# Episode 1213: "Let's Talk About These New Themes"

**Source:** Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2026-04-23  
**Duration:** 26m 21s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-1213-new-156349923

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## Analysis

Kaneda discusses upcoming pinball themes and machines, expressing confidence in most announcements while reconsidering Justice League. He covers Transformers G1 (Stern, May release), Masters of the Universe (Barrels of Fun), G.I. Joe (Barrels of Fun), Van Halen (Jersey Jack), a new AC/DC (Stern, John Borg), and Dracula (Stern, Brian Eddy). He also reflects on pricing dynamics, the secondary market appeal of boutique games, and wealth disparities in the collector community.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Barrels of Fun acquired the Masters of the Universe license from American Pinball — _Kaneda states: 'I know for a fact that they got this license from American Pinball. This is not a rumor.'_
- [HIGH] Transformers G1 is coming out next month (from recording date) and is Stern's greatest game in a long time — _Kaneda: 'Transformers G1. It's coming. It's going to be out next month. I hear it's Stern's greatest game in a long time.'_
- [MEDIUM] Elliott Eismann spent 25 months developing Transformers, compared to Jack Danger's 10 months on X-Men — _Kaneda: 'Elliot Eismin has had 25 months, 25 months developing this game. Think about that. Jack Danger had like 10 months to develop X-Men.'_
- [MEDIUM] Stern is making a new AC/DC game designed by John Borg, not a reissue of the Steve Ritchie version — _Kaneda: 'Stern Pinball bringing back ACDC, but not the Steve Ritchie game. An all new game designed by John Borg.'_
- [LOW] Justice League pinball machine is unlikely to happen due to DC's shift away from the Zack Snyder era — _Kaneda: 'The one that I don't think is going to happen is Justice League... DC as a company has moved beyond Zack Taylor Snyder Justice League'_
- [HIGH] Beetlejuice machines from the Kaneda drawing will be serial numbers 501-505, in the middle of the production run — _Kaneda: 'If you win one of these Canada games, you will be within number 501 to 505. So you're at the middle of the run.'_
- [MEDIUM] Stern's pipeline for 2025 is: Transformers, Pokemon (code/topper), Fallout, then AC/DC — _Kaneda: 'that is how Stern year is going to wrap up... Transformers Sometime soon we going to get the Pokemon Topper and hopefully some new code Then we going to get Fallout and then this ACDC game'_

### Notable Quotes

> "I know for a fact that they got this license from American Pinball. This is not a rumor. They have the license. They have the power."
> — **Kaneda**, mid-show
> _Confirms Barrels of Fun's acquisition of Masters of the Universe IP from American Pinball with certainty_

> "What an exciting time when you think about pinball that we are about to get a plethora of our favorite 80s cartoons in pinball format. Transformers G1. It's coming. It's going to be out next month."
> — **Kaneda**, mid-show
> _Expresses enthusiasm about the wave of 80s IP coming to pinball and confirms Transformers imminent release_

> "Elliott Eismann has had 25 months, 25 months developing this game. Think about that. Jack Danger had like 10 months to develop X-Men. So this is insane."
> — **Kaneda**, mid-show
> _Highlights unprecedented development time allocated to Transformers and the jealousy it's creating among other Stern designers_

> "The boutique industry is where all the FOMO is. The FOMO is hard to maintain at Stern. There is none at Jersey Jack because collector's editions are unlimited."
> — **Kaneda**, mid-show
> _Identifies the strategic difference in scarcity and FOMO between boutique and major manufacturers_

> "For a lot of us, we can save up and buy a couple of machines a year. But man, you got to make a really, really big pinball salary if you want to be able to afford three to four pinball machines a year."
> — **Kaneda**, mid-show
> _Comments on the wealth stratification within the collector community and pricing sustainability_

> "I don't think we're going to see Brian Eddy's game until Q1 of 2027. It's crazy, right? Kaneda's taking you all the way to 2027."
> — **Kaneda**, end of show
> _Establishes timeline expectations for Dracula and the compressed release schedule due to 3-game-per-year Cornerstone limit_

> "Sonic the Hedgehog is going to be the game of the year. I think the second best game this year is going to be Fallout. And I think the third Transformers."
> — **Kaneda**, mid-show
> _Prediction of 2025 game rankings and relative quality expectations_

> "Quality of life minus envy equals happiness."
> — **Kaneda**, mid-show
> _Philosophical reflection on wealth display in the pinball community and personal attitude toward luxury flexing_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Kaneda | person | Host of Kaneda's Pinball Podcast; primary speaker and source of industry intel and speculation |
| Elliott Eismann | person | Stern Pinball designer developing Transformers G1 with 25 months of development time |
| John Borg | person | Stern Pinball designer of the new AC/DC pinball machine |
| Jack Danger | person | Stern Pinball designer who developed X-Men in approximately 10 months |
| Mark Seiden | person | Jersey Jack Pinball designer working on Van Halen |
| Brian Savage | person | Barrels of Fun designer expected to make G.I. Joe based on original 80s cartoon |
| Brian Eddy | person | Stern Pinball designer of upcoming Dracula machine, expected Q1 2027 release |
| David Van Es | person | Barrels of Fun representative/designer; recently stated next game would be a widely known theme |
| Steve Ritchie | person | Original AC/DC pinball game designer (Stern); now works at Jersey Jack Pinball |
| Seth | person | Stern Pinball leadership; has taken over and focuses on new sales rather than legacy game consideration |
| Stern Pinball | company | Major pinball manufacturer; releasing Transformers, Pokemon, Fallout, AC/DC, and others in 2025-2027 |
| Barrels of Fun | company | Boutique pinball manufacturer working on Masters of the Universe and G.I. Joe |
| Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Pinball manufacturer with unlimited collector's editions; making Van Halen with Mark Seiden |
| American Pinball | company | Previous owner of Masters of the Universe license, now owned/operated by Barrels of Fun |
| Spooky Pinball | company | Boutique manufacturer; released Beetlejuice at $9,999 which sold out instantly |
| Transformers G1 | game | Stern machine releasing in May; designed by Elliott Eismann with 25 months development; considered greatest Stern game in long time |
| Masters of the Universe | game | Barrels of Fun machine; licensed from American Pinball; expected late 2025 or 2026; based on 80s cartoon |
| G.I. Joe | game | Barrels of Fun machine in development; based on original 80s cartoon, not G.I. Joe movies |
| Van Halen | game | Jersey Jack Pinball machine by Mark Seiden; expected 2027; music-themed with both David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar material |
| AC/DC (new) | game | All-new Stern Pinball machine designed by John Borg; different from original Steve Ritchie version; expected 2025 |
| Dracula | game | Stern Pinball machine designed by Brian Eddy; expected Q1 2027; Cornerstone tier release |
| Sonic the Hedgehog | game | Jersey Jack Pinball machine; predicted to be game of the year for 2025 by Kaneda |
| Fallout | game | Stern Pinball machine; predicted third best game of 2025 by Kaneda; coming after Transformers and Pokemon in pipeline |
| Pokemon | game | Stern Pinball machine with topper and code updates coming; predicted fourth/fifth best game of 2025 |
| Beetlejuice | game | Spooky Pinball machine; Kaneda hosting drawing for five units (serial numbers 501-505); high secondary market value ($3,000-$4,000 over MSRP) |

### Signals

- **[announcement]** Transformers G1 confirmed for May release from Stern Pinball (confidence: high) — Kaneda: 'Transformers G1. It's coming. It's going to be out next month.'
- **[machine_intel]** Elliott Eismann given unprecedented 25 months development time on Transformers vs. typical 10 months for Stern designers (confidence: high) — Kaneda discusses 25-month timeline and notes other designers are becoming jealous of the resource allocation
- **[announcement]** Jersey Jack Pinball making Van Halen with designer Mark Seiden (confidence: high) — Kaneda: 'Jersey Jack Pinball, Mark Seiden making Van Halen... This game is happening. I feel 100% confident that Van Halen is coming out.'
- **[machine_intel]** Stern Pinball developing new AC/DC machine designed by John Borg on Spike 3, separate from original Steve Ritchie version (confidence: medium) — Kaneda: 'Stern Pinball bringing back ACDC, but not the Steve Ritchie game. An all new game designed by John Borg. Is this a smart move?'
- **[licensing_signal]** Barrels of Fun acquired Masters of the Universe license from American Pinball (confidence: high) — Kaneda confirms: 'I know for a fact that they got this license from American Pinball. This is not a rumor.'
- **[market_signal]** Beetlejuice holding $3,000-$4,000 premium over MSRP on secondary market (confidence: high) — Kaneda: 'This game is not selling anywhere near MSRP. It is still trading for a good $3,000 to $4,000 over.'
- **[collector_signal]** Boutique manufacturers (Spooky, Barrels of Fun) capturing primary FOMO market with limited runs; Stern struggling to maintain scarcity narrative (confidence: high) — Kaneda: 'The boutique industry is where all the FOMO is. The FOMO is hard to maintain at Stern. There is none at Jersey Jack because collector's editions are unlimited.'
- **[product_strategy]** Kaneda advises boutiques should price limited-run machines at $12,500 minus topper to balance value capture and customer perception (confidence: medium) — Kaneda: '12.5 to me is the sweet spot... every single version that's $12,500 comes with everything you want'
- **[rumor_hype]** Ghostbusters pinball rumor persists despite Jack (Jersey Jack CEO) denying interest in remaking it; community skepticism about his denials (confidence: low) — Kaneda: 'Now Jack has gone on the record for saying he would not remake a Ghostbusters, but he's remade everything that's already been out. So we don't really trust anything that Jack says.'
- **[product_concern]** Concern about new AC/DC machine's quality vs. original Steve Ritchie version; worry about oversaturation of AC/DC in market (confidence: medium) — Kaneda: 'I don't know if you can make the game better than the Steve Ritchie game... there's just too many people that own the original'
- **[sentiment_shift]** Guns N' Roses declining in secondary market popularity; attributed to jukebox-style gameplay where all songs available immediately (confidence: medium) — Kaneda: 'GNR to me gets boring over time... Guns N' Roses is a game that like nobody really wants to hold on to much anymore'
- **[market_signal]** Pinball machine prices unlikely to decrease; wealthy collector base views $7,000-$15,000 machines as budget luxury compared to supercars and yachts (confidence: high) — Kaneda: 'pinball prices are never going down... There is a huge portion of this pinball collecting community that when they go to option out their Porsche, they are spending $50,000 to $70,000'

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## Transcript

You know those kids turn rock stars, leaving private schools trying to be outlaws, and the old heads always trying to kill the vibe, but rock's not dead long as I'm alive, so all around the world, all around the world, I know you feel this shit, wish I had a, wish I wasn't, wish I gave a, but I don't. Sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up. Welcome everybody to Canada's Pinball Podcast. On the last episode, we dropped a lot, a lot of information on some themes that we feel good about or just myself feels good about coming out in the world of pinball. Now, there is one of them that I don't feel so good about anymore. And this is the thing when you put stuff out there into the zeitgeist of the pinball world, you're going to get feedback. And there's only one theme out of all the themes I said I think are coming out that I think might not happen. And the rest of them I feel really, really good about. And I didn't hear anything or see anything on pin side of some of these companies saying that's not true. I also didn't see many people even start threads about these like themes. What's up with y'all? You used to be good at taking this information and dispensing it elsewhere. And, you know, nobody's saying anything anymore. They're still just talking about like, I don't know, man, where's my Pokemon LE? And I got Winchester number 77 and I've got a Rolls Royce and a Ferrari. We're going to talk a little bit about the pinball flexing on pin side, which is really fun to see. But let's first start out this show by saying you have one more day to enter the Beetlejuice drawing of those five machines where I am going to pull five names out on May 2nd during the Saturday Morning Spectacular. I didn't realize this, but Brenda is going to be away. And so I have the two kids during the Saturday Morning Spectacular. So we'll figure out what to do. Maybe we make them select the names because don't be mad at Kaneda. You're not going to be mad at Killian or Cassian if they pull those names, but you have until tomorrow. So no complaining, no crying. Tomorrow is the cutoff to enter. And it is only available to Canada Club members. And you have to email me at canadapinball at gmail.com. Subject title, Beetlejuice Drawing. Provide your name, your address, and your phone number, and you will be entered. After tomorrow, I will be sending confirmation emails to everyone who has entered the drawing. Everybody will get a confirmation email, but that is the criteria to enter. So if you comment on this podcast, no, that is not your entry. If you were away in like Madagascar for three weeks and you missed this, sorry, you're not going to get entered. I have said this many times on multiple platforms. This is how it's going to work. So you have another almost 48 hours to get in your entry and then we will find five winners of this game. And no, I don't need people commenting that you can now get the game for less than MSRP. Someone named B, B, you know who you are. No, you cannot. This game is not selling anywhere near MSRP. It is still trading for a good $3,000 to $4,000 over. Also, the good news is this. If you win one of these Canada games, you will be within number 501 to 505. So you're at the middle of the run. Some people are well past that. I mean, I'm number 999. By the time my game is going to be made, we're going to see Goonies. All right. So I just wanted to get that out of the way because I know what's going to happen. And come next week, people are going to try to enter. And I'm sorry, but these are the rules and we're going to abide by the rules. This is my house, my rules. All right, let's talk about these themes. First and foremost, let me tell you the one that I'm not so sure about. And I wasn't even really so sure about this one, even when I put it up. And all the other ones I feel good about. But this is the one that I think I'm going to do a little bit more digging and get the real, real on it. The one that I don't think is going to happen is Justice League. I not so sure it going to be that because if you think about it Justice League is like DC older sort of narrative with Zack Taylor Snyder They not going in that direction DC as a company has moved beyond Zack Taylor Snyder Justice League And now they got what is it Mr Guns Superman And so if you going to give a pinball company a property to make and you Warner Brothers and it going to be DC based why would you look to the past And so that being said, I don't think Justice League is going to happen. Now, is it Superman? I don't know. Would we like a Superman Pinball machine? Yes. But would you rather have the original Christopher Reeve Superman or the new one? I think most of you would want to have the Christopher Reeve Superman. And that Superman from the 70s is iconic. It's everlasting. The new one, you know, it's okay. Like I didn't really like it that much, to be honest. It didn't move me. I don't want to watch it time and time again. I felt like it was a little bit all over the place. I also felt like Superman was like a wimp throughout the entire movie. He just gets his ass kicked the entire time. That's not Superman to me. So that is a big question mark. The other big question mark is whether or not this Ghostbusters rumor is accurate or not. Now Jack has gone on the record for saying he would not remake a Ghostbusters, but he's remade everything that's already been out. So we don't really trust anything that Jack says. So that is the question mark game Justice League. Now, the good news is this. That game is not coming out. Eric Minier's next game is not coming out for like two years. So I don't mind being wrong on that rumor. The other ones, baby, I think I'm spot on. And so let's start with them. We've got barrels of fun making He-Man masters of the universe. Now, I know for a fact that they got this license from American Pinball. This is not a rumor. They have the license. They have the power. And so if you're David David Van Es and you've been telling people recently, I've never seen the never ending story, the next game from us will be a theme that everybody's heard about. Well, everybody in this demographic and in the world has mostly heard of Masters of the Universe. Now, remember, it's not He-Man. It is Masters of the Universe is how the license is handled. So there is a new Masters of the Universe movie coming out this summer. It doesn't look so good, but it's happening. So if I were a betting man and we're going to see the new Barrels of Fun game sometime, sometime at the end of the year, would it make more sense to make He-Man Masters of the Universe knowing that this is a big year for the franchise and for the property? Now, if they make Masters of the Universe, nobody is going to want it based on the new movie. You're going to want it based on the original Masters of the Universe cartoon from the 80s. I think David's smart enough. I think that's what it will be. What an exciting time when you think about pinball that we are about to get a plethora of our favorite 80s cartoons in pinball format. Transformers G1. It's coming. It's going to be out next month. I hear it's Stern's greatest game in a long time. Elliot Elliot Eismin has had 25 months, 25 months developing this game. Think about that. Jack Danger had like 10 months to develop X-Men. So this is insane. The amount of time he's been given to get this game right is making the other designers at Stern jealous. And that's why they're walking up to this machine and they're getting blown away is what I'm hearing because of how much time and effort has gone into Transformers. So we're going to get Transformers. We're going to get Masters of the Universe. And we are most likely after that going to get and maybe this is before we get Masters is G.I. Joe. And we know that Brian Savage over at Barrels of Fun is going to make G.I. Joe based on the original 80s cartoon. This will not be based on the G.I. Joe movies. So what an exciting time. G Joe man if they make this game when you go into play and you launch the ball It needs to feel like that the ball is one of the G Joe planes flying into action to go after Cobra Commander launch that ball out of the aircraft carrier make it amazing I mean, talk about a world under glass. That's the exciting thing. That's the exciting thing about all these 80s cartoons is they're the ultimate like world under glass opportunities. Transformers is like an entire world that you could put under glass with Cybertron and all the robots and the transformation and the basis. It's amazing. The visual identity and the visual assets of these 80s cartoons. Castle Grayskull. Do I need to even say anything else? I mean, whenever we saw, what was it? Remember when we saw Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle? Remember that game by Spooky? How awesome that castle was? And everyone just said, that looks like Castle Grayskull. And if we don't get a humongous Castle Grayskull with a drawbridge that goes down and we don't get He-Man with his sword and Battle Cat, Manny Faces and Skeletor, all the amazing things you can do with He-Man, it's right there. We also get like G.I. Joe, man. Yo, Joe, with all of those figures and vehicles and characters. It's going to be awesome. It's a really, really good time to be somewhere around the age of 50, right? Because that is the sweet spot. If you are around the age of 50, you were really an innocent child that fell in love with these properties. And at these pinball prices, you kind of have to be around your 50s to afford all of these games. I love seeing the images of some of these individuals on pin side. You know, we're starting to get a little bit right of an insight into how wealthy some of these people are. There's like a dude and he's getting his Winchester delivered. It's in the Winchester Club thread. It's really fun. He's getting his Winchester delivered and he's watching the delivery guy drop off his machine while he's not home. OK, and the garage doors are open and someone else is like, I love your garage doors. This is where, you know, you have a lot of money when you're impressed with other people's garage doors and you recognize their expensive garage doors. Right. Oh, you've got the McAllen special door, whatever it is. Right. And then he's like, here's mine. And then he's got like a Rolls Royce parked inside the garage with the same doors. And then outside, he's like, you got a white G-Wagon AMG? I got a black AMG G-Wagon. And then all of a sudden, another guy's like, I love these doors because when I roll up, I can see my pins and then stacked on top of each other are two Ferraris that easily are costing three to four hundred thousand dollars each. Right. So he's got $800,000 in Ferraris next to around $100,000 in pinball machines. And it just goes to show you, I've been saying this forever. When it comes to big boy toys and it comes to grown men spending money on stuff they don't need, this is still cheap. A $6,000 to $15,000 pinball machine is nothing. Everything. Trust me, there is a huge portion of this pinball collecting community that when they go to option out their Porsche, they are spending $50,000 to $70,000 on options on top of a car that's already costing $200,000 to $300,000 like it's nothing. So I hate to break it to the rest of us who don't have those Rolls Royces and G-Wagons, but pinball prices are never going down. This is it. For a lot of us, we can save up and buy a couple of machines a year. But man, you got to make a really, really big pinball salary if you want to be able to afford three to four pinball machines a year. But for a lot of people out there, it's nothing. It's gravy. I go to lunch at Roedan Seafood. I'm basically having a $38 lobster roll. I'm sitting next to a guy that's wearing $150,000 Patek watch. I mean, that's the way the world works. And I really don't care. I have no envy. I'm not one of these people that's like, oh man, I'm jealous of your setup. No, because in the end, I've always said this. How many days do you wake up in a good mood? And look, these dudes are waking up in a good mood with those kinds of toys. The other thing is, do you have your health? Do you have your happiness? And you have a good quality of life minus envy. That is the key. Quality of life minus envy equals happiness. OK so I look at those things and I just get excited I like seeing more of like what people got in the world of like grown up toys I wish more people could share those things without inviting the envy and the jealousy It comes quickly, man. It really does. Like there's a lot more haters out there than people that are just happy for your success. All right. So here's the thing. A company like Barrels, they're really going to make one game a year. Like they can't really make more than a thousand games a year. But here's where it's going to get interesting. Both Masters of the Universe and G.I. Joe, if Barrels makes those games, they're going to witness another round of day one sellouts of those themes. This is not another dune. They will sell these games out instantly and it is going to be increasingly harder to get your hands on one of these boutique games if they are based on themes like this. The boutique industry is where all the FOMO is. The FOMO is hard to maintain at Stern. There is none at Jersey Jack because collector's editions are unlimited. So this is where the collectors are all going to go. Getting their paws on a Goonies, on a He-Man, on a G.I. Joe, on a Winchester. This is where the modern collectors are going to aim their efforts. Stern's $13,000 LEs are still looking really cheap and the premiums are the same exact game and they're mass produced. We don't have that over at the boutique level. There's no like other version of Beetlejuice that's mass produced or other version of Winchester that's mass produced. So it's going to get really, really fun watching what happens to these games. Now, the challenge for all of these boutiques is simply this. Are they going to raise their prices knowing that the secondhand value of these games will be tremendous? And will they give the value of the game to the customer or will they try to take more of it internally and get a little greedy? Now, I'm not even sure that's them being greedy, but they've got to find the sweet spot. I think personally on a thousand run game that is a theme people want, the sweet spot for a boutique is $12,500 minus a topper. Sell the topper separately, $12,500 and we're only making a thousand of these ever and every single version that's $12,500 comes with everything you want. The Radcals, the Inner Art decals. The only thing I would sell separate is maybe the topper, right? That just allows you to get to a little bit of a higher price point, but you don't force everybody to buy it at like 14 or 15. 12.5 to me is the sweet spot. Spooky could have sold every Beetlejuice for 12.5 easily, easily. They kind of did, you know, with the butter cabinet, but, you know, they sold it for $9,999 and it sold out instantly. The other thing is, when are these boutiques going to wise up a little bit and stop giving a margin to a dealer and a distro? You could sell every single one of these directly. They know that. So why? Why are they continuing to hand out all this free money to these dealers? It just makes no sense. Now, the margin on a Spooky and Barrels isn't what it is on a Stern LE because Stern needs those dealers tremendously. Stern's never going to go direct because they need those dealers to move all the pros and premiums. But these boutiques do not. Okay, let's keep going. So we got two more games in the realm of music that we need to talk about. Jersey Jack Pinball, Mark Seiden making Van Halen. Van Halen. Now, some of you thought it was you too. No, it is Van Halen. This game is happening. I feel 100% confident that Van Halen is coming out. Now, is it going to be David Lee Roth Van Halen, Sammy Hagar? I think it's going to be both. I think it's going to be all of Van Halen's greatest hits in a pinball game. How will they handle this game? When they did GNR, it was all about starting a song and the light show went crazy and the shot layout wasn't great. GNR to me gets boring over time because of how every song is available right away. I hope if they make Van Halen, there's a little bit more of a storyline in the game a la Foo Fighters. I hope they do something more interesting, more creative. I hope they take the theme of Van Halen songs and sort of integrate them into some sort of narrative that's more enticing. If it's just another jukebox. That you also play pinball on. I don't know if that's the way to go. I think GNR did that. I think over time people got bored of it. And that's why Guns N' Roses is a game that like nobody really wants to hold on to much anymore. Now, if GNR was done differently and not every song is available right away and you felt some sort of achievement in unlocking a song like Live and Let Die, entirely different game. But I think, you know, everything being available right away is not the right way to go. So for me, a lot of questions on this game, right? Who's doing the artwork? I don't know who's doing the artwork on Van Halen. You know, I would Google search Van Halen artists, see who comes up. That's a good place to start. And then the layout, not for nothing, but Mark Sidon's avatar layout, not the greatest. The lower playfields, not the most fun. His inaugural game did not become a hit. Now, you could say the theme was working against him. I would agree with that. But from a layout standpoint, not the greatest game. Not a lot of fun mechs in that game either. And now that Steve Ritchie is over there, now that we've got Eric with great flow with Harry Potter, I do think as a company, they're going to help Mark design a game that the flow is great and the fun is there because it's Van Halen music. It high energy You need to make sure the game plays more like Elton John and less like Guns N Roses So when are we going to see this game Remember this is after Sonic the Hedgehog So I don even think we going to see this game this year But what Kaneda has now done is made it easier for you to buy a Sonic So Sonic going to be the game of the year Without a doubt, I'm here to tell you right now, Sonic the Hedgehog is going to be the game of the year. I think the second best game this year is going to be Fallout. And I think the third Transformers. And I think the fifth or fourth, I don't know where I'm at right now, is going to be Pokemon. I think that's the way it's going to go. So Van Halen sometime, ladies and gentlemen, in 2027. Canada hit hard, baby. All these 90 minute shows have a lot to talk about now. All right. So after that, the biggest surprise, I think, and I hope this is right. This is what I'm hearing, that Stern Pinball bringing back ACDC, but not the Steve Ritchie game. An all new game designed by John Borg. Is this a smart move? Now, ACDC is back on tour. They made a new game for Metallica. And if you're going to make an all new game out of ACDC, is that smart? Is that the right way to go? So here's the big problem if this is true. You've got out in the world around 8,000 people own a Steve Ritchie ACDC from Stern. So if you going to remake a new ACDC game on Spike 3 I don know if you can like make the game better than the Steve Ritchie game Correct me if I wrong but wasn Lyman on code on ACDC And ACDC back in the day was pretty loaded for its time The art packages weren the best but the Lucy edition was beautiful They made so many runs of ACDC I feel like everybody has one And so this is interesting And I think Stern sort of doesn't care about the past at all. Since Seth has taken over, he doesn't care that there's 8000 ACDCs out in the world, maybe more. This is one of Stern's best selling games ever. He doesn't care what he wants are new sales from new people. But my worry, my worry when you do this is there's just too many people that own the original. We saw the same thing happen with The Walking Dead. And even if it is a completely new game, it doesn't matter. It's just the itch has been scratched in the pinball world. And to go back and try to create more demand for a theme that satiated so much ACDC pinball demand is difficult. And looking at the new Spike 3 platform and what Stern is putting into these games and what John Borg has made recently, I'm not so sure that John Borg can make a better ACDC than Steve Ritchie. And so I think it is a huge gamble I so curious to see if this happens Now this is supposed to come out this year is what I am hearing We shall see because what is going to happen next at Stern is the following order Transformers Sometime soon we going to get the Pokemon Topper and hopefully some new code Then we going to get Fallout and then this ACDC game I think that is how Stern year is going to wrap up And then after Fallout we probably going to get Brian Eddy Dracula Dracula. Now, let's talk for a second. If you're going to release Dracula, wouldn't you release it around Halloween? But how many Cornerstone games does Stern make a year? Three. So we've already got Pokemon. We're going to get Transformers in May. And then we're going to get end of summer Fallout. So those are the three. So I don't think we're going to see Brian Eddy's game until Q1 of 2027. It's crazy, right? Kaneda's taking you all the way to 2027. So don't say your $5 ain't worth it. Everybody, happy Thursday. A lot of exciting stuff going on in Pinball. Share your photos of your Ferraris and your G-Wagons. Let's get some more financial flexing going on. It's fun. I love feeling broke, surrounded by these rich neighbors. It just means my property value is going to go up. Kaneda, MGK, and Fred Durst taking us out. Hit it, MGK.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v5)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-06-06 | Item ID: 1b607be9-8795-4f03-b441-59c6a7d6a843*