For those that like reading my opinion on things, this one on these Stern home pinball machines, now with Insider Connected, this one is for you. I’m going to put it out there what I think is going to happen and even how soon.
Stern is putting these Jurassic Park home pins in their game listing along with the pros and premiums, which is curious.
If you have any interest in buying one of these home pins, I would apply caution to your wallets to do what Gary Stern is saying himself — not about your buying decision — but what he is doing to determine if they will make any other home pins and sell them through Costco in the future:
Let’s wait and see.
Before getting to my hot take, let me lead with this: hope I’m wrong. Way wrong. I would like to see Stern make more entry level home pins. Something that’s perhaps a slight step beneath a pro, but is still coin operated. Something with a comparable LCD screen instead of the horribly tiny LCD in the current home pins.
First, we need to delve into what these Stern home pins are about, where you can buy them (your local Costco, yes) and what Stern’s vision seems to be. You can check your local Costco store, they might have a demo unit of the home pins which retail for $4,999 USD. They are also available through Costco’s website here: https://www.costco.com/stern-pinball-jurassic-park-home-edition.product.4000272133.html
Gary Stern gives us some idea of what he’d like to see in the Q&A at the end of the video below (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-7kAFPIhag):
The key takeaway is Gary saying, “let’s wait and see.” You see, he doesn’t know how successful or not this will be either. He hopes it will be popular, but doesn’t like the margins involved. He’s hoping this program is some sort of step-up program to people buying the pros, premiums, maybe even a few LEs for home, not these cheaper, but still very expensive, home pins.
My hot take is this: buy a used pro instead or wait for the extreme closeout pricing on these home pins
If these home pins drop to half the price they are now, somewhere in the $3,000 range, they become worth considering. At $5,000, the price of which you can find several used Stern pros, the same machines you can find in businesses, that’s simply a better deal.
Also, the Keith Elwin designed Jurassic Park version is more fun to play than the home pin Jurassic Park. This is a big one, as the pro game is better. Yes, this is subjective, so maybe some percentage of readers try both and like the home better, so always, always, always play the games yourself first. A number of Costcos have demo models setup, so some (many?) reading can visit and play the home pin before buying.
Lastly, when will the prices go down on these? Costco isn’t going to have these large box space hogs inside the prime real estate of their stores if they aren’t moving and holiday time is the best time to buy, so most, if any, deals will happen after the first of the year, in Q1-2025. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Costco dipping offering 5-25% or more off the price.
These machines, again, start to look a lot more attractive to buy in/around/under $3,000. If they discount 25% of $5,000 that’s $3,750. That’s looking more attractive, especially if you can buy this somewhere without sales tax added.
In our area, we have over 10% sales tax, so it’s totally not something I’d be interested in, even at just under $4,000, because it’s still going to cost closer to $4,500 after sales tax. No thanks. I’d rather buy an older machine or a used Stern pro.
IMPORTANT NOTE: George Gomez from Stern said recently these home pins were selling really well and could be gone before Christmas 2024. If that happens, and you have FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) for these, then of course waiting wouldn’t be a good idea.
Your turn. Are you interested in these new home pins? It’s cool that they added Stern Insider Connected to these pins, which definitely makes them more desirable, but they still are too expensive for what they are, IMO, compared to buying a used Stern pro.
Leaving it all up to you, friendly readers, but urging those interested to seek out and buy a used pro instead. Whatever decided with your pinball purchase, if having fun, it doesn’t matter. Thank you for loving, living and playing pinball!
UPDATE 10/27/2024 @ 5:21pm PST:
Bob
They certainly need to find a way to make a more affordable machine for casuals to get into the market. My suggestion is to get the pro back down into the $5k range and that will move a lot more machines.
Unless the pinball market crashes, I don’t see Stern dropping the price of pros to $5,000. Because with inflation that’s the price they were 10 years or so ago. An Iron Maiden premium cost $7,500 NIB in 2018, in today’s money with inflation that is $9,300, which is what Stern has essentially done: passed along the inflation cost. They aren’t charging more in 2024 $ for NIB, but they have moved more to a chip design and reduced their costs, so in turn they are making more profit from the same MSRP. I don’t know how many folks see what’s really happening here, you might, but they have somewhat cleverly passed along cheaper component prices for a NIB pinball game in order to turn a greater profit.