Welcome everybody. It is going to be a crazy, crazy week in pinball. We are going to get in this one week Transformers from the 1980s and people are most likely going to see some Sonic the Freaking Hedgehog from the early 90s. The Sega Sonic the Hedgehog game, not the movie, the video game that we all know and love. It's all going to happen this week. Stern is going to show Transformers to the distributors and dealers tomorrow. The media day is Wednesday and we've already seen the entire game. We're going to maybe get some sneak peek at Sonic for some people. I can't make it out to anywhere. I can't go. I can't travel. For some reason, these pinball companies think it's easy for those of us with other jobs to take vacation days, get on a plane and see these pinball machines. Not only that, you know, they don't pay for travel anymore. And so I just don't have the time to dedicate to this in the middle of the work week. If they did it on a Thursday or Friday, actually Friday would be the ideal day where most of us could probably get away, fly out early in the morning, see the game and then fly back early Saturday morning. That would be the ideal. So if you're listening Pinball Company, the worst time to ask people to go is in the middle of the week, in the middle of the work week. And let me ask you guys a question. Do you actually think that these YouTubers are paying for their travel to Stern? Do you actually think they're paying out of their own pocket? Or do you think maybe Stern is paying for some of those people to go, but not the Pinball media? All right, so we're going to see Transformers. We know now that Optimus Prime does not move or do anything at all. We know that Stan Bush's The Touch is not in the game at all. I also don't see Bumblebee anywhere. Bumblebee is based on a Volkswagen bug. And are we going to get one of these Jurassic Park Jeep issues where Stern doesn't want to license the Volkswagen bug? Are we going to get some generic looking Bumblebee? I don't know. Now, Bumblebee is a major part of the cartoon. I'm not seeing him anywhere on the artwork, but I think he's probably going to be on the screen and in some of those pivotal moments because he does appear in so many of the pivotal scenes in the Transformers TV show. So, look, even though Optimus is a huge disappointment, and I do think that Optimus Prime transforming was the major mechanism that everybody was hearing was going to blow us away. I don't think it was Megatron. I think it was Optimus. I also just think Transformers, the sum of its parts. I think Soundwave and Megatron and Optimus are going to look really big and really impressive under the glass. They're not flat plastics. I hear they look just like toys from the 1980s. So look, I am excited to see this game. I think when you get the Peter Cullen call outs and you've got the left side of the machine is the Autobots and the right side is the Decepticons. And the shot layout looks really, really interesting in this game. I think it's going to be a good game. I really do. I really think Transformers is going to be one of the better Stern machines we've seen in a very long time. The only issue is this. You've got all these thousands of people that just got burned on a barren Pokemon that are waiting for this game to wake up. And before their Pokemon has even become anything decent, you've served up the next game. I mean, imagine being in a restaurant and you ordered a very expensive meal and your meal comes out and it's not fully cooked. And then you look over to the table next to you. Someone who came in after you ordered a similar meal and their meal came with more on the plate and it was better prepared. You'd be disappointed. And I just think that's where I'm at. I think a lot of Stern buyers are just feeling disappointed. And seeing 32 Pokemon LEs for sale on Pinside alone, that's just Pinside people. There's more on eBay. There's more in other places. There are so many people that bought this game to scalp it. I think the same thing will happen with Transformers. I encourage each and every one of you to remember this that selling through does not mean it sold out that this game is not going to sell out it going to sell through And if you just wait a week, I mean this, don't think that this game is going to be impossible to get. Remember, because there's going to be a gap between Stern revealing the game this week and when the LEs are on the line, and that gap might be like a month or two. It took a long time to get these Pokemon LEs on the line. There's part shortages all over the world. And so by the time the order banks open up and the time those LEs go on the line, a lot can happen. A lot can happen to the marketplace. A lot can happen to Pinball. And trust me when I say this, the other thing that's going to happen is Sonic the Hedgehog will be revealed to the world before your Stern Transformers LE is even on the line. And when that happens, it's absolutely going to eat away at the demand for Transformers and the price of these games. I don't think there's any other way around saying the following. The world is significantly overpriced. Everywhere you go, it is just bad. We went out last night for my friends. We went out and we just got a few drinks and all of a sudden the initial bill, $100 for the first round of drinks, $100 for the first round of drinks for four men. That is insane. You add up some lobster rolls, you add up this, you add up that. All of a sudden you're just trying to go outside. You're trying to have a little late snack lunch during this beautiful weather day and then you're spending hundreds of dollars. I just don't get it anymore. I really don't get it. I feel like everyone just wants to throw their hands up in the air and be like, all right, I guess we just have to make significantly more money. Here's what I think is happening to a lot of people. Spending money on things that used to bring you extraordinary happiness is no longer bringing you that happiness. So spending $13,000 on Stern LEs used to make you happy, but I don't think it's making you happy anymore. And if you've been buying $13,000 Stern LEs over the years, you absolutely are not happy because everything just loses and loses and loses. Like the only smart buy when you look at the three-tier model over at Stern is the pro edition of the game is holding value the best. And that's the opposite of what is supposed to be happening with this three tiered model. So my encouragement to each and every one of you is this. Enjoy the Transformer launch. Get excited. But I wouldn't buy anything. I would wait two months and not buy anything. And then we're going to get in a month and we're going to hear about it this week. Sonic the Hedgehog from Steve Ritchie. So I gave everybody exclusive information about the Sonic the Hedgehog playfield. I'm looking at it right now. It's got Sonic on one side and Shadow on the other. It's got all these inserts. It's a total fan layout. We got Dr. Robotnik up the middle. It looks like a Pokemon battle arena where there's maybe going to be a magnet underneath him that fires the ball into different targets. There's like nine shots or so going across in a fan layout. This game's going to be all about speed. It's going to be classic Steve Ritchie fan layout. Not sure if there's even a third flipper in this game. And then there's definitely going to be some sort of mechanism or upper play field in the upper left and maybe in the upper right of the game. There's two areas there where there's absolutely no artwork. That means something's going to sit there. It's either going to go up or it's going to be a mechanism where you don't need any artwork underneath it. So super excited. This game is going to be amazing. I just know it like we just know it. We know that Steve Ritchie, we know that Steve Ritchie wants to prove something over at Jersey Jack. We know that Jersey Jack is giving him everything he needs. And I just love seeing the colorful theme of Sonic the Hedgehog. It's so adorable. It's so cute. And it's going to have everything we love about a Steve Ritchie gameplay mixed with a license that we love done the right way. I mean, once we see on that big screen the Sega logo and that Sega chime, it's going to like just bring you right into that world of Sonic the Hedgehog that everybody loves. I don't know how you don't love Sonic the Hedgehog and Pinball is the perfect thing for Sonic because he is like a pinball. He literally spins into a ball and flies around, does loop-de-loops. We definitely need a loop-de-loop. We definitely need that. I also think we need something where he goes like up like straight up like up a buck and that like collecting coins Imagine if there like a mid spinner or something super cool like that I think we need something like that where he gets fired from below the play field up into like a wire form and loops around and it collecting that sound of the coins It going to be super awesome And so I think this week trust me you going to start to get some word of mouth on what Sonic the Hedgehog is all about Are you feeling like that's enough pinball news for a week? Well, we got even more. Circus Voltaire, the Ringmaster Edition. And details are starting to come out on this game from American Pinball. There is going to be 772, I think it is, ringmaster versions of this game. Why 772? Is it 772 or 774? I think it's 772. Not exactly sure what that number stands for. It's going to have Brian Allen on artwork. It has like some other sculpts, a topper. It's going to have some like LCD screen. It's going to have all the bells and whistles and the magic glass. So the big question will be, well, how much is it going to be? Now, Circus Voltaire back in the day only had like a little over 2000 units were made. So there's not many of them out there. It is a stunning game. I'm just feeling like and I don't know, maybe this is just me. I'm just feeling like the pinball buying community is very overwhelmed right now with the amount of stuff happening. Think about it. There are still there are still almost 800 people that are waiting on their Beetlejuices. There are another like three, four hundred people waiting on their Winchesters. There's people waiting on Dune. There's people waiting for their Harry Potters. There's people that just bought Pokemon. There's people that are waiting for their Walking Dead code to get updated. There's just so many people right now have absorbed a new game. And, you know, and here's the craziest part about all of what I've been talking about in pinball. You know what I keep hearing? That the greatest pinball thing happening right now, the greatest coded game right now, because Ray Day crushed it, is Star Wars Fall of the Empire. I almost like hesitate to say this, but if you want to go buy a pin right now and have the most pinball fun, I think it's Star Wars Fall of the Empire. Go get a used version of that game. And I'm hearing that the code in the game now is just one of the best coded machines of all time. And unfortunately, we all moved on from that game because unfortunately, like so many of these Stern launches, the games don't launch right. They're empty. They're not there yet. I also still think that the Star Wars play field artwork is atrocious and nothing mechanically in the game is that special. That's special, but what's special mechanically in Pokemon, right? We're looking at a game like Pokemon and we're saying code is going to be the one thing that saves Pokemon. Well, it seems like the only hope, the only hope for Star Wars was code that is just insanely good. And I am hearing from so many people that Star Wars Fall of the Empire has insanely good code. And this is the other learning for everybody. So now if you want to go get a Star Wars Fall of the Empire LE, you can get one for like 10 grand. Saved yourself $3,000 or more. Same with the premiums. You don't have to spend $9,800 anymore. I bet you could get $8,000 on the table. We'll get you a Star Wars Fall of the Empire premium. A lot of these dealers, remember, they're stocking up this inventory. They got to get rid of it. And if you just call them up, I bet you can get a lot of these games at cost because they just got to move on. Because think about it. All these dealers and distros now have to place orders for Sonic. They have to place orders for Transformers. It's a lot, man. We talk about us being overwhelmed. Can you imagine being a dealer right now? Where do you invest your money? You know that you're not going to find buyers for all of these games. And if more and more of these boutiques like Spooky start selling more games directly, if Jersey Jack sells more direct games, it's got to be hard as a dealer now and absorb all of these launches one after another. I'm feeling it, baby. I'm feeling excited and overwhelmed at the same time. I do think overall this hobby needs to slow down a little bit. These companies probably need to meet up. I mean this. There almost needs to be like a meeting of the five major pinball companies. Who would be at that table? It would be Stern Pinball, Jersey Jack Pinball, and Spooky Pinball. Definitely those three. Then if we were to look at right now, the next two companies that you would invite would have to be barrels of fun. And after that, I would struggle. It's not CGC. Is it Pedretti Gaming? Is it Pinball Brothers? I mean people are starting to say now that Predator has been done They made their last Predator We not hearing anything else from the Pinball Brothers Are they in trouble I don know I don really know what going on with so many of these other companies I do know that the new rumors are that John Borg is working on an Ozzy Osbourne Pinball machine that going to come out around Expo So does that mean we're also going to get Keith Elwin's fallout before then? Again, it's just too much. It's way too much in one year. It's like all these companies are pushing all their chips onto the table and who's buying all these games? Again, maybe it's just me that's feeling overwhelmed. Maybe it's because I've got two expensive vacations coming up, but I just don't feel this like urgency to throw money at all of these pinball machines anymore. And unless something is truly magical and checks every single box, I don't know. You know, for me personally, looking at everything coming out this year, I think the one thing that I definitely want to buy and definitely want to buy it right away, because the wait for this one is going to be long for everybody, is a Back to the Future SLE. I want to buy that game. And I know that that game's probably going to cost me around $20,000 or more just to get it at cost. Like if you're Barry and you're making 88 SLEs easily, I think that price tag is going to be $20,000. I mean, heck, these dudes want to charge $27,000 for Resident Evil. And this is back to the freaking future, baby. So look, I think back to the future in a one pin household like mine, where maybe two at most, I think having just like a grail game like that might be what ends up in this household. I know people out there are like Kaneda. I reached out to Melissa. Yes, get on her list. Just do that. Get on her list for a back to the future. There's only so much anybody can do. It's going to be hard to get your hands on a back to the future SLE. I think there might be some sort of lottery system to get one. They're not going to make people make videos like Stern did for Batman SLE. But the pinball market is so much different now. When Stern did a $15,000 SLE, everybody got mad and it was still kind of easy to get one. It really was like even after it came out, people were selling that game for like $16,000, $17,000. Nowadays, all bets are off. The whole market is stupid. The car market is stupid. The watch market is stupid. I think all of us, I mean this when it comes to it, we've overvalued all of these material toys out there in the world. I guess everyone's just so bored. Everybody has so much money. And instead of putting their faith in things that are more meaningful, we're putting such an inordinate amount of faith in material goods left and right. And the Internet is set up so you can flex. And I'm here to tell you right now, none of it matters, man. None of it matters. You get rid of all these expensive items. You bury your feet in the sand with a cold beer in your hand in a beautiful place next to a beautiful family of yours. And you don't want to spend 15 grand anymore on something that has you staring down in a more isolated way. I mean that. I mean that. And that's me saying that right now because the sun's coming in through the window. And I'm thinking about all the pinball excitement about to happen this week. And even if you just want to buy two of the games, if you just want to buy the two games coming out or the two games people are going to see this week, you've got $15,000 for Sonic and you've got $13,000 for Transformers LE. And so, yeah, just two pinball machines are going to set you back $28,000 and both of them aren't even going to hold value. It's crazy. It's crazy. But look, I think they're both going to be great games. And my advice to everybody out there is just be patient. Watch what happens. I think the new MO is once a game is revealed, if you wait two months, unless it's some crazy, crazy limited Winchester kind of game. If you wait two months, you'll be able to march in and get everything for a little bit less money because there's just so much out there. We're not even talking about the hundreds of thousands of pinball machines that are probably up for sale as people need to make room for the new stuff. Everybody, happy Monday. It's going to be a crazy week in pinball and I can't wait to cover it. A lot of stuff is going to happen and I can't wait to share my opinions. Kaneda out.