One thing I’ve noticed since following what Stern is up to more closely is that they add new modes, fix existing ones, and change their games with code updates. Often, it seems, for the better. They also will tweak difficulty levels and so on. The following video explains what they’ve done to James Bond 007:
Another thing I’ve noticed is these New In Box (New In Box) Stern pinball machines do not launch with version 1.0 code, often with code that is still being worked on. Are new customers being used as beta testers to improve the code? It does seem that way, but few seem to mind.