Anyone have a Orbitor 1 pin ??  Never played it but it looks pretty cool.  Wondering what a price point would be for one of these and if the gameplay is any good.  Any info appreciated

I think Sylvain has one.

But I'm not sure it's for sale...

Then again, he's got 40 pins stacked-up in his basement
so I'm not sure how often he plays it.

And with his (..and my ) Nortel Stock now worth 1/700 of what it use to
(...yes, that's right from $1250   in 2000 to $1.80 this morning... ),
maybe he'll be a bit more inclined to sell    


Steph

Quoted from Steph

And with his (..and my ) Nortel Stock now worth 1/700 of what it use to
(...yes, that's right from $1250   in 2000 to $1.80 this morning... ),
Steph

And what percentage of financial advisers had a "BUY" on Nortel in 2000?   I bet it was higher the Harper's poll ratings  

Still feeling the burn...

I do have an Orbitor 1, as-is working & unshopped (still!)...
But it is definitely not for sale.

Heck, I drove all the way to Milan, Michigan a few years ago to get it.
Took me a few years to locate one.

Gameplay: It is a very different game. Many people do not like it.
Very weird at first. I believe it was not very successful in the arcades,
explaining the low production. Many think that magnets affect the ball
trajectory, but it is really only due to the molded playfield with its curves,
gravity, and the spinners.

I do enjoy the molded playfield, spinners, robotic voice,  funnily placed
drop-targets, and the two-ball multiball. The machine is very polite, it
thanks you when you drop coins into it !
And, while not for everyone, I certainly enjoy the space-theme 3D artwork.
Also, it is quite bizarre to pass the ball behind the flippers and save it!

Nortel: Thankfully I did not invest much in stocks. But my pension is affected.

I invested in pinballs instead   Even if the machines lose some value, I will still
have fun with fixing, repairing, tweaking & shopping them...and playing them too   

All in all, Orbitor 1 is a game that is somewhat a novelty, and probably better within
a collection of other machines (e.g. probably not recommended if you own only one game).

Price: The last few I have seen for sale on Mr.Pinball or on eBay were pretty much
all around $1000 - $1500 I think. Mr.Pinball 2008 lists it at $1350.
I anticipate that the price of many machines will probably come down this year, due
to the slowing economy in the US (and also starting to be around the world).

Good luck !

Cheers,
- Sylvain.

I had a chance to play Oribtor 1 for the first time at Expo. Being a Joe Joos Jr. and big Classic Stern fan, I was delighted to finally get the opportunity to give this game a try.

It's definitely different. I can see the gameplay getting frustrating over the long-term, although I think one might get used to it after a while. The ball travels in a way that is unique to all other games, although I found that I could actually control the ball much more than I had originally thought I would. I wish I could have spent more time on it, but it was in constant use during the show.

As Sylvain stated, it does have a low production run, but I think this had more to do with the fact that in 1982-83, the pinball market had been almost completely decimated. This was Stern's last official pinball release before going out of business and if you look at the numbers of machines they released leading up to Orbitor 1, it was clear that nothing was selling in great quantities by that point.  

I had the opportunity to purchase an Orbitor 1 last year for a very reasonable price but I turned it down. I think that unless you have a good number of machines/space, you're probably better off finding a machine with more playability rather than just novelty appeal. When I was considering getting the one I was offered, I spoke with someone who had played one before and he helped me make up my mind when he said "Orbitor 1 is interesting, but it's not really pinball."

Good luck.

Quoted from cooke

it was in constant use during the show.

Should have stayed up later then. I got on it with no issue. Actually, I gave it a solid 20 minutes of play trying to form an impression.

My impression was I'd rather gouge my eyes out with a rusty screwdriver than own this machine. The novelty is there, and it does look pretty, but watching a ball float around and the limited amount of control on the ball just didn't do it for me. Maybe I'm being a little hard on it as I was playing it after being up 24 hours, but I just walked away frustrated. Pretty, but something I'd never own to play seriously.

It's been 25 years that I didn't play Orbitor 1. For what I remember, in the downtown Montreal arcades, it was very popular for the first weeks, but people (and me) got tired very quickly of the lack of challenge, since you coudn't control the ball. But I would like very much to play a few games now...

Brent, if you make it out to TOPL on Oct 20th, we are at Nick Angel's place in Georgetown, he has an Orbitor1.  I like the game to play in other peoples collection, but I don't think I could own one.  I like the uniqness of the design but could see how the play could get old, it's very limited in game play and the one thing that gets me is trying to keep control.  That and I don't ever understand how the game works, it seems to allways have an extremely liberal ball save to the point you can play 10 balls and it just keeps spitting them out and I'm not sure why.  So that kinda threw me.  

Quoted from Vengeance

it seems to allways have an extremely liberal ball save to the point you can play 10 balls and it just keeps spitting them out and I'm not sure why.

The game has an operator-adjustable minimum game time.
If you drain the three or 5 balls before the minimum game time elapses,
it will serve additional balls.

Cheers,
- Sylvain.

Quoted from sylvain

The game has an operator-adjustable minimum game time.
If you drain the three or 5 balls before the minimum game time elapses,
it will serve additional balls.

Cheers,
- Sylvain.

Ahhhhhh, I get it, is there anyway to set that to 0?  I've allways thought that game would be cool to include in a league night but the extra long ball save allways made it so we couldn't add it.  

The game may be a novelty, but it's a much more fun novelty than Hercules. I played Orbiter at the PHoF, but only 1 game, it made me feel kinda dizzy. I'd love to take another crack at it. Unfortunately, there were too many games I wanted to play there, and didn't have enough time to donate to each machine.

yea playing hercules is like watching paint dry.  It's more fun to look at for the sheer noveltey and size of it then play.