As has been said earlier, this was a quick and easy way of using up surplus inventory from a "full sized" title that did not sell as well as they hoped for. I doubt any market research has been done prior, if it sells they will churn out a few more as demand dictates, if it doesn't sell it will quickly become just another "Batman Lite" (forgotten about and shelved forever).

Something to consider for Stern's LE buyers, this is where your money is being spent......(2k for powdercoat times 500 machines goes a long way).

This is even worse than I thought. So Stern had low numbers on Transformers - it didn't sell as well as they expected (for whatever reasons). So they stripped the game even further hoping it would sell more ? Sell a poor selling game as a toy to unsuspecting rich kids ? What are Stern thinking ?

Take the hit. Learn from the experience and spend more time developing the game. Instead, they go backwards. I hope the seven buyers of this toy enjoy their game. I'll bet they won't be repeat customers once they find out how much a real pinball costs !