I laughed at the part where Mike has perhaps rubbed a few people on Pinside the wrong way. Lol

Like who gives a fark about some tosses on some website (any forum website for that matter) who hold themselves out to be the hierarchy of world wide pinball. The hidden "Nerd Mafia Keyboard Bosses) who hold themselves above the station of all the pinball manufacturers. Lol

It cracks me up. Most of the people to pass negative judgement on Mike wouldn't have the intelligence or engineering talent Mike has in his little toe.

A good article. I can see why the Author was very much on the fence with a lot of the subtle things he said because of all the failures in the pinball industry who have had total dishonesty incl non existent licences (Predator) and companies like Heighway who are so so far behind schedule with cancelled titles and designers who have left in moral protest like Alien, or Dutch with its USA Dealer and Financial Implosion, just to name a few.

When Mike finishes and ships his a Thunderbirds, he will be only one of the big three to have successfully walked the walk as well as talked the talk.

It will be Stern, JJP and Homepin that have actually manufactured a proper pinball.
Not an easy road. Massive time and investment and engineering excellence to pull this off.
It's easily understandable why the time flys past and there is always much to do.
Later and correct is always better than earlier and crappy when it comes to delivery schedules of any highly engineered product.

I have been studying companies like Northrop Grumman Military in the USA.
Even with their billions and there massive workforce of tens of thousands of people, they have run well past deadline on all most every project in the last ten years. In today's pinball market, having something come out exactly on or around time would be a miracle. Just not enough people and capital in our tiny market place but us Aussies never give up so I am fully supportive of Homepin and Mike.