Last table with 5 balls with one credit?

[fantsu]

So what is the latest table with five ball play?
And what is the first table featuring only three balls with one credit?
Any tables around with some other amount? Like 4?

And yes, not counting weird tables like SafeCracker or Goin' Nuts.

Is there a reason why three balls with one credit came so popular? And why it is usually odd number anyways?

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

Well, all modern tables can be set to give any number of balls per credit; it's up to the operator. It may also have been possible to do this with some EMs (for instance, TPA Big Shot can be played in 3- or 5-ball mode - which suggests that the real thing can be set for 3- or 5-ball play).

In my personal recollections, tables I played in the early '80s (Paragon, Space Invaders) were set to 5 balls by the operator (well, by the distributor on behalf of the operator; I'm pretty sure my Grandad wouldn't have had a clue on how to change the settings on a table, he was more interested in the contents of the coin box ). Sometime later in the '80s, I guess I noticed it was 3 balls. So I'd say overall the change in trend started in the mid-late '70s, and became the norm in the '80s.

The reason for it is obvious - money. I assume as tables became more complex and ball times increased, operators were seeing their profits tank, and the way to do that was to decrease overall game times by decreasing the number of balls from 5 to 3.

 

[Slam23]

In Holland in the early '90s, tables were often set to 5 balls per game. I didn't realize that you could change that, but after some time they did, and it became more common to have only 3 balls, probably for the same monetary reasons Eldar already mentioned. I was initially pissed off about that, but then pinballs disappeared as a whole out of clubs and cafe's. Now I'm used to the 3-ball setting.

 

[DA5ID]

I can't speak to the history of 5 ball - but can confirm that most (pretty much all) machines can be set to 5 ball. I played in a pin-golf tournament with 18 machines (mix of eras) all set to 5 balls. There was a target score you had to reach during the game and if you couldn't do it you got a 6. otherwise 1=hole in one, 2=birdie, 3=par, 4=bogey, 5= double bogey. Really fun way to play.

 

[kinggo]

As stated, it is operator setting.
But all sterns if found around in last few years were set to 5 balls.

 

[Fungi]

I watched an interview with an operator years ago. He said in the '70s that the tables on east coast of the US were set at 3 balls but the west was always set a 5 for some reason. "Always at 5 on the west" he said. Don't know why. I remember noticing 5 balls per credit disappearing sometime in the early '80s. I know I never played 5 during High Speed.