Stern has got it right with titles like AC/DC and X Men, with Avengers due soon which shld be a cracker as well if Stern have kept up the same design processes.
I have played all the so called A listers from Bally/Williams, and 80 percent are completely over rated, and shld be $6,000 machines tops, not the 8 and 10 grand machines people have been paying to keep up with the Joneses because so and so has A titles and I better make my collection look like a cookie cutter collection to keep up as well style deal. The problem is, when someone forks out alot of money for a A lister, they will talk the machine up because they have paid so much for it, hence the A title myth is carried on by the recent purchaser. This keeps the prices high.lol Thats human nature, thats normal with any high priced type item.
Then u look at a brand new AC/DC Pro or X Men Pro, which plays just as good as any of the B/W A listers, then its hard to go with such old B/W machines. With a brand new Stern, you get the latest, you get many years of play without playfield wear, where as older B/W titles, which have cost so much, might start showing wear after all these years of play. Most of the B/W titles have been redecalled and had new playfields added anyway, so these machines owe people even more crazy money which they will never get back.
Throw LE Stern games into the mix cause of the new releases and collectability, and the B/W titles are starting to now look old hat.
There will always be people looking to buy B/W A listers, but as the next 2 or 3 years passes, expect the B/W titles to keep dropping in price with both Stern and JJP expected to bring out quite a few more excellent games.
At the end of the day, to me , there is no such thing as the right or wrong pin, or the right or wrong amount of money to pay or not to pay, because we all have different tastes and different belief systems when it comes to what something is worth, so whilst most titles rise and fall with various pricing cycles, just buy n play what u want, and dont worry what the next bloke really thinks, cause the opinion, positive or not positive is only that, an opinion. For discussion purposes, we all have opinions, but at the end of the day, it all goes out the window when u press that start button on a game and enjoy a good game on a pinny.
