I wanted to add something for Nino.
I want your Kiss LE to be a fine machine and I really want you to be dam impressed with your machine when it arrives cause I would like to see you become a Stern dealer one day.
Your experience and keen eye would be well suited to sell both brand new and restored machines and grow your business and product lines.
Promoting both new and older machines goes perfectly hand in hand.
I think you would make a quality Stern Dealer just like AMD is.
I think you would get along with Bruce and Michael and all their staff well cause both of you are customer focused and quality focused. It would be a good business relationship for many years if u set it up. Never say never.
I hope it happens one day Nino cause the industry and hobby in Aust would benefit by it...
I have a horse in this race. I WANT this game to sell by the container load. I want my mates to buy a premium. I've spent hours on the phone convincing them to part with their money..
We have the insane issue with the Topper being an additional cost.
Then the armor packs being an additional cost.
People think this does not hurt Stern sales - they have no clue what they are saying. Case in point ;
Two friends were going to buy a Premium. They found out about the armor packs. They don't care for the extra game features, but they just saved $1500 by NOT ordering a Premium, settling for a PRO with $500 Armour pack.. That is the dumbest marketing strategy I've ever heard of. you CAN have a game that looks as good as a Premium / LE for at least $1500 cheaper - or $3500 if you missed out on an LE.
Machine standards - Put the restored Addams Family I completed next to TWD LE. I can't drop the standard of the Addams, but i can see TWD LE will struggle to compete unless it is straight out of the box. 50 test games on the addams and not one single dimple. 50 more games on TWD LE and it looks like a moonscape. If Stern dealers don't think this is an issue, they need to pull their head out of the sand.
I'd LOVE to promote Sterns. But they have to raise their standards to compete with High End Restorations. Buck for buck, the High End Collectors want really nice games - and I'm sure if Stern raised their standards - they would get a crapload more sales.