I'm in the same boat. A happy Stern buyer. Bought two machines and I was happy with the code from the start. Each update made the game even better in my eyes. Updates on any electrical device now seem a part of life and the USB update is simple. No burning/installing ROMS like the updates of old. I can see the other side of the fence though. People are annoyed that Wheel of Fortune never got updated or X-Men had an update that annoyed a lot of people and Transformers promised Christmas update never happened. Hopefully these problems will be worked out for those owners and new code is coming. But, were the games unplayable with the initial shipped code?