff, paragon and a shadow. But, I am delighted that others take a different view, buy these new games and keep the industry alive
Click to expand...
Thing is though if people are priced out buying new in box games, no new blood will be introduced then we are back to a finite number of machines
to go around our community and I cant see operators shelling out 10k plus for a game to put on site. This only can lead to even higher "pinflation" of the games we have now.
Its bad enough already take this example http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/WCS-World...628349?hash=item1eba5c463d:g:VqkAAOSw-CpYBzRf.... This machine sold on the group for 750 a couple of years ago, machine played well but the playfield
was a bit of a dog, someone's going to pay 1500 plus for this and think they got a bargain.

A couple of these new pin companies are going to fail big time if customer service is neglected and spares charged for at cloud cuckoo land prices
or even untruths told about the selling points of their product.

Making pinball machines is hard ...very hard in fact look at the time it took JJP to get WOZ out the door, only now we are seeing the problems arising
from poor design or shoddy quality measures.

Predator we all know what happened with that much to some of our guys disappointment and understandable anger.

J PoPs shambles of a start up venture.

Stern trying like any other manufacturing company desperately trying to cut costs which may have led to the GB playfield problems.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom