If you look at the pinball landscape in 2013, it is like 1996 all over again.
The MM remake is a classic example of where pinball is heading - backwards.
Too many short term companies deciding to test the water by trying to compete for a finite amount of disposable income on a luxury item whose main failing is being unable to capture a new generation of customers in sufficient numbers to make it a long term viable prospect.
Give it 3-5 years and all the boutique manufacturers we are seeing pop up will be closed.
JJP will be able to continue through their business model of using other people's money to fund the next title.
Gary Stern will retire and since there is no succession plan in place (his kids have no interest in pinball), the investors he brought in to prop up the company a few years ago will buy him out to get controlling ownership (they might keep the guy on the payroll as a figurehead) and then accelerate their goal to find ways to cut costs and raise prices until the market cannot justify the outlay versus return anymore and inevitably collapses. After all their first interest is investment, not quality of product.
