# PNP 667- Top 5 Rumored Pins of 2026 RANKED On The HYPE Index!

**Source:** Poor Man's Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2026-02-03  
**Duration:** 59m 39s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://poormanspinballpodcast.libsyn.com/pnp-667-top-5-rumored-pins-of-2026-ranked-on-the-hype-index

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## Analysis

Orbital Albert from Pinball Nerds Podcast ranks the top 5 most hyped rumored pinball machines of 2026 using the Hype Index: #5 (tie) Neverending Story (Barrels of Fun) and Transformers (designer TBD), #4 Sonic the Hedgehog (Jersey Jack, Steve Ritchie), and #3 Goonies (Spooky). The episode emphasizes production confidence, discusses designer assignments, and expresses community excitement tempered by concerns about pricing, flow design, and feature differentiation across manufacturers.

### Key Claims

- [MEDIUM] Pokemon pinball is probably coming out February 11th and there's a media day with Zach Sharp — _Orbital Albert mentions being invited to a media day for what 'everybody is saying is Pokemon' but acknowledges uncertainty: 'I don't know if it's Pokemon that's coming out on February 11th, but what I do know is that I was invited'_
- [HIGH] Sonic the Hedgehog is being designed by Steve Ritchie for Jersey Jack — _Directly stated: 'this is said to be the king of flow himself steve ritchie's next pinball machine'_
- [HIGH] Neverending Story is coming from Barrels of Fun with likely sound design by Jeff of Dirty Pool Pinball — _'Neverending Story just because it's coming out of barrels of fun... Jeff of Dirty Pool Pinball is going to be slaying it while doing the call-outs'_
- [HIGH] Goonies is being designed by Christopher Franchi at Spooky Pinball — _'sorry, Franchi, But Spooky knocked it out of the park with Beetlejuice' and positioning Goonies as Spooky's next title_
- [LOW] Transformers G1 is rumored with designer either Brian Eddy or someone named Elliot, and is only the designer's second game — _'Brian Eddy is supposed to do it or was it the newer gentleman... Elliot, Elliot, there we go, Elliot something. If Elliot is doing it, it's only his second game'_
- [MEDIUM] Jersey Jack machines have reliability issues that were questioned by Kale from Electric Bat Arcade regarding deployment in bars — _'I believe Kale actually the electric back asked us to Jack Winarian about why are Jersey Jacks you know so hard to have in bars because they're just not reliable enough'_
- [HIGH] Harry Potter pinball is performing well on location both in reliability and earnings — _'everyone who talks about Harry Potter says not only is it a banger on location and it earns a lot but that it doesn't break down'_
- [MEDIUM] Elton John has the best flow of any Jersey Jack machine in recent years — _'everyone says that Elton John has the best flow of any pinball machine that Jersey Jack has ever came out with. In fact, maybe the best flow that we've seen in recent years'_

### Notable Quotes

> "I think 2026 is going to be the biggest and the best year in pinball that we have ever had."
> — **Orbital Albert**, Early in episode
> _Sets overall optimistic tone for 2026 machine releases and community sentiment_

> "If I want to frig it up, I can. I'm gonna say Neverending Story just because it's coming out of barrels of fun"
> — **Orbital Albert**, During #5 ranking
> _Acknowledges uncertainty but commits to ranking based on manufacturer credibility and known audio talent_

> "Could there be a more appropriate theme for pinball than Sonic? I don't think so."
> — **Orbital Albert**, During Sonic discussion (#4)
> _Expresses thematic alignment enthusiasm between Sonic IP and pinball mechanics_

> "Jersey Jacks, especially the higher end versions, are frankly just way out of my reach... I hardly ever see Jersey Jacks on locations"
> — **Orbital Albert**, During Sonic discussion
> _Identifies market accessibility and operator adoption as limiting factors for Jersey Jack games despite design quality_

> "Don't F up the freaking topper like you did on Harry Potter. That's the only thing people complain about."
> — **Orbital Albert**, During Sonic discussion
> _Identifies specific post-release criticism area for Harry Potter despite overall positive reception_

> "Spooky knocked it out of the park with Beetlejuice. The artwork, incredible. The toys, holy crap, how many of them?"
> — **Orbital Albert**, During Goonies discussion (#3)
> _Establishes high bar for Goonies expectations based on Beetlejuice's toy and mech density performance_

> "I'll give you a 12-pack of craft beer. That ain't cheap, brah. Just for me to come over... play a couple games."
> — **Orbital Albert**, During Jersey Jack discussion
> _Expresses personal enthusiasm to play Harry Potter despite East Coast Canada location inaccessibility_

> "2026 is going to be the biggest and the best year in pinball that we have ever had"
> — **Orbital Albert**, Opening segment
> _Core thesis: community excitement for upcoming 2026 releases_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Orbital Albert | person | Host of Pinball Nerds Podcast, content creator, community member ranking 2026 machines on Hype Index |
| Pinball Nerds Podcast | organization | Podcast hosted by Orbital Albert, part of Poor Man's Pinball Network |
| Poor Man's Pinball Network | organization | Podcast network hosting multiple pinball shows including Pinball Nerds |
| Steve Richie | person | Legendary pinball designer at Jersey Jack Pinball, designing Sonic the Hedgehog |
| Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Premium boutique pinball manufacturer producing Sonic, Harry Potter, Elton John, Avatar games |
| Christopher Franchi | person | Artist/designer at Spooky Pinball, designing Goonies |
| Spooky Pinball | company | Boutique pinball manufacturer known for Beetlejuice, Evil Dead, and upcoming Goonies |
| Barrels of Fun | company | Pinball manufacturer producing Neverending Story |
| Jeff (Dirty Pool Pinball) | person | Sound designer/mixer handling call-outs and music mixing for Neverending Story |
| Jack Danger | person | Stern Pinball designer known for Foo Fighters, mentioned in context of Ask Jack Anything podcast series |
| Stern Pinball | company | Major pinball manufacturer; recent games underperforming; mentioned in context of Pokemon and design standards |
| Kale | person | Co-host of Electric Bat Arcade, previously asked Jersey Jack questions about bar/location reliability |
| Electric Bat Arcade | organization | Pinball arcade venue and podcast operation, community hub for reliability discussions |
| Keith Elwin | person | Legendary pinball designer referenced as benchmark for flow and design quality |
| Sonic the Hedgehog | game | Upcoming Jersey Jack pinball machine designed by Steve Richie, ranked #4 on Hype Index |
| Neverending Story | game | Upcoming Barrels of Fun pinball machine, ranked #5 on Hype Index with sound by Dirty Pool |
| Transformers G1 | game | Rumored pinball machine tied at #5 on Hype Index, designer uncertain (Brian Eddy or Elliot) |
| Goonies | game | Upcoming Spooky Pinball machine designed by Christopher Franchi, ranked #3 on Hype Index |
| Harry Potter | game | Jersey Jack premium pinball game performing well on location, referenced as reliability/earnings success |
| Pokemon | game | Rumored Stern Pinball machine, possibly February 11 release date, media day mentioned |
| Zach Sharp | person | Individual who invited Orbital Albert to Pokemon pinball media day |
| Lola Young | person | Musician who won Grammy for 'Messy'; unrelated to pinball but referenced in intro |
| Billie Eilish | person | Musician who won Song of the Year at Grammys; Orbital Albert jokes about giving her a pinball machine |
| Don | person | Pinball community figure mentioned as potential Insider Connected development candidate; sent message to Orbital Albert |

### Topics

- **Primary:** 2026 Pinball Release Hype and Pipeline, Designer Assignments and Manufacturer Strategy, Jersey Jack vs Spooky Design Philosophy and Market Positioning, Machine Reliability and Location Operator Adoption
- **Secondary:** Pricing and Accessibility of Premium Boutique Games, Playfield Flow Design and Toy Interactivity, Stern Pinball Recent Performance and Market Challenges, Spooky Speak Bluetooth vs Insider Connected Features

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.72) — Orbital Albert expresses strong enthusiasm for 2026 lineup ('biggest and best year'), particularly optimistic about Spooky's Goonies and Jersey Jack's Sonic. Tempered by concerns about Jersey Jack pricing/availability, Stern's recent underperformance, and feature trade-offs (Bluetooth vs leaderboards). Host manages ADHD medication absence and illness which adds scattered energy but maintains fundamentally bullish outlook on year ahead.

### Signals

- **[community_signal]** Jack Danger Ask Jack Anything podcast series generating high community interest in designer commentary and Stern decision-making (confidence: high) — 'most questions are about stern and what do all the content creators myself included especially we want to hear more from the pinball companies'
- **[competitive_signal]** Jersey Jack machines priced too high and unavailable on location, limiting market penetration vs Stern/Spooky (confidence: high) — 'Jersey Jacks, especially the higher end versions, are frankly just way out of my reach... I hardly ever see Jersey Jacks on locations... they don't have a version that's nearly as cheap as a Stern Pro'
- **[design_philosophy]** Jersey Jack games criticized for limited ball-interactive toys; Scramp identified as insufficient compared to competitor designs (confidence: medium) — 'they don't put enough toys that actively interact with the ball very often... if you're going to come out here and tell me that your best toy that interacts on the pinball machine is the Scramp... bring me a new toy'
- **[design_philosophy]** Spooky Pinball prioritizing Bluetooth-enabled Spooky Speak feature over Insider Connected leaderboard system (confidence: high) — 'if instead of having all the time and energy and money is spent on spooky speak, if that had been spent on your version of insider connected... thousands of people would be like what spooky has their own version of insider connected'
- **[market_signal]** 2026 positioned as transformational year for pinball with multiple major releases generating industry enthusiasm (confidence: high) — 'I think 2026 is going to be the biggest and the best year in pinball that we have ever had'
- **[announcement]** Goonies pinball in development at Spooky Pinball, designed by Christopher Franchi (confidence: high) — Implicit confirmation through ranking and direct reference to 'Franchi' in Goonies discussion, positioning as #3 on Hype Index
- **[announcement]** Neverending Story pinball in development at Barrels of Fun with Dirty Pool Pinball sound design (confidence: high) — 'Neverending Story just because it's coming out of barrels of fun... Jeff of Dirty Pool Pinball is going to be slaying it'
- **[announcement]** Sonic the Hedgehog pinball confirmed in development at Jersey Jack Pinball, designed by Steve Richie (confidence: high) — Orbital Albert states: 'this is said to be the king of flow himself steve ritchie's next pinball machine' and positions it as #4 on confident rumor ranking
- **[product_concern]** Harry Potter topper execution criticized despite overall game success (confidence: medium) — 'Don't F up the freaking topper like you did on Harry Potter. That's the only thing people complain about'
- **[product_concern]** Harry Potter pinball performing exceptionally well on location with strong reliability and earnings (confidence: high) — 'everyone who talks about Harry Potter says not only is it a banger on location and it earns a lot but that it doesn't break down'
- **[rumor_hype]** Transformers G1 pinball in development with designer assignment uncertain (Brian Eddy or Elliot) (confidence: low) — Orbital Albert struggles to recall designer: 'Brian Eddy is supposed to do it or was it the newer gentleman... Elliot something. If Elliot is doing it, it's only his second game'
- **[rumor_hype]** Pokemon pinball possibly releasing February 11 at Stern Pinball with media day event (confidence: medium) — 'what everybody is saying is Pokemon is probably Pokemon. We don't know for sure, but what I do know is that I was invited... to go to the media day'

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## Transcript

 All get around, he's on the rebound, hear the sound of our buddy, oh lordy, it's Orby, pinball now to rejoice, he's tugging pinball, craft beer and coffee, miffed with syrup and honey, he wants to laugh with his family in a random tangent, stories of his boys, he's on the poor man's pod network, We're gonna get more listeners for the Pinball Nerds Podcast. Welcome back pinball nerds to episode 667 of your fifth favorite pinball podcast. My name's Orbital Albert and on today's show we're going to be talking about the top five most hyped pinball machines that are strongly rumored. I'll say most of these we know are probably coming out nine times out of ten when we're this confident, this close to future releases. The pinball community tends to be correct. Now from time to time we do get surprised like Winchester or should I say Winchester? All right. So we're going to be talking all about them. We're going to be rating them on the Orbeez Hype Index. I do want to give a little shout out, a big shout out, to Miss Lola Young. That's right. She started it with Messy. Now, I usually like to sing along with the songs, but I have a pretty bad sinus cold right now. Hopefully my voice will hold up for the show. I did just do a 40-minute show where, hey, if you're the one in a million people who like to hear my singing, or just maybe like to hate listen to how bad it is, I do actually sing a little bit of Alex Warren's Ordinary. Can you tell I'm hyped up from the Grammys? Because not only did Lola Young do awesome and win a big award for Messy, I think it was like Best Pop Song of the Year or something like that. Like she bring out, she bring out, see that? She bring out. She beat out Sabrina Carpenter. She beat out Chapel Roan. She beat out Billie Eilish. And speaking of Billie Eilish, huge shout out to Billie Eilish who won her third song of the year. Not pop song of the year, not rap song of the year, not metal, not ska, not reggae, not jazz, not blues, not new song of the year. No, like song of the year. And she is the first musician in all history to do it. I know like U2 has won twice before. Bruno Mars has won twice before. Tons of other talented artists have won song of the year twice before. But give Billie Eilish her own pinball machine already. She won it. Now, why didn't I play some Billie being a massive fan of hers? I mean, Messy is the only song I really know by Lola Young. I saw her live performance at Coachella where she puked on stage. That was freaking wild. But anyway, she did not puke on stage. She did an acoustic all-piano rendition of this particular song at the Grammys, which was great. Go back and watch that if you didn't see it. And then I kind of as an ode to one of my favorite musicians who came out from last year, Warren, who does Ordinary. He, Alex Warren, he ended up kind of having like an issue with his earpiece and messing up. So when I messed up this morning singing that song for my awesome patrons over there behind the paywall, I said, just screw it. Just let it ride. We're going unedited, baby. and so that was fun. Can you tell I'm hyped up? I've had three copies, probably one more than I ever, ever need, but you know what? I'm also stoked because I think 2026 is going to be the biggest and the best year in pinball that we have ever had. Now listen, there was some pinball drama in the last two weeks since I was gone. I'm going to save that to the very, very end to speak about extremely briefly, just to address it quickly, and then move on because you know me, I haven't caused, started, or been part of any drama in basically a year now. Is it drama-free since episode 493? There was that one kerfuffle which I apologized about, but, you know, we've moved on. I've done dozens of episodes where I've, I wouldn't say I've said everything positive about the pinball companies, the pinball designers, the pinball codes, the pinball pricing. How would you say something positive about the pinball pricing other than that $9,000 Beal use? Come on, that's pretty good. All right. So I apologize to everybody. I am coming out a little nasally. I'm also on my old school mic because I used that for singing and music on my last show. And I love you, Retro Rob, but I'm sorry I didn't feel like switching mics. so here we go if today's episode is too short for you which no one's ever said ever about one of my episodes but if today's episode is too short for you you can go back and listen to episode 666 I did something really interesting over there what I did is my first ever and I want to make this a series I did my Ask Jack after show so Jack Danger of Stern Pinball of course you know renowned designer of Foo Fighters and of course possibly perhaps part of Pokemon coming out on February 11th? Now, I don't know if it's Pokemon that's coming out on February 11th, but what I do know is that I was invited, I was invited by Zach Sharp to go to the media day for what everybody is saying is Pokemon is probably Pokemon. We don't know for sure, but what I did on that show is I, this morning I was listening, I was riveting. I was riveting. I think I'm riveting in my own head, but I'm not. I was riveted. I was excited. I was stoked. I was pumped up. Okay. After hearing Jack dangers, ask me anything. Every single question on there I wanted to respond to and I wanted to expand on. And obviously Jack can only say certain things because he's constricted to being someone who works for a large pinball company. So he can only say certain things. So I wanted to expand on those from a content creator's side from just a regular everyday pinball nerd and just give you guys my point of view uh you know sometimes jack wouldn't have been able to expand on certain answers as much as he probably would have liked to but i do and i actually think it was a banger of a show for 666 666 is supposed to be the mark of the beast for those of you that didn't grow up as christians and weren't um brainwashed into believing that uh when the you're gonna get you have to get the mark of the beast when Christ returns. Okay, I'm not going to say brainwashed because there's lots of religions that don't take part in brainwashing, but I don't know of any. But I'm sure they're out there. No, I'm just kidding. I don't necessarily love religion because I believe that I grew up, well, I know I grew up in the Pentecostal church, which I happen to believe is a little bit culty for me. So again, there's different spectrums and variations. I'm sure there's some Pentecostal churches which are super righteous, brah, and they don't, like they're not mean or they're not rude and they don't do brainwashing, but the one that I went to was super not rad and caused me some post-traumatic stress. Can you tell? Of course you can. All right, so let's just jump right into it. If you want to listen to episode 666, head over there to Patreon. I'll leave a link for you. And if you haven't listened to and or watched Jack Danger doing the Ask Jack, it's great. It's incredible. He honestly answers to the best, as much as he can uh he he answers these questions and i think that the the jacks ask me anything or ask jack i think it's so imperative because you'll hear in there very few questions are for jack and most questions are about stern and what do all the content creators myself included especially we want to hear more from the pinball companies and well bug and spooky have been doing a really good job on Wednesday nights doing the uh stream and scream and stream ah gosh darn it change that name they he I think it's called scream and stream or stream and scream and trying to say it makes my brain scream all right anyways but bug over there does a really good job basically answering any question within reason as long as you're being you know you're allowed to be a you're allowed to be a bit of a troll but like if it's too rude he's just not going to answer it right thankfully the answer to all my questions and the one question I still have for spooky that I did ask uh you know the last time I was in there for a live stream was how do we as a consumer know or how can we be assured that the reliability of your newest pin beetlejuice is going to be as reliable as everyone said evil dead is and but yet far more reliable than like you know still to this day People are having problems, from what I understand, with... Why can't I remember? Zoinks! What the hell? Oh, my God. Have another gummy, you nerd. I can't remember. What's the name of the... Scooby-Doo. Thank you. Scooby-Dooby-Doo. Where are you? Not inside Orby's head. Okay. When my voice is this strained and I am sick, I am not allowed to sing. Can you guys tell I'm off my meds? That's right. I ran out of my medication. There was a snowstorm. I forgot to order my medication in time. It's possibly coming Tuesday as early as Wednesday. But when I am off my meds, I'm, well, let's just say the ADHD goes off the charts. That's either a blessing or a curse. If you love how my shows have been the last few months, they're a little bit more calm, a little bit more reserved, I stress a little bit, then, you know, look forward to that. Don't listen to today's show, I guess. See you later. Bye. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. but if you can handle it we're going to try to get into it right now and have a great time so I have a little tiny asterisk here the never-ending story whoa whoa whoa what was his name Atreyu is Atreyu the big dog or is that the main character I think the reason why I love never-ending stories so much was that my favorite show at the time was the wonder years and Fred Savage from the Wonder Years was like the boy that was being told the story in the Neverending Story. So Neverending Story didn't make the list. It would be really, really, really close. You know what? Frick it. It's my frickin' show. If I want to frig it up, I can. I'm gonna say Neverending Story just because it's coming out of barrels of fun, just because we've seen who knows. If Neverending Story has the Carl factor in it, like if Neverending Story is designed by Carl, then it amps it up a notch. But I'll just say, as we know, we don't know who's doing it, but it is coming out of barrels of fun. We know that most likely Jeff of Dirty Pool Pinball is going to be slaying it while doing the call-outs, the sound effects, and the mixing of such, right? So that's going to be awesome. We know there's some banger 80s songs in there. I'm not nostalgic for it. I even tried to go back and watch, like, I think I was on an airplane or like sick in bed and I couldn't find the remote and like it was on TV for free and even though it was going to be a struggle I somehow changed the channel I was like I can't watch this anymore so I don't think and I talked about this when I did my Goonies uh versus Gremlins show I talked about this I think the Goonies has done incredibly well in nostalgia and and you know it it's still to this day like on Sunday afternoon you'll see being playing on like the WB or here or there or wherever. It's still streamed a lot. It's still talked about. Excuse me. It was still... They just did a Stranger Things episode where the whole thing was a throwback to the Goonies. They didn't do a throwback episode to NeverEnding Story or the game that ties with this. Transformers more than meets the eye. I... I bumped it. I tried to do my Optimus Prime voice and I totally just wrecked myself. So I won't do that again, but I used to have this Optimus Prime toy, and I played with it, I swear to God, till the wheels were starting to be bald, it was the truck that, and this was like, I didn't have like hundreds of dollars of toys, this was like my main Christmas present, I don't know if it was grade four, grade three, grade five, somewhere in there, don't worry, it wasn't in grade six, seven, but it was somewhere in there, like by grade seven, I was into girls and sports, and you know, I still probably secretly watched Transformers if it came on, but I wasn't at home like, oh, Optimus Prime, you better change. The Decepticons are here. I wasn't doing that crap anymore. But I actually felt like Optimus Prime was kind of like, not like my dad, but like my cool uncle, because he always gave you those tips. Remember at the end of the cartoon, he gave you those cool tips? Now, I will say this. Everyone is saying they want to be Transformers G1. Generation 1, they don't want the movies. I totally F with that. I would much, much, much rather us get the original cartoon than the movies. Now, I watched the movies with my, especially my oldest son, Hey Dude. Shout out to Hey Dude up there in Grand Prairie, working, doing letter carrier for Canada Post at minus 30 F these days. Don't worry, buddy, I saw that it's going to go to plus one next week. That's right, Hayden might be able to deliver the mail in shorts up in Grand Prairie. I think I'm far north. He's really, really, really far north up there. But he loved Transformers. So I watched like the first Transformers, like live action movie, because I'm sure there was an animated movie back in the 80s or 90s that I'm not thinking of. But I watched the live action movie like 10, 15 times, because this kid loved it. So I kind of got sick of it. And then by the second and third one, I did watch them a couple times. I guess I just, I guess at the time I was like a dad, and I was a very, very young dad, my wife got pregnant when she was 19, and we had our first child when she was 20, and so I was, I think at the time I was 24, and a 24 year old isn't going to want to watch Transformers movies, he's too cool for that still, I was still going out to the club, not as often, but you know, like once a month, or not really the club anymore, because I didn't really go to nightclubs much, but I was still going to the pub I was still going out to craft beer bars I was still living it up in my early 20s right We all remember that when your liver like please Lord God stop You been partying since you were 17 Or you know I don know in the States maybe a weight to your 21 But here in Canada, we only love three things, okay? We love maple syrup, poutine, and strong frickin' beer. So we start early up here. And you kind of got to. I'm going to be honest. It's really, really, really cold in these long winters. A beer or five will help you thrive. Wow, I just rhymed that. Okay, so Transformers. Transformers ties for number five on the list. Now, Transformers would be higher if, say, Keith Elwin were designing it. Transformers would be higher if it were guaranteed that it was going to be just G1. But is G1, are we talking the same thing? Everyone says it? I don't know. anyways I would be super duper duper stoked I think Brian Eddy is supposed to do it or was it the newer gentleman I'm so sorry I've forgotten the gentleman who did what's the game everyone lost money on the LEs I'm sorry I can't remember it gosh it'll come to me he's only done one game before I think he, Elliot, Elliot, there we go, Elliot something. If Elliot is doing it, it's only his second game. I didn't love his first game about the movie about the, with the dog where they shoot the dog. It didn't have guns. People are mad it didn't have guns. My brain is effed up today. Not only do I have to be on cold medication, but I don't have my regular ADHD medication, which helps me stay on track. And over and above that, I've had three coffees. So let's just move on to number four on my list it is sonic the hedgehog now i'm getting pumped up about this not only because it is said to be the king of flow himself Steve Ritchie's next pinball machine but also because of the few people who have seen it are hyping it up also because if i'm Steve Ritchie and i saw the i don't want to say a todd i don't i don't want to be too harsh on it but if i saw hot wheels that should have had all these looped loops and ramps and all these different like twists and turns and ball flying over everywhere really quickly. Hot Wheels ended up being super floaty, super slow, having no loop-de-loops, no color-changing car wash, nothing fast about it, nothing interesting, nothing fun. Okay, I'm being too harsh on... See, I can be harsh. I just don't want to be harsh on other content creators. I want to be harsh on the pinball machines. I want to be harsh on the code. I want to be so freaking harsh they get burned on the pricing because pricing is the one that pricing is the one simple easy measure that every pinball company can can do a little higher a little lower to increase their sales to keep their line busy and god knows stern needs to keep that line busy their last few pinball machines have not been a hit we all know that so let's get back to sonic though as a massive huge fan of Steve Ritchie. Another, I am really a fan of the way that the Jersey Jackpinball machines look. I'm also a fan of how much, you know, for the most part, they are putting a lot of code, if anything, almost too much code in it. When they hand you over a big giant binder and it's like, it's thicker than a Game of Thrones book. Okay. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, but they don't, to me, they don't put enough toys that actively interact with the ball very often. Now, thankfully, Harry Potter changed that up with the staircase. But if you're going to come out here and tell me that your best toy that interacts on the pinball machine is the Scramp, it's half ramp and half scoop, I'm going to say, bring me a new toy. We need a different toy that interacts with the ball. Like, I can't think of any Stern pinball machine that's came out in the almost decade that I've been covering pinball that wasn't way, way, way more rad. than a Scram. Like, I can't. I guess even, like, well, I was going to say Aerosmith, that stupid chest. Maybe Aerosmith. I still think the chest is cooler than the Scram. Like, it shoots the ball, you know what I mean? Then the balls fall out of it, so I don't know. I guess I just really hate Aerosmith. And I really don't like the movie Avatar either. I watched the first one, kind of. Couldn't stand it. Can never watch it again. I honestly think Stern's Avatar is just... It looks to me like it might be a more fun pin to shoot. I love Stern's Avatar, so I mean, how would I not love, anyways, I haven't played Avatar yet, so I don't want to speak on it too much, but Sonic, everybody says left, right, and center, by far the most flow of any Jersey Jack pinball machine is Elton John, so if Elton John has the best flow, oh no, I'm getting a call on my cellular device, I will call you back, friend, okay, so, but if everyone says that Elton John has the best flow of any pinball machine that Jersey Jack has ever came out with. In fact, maybe the best flow that we've seen in recent years, other than perhaps an Elwin. Can we just put the little asterisk there? So if you're going to give me Sonic, which is known for Sonic Spinball, I don't know how many of you listening ever played past Sonic 1 and Sonic 2, which is the most played games. Those are fast. Those have looped loops. Those have things where Sonic is spinning around really quickly and bouncing around and hitting pushbacks, you know, those red things that you hit and they kind of go boing and they like flings it the other way. Well, there was another game called Sonic Spinball where Sonic is just always spinning basically and there's flippers all over all the different levels. So could there be a more appropriate theme for pinball than Sonic? I don't think so. I guess what's making Sonic not be higher than number four for me is, A, Jersey Jacks, especially the higher end versions, are frankly just way out of my reach. Second of all, I hardly ever see Jersey Jacks on locations, okay? I've never seen Dialed In on location. I've never seen Hobbit on location. And I've been to dozens of pinball bars. I've been to some of the biggest ones across the United States and Canada. I've never seen, like, I've definitely never seen Avatar. I don't even know if anyone on the whole east coast of Canada, like, I don't even know like anyone east of Montreal owns a freaking avatar right I've never seen Godfather on location or anywhere it's really really really hard to get a sense for these games if they're not on location very very very often and because they don't have a version that's nearly as cheap as a Stern Pro I know they have the arcade edition which is like 10k but they don't have a six or seven thousand dollar machine so because of that it's really really really hard for them to compete and then on top of that there has been over the years I have heard it's very challenging very challenging and I believe Kale actually the electric back asked us to Jack Winarian about why are Jersey Jacks you know so hard to have in bars because they're just not reliable enough and I think that's when they got in some type of beef now that might have not been the exact question this was a couple years ago actually I think it was at Avatar so my point is if Jersey Jack had been more known for you know and maybe I'm wrong I haven't heard anything bad about the quality of Harry Potter in fact everyone who talks about Harry Potter says not only is it a banger on location and it earns a lot but that it doesn't break down so I think Jersey Jack has fixed some of those reliability issues from a couple years ago but I can't say it to be sure because they are not on like you're probably more likely to actually in Moncton there's multiple spookies on location well I know for sure Halloween and I'm thinking maybe TNA I've seen before as well but there's no Jersey Jacks. So, like, and same thing in Halifax. There's Spookies on location, but there is... So, anyways, the point is, I may not get to play Sonic for a couple years. I mean, if it comes out at the end of this year, we're probably not going to see one on my neck of the woods for like a year or two. But hopefully I'll get to Toronto or Montreal or Vancouver or who knows, maybe I'll end up going down to Pimmo Expo this year, hopefully, and I'll get to try it. I think, though, that Sonic is going to be a great game. I hope they nail the artwork. Please, don't use the Sonic artwork where he has teeth. For the love of God, you will ruin this machine if you do that. Don't do that. All right, so you've got Steve Ritchie over there. I don't think he's at, like, his peak, obviously. Sorry, Steve, if you're listening to this. Who knows? Elton John was, you know, again, not a lot of, other than the piano that kind of interacts with the ball, not a lot of things that interact with the ball on it. But the flow is great. The shots are fun. And I've heard people say that they can't stand Elton John. Like they hate his music and they love playing that pinball machine. Well, that's incredible. Because the only pinball machine that has music that I hate is Aerosmith. And I can't stand playing that thing. Even with earbuds on, like I would have to have a blindfold on and earbuds. I would have to Helen Keller it. Okay. Is there any out there? I'm curious. Is there any Helen Keller competitions where you got to close your eyes, you get blindfolded, and at the same time you're deaf? and then you've got to play by feel. You've got to play by feel when you feel the... Okay, that was dumb. That was stupid. We'd call it the Bird Box Challenge. Maybe that's a better way to do it. The Bird Box Pinball Challenge. Don't be going after Helen Keller. Come on. Too soon? Too soon? When did she die? 100 years ago? No, I'm just kidding. I love you, Helen Keller. She's actually really interesting. Go watch a YouTube video if you don't know. If you don't remember it from your school-ins, go watch it. She's super inspirational. Just, Helen Keller, I apologize. I don't want to start no smoke. I don't want to start no beef, Helen Keller, all right? But Sonic, I can't wait for it. Other than there's not going to be like a super-duper low-priced one. Other than it's probably not going to be packed, even though Harry Potter is pretty freaking packed. Who knows? I could be wrong. I hope I'm wrong. I hope to God when we see Sonic, we are as pleased as Harry Potter or, you know, close to that. Now, Jersey Jack, are you listening? Here's the asterisk. Don't F up the freaking topper like you did on Harry Potter. That's the only thing people complain about. Everyone says it's reliable. Everyone says they love the shots. The code's getting better. A couple people say it feels like too many things are happening at once. I don't know. I haven't played it yet. Again, I'm sure there's some person somewhere that owns a Harry Potter somewhere on the east coast of Canada. If you're listening to the podcast right now, and you even know of someone who has a Harry Potter, I will pay them. I usually pay a six-pack to go over to your house and play a pinball machine for the first time. I want to play Harry Potter so freaking bad, I'll give you a 12-pack of beer. And beer ain't cheap these days. I'll give you... How about this? I'll give you a 12-pack of craft beer. That ain't cheap, brah. Just for me to come over, not like for one game, that's crazy, but like to come play a couple games. All right, number three on the list is, hey, you guys. Oh, sorry. Ooh, toot, toot, scusey. I hope that didn't come up on the mic, but might have had a little bit of gas pass. All right, so the Goonskers, all right. uh first of all Hugh I always forget his name the guy who plays Data or Data that's so cool he went on to be in everything everywhere and win an Oscar for it uh what an incredible movie what a comeback story for 20 years because he was typecast as Data from the Goonies he couldn't get any work in Hollywood and I don't think he was like homeless per se but from what I understand he was very very broke and he basically quit Hollywood and had to work like non-whatever Hollywood jobs. Can you believe a dude from one of Steven Spielberg's biggest, it is Steven Spielberg, isn't it? Maybe it's not. From one of the biggest movies from the 80s or early 90s, one of the biggest movies from back then and one of the biggest stars. And honestly, he's like, he is the comedian. He's like the funniest guy in it for sure. And, you know, he does a part with the piano, and he's a very integral person to the, and back then you didn't see a lot of, like, you didn't see a lot of Asian people being, like, you know, leading back then, so that was even really cool for back then, uh, being, like, main people in comedies, right? So that was really awesome. Plus he's also, like, he helped save them, so that's, that's really cool. But the point is, I am stoked for Goonies more so, just slightly more so than Sonic, because, sorry, Franchi, But Spooky knocked it out of the park with Beetlejuice. The artwork, incredible. The toys, holy crap, how many of them? I've lost track. Between toys and mechs, there's like six or seven of them, maybe eight of them on the playfield that interact with the ball. And then you got the Spooky Speak, which I'll say this, it's a slippery slope with putting Bluetooth on everything. Like, people have Bluetooth on their fridges now. They have Bluetooth on their... They got freaking Bluetooth on... Are you going to have Bluetooth on your sex toys next? Like we have Bluetooth on our toothbrush, Bluetooth on our wash machine. I don't have Bluetooth on any of that. The speaker you heard today, the JBL speaker that I have. Sorry. Yeah, sorry, the JBL speaker that I have. That's, you know, I have, I do have Bluetooth on some things. I just, I don't like it on everything. And I feel like it's, if you're going to have such cool technology like that, why not get insider connected? Spooky. Like that would be a way better, to me personally, I think if instead of having all the time and energy and money is spent on spooky speak, if that had been spent on your version of insider connected, no matter how archaic it would be when you first came out, that would be huge. Like people would be like, as much as a couple of people were like, yeah, I like the gimmick of being able to turn it on with my voice. There would be thousands of people, thousands of people that would be like, what spooky has their own version of insider connected. That's incredible. and the biggest thing that we don't talk about it would help spooky with is it would help them sell their back catalog right so if they said and by the way we're slowly updating older games like they want to sell some more texas chainsaw massacre which i hear is an incredible game it's supposed to be the reliability is supposed to be decent the code is supposed to be way better than looney tunes right so if it is true what they say about that if they wanted to sell out of all their old stock, the easiest way to do that would be to have your version of Insider Connected. It doesn't have to be as complicated, you know, but literally probably one or maybe one or two people at your factory could be working full-time. Like Don. Don would be incredible for that because Don is kind of like a pinball's everyman. Oh, by the way, I have a message from Don here. I almost forgot. He sent it to me for episode 666, but I didn't want to paywall it as good as that episode is. It's way better than this one, by the way. You want to hear my good episode from this morning when I was refreshed, before my voice was more hoarse than Mr. Ed, okay? A horse is a horse, of course, of course, except for Mr. Ed, but if you want to hear that, anyways, I'm going to try to remember to play that at the end. Originally I did want Jenga and Dawn from We Are Pinball to be on the show for 666 Unfortunately they were already recording with someone else this week or they were a little bit busy, and I honestly, to be fair, I didn't give Don a lot of notice for it, and I know he was, like, traveling at the time, or I think he was working out of town. He said he didn't have a good cell phone. Basically, look, Don was already on the Christmas show. Go back and listen to the first 10 minutes of the Christmas show. It's just Don and I. Wait, no, I think it's Aaron's first but I think Don's like second or third but the point is Don it's okay that you didn't come on don't feel obligated I am going to play that message at the end I'm so excited for Goonies but I think Don would be the perfect person because he's way way way better than most noobs at playing pinball but like he's not as good as like a hardcore tournament player he's kind of like the everyman Don don't take this the wrong way you're still a good player for how long you've been playing when I had only got back into pinball for one or two years you you would have killed me like you'd be way better than me at pinball so love you Don but Don imagine if that was Don's job over there was to be like the guy he's really good with technology you know so I'm just saying and whether it's Don or someone else spooky get on it you want to sell your back catalog get on it there are completionists who if they know that they can get any more bleeps and bloops as we call them from that program they will seek out your pinball machines on location and they may even fall in love with said machines while they're there and need it for their back catalog at their house so uh but Goonies Goonies I'm really excited for because it's still in the the like even my kids if I were to ask both my kids do you know what gremlins are I I'm not sure if they would be like you know they're 20 and 17 I don't know if they would be like or sorry 21 now Hayden said his birthday shout out belated happy birthday to hey dude last month I guess it would have been December. But I don't know for sure. We might have shown them Grendlins, but both of them have seen Goonies with us like once a year for the past like 15 years. Like I throw it on, I don't know why I end up throwing it on around Christmas usually, even though it's not a Christmassy movie. I don't know. You know, I guess in the wintertime you're just inside more, you watch more movies, that sort of thing. So the Goonies is still very relevant in society, and not maybe very, but like I wouldn't be surprised or shocked to see someone at a convention walk by with a Goonies shirt. or someone dressed up like someone from the Goonies, like they even did, like I said, in Stranger Things, I would be shocked to see someone dressed up like someone in the Gremlins. Do you know what I mean? So I just, I think, I... You do see people dressed up from Transformers all the time. Bumblebee! No, but you see people dressed up like Transformers all the time. So there you go. But Goonies, it's just like, we all have so much hype, because I would say, like, if I had to give numbers to, you know, the first few pinball machines that Spooky came out with, they're like two or three out of ten. When you go back and you look at the Jetsons or Dominoes or America's Most Haunted, then when you get into that middle ground, they start to get four and five out of ten. Like Alice Cooper was probably their first six. I'm not trying to be rude or mean to them. You know, this is on the scale of like the most incredible pinball machines on planet Earth. You know what I mean? And I think Beetlejuice is probably, and again, I haven't played it. I don't know that much about the code. We don't know anything about the reliability. that it'd be shocking to me if that major mech where the ball can go three different places didn't have issues I so far haven't heard anything about that so hopefully but oh when you have a mech that big and that complicated if they haven't been running that thing for years and what Stern calls their clank room it makes me think I don't know could be complicated but in Spooky I trust because if there's an issue with it Spooky is usually the first company to pivot and fix it and make it right for their customers. If nothing else, Spooky will do that. So I'm so stoked to see what Spooky does next. Aren't you? I bet you are. All right, number two is Fallout. Now, in a million years, did you, like, thematically, if you were to ask me a year ago before I had heard that Elowen, this is the Elowen factor, that Elowen was going to be doing Fallout, I think that Fallout would be down there with the never-ending story. and the NeverEnding Story would probably bump up to fifth, Transformers would bump up to fourth, Sonic would bump up to third, Goonies would probably bump up to second. You know what I mean? But because of multiple reasons, number one, the TV show itself has got me back into playing the old games. My best friend back in the day, Big E, used to play Fallout 76 all the time. In fact, when I was over at his house, it didn't matter if we were talking, drinking craft beer enjoying some gummies didn't matter what we were doing he would have fallout new vegas in the background and be like selling stuff to get more bottle caps to people going by it's kind of hard to explain but like you set up a store at your house and then like people come by and if you have good enough prices they buy stuff and it's kind of hard to explain but you also like ride around on horses and do all that kind of stuff obviously but i played fallout shelter so by the way if you don't want to pay to go get a Fallout game you can just add it on your phone for free I will tell you this you'll be paying with your time though there is no more addictive game than Fallout Shelter if you want to learn everything about Fallout in about half an hour the quickest way you could without playing any of the games other than Fallout Shelter and without watching seasons like two seasons of the show the number one thing you would want to do is just install Fallout Shelter on your phone play it for half an hour and you'll get it you'll get that you've got a shelter, you have to make, it's a fully sustainable shelter, you have to make your, purify your own water with your water chip, you have to make all your own power, you have to grow all your own food, you have to have your own hospital, yada, yada, yada, it's basically, anyone who likes the theme of an apocalypse, like TNA, you know what I mean, like anything that, if you like apocalyptic stuff, like I do, you will love Fallout, I'm not telling you to go back and start with playing Fallout 1, that would be very dated at this point, but the other thing that makes me really, really love Fallout is the music, the soundtrack. So many great bands, so many great artists, so many people are featured in all the different video games over the years, and then you have the amazing art. I even have it up here. Let me take a little look-ski for a sec. So yeah, I had it up on here. This song, I'm going to play a little bit, but hopefully this is still connected. I guess we'll find out in about a millisecond. Okay, not Marty Robbins, who you're thinking of, formerly of, not Marty Robbins, formerly of Haggis Pinball, but Marty Robbins, and not Marty Robbins of currently the final round. He's on there, seems about once a year, we're getting to hear from there, which is nice to hear from Marty from time to time. Still would like to know the involvement with Haggis, but, you know, we'll probably never know. sounds like uh darian damien darian darian lake damien lake it sounds like damien of haggis is very litigious so i do understand why marty would be afraid to talk about it but here is one of the my favorite songs overall from the actual tv show this is called big irons now big irons for those of you who aren't country and western folks and iron is another name for your gun and your holster so here's marty robbins with big irons no one dared to ask his business no one dared to make a slip the stranger there a mountain head a big iron on his hip big iron on his hip big iron on his hip all right there you go marty robbins man so nostalgic such great music uh i love it now the song that you all know the song that we all love were basically the main lyrics or I don't want to set the world on fire. I just want to start a flame in your heart. Wow. Isn't that relevant for like the current state of politics and everything happening in the world? And again, I've worked very hard. If you're appreciative of the fact that I have not talked about politics for a full year now, please hit me up. Show me a tip. It's less than a dollar a week. Go to Patreon. Sorry, it's a dollar a week American and like a dollar 35 a week Canadian, something like that it's $4.99 unless you join on Apple don't join on Apple join directly on Patreon or through an iOS device but anyways here is an incredible song my probably my favorite song maybe not out of all the songs in the video games because the video games have I was just watching a top 25 songs in the video games and there's so many incredible artists that are played in the video games but this is actually from the show my favorite song from the show here it is this is the ink spots with I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire. And don't worry, I won't be singing, nerds. I don't want to set the world on fire. I just want to start a flame in your heart. Oh, man. Dear God, that song just pulls at my emotional heartstrings so much. You can hear the reverb. I guess it would be like the scratchiness of the record, because back then they had to record songs on records, obviously. And so it doesn't matter what it's transferred to, unless you were to use AI or a really, really good recording producer to get rid of that background fuzz. But I actually like it. I like how old tiny it is I like how slow it is I like how calm it is I said this years and years and years ago I know I'm pretty hyper so you're like yeah right Albert yeah right Orby yeah yeah you're just lying man what are you talking about bro but no I like calm relaxed I okay I don't like the calm relaxed crickets that you hear in the background from oh my god Frontier I do like the waves that you hear it's maybe one of my favorite background songs if you could call it that but when you play sea witch it's just the gentle sound of the waves in the background it's so relaxing it's so great every single time we play pinball do you have to hear loud screeching metallica iron maiden metal up your butt blah blah blah you know what i mean like master of puppets does it all have to be like alice cooper like does it all have to we don't have a single give Billie Eilish a pinball machine we don't have a single pop pinball machine yet she has one more song of the year titles than any musician in history she has what seven or eight full length records that have all done incredible so far people love her from all the way up to my age and older even my mother-in-law who's almost 70 I'm sorry Michelle if I got your age wrong but she loves Billie Eilish all the way down to I know kids who are like teenagers who love Billie Eilish and everyone in between probably the average age of her listeners like 30 to 40 at this point because she's been around for 15 years making incredible music or like 10 or maybe just seems longer because she's had so many incredible albums drop um Bird of a Feather was my favorite song from from I guess it would be a year and a half ago now because when it was released but because of how the Grammys work they only go from August to August to see which songs work but I've gone off topic Fallout is going to have an incredible soundtrack but most importantly it's going to have the eloin factor. I don't know if they're going to do the video games. I don't know if they're going to do the TV show. I don't care in this case which they do. I'm not nostalgic for either. Both of them are fairly like I mean I guess I'm kind of nostalgic for like the first Fallout game or maybe the app from 10 years ago. I'll tell you when I had the app I was waking up at like 5 a.m. to play the thing for an hour to make sure no raiders had stolen my stuff. It is very addictive so maybe just don't upload. If you have an addictive personality like me I will recommend that you just don't upload that pinball machine at all. But wow, the soundtrack from Fallout is for everybody. It's got a little bit of jazz, a little bit of blues, a little bit of folk, a little bit of rock. Like, it doesn't matter what type of music you love, you're going to love that soundtrack. And to me, my favorite soundtrack of any pinball machine so far was Game of Thrones. Winter is coming! No, it was Guardians of the Galaxy. And Guardians of the Galaxy had like some old songs on it, some new songs, some modern, some 80s, some, it had that really cool 1950s song. Now, I did have the upgraded sound kit that had like, I think it had songs on there that weren't officially in the game. But even the game itself has quite a big variety of fun songs. And when I was playing Guardians of the Galaxy, the reason I could play it hours in a row is because I never got sick of the music because there was like 10 different bands on it. Right? And that's the great thing about Fallout. It can have 8, 9, 10. Excuse me. Excuse me. Oh, dear lordy. No more coffee. It can have a lot of bands on it. Let me take a look here. I'm just going to read a couple of these other bands that are actually, yeah, songs. Songs from Fallout. So here we have, oh yeah, see, I can't see the artist until, let me mute this. Okay, so Nat King Cole. Nat King Cole is on there doing Orange Colored Sky. Where's the vocals, Nat? Let's go. All right, so if you don't love horns and you don't love brass and you're not a fan of trumpets, you might not like that song, but who doesn't like trumpets? Come on. All right, so the next song is Elliot Britt with Uranium Fever. That's a banger. Give me a break. Elliot Britt, that's a banger. The Ink Spots, we already heard them before. We've got Skeeter Davis. I mean, it's a lot of 1930s, 1940s, 1950s personality with the Pied Pipers. Wow, that's, oh God, that is incredible. Just sounds great. But there is other artists in here that you would know. The Ink Spots again, they use quite a few Ink Spots. Danny Kaye and the Andrews Sisters Let hear a second of that Through a magazine the missionary wife conceives Magazine What happens I see how people who are civilized bung you with automobiles. You know you can get hurt that way, Daniel? Damn, it's just, it's so good. Like, I, my wife was, for years, like, kind of like a pin-up. Like, she liked to dress in, like, the 1950s poodle dresses when she was going out and have her head back in, like, a hairband like that. and I was kind of like I hung out with a lot of dudes who were like kind of hipster greasers and stuff like that where we rolled up our jeans at the bottom I was more hipster than I was greaser but uh hey I put the wax in my hair for a couple years there and had the big sideburns so I really f with like that 1930s 1940s post-war pre pre-1970s before music went into like disco and stuff like that. I really F with that time of music. And I think that it's so calm and relaxing. It's great background music. And it's also very diversified, right? So Billie Holiday. Everyone loves Billie Holiday. Here's Easy Listenin' from Fallout 3. And also, they use a song, they love it so much, they used it in Fallout 4 as well. living for you. Damn, that voice. Okay, we can't listen to a lot of all the different songs. Ella Fitzgerald, you guys know her. Come on. Ella Fitzgerald. Gonna do. Now you wanna play. And then it's no. And when. Damn. Okay, Ella Fitzgerald. I can't play all of them. But you get the point. Dean Martin. Dean Martin is the very next one. Tell me quick, ain't that a kick in the head? Ain't that a kick in the head? Okay, sorry, no. Dean Martin's a billion times better singer than I, but wow. See? Louis Armstrong. Who doesn't like Louis Armstrong? A Kiss to Build a Dream On from Fallout 2. Damn! Did you guys hear that trumpet solo? All right, Peggy Lee. Bing Crosby. Obviously, he's more of a Christmas dude, or that's how we would know him. But this is Bing Crosby and the Andrew Sisters with Pistol Packin' Mama. Lay that pistol down, babe, I'm talking about Pistol Pete. No, I'm just kidding. Wait, isn't that Pinside Petey? Wasn't it just Jeff's birthday? Happy birthday to Jeff Teolis. All right, so next here we have the Tennessee Ernie Ford. I'm going to try not to play many of these songs moving forward. The Ink Spots again with Ella Fitzgerald. Sheldon Allman. I don't know a lot of these people. Bing Crosby and the Bobcats. Well, obviously I know Bing. Bing! Bing! All right, so I'm not going to play any more of that because, you know, it is what it is. It's good, but it's, yeah, it's good. It's great. And just the difference is we have nothing like it. There's 20 rock bands that have songs. Hell, we even have ABBA. we have a disco band that has songs we don't have any pop stars that have songs and we definitely have no bands with music like that so these a lot of these songs are yes coming up to being a hundred years old or already over a hundred years old so do you think it's going to be a lot easier to get the rights for them and a lot cheaper for stern sure and maybe three or four of them there's there you know there's so many songs to choose from just right there i played like a bit of like 10 different songs right so i am really really really stoked and excited for fallout not only because it's Elowen, not only because of the rad music, but I think Stern's got a little, like, if I were Stern, anyone who worked at Stern, really, other than maybe, like, the custodian and, like, the beaver lady or the, that's what we called them here in Canada, but, like, the people who work at the lunch lady land, if you will, okay, shout out to Adam Sandler, if you're, if you work at Stern and you're at all involved in, like, the, you know, the decision-making processes, let's say that you are probably have a little chip on your shoulder and you are seeing you know Beetlejuice sell out before it's even released you Stern wants some of that Stern wants to get back in the zeitgeist they want a big payday they want to keep the line running okay they want Fallout to be a hit and I think right around the time they would be designing Fallout is when they started to have three or four games in a row that weren't necessarily a hit so I think if and honestly, King Kong was Elowen's least beloved machine, which I don't know how that's possible. It's way better than Iron Maiden, in my humble opinion. Not humble opinion. But I can't wait for Fallout. I think there's multiple reasons why it's going to be incredible. That's why it's number two on my list. And number one on the list, y'all probably already knew it before I even said it, is Pokemon. You got to catch them all. Nah, you don't have to catch them all. Just the shinies. all right so recently i did hear on a pinball podcast someone was saying that like pokemon go is not played very much anymore uh the numbers are not released but according to the two ai sources that i asked pokemon go has uh is either number seven or number eight in the world for the number of monthly users still in the tens of millions very very few if any mobile games on planet Earth that came out more than like five years ago are still getting played. And then what's even more shocking is it's like number nine on the revenue. So out of all of the revenue, like you'd think it'd be a brand new game that people had to buy or one that came out in the last year or two. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's still within the top 10 for revenue. In fact, it's doing so well with revenue. A small to medium-sized company called Niantic, who ran it before sold it to a bigger company so my wife still plays pokemon go almost daily almost every like tons of june who is um june happy birthday to june by the way also and fundy and our fundy flippers pinball league her husband tom is the new brunswick rep shout out to tom for all the hard work you do with our tournaments and provincials and everything but june plays it almost every single tournament i see her playing now tournaments are often on saturdays and once a month we have a community day. I myself don't have enough room on my old stupid phone to upload it, but the second I get a new phone, I will be uploading it and getting my profile back, because according to the different calculators I've used, my profile is worth between $8,000 to $9,000 US, because I have so many rare Pokemon from years ago, and I can tell you this, if the company that bought it decides to monetize trading, oh my god, I will, I won't be a rich man, but I could trade my Pokemon Go account for a Pokemon Go new inbox stern. Wow. That would be incredible. Now, I did mention this behind the paywall on show 666. Probably my best pinball podcast ever. This isn't that good of one. I'm sorry, guys. Sometimes they're good, sometimes they're not. My last one, I had better notes. It was well thought out. I wasn't an hour and a half into creating content. You know what I mean? You're going to get tired. You know yourself four or five hours into working at work. I started working on my first show this morning at 8 a.m. It's now past noon. So I'm four hours into this. Can you hear my voice is straining? But I know that myself... Guys, I completely got lost there. I was distracted by a vehicle going by my house. This is a little bit off topic. I'm really sorry, guys. But there was a gentleman who went missing from my very small town on Thursday. And so helicopters have been going up and down, but I I hadn't seen that type of police vehicle before. So anyways, I wouldn't have been shocked if they pulled in the driveway to not necessarily ask me questions, but just turn around because we're at the top of the hill. But also I have heard they are going door to door. So to the gentleman who's lost and to all the people searching for him, all the volunteers, I wish you the best. But anyway, sorry about getting distracted. But Pokemon is not only the biggest brand in the world, but both my sons love it. My wife loves it. I love it. I've watched every single episode of the OG TV show, which I did as an adult and still enjoy them. I've gone back and played Pokemon Blue, Pokemon... I know I played Pokemon Blue and Pokemon Red. I don't remember which ones I played. I've gone back and played almost all the way through one of the games from Nintendo, Game Boy. And then I've gone back and played some of the other ones. Also for Nintendo Wii or Nintendo Switch, I had the new Pokemon Go game with the Lapras on front. I can't remember what that was called. But, like, you had to actually throw the ball with your hand. It was kind of cool, like, to catch the Pokemon. But to everyone out there thinking, oh, Pokemon's not for me and everything else, fine. That's totally fine. You don't have to be into it. But do me a favor. When you go to play it, just have an open mind. Because I poo-pooed Pokemon. That's right. This guy talking to you right now who loves Pokemon more than anything else on Earth other than his wife and children. Okay? And my friends. Come on. All my friends listening, I love you too more than Pokemon. But it's right up there. Like, if I had to choose between never buying another Pokemon card, or, like, watching Pokemon, or playing Pokemon Go, or discussing Pokemon my whole life, or craft beer, that would be a tough decision. Obviously, craft beer would win, but it'd be tough. Now, you're saying, like, eating meat? Nah, nah, nah, nah. I'm a meatitarian. I basically only eat meat. I tried a bite of a vegetable once. Someone snuck a little piece of lettuce onto one of my cheeseburgers, and I almost died, guys. I just, I can't eat vegetables. They make me deathly sick. I'm totally completely kidding. I've actually been eating really healthy this year, and I did not have fast food for an entire month. Hello. And then when I broke it, the fast food I had wasn't even that great. Don't you hate it when, like, you wait so long for something, and then you get it, and it's not as good as you remembered? I was like, now, I did have the Piri Piri chicken sandwich from A&W with the Piri Piri buddy burger. It was good, but you don't need to put spiciness on a burger to make it better. It did help the chicken. Anyways, watch out for that YouTube video coming soon. So Pokemon, I'm just so excited for. It's the biggest brand in the world. I'm interested to see how much it gets location play. I wouldn't be shocked if we hear people that do monthly or bi-monthly reports on how well the games do. I wouldn't be shocked if Pokemon was by far the best earner of all time. In fact, I'd be shocked if it didn't out-earn every game but maybe Harry Potter. And it's going to have the longest tail. This is not a Charizard joke, okay? this or salamance or all the other animals or pokemon that have tails this is going to have the longest tail of any pinball machine ever if it's done well and that's where the asterisk is the other reason why it's number one is because it's done by two of my favorite designers like gomez is like either my fourth or favorite designer that's a modern pinball at least anyways come on we can't kick out steve kirk like that but i would also say that i'm really excited about because Jack Danger started it and he makes the ball go and come out weird, different, interesting places. Stern needs a banger. I hope, I hope it is it. I did get invited to the media day. I am not going to the media day. Part of the reason I'm not going to the media day is unfortunately we've had eight snow days in the last about five weeks here in Nova Scotia. I mean, all of, all of North America is getting slammed with really cold wintry Carl Weathers. So it's not that surprising, but my wife does not get paid for her snow days. So let's say after taxes she brings $150 Canadian a day, which is like less than $100 American a day. We're out that times eight. So that's like 800 American or like 1,200 Canadian. Literally we're out in one month or like five weeks. So we are very, very, very poor. So that's just another reason why you should support me on my Patreon. Anyways, I can't wait for Pokemon. Another reason you should support me on Patreon is because on Thursday night, drop target danielle and i are going to do the wtf happened in the last month of bimball that's going to be fun i'm going to try to make that a live stream if i can figure it out between now and then if not it might be a video or audio i'm not sure but either way i'm going to put a link there come join me on patreon hopefully you enjoyed this episode i had a great time i do want to say there was some podcaster drama uh two weeks ago a particular podcaster asked me to take out a show about him from behind the paywall so i did so hopefully moving forward there will be no drama Okay? I don't want, I don't want any, I haven't said anything negative or rude about any other content creators in over a year now. I don't want to like, okay, maybe six months, but I just, I don't want to be part of that. I love pinball. I love talking about pinball. I love Pokemon. I love Fallout. I love Goonies. I love Sonic. I love Transformers. I love being done my show for the day. Other than making dinner and maybe doing a load of dishes, I get to go chill today. Hopefully they find that dude. It's just really, it's actually been kind of sad since Thursday, just seeing helicopters constantly and everything. Hopefully they find him. Hopefully he's okay. I don't know. Maybe he just ran away. But like he disappeared from his house. They found his cell phone, his keys, his wallet, and his car. And they couldn't find any tracks leaving it from his house in three feet of snow. But it was very windy and snowy that day. So they could have been covered very quickly. But the point is, man, if I find out that people are being like, is it kidnapped when you're not a kid? If people are being like taken hostage or I don't know, just murdered, like in my town that's scary I'm just sitting here like chilling doing a podcast like I don't know anyways hopefully they find him I don't want to think too much about myself anyways sometimes life gets to you in real spots and you're just like man like who cares about pinball like people are going missing in my town it's it's weird I live in such a small village it's very like weird weird to think someone less than two kilometers from my house like a mile from my house just up and went missing while I was sitting here two blocks away. It's wild. Anyways, hopefully they find him. It's been three or four days of it being minus 20, so if he was outside, unless this man knows how to build fires real well, real quick with cold, frozen wood, it's going to be tough. But hopefully they find him. Hopefully he's okay. Hopefully you're okay and you're getting through January. I know it's kind of a rough time. Anyways, Pinball Nerds, Until next time, remember to eat, sleep, and breathe Pokemon Pinball.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: f3c1ad50-349c-4a36-b864-17cc6e356733*