The Hobbit Jersey Jack Pinball

[Brunswick Brawler]

I'm probably biased to Stern machines, as Stern are an established company.  I expect all these new companies will suffer reliability problems in the their first few years.  I'm keen to see what the future holds, as I can't see all these new boutique companies surviving.  That said, JJP games do look stunning!  And they have got past the biggest hurdle for a new company: being able to get to a second machine!

One thing I don't like about the JJP is their approach to their boards.  They have gone down a PC path.  There is good reason why Stern, Williams & Bally amongst others never did that.  Every year or so, some of your boards go out of production.  So you never have a long run of a consistent set of boards.  To the owner, this means that it will be hard in the future to get replacement boards.  The boards will be slightly different if you are lucky that will only require new drivers of firmware patches to existing boards to maintain compatibility.  Get it?  Stern build their own boards, and can keep on doing it for years, until they decide to do an upgrade.  JJP is at the mercy of suppliers who keep updating as their customers always want the latest/fastest board-sets.
 
I understand that the Hobbit board set is an evolution of the WOZ board set.  Will JJP game three be different again?  If so, I'd recommend that buyers who intend keeping JJP games long term, buy spares within the first few years of buy a JJP machine.

...Have I got this wrong?  If so, please correct me Mr Pinball, JJP or anyone else who would understand the JJP board set better than me.

(I loosely recall reading that Homepin are developing their own board set, stating reasons as above for not using PC based systems.  Wise choice!  I think Spooky pinball would be the only other company with their own board set.  Others are using PROC which is better than a PC, but is still dependant on a supplier.  Not sure about Heighway Pinball.  When buying, this is a question worth asking if you are a buyer and holder.)

[Caveoftreasures]

You are on the money.

I hung right off buying the first series of WOZ machines cause I knew the 2nd or 3rd generations would be much better. Better resale as well.
I want to buy a WOZ and a Hobbitt this next 12 months and will be happy knowing I got the latest versions.

I am a huge Stern fan as most know. I am always singing their praises and also see great things in most areas of JJP.

Having both new Sterns and all the other manufacturers in my collection now is great, but having the JJP models I really like will be great additions as well.
I can't see these other boutique companies ever selling enough pins to ever really make profits because they just don't have the capital to start with and the titles they are offering aren't going to sell more than a few hundred if they are lucky IMO ?  The pinny market is still very wary of these boutique games after watching the JJP set up which had millions yet still had many many troubles. It's made people hold their cash much much longer.
There is not many people now willing to be pinball industry purchasing guinea pigs of new titles from brand new fledgling companies. I certainly wouldn't be.

Stern is well proven. WOZ has just become proven. Hobbitt is on the design table still.
Reliability and future board replacement is still a big worry to some ? Or most ?

At least the industry is having a good go.

[GORGAR 1]

Just don't like the fish tales ramp or the useless dragon. Some of the new changes look better though.

[Pop Bumper Pete]

Sorry cavey, I doubt Stern is selling more than 500 games per year into the Australian market

[Slash]

Just don't like the fish tales ramp or the useless dragon. Some of the new changes look better though.

Does The Smeg Dragon actually do anything significant or just move/spin a little?

Some of the newer artwork looks a lot better than what was originally proposed. Don't really like the Gold dragon tho, red looks better.

[Caveoftreasures]

Sorry cavey, I doubt Stern is selling more than 500 games per year into the Australian market

I have been told different by the good people at our Aussie stern dealer.
But no figures are published so it's anyone's guess.

The dragon does nothing I am told. I don't like the metal Fishtales ramp on The Hobbitt at all.
The Fishtales clear angled ramp on Fishtales works well and I like my Fishtales, but it doesn't work on anything else I know of....

The old playfield design n dark brown colours on the original Hobbitt playfield were a bad mistake but the new colours are dramatically better. The Dragon toy needs to do something.
So far, and I hope I am wrong, the Hobbitt looks like a step back from the WOZ when it comes to playfield toys and features. Hope the end result proves me wrong.

[delarge]

Yeah, it seems like they put all the magic in WoZ and then discovered that creating magic costs money so they had to tone it down on The Hobbit.

I toyed with the idea of getting Lord of the Rings for a while and at the time, I thought that Jersey Jack would knock it out of the park with The Hobbit. The reveal was a bit of a let down. LOTR is still an impressive game with all its bells and whistles.

Good to see JJP has listened to the people and improved the playfield art immensely. The "Fish Tales" ramp on The Hobbit seemed lacking in the original reveal, but I am probably in the minority here, but think it will be one of those things that will be ok once you play the game. I also think that Keith Johnson programming this game will mean a deep and interesting rule set (check out the number of goals on the LCD in this video:

). Overall, it looks like a nice machine.

I'm a big Stern fan, but I appreciate how Jersey Jack has tried to innovate with the full colour LCD backglass. This needed to happen for pinball.

Cheers!
Adam.

[GORGAR 1]

Here's some under PF pictures a friend sent me :)

[skywalker]

Wow, that PF looks to be very heavy, Not much empty space

[Caveoftreasures]

Just read an interesting email from JJP re Hobbitt.
They have listed a massive amount of changes that are being incorporated into the latest prototypes from customer feedback from the shows they have been attending.

The game looks sensational. The huge LCD television looks very impressive indeed.
The annimations are detailed and very impressive to say the least.
Fully featured eye candy at its best.

JJP seems to be hard at work perfecting the game.
It's this amount of effort that will result in probable decent sales figures.

Well done JJP. If you can impress a diehard Stern fan, you are on the money with what you are doing.
How could you not one of these games after seeing the detail in the annimations espescially.
You would get your mates to play a game just so you can watch the large LCD screen for ten minutes non stop.
The clarity and colours are amazing.

[Retropin]

Just read an interesting email from JJP re Hobbitt.
They have listed a massive amount of changes that are being incorporated into the latest prototypes from customer feedback from the shows they have been attending.

The game looks sensational. The huge LCD television looks very impressive indeed.
The annimations are detailed and very impressive to say the least.
Fully featured eye candy at its best.

JJP seems to be hard at work perfecting the game.
It's this amount of effort that will result in probable decent sales figures.

Well done JJP. If you can impress a diehard Stern fan, you are on the money with what you are doing.
How could you not one of these games after seeing the detail in the annimations espescially.
You would get your mates to play a game just so you can watch the large LCD screen for ten minutes non stop.
The clarity and colours are amazing.

Yeh but it has a bash toy ( dragon) that you don't even get to bash!

[GORGAR 1]

Just read an interesting email from JJP re Hobbitt.
They have listed a massive amount of changes that are being incorporated into the latest prototypes from customer feedback from the shows they have been attending.

The game looks sensational. The huge LCD television looks very impressive indeed.
The annimations are detailed and very impressive to say the least.
Fully featured eye candy at its best.

JJP seems to be hard at work perfecting the game.
It's this amount of effort that will result in probable decent sales figures.

Well done JJP. If you can impress a diehard Stern fan, you are on the money with what you are doing.
How could you not one of these games after seeing the detail in the annimations espescially.
You would get your mates to play a game just so you can watch the large LCD screen for ten minutes non stop.
The clarity and colours are amazing.

Yeh but it has a bash toy ( dragon) that you don't even get to bash!

Yeah that dragon is a joke captain bizarre did more and that's 20 years ago, if innovation is a large TV screen then it's pretty sad.

[Caveoftreasures]

For an extra $200, u can buy the dragon head that comes with a flame thrower that melts any x wife who comes near your pinball machines with a greedy court order in hand hoping to sell your machines off cheaply.
I have ordered two. Lol

Hoping they make another dragon head that yells swear words at anyone who is rough with the machine, with a large dragon hand that comes out from the bottom of the game that punches u in the balls for having the lowest score.
Pinball upgrades just became perfect. 

[Cow Corner]

Smaug is not a bash toy.

 

[Crashramp]

Wholly Crap! I'd hate to be doing a playfield swap on that thing. The underside is absolutely chocca block full.