Not to derail too much but in regards to the general state of manufacturing at the moment and where Homepin fits in the scheme of things:
As Swinks said, Spooky pinball are slightly different case because they have set themselves up as a boutique maker. They will produce small runs of machines over a longer time frame. However, they have sold a run of 150 and manufactured and shipped about half of these so they certainly deserve credit for that.
Heighway, however, are hoping to become a major player. They have spent a lot of time and money setting up a factory and have a real production line. They are very ambitious and intend to produce several titles per year. So there are actually a lot of similarities between Heighway and Homepin in that they both have a factory, have both produced an initial run of amusement devices (other than pinball) and are both hoping to produce many titles and become a large manufacturer. I would say Heighway is slightly ahead at this stage, their first pinball game is on the production line, but only because they started earlier. Heighway seems to be aiming to produce more titles at a quicker rate than JJP who, it seems, are content to spend more time on each game. Although we may well see the release of JJP #3 towards the end of the year as well (it has been in development in Pat Lawlor's studio behind the scenes since early last year).
It's going to be very interesting to see how things develop but we should have 4 major manufacturers up and running by next year: Stern, JJP, Heighway and Homepin. As far as I can tell these four big players are fairly secure at the moment (although JJP is embroiled in some legal trouble). Heighway has recently moved to a new, bigger factory and is hiring staff so all seems well there. Homepin of course looks serious from what we can tell from Mike's updates and pictures of the factory.
The other start-ups are less convincing but it is too early to tell. Dutch pinball seems to have righted themselves after their issues at the start of the year and Multimorphic are working steadily but are doing it all on their own capital and seem to be somewhat limited by that.
Then there are a few uncertains: the Spanish guy with the Nemo pins has had a lot of delays but there are no rumors of trouble, John Popaduik and Zidware seem to be going the way of Predator unless he can pull out something special. Circus Maximus have talent and resources but we don't know the price or how many Pinball Circus games they will produce yet. Riot pinball didn't get the interest in their Wrath of Olympus game and seem to be done unless they can team up with someone else. Silver Castle have their Timeshock machine which looks sharp but we haven't seen it flipping yet.
Hold on for the ride...the second half of 2015 is going to be insane!
