Down turn puts almost all of them out of biz. Market shrinks, big guy scoops up little guys for pennies on the dollar until big guy gets into trouble and then they start to shed people / investment. Stern will be back to it's former self pre-pinball-boom (relatively speaking). Of course not right way, but a year into the recession things will hit hard, money will bleed. People will not buy. The interesting part is will Stern pivot into other areas like CGC is manufacturing OR will Stern go down the cheap China labor path. (I would bet make in China is coming or some other region of the world). Think about software programming, etc. - buy lots programmers in India / China, etc. Maybe made in Mexico, programmed in India coming soon....and then you can buy games for pre-boom prices.
Agile, niche manufacturers will survive like CGC who is diversified.
I believe the rest will go belly up.
I have bought several NIB or 1 year old machines in the past 15 years. I stopped about a year ago based on recession and shit quality.
Oh yeah - those distributors that have not killed their customers with kindness - say bye (cause doing it after you took advantage of buyers is not going to work).