NSM Lions (Lowen)

NSM Lions (Löwen) began as NSM Apparatebau, a jukebox and coin-operated machine manufacturer founded in 1952 in Braunschweig, Germany, as the sister company to Löwenautomaten. By the mid-1980s the company was headquartered in Bingen am Rhein. Known chiefly for jukeboxes and gaming machines, NSM entered pinball only briefly, amid a historically strong US dollar that made imported American machines expensive for German operators.

Between 1985 and 1986, NSM built four solid-state pinball machines on its own cabinet and electronics platform. The Games arrived in June 1985, followed by Cosmic Flash that October and Hot Fire Birds in December, with Tag-Team Pinball closing out the run in 1986. The Games and Tag-Team Pinball closely copied Gottlieb playfield designs, while Cosmic Flash was built on a design licensed from the Italian manufacturer Bell Games and Hot Fire Birds was an original design. The pinball program did not catch on, and NSM exited pinball manufacturing by the end of 1986.