stern to reveal 60th anniversary james bond pinball brothers and pedretti gaming for muro pinball management changes at stern spooky announces scoopy do hi Sorry Hi my name is Jonathan Jonathan Euston I'm the editor of Pinball News Are you? Yeah I am And I'm coming off a terrible flu period So I try to limit my So I'm trying to limit my talking because I'm short-breathed and coughing a lot. Oh, dear. Okay. Well, we hope Jonathan manages to make it through this particular pin cast, but welcome, everybody, to this very first pin cast for 2023, where we're looking back on the pinball events that happened last month in the end of 2022 through December. Yes, and, well, you might notice I'm a little short-breathed, and, well, I'm coming off a terrible flu, lots of coughing, so I try to limit my speech, which is a good thing, I suppose. Well, yes, in a way. So we leave it to the expert, Martin. Well, unfortunately, I've actually been taking my eye off the ball a little recently because I'm on holiday at the moment, celebrating New Year in a nice converted barn in Devon in the southwest of the UK. Okay, but despite that, we've actually been collaborating and working through all the news. We did our homework, so we got the news for you. Yeah, yeah, we got it, we got it. Yeah, so anyway, let's not waste any more time. There was actually, surprisingly enough, for December, a lot of news. It started off with Spooky announcing Scooby-Doo right the day after our previous episode. But we'll get into that later, but just so you know, we're getting there. And we don't control the news. And in fact, speaking of news coming out the day after we record or launch our episodes, CERN Pimble is revealing the new James Bond 60th anniversary game tomorrow. Indeed, yes. We're recording this on the 2nd of January and on the 3rd at a CES Consumer Electronics Show event, related event, I should say, in Las Vegas. They are supposed to be revealing the 60th anniversary version of James Bond 007, which is the single-level game designed by Keith Elwin. one which is limited to 500 machines and was absent, notably absent, when they revealed the Pro, the Premium and the Limited Edition versions of James Bond back in, when would it have been, November, I think, isn't it? Yeah, something like that. No, they were at Expo, so October. Oh, that's true, yeah. It would have been the beginning of October, yeah, a long time ago. So anyway, looking at about three months later. Yeah, but this game will cover the entire spectrum of James Bond films, including all six actors that portrayed James Bond. Right. And it's going to be, as I said, limited to, I think, 500 machines globally. they are going to well, it's a suggestion that they will be selling them directly to people who are members of the paid version, the all access members of the insider exactly it's hard to know insider connected and all access members and insider with the score tracking and stuff anyway, yes If you are a paid member of the all-access system, then you are supposed to be able to order it through their website from, I think, 9 o'clock Central Time tomorrow. Yeah. Now, it's a Keith Elwin game, so that's probably a good gamble because, obviously, we haven't seen the game. We don't know what the play is like. And by the time you get to order it, you still don't. No. And we kind of assumed that with only 500 available, it will sell out almost immediately. But then there's the issue of pricing, because no pricing has been announced either so far. So you don't know what it looks like, you don't know what it costs. But you can order it, apparently. Yeah. But the interesting thing with the pricing is there have been rumors that there would be a similar strategy used by Stern as they did with Beatles, where distributors had to buy a lot of 10 games for a fixed price, but they were free to set the price on individual games that they would sell. So they had to buy 10 games, 7 of one model, 2 of the other model, and one of the most expensive models in the Beatles range. Yes. And they were free to set their own pricing, which resulted in quite a lot of distributors still being stuck with Beatles games. Yes, that's right. There's still plenty of them around. They were limited to, what, 1660, 16... 1964. Yes. 1964. And I don't think they even produced that many games. No, almost certainly not. No, that was the total across all different versions of the game. Yeah. But, yes, there's still plenty of the gold ones around. I see those coming up for sale regularly, new in box from various distributors. So, anyway, we're talking about James Bond now. And so this is going to be the 60th anniversary of the edition. and it's going to be announced at a CES Unveiled event at the Mandalay Bay. And also the game will then be available at Showstoppers at CES, which is on January 5th, being held at the Bellagio in Las Vegas as well. And that's also the first public day of CES. Right. The third is only a press-only event. okay so um obviously we'll be covering that in next month's um pincast but if you want to find out more i'm sure there'll be plenty uh on uh right about it on our various websites like pinballnews.com for example which i find it to be a very very reliable source for pinball news oh it's nice to think that and um pinball magazine i'm sure we'll be covering it too on the website and in the newsletter, the monthly newsletter, which will go out at some point during the month. Yeah, probably wait a couple of days to include all the news on the James Bond game. So don't hold your breath for that one. Okay, so that's one of our headlines from Stern. And we do have another Stern-related headline. Yeah, let's finish all the Stern business right away. Yeah, because one of the big news items from Stern before this most recent announcement was one about changes to the management at Stern Pinball. And normally changes to management of a company is pretty boring stuff for most people in the industry. And this may also be if we're not that interested in what's happening at Stern. But the takeaway headline is, I suppose, that Gary Stern is stepping down as chief executive officer. What? Yeah, he's retaining his role as president of the board, but his position, his former position as CEO is being taken over by Seth Davis. Well, we knew that was coming. Yeah, Seth is the president of the company. Yeah, and he was supposed to replace Gary at some point. So I suppose the surprise is that it's already happening now. Yeah. It already happened. Basically, one year since he was made president of the company, brought in as president of the company, he now takes over the CEO role as well. Now, Gary is not the only one giving up one of his roles. No, actually, well, we knew that Gary would be stepping down at one point, but what I found more shocking was that, I suppose you could call this his right hand for almost 36 years. Shelley Sachs Eldridge is also retiring. Yes, he is indeed. Yep, yep. And also, well, anybody who's had any dealings with Stern over the years will know Shelley very well. She's one of the founders, really, of the company, along with Joe Kamikau and Gary. And a wonderful person. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, very, very, very kind and personable. But also stepping down is Michael O'Donnell, who's the company's chief financial officer. he's been there for almost as long as Shelly has so it's kind of like the old guard Gary, Shelly, Michael all stepping down at the same time which I guess allows new people to come in or in the case of Michael O'Donnell there's a guy called Nick Parfit taking over and he has a lot of experience in financial dealings. I hope so. You're not going to leave it to a rookie, right? No, quite. And is highly qualified in a number of financial disciplines. So I'm sure he's going to bring a breath of fresh air to the finances of the company. And Michael is also a large shareholder and he remains on the board of the company as well. Yeah, as does Gary and also, of course, Dave Peterson, who is the vice chairman of the board. He's staying there as well. He's not going anywhere. He's, of course, one of the major shareholders. So Gary and Dave, between them, I think, are the controlling shareholders. But as you say, Michael O'Donnell, also a large shareholder and remains with the company in that regard. Right. Now, you did raise an interesting question in our pre-talk that we had before we started recording this. As we have discussed earlier on in previous episodes, Stern will be moving. And you were wondering whether Gary will have an office in the new building. Yes, well I was wondering whether that might be the time that Gary completes his release of official positions within the company whether, you know, obviously he has an office in the current factory but in October they will be moving to a new building still in Elk Grove Village but in a different part and that would seem to be a good time to have a bit of a shake-up as to who in the management team has offices there. And who gets the best office and the biggest one. Yeah, who gets the corner one. Yeah. The penthouse one. Yeah, just musing there. But we'll see come October exactly who is where in the factory. Right. So, yeah, but there's more stern news. Lots of stern news, really. It's difficult to know where to pick up. Well, you did your homework. You found some very interesting news about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Yeah, there's a sort of new pack. We've seen these box sets released before. and this was a Shredder's Revenge green or black vinyl album or CD which has been produced by Kid Cantana Records and it features cover artwork or CD artwork as an illustrated booklet which is eight large pages for the album or 12 smaller pages for the CD all done by our good friend Zombie Yeti, using similar artwork to that in the game for Stern. So Shredder's Revenge, in case you're wondering, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Shredder's Revenge, is a video beat-em-up game, and this is the official soundtrack album. Okay, but it doesn't contain any music from the pinball game? It's not released to the pinball wonderer, other than the artwork from Zombie Yeti, But for completists and those who may want to have their full display of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles items, memorabilia, around their game, this seems like a good thing to purchase. Right. So Stern also did release a Rush package of some sort. Quickly trying to look it up. Yeah, they did the Rush Pinball Treasure Chest. Yeah, exactly. 300 units of them, but raise some eyebrows at the pricing of those, which was basically $500 of $199.99. That's a bargain. Why so cheap? Well, don't say that. Well, the next one will be $1,000. But this contains autographed trading cards of Geddy Lee and Alex Alex Lifeson, as well as Rush 3D vinyl, which is the album art. 3D vinyl? Vinyl's always 3D. It's a flat dip. Not the album art. This isn't the record. This is the album. It's a kind of embossed 3D effect for the Rush Hemispheres album. An exclusive T-shirt, hat, keychain and magnet, all contained in a special box with art from the Rush pinball machine. So there you go. They haven't already sold out, and I doubt that they have, but they will be very popular with Rush fans. All 300 of them. Yeah, that's right. Well, if there were exactly 300, they would have sold out. Then go over to Stern Pinball's website and you can see if they're still available through their shop. Yeah. So that was another thing from Stern Pinball. And I'm trying to think. Oh, yes, of course. some sad news was the death was announced of Dean Grover and that was announced by his family he lived in Colorado and had unfortunately been ill for a while but he may not be a well known name to a lot of people outside the business but he worked at Williams Valley on code in the 1990s and worked more recently doing a similar job at Stern where he coded the Beatles and Spider-Man Home Edition as well as some of the other games and writing some of the base operating system code. So sadly missed. A very talented guy and not, I don't think, but commiserations to his family anyway. So Dean Grover is sadly no longer with us. Yeah, so sad to hear that. So my condolences as well. I understand George Gomez has been interviewed. Yes, by Joel Engelberth of the Just Another Pinball interview podcast or video, whatever you want to call it. It's on YouTube. He also does shows on the Pinball Network. And what was the news from there? Well, quite a few interesting tidbits. George informed us that Stern is sticking with the two Cornerstone games instead of three for 2023 for this year And he already revealed Except for the backlog. Yeah, he already revealed which design teams are doing these games. The first one being Brian Eddy and Dwight Sullivan, with artwork by, I'm not sure if you're familiar with this guy, Zombie Yeti. Hmm, sounds familiar. Yeah, and the second game is designed by Jack Danger with Tanya Klyson software and artwork by Zombie Yeti. Oh, him. Yeah, you've heard of him? So it looks like Zombie Yeti has become the in-house stern artist, so to speak, with his artwork being used on treasure chests and two upcoming games. Well, yeah, okay. That's two games to look forward to. Any suggestions of what those titles might be? Well, I haven't seen any suggestions for the… Brian Eddy game. Brian Eddy game, sorry. Thank you. Yes. although there have been quite a few names being rumored, Jaws one of them, Back to the Future for the Jack Danger game Foo Fighters is being mentioned now these are all rumors and we don't know whether it's true or not Zombie Yeti, that artist that I just mentioned that we never heard of before, oh no we did sorry Jeremy but But, no, he did some tour posters for the Foo Fighters as well, which makes it, well, basically you can tie him to either Brian Eddy or Jack Danger. If either of these would be doing Foo Fighters, then Zombie Eddy seems like a logical choice for artwork. But then again, it could be different themes as well. Yeah, okay. So just those two Cornerstone games in 2023, but maybe some other studio games or home editions or other games. James Bond's 60th anniversary is also coming out tomorrow. So it's not a Cornerstone, but it's still a new title. Yeah, it's true. Although it has been announced before, but it hasn't been revealed until now. So is that announced? Is that a 2023 game? Yeah. Well, we haven't seen it yet, so... Yes, we don't know when it can be available either, given the backlog on buying new games. Yeah, well, you never know these days. I mean, with every manufacturer, if you're not one of the first to order, then you're waiting a year. That's about right, yeah, at least. In some cases, even longer. but we'll get on to that later with some of the other companies yeah, don't get me started but also while we're here a couple of bits of new code oh god yes, I know, everyone loves new code well almost everyone loves new code Mandalorian got some new code on the 15th of December very limited really just to one of the achievements that was meant to be added before. It didn't work, but it does now. There's a little bit more code for the topper, which has a Beskar meter, which used to reset when you powered the game off. It doesn't now. And I think it's just another adjustment for the topper about the colouring of the lights. So nothing exciting there. And James Bond 007, of course, getting new code, version 0.8. on the 22nd of December, which had a lot of rule changes. Obviously, people are complaining that it's all... Yeah, probably complaining, it's fair to say, that it's still got such early code on it for a release. Well, version 0.8 came out as an update from version 0.7, and people were expecting a lot of improvements as it heads towards version 1, and were a bit disappointed, I think, that not that much was really added, and it's still a long way from being ready. People are saying it's more like version 0.72 than version 0.8, but there were a lot of rule changes and bug fixes and tweaks, every one of which is detailed on Pat Sturm's website if you want to go to the code section there and read it, but overall not that much added and lots more to do. so that's all we're going to get on to for the code section from Stern for this month ok so I guess that rhymes it up for Stern Pinball but plenty of news and of course we'll be covering the review of James Bond 60th anniversary tomorrow and for that you can visit either pinballnews.com or pinball-magazine.com absolutely well done ok let's move on then to our second headline which regards Pinball Brothers and Pedretti Gaming. Pinball Brothers put out an end-of-year newsletter which said that they've intensified their ties with Pedretti Gaming, who manufacture their Alien games and the Queen games as well. Pedretti Gaming, of course, based in Italy. And they said that Pedretti are moving to a bigger facility to increase the capacity of both alien and queen models, and saying that right now, Vajretti is churning out up to 100 machines a month. Which is impressive, I should say. Yes. For a company that started building PIM machines less than two years ago, I think. Yes, so they're probably putting out, what, about four a day, I suppose, at that rate. Three or four a day. But that was just only the start. probably the more interesting news came later yeah well actually I already knew but go on yeah well they then announced that they had formed a new company with Pedretti called Euro Pinball Corp and which will then be the medium through which they manufacture and sell the pinball machines now it's not clear whether this is the branding that's going to be on future machines. If you buy an Alien in a year's time, it's not going to say pinball, but it's going to say Euro pinball. And same with Queen, or those company names staying. But that's, I'm not sure whether it's really just a sort of an organisational change to set up a joint company. Because, of course, Pedretti Gaming, as we know, do a lot more than just make games for Pinball Brothers they do toppers as well which we get to in a second yeah they do the kits the conversion kits as well and non-Pinball titles as well and they manufacture spare parts for Williams games and have also very toppers and accessories for Williams titles that you don't see that often but they do have them and they do make them so we'll have to see what exactly how Euro Pinball ends up being used whether it's a brand that is customer facing or just as far as their distributors are concerned that's who they all are through now but anyway they obviously tightening up their relationship with Podresi both by moving to a larger production facility and forming this new company. Right, yeah. Yeah, so it's sort of like Pedretti and Pinball Brothers are merging. It's just not clear on which levels. Yeah. Okay. Also in this end-of-year newsletter, they also said of the Queen game, the pre-orders are through the roof, and we are building the first machines to be shipped in a few days. Well, I think they've actually started shipping those now. and it says the estimated weight if you order one right now is about Easter 2023 so that's looking at about three well four months I suppose April I think so January, February, March, April so three to four months shall we say which is very short people so if you order a different game yeah good point we are just dividing the second bunch of games amongst their distributors the first Queen Rhapsody edition games are shipping to buyers now looking at pictures of those machines as they've arrived at either distributors or customers there's certainly been some changes to the play field compared to what we saw earlier and what we saw at Expo as well Jonathan the Wembley Stadium model has changed quite radically and it was pretty basic before and i think it's just a 3d printed almost like a stand-in model but it's it's now a little more detailed but it seems to be still just white and sort of unpainted or it looks unfinished i know when when we stayed in was famously white but you think you could put some shading or something on it as well to make it look more like something that somebody's put some paint onto. Right. But is it smaller? No, it's bigger. Oh, my God. I thought it was already very eye-catching and way too big for my taste, I would say, when I saw the game. I'd say it's bigger. It almost goes all the way over to the left-hand edge of the play field. but it's not as imposing as it was before in that way. The central area is much more prominent, a bit over the ramp, but the rest of it, while it's there, doesn't dominate as much as the prototype model. Bimble Brothers also said that there will be a third game announcement, their third game announced in 2023. Okay, but this can just be an announcement to the last day of the year. It could be, yeah. Yeah. And other than that, I think there was just some code updates, which I know you've been itching to hear about. Oh, please. There's some new Alien code, version 3.1, which came out on the 16th of December, which I'm not going to go into the detail of because there's an awful lot of things there that have changed. But most of them are fairly minor. You do need new firmware code as well installed at the same time. So not only is there the new software, there's also new firmware for some of the operating system which also needs to be updated. and for the limited version owners of Alien, there are a couple of extra things such as improved switching of the shaker at the start of the game and drivers for the beacons as well, a bit more interesting. And they said that they're going to do stage flippers on the limited version with the new firmware, which I have to admit I didn't know didn't exist before, but now it does. So you'll be able to operate the upper and lower flippers, not entirely independently, but do be able to operate them. The main flippers first and then the upper flippers with a further press of the flipper buttons in the new code. So if you haven't got that already and you have a limited version of the game, you should certainly get that installed. Right, okay. And I suppose that rounds it up for Pinball Brothers, but not for Pedretti Gaming. No, carry on. Well, I think we mentioned it in our last podcast. We had seen the prototype of the topper for Funhaus 2.0. Yes, indeed. At the Dutch Pinball Open. and I think the day after I sent out my newsletter in December, that topper was officially announced. Right, okay. And how much is that? For a topper, it's ridiculously cheap. It's 420 euros plus VAT, which is usually 21% or so. So I think you're looking at something like 450 from the top of my head, something like that. And it's a static topper with three figures from the game, including Rudy, and LEDs to make it appear or to light it up in sync with various game modes. So that was announced, and I'm not sure how the response exactly was. some people were a little bit disappointed that it was a static topper, considering that Rudy is, on the game, the head is completely mechanical, or at least, what, the eyes move and the jaw as well. And the mouth move, yeah. Yeah. But it's not an ugly topper. No, I'm sure we'll have some very nice lighting effects on it as well. Yeah. So, yeah, I think it's a nice enhancement to your game. As you say, for that kind of price, when toppers are going for up to US$2,000. I think the topper also is limited to 200 units or so. So that is rather limited. And you can see once they're gone, pricing will go up. Yeah, so I'm just wondering where people would get that if they wanted it. I guess the same place they got their Funhouse 2.0 kit from. Yeah, Pedretti has their own distributors. If you look up their Facebook page, I think there's a link to various distributors over there. Okay, very good. Right, so we're going to move on to our fourth headline of December 2022. Fourth, oh yeah. Yeah, I know. It was that busy. We had four headlines. And as you mentioned at the very start, at the beginning of the month, straight after our last Pincast, there was the announcement by Spooky Pimple of their next game. Yeah. Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? Yeah, which... Which I was saying to the press release, Where Are You? because I didn't see any. No, the title always strikes me as weird because it asks a question, but the name of the game doesn't end with a question mark. It ends with an exclamation mark. So Scooby-Doo, where are you? No question. Initially, as I was mentioning, for those who are into such trivia, the Scooby-Doo back glass that was featured in the teaser didn't have a hyphen between Scooby and Doo, but then... Oh, my God, what a grammar. Yeah, but... He's such a nerd. It has done, as it should do. Yes, Scooby-Doo is hyphenated. And Where Are You is also the name of the game, too. So, anyway, there are... Three editions? I should say, in a familiar range of versions, three editions. A collector's edition, bloodsucker edition, and standard edition. Which is the cheapest. Yes, the prices were 9,769. Note the 69 on the end. That will come up again later. We'll be doing questions about that. And so 9,769. For the collector's edition? For the collector's edition. Plus sucker edition was 1,000 cheaper at 8,769. standard edition was a thousand cheaper than that seven seven six nine right um and now these these games required an immediate deposit if you wanted to purchase them which was non it was two thousand for edition that is for the Bloodsucker and for the standard edition Initially, the game was only made available to members of the Spooky Pinball Fan Club, which is a subscription-based fan club system. but then it became available to everybody it was as of December 23rd you don't have to be a fan club member to order a game if you're interested and interestingly the entire run of the game is limited to 1967 sorry yeah 67 units regardless of the model So it could be all collector's editions or it could also be all standard games. We probably never know how many of which model are made, or maybe we will. We haven't seen any gameplay video of the game yet. There was a teaser video, but it didn't show really that much. No, it didn't. There was no press release. it was just open to fan club members and that was it interestingly the spooky pinball website doesn't mention Scooby Doo at all current games it says Halloween and Ultraman but if you go to the shop on the spooky pinball website then you can still order the Scooby Doo game So they haven't sold out either. No. If they do sell all 1,967 units, it will be their biggest run of games of a single title to date. So it's quite a stretch for them to do that. And they did say, I think, that they were going to be making the collector edition first and followed by the Bloodsucker edition and then the standard edition once all the orders are in. So, or at least the first run of orders, I suppose, because it may still be available to purchase for some time to come yet. Yeah. But if you order the standard edition, you could be waiting for quite some time, I think. Right. Well, that's a good way to lure people into buying a more expensive model. Yeah, absolutely. so interestingly so we haven't seen any gameplay videos like I said but we do know that the game is built on actual episodes from the cartoons or what's it called quests modes yeah so there's a lot it also uses original actors from the TV show who are featured in the game I think they had like I don't remember the exact number but loads of call outs from the TV show so their licensing they really did that very well getting the actors in and access to clips from the shows as well yeah I thought it was very impressive where to get the actors. Obviously, over the years, the roles of the characters have been played by many different actors, including some we may have heard of through other pimple activities. But I think they did get the actors who are probably the most recognised, or considered the most iconic portrayers of the roles. So, yeah, well done to Spooky for getting all those actors signed up. Yeah, so I'm not even sure how it's related, if they can use all the footage from the cartoon series as well. But one would expect so, I think. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I don't think there's any limit on that. Yeah. And as for the play field, it's a wide body game, by the way. It did remind me a little bit of Alice Cooper Nightmare Castle, an earlier game by Spooky, which was not a wide body, but in terms of the 3D sculpts on the play field, I got sort of a similar vibe. But gameplay is obviously likely to be very different. And there's also some very interesting lock mechanisms on the apron of the game. Yeah, absolutely, which then kick out onto the lock on either side of the flippers fed by wire forms. And they kick out just above the flippers, basically, which looks like a nice idea. and it's got a drop target between the flippers as well, a controllable drop target. Yeah, we've seen this before on Godleap's Hotshot. Hotshot has that, I think. But it's a very interesting ball-safe feature, I suppose. It only works once unless it comes back up again. Anyway, it looks like to be an interesting game, and if you're into Scooby-Doo, where are you? Well, you can still order the game. I'm not sure whether Spooky used their distributor network this time or whether you only can order it directly with Spooky. I think you can order it with Pinball Store as well, but that's in the U.S. I have no idea what happens if you're outside of the U.S. So, ask Spooky. I would say. Right, yes. I'm just looking at the actual details, and I think all the differences between the models are really cosmetic, aren't they? There's not actually any difference to the gameplay. There are no features taken out of the collector's edition to make the standard edition or anything like that. So I think if you order the standard edition, you'll be waiting longer, but I think you'll still be getting the full featured game, which is really as it should be, I think. Yeah, well, I was going to say something and then like, well, no, that's just pure speculation. Let's not go there. Yeah. Well, there was going to be a live stream of gameplay as well from Spooky, but that got cancelled, I believe. or certainly it was pushed back, and I haven't seen any live stream of it either yet. So, well, we'll wait to see how that turns out, whether there's more information. But it was a bit of a strange launch, I suppose, in a way. Yeah. Well, I don't think anybody was expecting a game launch from Spooky early December. and what I understood is per a post from Ben Heck on Pinside, Ben Heck is a collaborator, I would say, with Spooky and also one of the, or the designer of the game following Scooby-Doo. He indicated that the announcement for Scooby-Doo was actually delayed a couple of months. Obviously, I don't know why. actually I figured that the and that's pure speculation on my end so take it with a grain of salt please but I figured that the run for Total Nuclear Annihilation the collector's edition is actually shorter than expected and that's why they announced Scooby Doo in early December already now Total Nuclear Annihilation is still available to buy at the Spooky Pinball webshop. And that was a limited run of 250 maximum anyway, wasn't it? Yes. So that means well, since they're still available, they didn't sell out of those. So that production run might be shorter, and if you want to keep the line going, the best thing to do is announce a new game, but apparently that new game was already delayed a couple of months. Or maybe they moved TNA ahead of Scooby-Doo instead of after it. I don't know. Okay, but Ben's game is next and when that comes out depends on how sales of Scooby-Doo go, I guess, and also how production goes, whether there are any delays in actually building the games. Yeah, well, not taking delays for Scooby-Doo or TNA or Halloween or Ultraman into account. Ben Heck is still aiming for October 2023 for his game ok well if they do sell all 1600 1967 69 units of Scooby Doo I don't know whether they get those all done by October seems a little optimistic to me yeah but anyway we will see we will see ok Okay. And we wish Scooby Spooky, of course, the best of luck with the production of the game. Indeed. And congrats on landing such a big license. Yeah, and securing all the voice talent to go with it as well. So, really good. Now, we mentioned earlier that there was an end-of-year statement from, I think that was Pimble Brothers, and also Stern, I think, have also put, well, kind of done an interview statement in interviews. But they weren't the only one doing an interview statement because... No, everybody is doing it now. Yeah, I know, it's a thing to do. We should do that, we should do an interview statement. Hmm, what would be in it? Well, it doesn't matter. Apparently. American Pimble put out an interview statement as well telling us not an awful lot of information, but saying that they will be hiring more employees in 2023. Now, that really justifies a press release. Yeah, well, okay. Hopefully, some of those will, well, the ones that they're hiring will be able to make more games. Well, yeah, although we already know that they've got a pretty packed schedule or pipeline of games lined up. Yeah. Well, they have been making Oktoberfest and Legend of Valhalla recently. We also know that there is a Dennis Nordman game coming out somewhere this year. But you've played it and that's going to be a hit game. Well, maybe more than one Dennis Nordman game coming out this year. But it's very difficult to say exactly when these games are going to come out because with supply chain issues that we've seen throughout the industry and throughout the past two years, if not more, games that you think are going to come out in any particular year end up being delayed, as we've just been talking about with Scooby-Doo. That's an outlaw. It was delayed and only just made it out in 2022. But also in their interview statement, American Pinball said that they will honor all existing order prices for future game productions. So if you order a game had ordered a game, I guess, before any price increases, then you get the game at the pre-increased price. So that's... Oh, that's nice. Yeah, well, that's not something that every company does, that's for sure. Yeah, so they leave it to their distributors to jack up the price and take the profit themselves. Well, I think everybody would get the pre-increased price. Let's hope that, anyway. But other than that, not a lot of news coming out of American people, I don't think. Okay. Well, then, let's move on to Multimorphic. Oh, have they sent out an end-of-year statement as well? Well, Well, let's call it a newsletter, but it was in December, so you could call it an end-of-year newsletter. And basically what that newsletter said was if you're ordering a P3 with a game, your current waiting period is 12 months. Still? Yeah, I think it's been that for a while now. They have been increasing staff, but the number of orders is also increasing, so that sort of keeps it in still 12 months. They also have been increasing the amount of support videos on the website, and they've been doing some live technology streams. Ooh, technology. Yes, that's right. Yes, I've seen those publicized, but I've been away and not been able to watch them at the appointed time. I'm sure you can watch them back on YouTube. I'm sure you can. I'm sure we'll be getting through the Multimorphic.com website. Yeah. So two new games in 2023 have already been announced, or they have announced there will be two new games. Yes. We don't know which one they are, but each will have their own play field. Sorry. I know. I'm choked off about it as well it's so emotional so two new titles each with their own playfield module bringing the number of three playfield modules to a total of eight right now yeah it's six right now and it will be eight once those games are out I'd like to be Cannon Lagoon, Cosmic Cart Racing Heist, Weird Owl Owl, and Drained, the most recent one, of course. Those are the current six, and then there'll be the two new ones in 2023. Yes. So, okay. Oh, and Jerry and his partner became parents. Indeed. They had a little boy. I forgot his name, but congrats to them. Not sure if we already mentioned this, but it just popped in my head, so I figured I'd mention it as well. Yes, good point. I remember seeing that as well. Yes, congratulations to the happy couple there on their latest release. Yeah. So, moving on to, well, let's go to Chicago Gaming. Oh, any news from them this month? No end of year newsletter announcement statement? No. it's been very quiet from them on multiple in multiple ways I would say right very silent across the board then on all titles well no end of year statement or whatever you want to call it but a lot of people have been waiting on their Cactus Canyon limited edition remake. Yes, which started and we reported that. Yeah, and then it stopped. Or it moved forward very slow. Oh, very good. Yes. Okay, so... But there was no explanation whatsoever. Whatever it is from Chicago Gaming. No. They do what they do. But yeah, It's certainly surprising that having announced that the Cactus Canyon Remake Limited Editions are now being delivered to buyers that they're suddenly not anymore. Yeah. Or only very slowly, as you said. Yes. So, oh well. I'm sure there are reasons beyond our imagination. Well I mean if Chicago Gaming aren saying anything I sure that HomePin would be trumpeting their latest release This Is Spinal Tap across all social media outlets Is that what's been happening? No. No? No. Oh. No. No. It's very interesting. HomePin in Taiwan have been, well, working on This Is Spinal Tap, which is a license. In some people's eyes, a very good license, I'd say. And so the game has been revealed at Pinfest Newcastle in Australia. I think that was in October, early October, something like that. Or in September, I think even. Yeah, okay. So, two games present with some trouble, I would say, or needed some servicing during the event. And, well, so Mike was present, Mike, the owner of the company. He took notes. They shipped the game to the Pimble Hall of Fame in Chicago. In Las Vegas. sorry in Las Vegas indeed yeah so we know of three games in existence and we haven't heard from Homepin anything about this Spinal Tap after that they have been posting about what they've been up to yeah which is basically replacement parts for Bally Williams games which is their core business in the first place started working on a transformer for WPC games and other stuff as well but it's completely gone silent on this is Final Tap ok well they did say that well Mike said that the company wouldn't be promoting the game and be leaving out to distributors to do all the marketing for it, but we haven't seen any marketing from anyone about it either. Do you think they'd be trumpeting it if they were building it? So perhaps they're not building it. If they were building it, they would probably show that they are building it because it's still the factory's Facebook page. Yeah, and they're posting about other things they're making. Right. Oh well, let's hope all is well and that we get to see Spinal Tap on more locations soon. Yeah, absolutely. There's games out there. There's a lot of people who've been very interested in that theme and want to play the game. So, well, who else has been posting about what they've been doing? I'd say Pinball Adventures. Ah, right. Okay. In Canada. Based up Vancouver area, building Puny Factory, and also working on Element, their next game. But so far, no information about when Puny Factory will be completed, when it will be available, how much it will cost, where you'll be able to buy it. Nothing about that. We do keep seeing pictures being posted of games being built or playfields being populated. and various elements of the game, such as the machine itself and the smokestack, which are very nicely decorated. But as it has been for, I won't say months, but it might even be years. Yeah. Bunny Factory, we know all about it. We know what it's like. but we haven't seen any in actually being made or going up for sale. Yeah, or even being presented at shows. Yeah, so it's a funny situation, but I'm sure it makes sense in some regard somewhere. But basically, little advance to report this month. yeah so the only they use Instagram to show or new photos or videos that's right but yeah really isn't anything much that's all that's happening as far as we can see yeah people on there are posting questions as comments to do the pictures saying when's it going to be available and they just don't get a reply so strange for a company to ignore potential customers. But there you go. Yeah, okay. Well, let's move on to someone who is addressing their customers' needs a little more successfully, and your compatriot, Dutch Pinball. Yeah. Actually, it was news that I just found out. I completely missed it. But following the 1.0 game update for The Big Lebowski, there's actually a new update already, 1.10. And that's an update that includes a new menu and new features as well. and this means that there's now a menu in which you can play a complete set of ten bowling, what's it called? Frames. Yeah, exactly, that's the word. Sorry, not a native English speaker. You can also play the wizard mode of the game, the do the bytes, as a separate one ball challenge. so you don't have to play to finish the entire game before you get to it and oh yeah there's also a sort of a jukebox mode this is all sounding very familiar isn't it this is this is pretty much like Stern's game mode menu isn't it yeah I don't know where they get their inspiration I don't know so but well it's a nice feature to have or a nice set of features to have as well isn't it and I guess you can you can get the tournament mode through that as well if you want to don't give him any ideas come on no there's lots more but I won't go into it because I mean code updates yeah well it's a nice there's also bug fixes by the way I won't go into the bugs but they are fixed good okay there's one which wasn't fixed I think which was fairly minor but I think it's something which is going to be going to be addressed in a new update version 1.11 coming out fairly soon. It was something which was supposed to have been squished in this most latest version, but unfortunately it wasn't. But there are lots of things which are updated and fixed and improved in version 1.10. So congratulations to Coon and everyone at Dutch Pinball on this latest update. So nice to see lots of development still going on. Right. Okay. So moving back to Chicago, I would say. Jersey Jack Pinball. Yeah, well, we said last month that there was a chance that they might announce their second title of 2022, mainly because they said that they might. But it didn't happen. No. I mean, Jack told us that they might be doing that by the end of the year. But you didn't. Apparently they didn't have to. They're still building Toy Story 4, I suppose. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, well, and other games as well. And Guns and Roses, as we've seen, they're still being made. So they don't need to release a new title. Maybe that will come in early 2023. Yeah, well, unless you want to wait for it for a long time. But then you might as well not announce it. Absolutely, yes. There's no point in announcing games that you can't fulfill for quite a while. There's plenty of companies doing that already. Yeah, so, come to think of it, earlier today I had a conversation with our good friend Gary Flower. Oh, okay. Yeah, and if we're talking about the release of games, he mentioned to me that the earlier announced two titles that Stern will be releasing as Cornerstone games apparently are scheduled for March and June. And the interesting thing about that is that means no new title from Stern for the second half year of the year. Now, that makes sense because they will be moving factories or moving to a new facility. But it also gives a huge opportunity for the competition to basically hijack the second half of the year. Yes, that's right. bring out some holiday and Christmas titles that would appeal to buyers for that time of the year. Yes, indeed. So, I just had to think of that. But since we're talking about Gary Flower and it's the new year, how about we give him a call and wish him a happy new year? Yeah, absolutely. Let's do it now. Yeah? Yeah. Let me get my phone. Okay. I am calling. I'm sure he's available. Hello, Gary. Oh, my God, what's that noise? Are you in a war zone? I didn't know you were visiting Ukraine. Too soon. I guess there's some big celebrations going on wherever Gary is. You're welcoming the new year. So, I don't think we'll be able to talk to him over all that, will we? If you can hear us, Gary, happy new year. Yes, indeed. From Martin and me. Well, we'll see if we can get back to him later, but it doesn't sound like we'll be able to talk to him this time. So, let's hang up there and carry on. I wonder if he can still hear us, because, I mean, I'm completely deaf over there. I'm sure he's having a fun time anyway. Right. Right. So, yes, we're talking about... So more to serious news now. Yeah, we're talking about companies who announce games and don't necessarily have them available to send out straight away. But Hedges Pinball, we know about the Fathom revisited title they announced some time ago. and some of those are starting to be available who's got some of those who's had a shipment of those well RS Pinball in Austria the European distributor for Hager Spinball they shared a post on their socials that they received at least six games because they showed six boxes of games. I'm not sure whether they receive more, but six games at least. Not sure whether they are all spoken for or whether some are in stock. I have seen the Fatten Revisited game at Pinball Expo. That was really a well done quality job. Yeah, it looks beautiful. Yeah, so if you're looking for one You might be able, maybe, if these weren't already pre-sold, you might be able to get one from Stefan at RS Pinball in Austria. And who knows, he might be getting more. Yes, indeed. So it's good to see the games are shipping anyway and heading off to the buyers. So well done to Haggis and to Stefan at RS for getting the games. Yeah. So, that's... Now, we have a whole bunch of companies that we haven't discussed, and I really don't feel like discussing them. No, I kid, I kid. But there's just no news from the following companies. And here we are. Drumroll, please. I thought we should have some of Gary's file books for this, but no. Okay. No drumroll. Let's just get on with it. Okay. So, Deep Root Pinball, of course, no news. Turner Pinball, not that they are related. but no news either. Circus Maximus, who are working on a Kingpin remake, are apparently still looking to find their groove. No news. STR Pinball in Spain, no news. Bitronic, who had a fire in their pinball factory a couple of months ago, no news, although they are supposed to be up and running again. Quetzal Pimble, who are designing Pimble machines for Bitronic. No news either. Okay. Well, let's hope no news is good news. And they're all having a good time and getting on developing more titles. And we'll get some information about that later in 2023. Yes. And then there was interesting news from a company that I never heard of before. Paradigm Tilt and they announced an upgrade kit for Williams Swords of Fury from 1988 I think that is which runs on the fast pinball board set and that new game is called Swords of Vengeance ok this isn't officially licensed 2.0 kit, is it? I really wouldn't know. Okay. Maybe it doesn't have to be. It doesn't use the name Swords of Fury and anybody can do whatever they want to a game that they own and make it available for others as well. Yeah, quite right. As long as it's not sold on the basis of... They don't use any of the licensed assets, then including the name, from Sword to Fury, then people are, I think, pretty much free to do what they want. Yeah, so, well, there's a video on YouTube. I'll link to that in my newsletter that will go out in a couple of days or weeks. Don't pin me down on that. So, but I thought it was interesting to mention. it's always nice to see new life being given to an old game in this case Swords of Fury yeah which is a pretty good game to start with so it would certainly be interesting to see what Paradigm Tilt done with Swords of Vengeance to improve it further there's this video that I highly recommend to check out and it gives you great detail of what they have been doing and it looks quite impressive so excellent, ok I think that's about it for the news from December 2022 don't you? yeah, I think so as well so without further ado let's just say our goodbyes ok, well thank you for listening to this PINCAST again we will be back at the end of this month, end of January 2023, look back at the whole of the month and all the announcements, including details, of course, of the James Bond 60th anniversary, which will be expected to be announced tomorrow, barring any further delays, and all the other information from the pinball industry. So until then, from me, Martin Ayo, I wish you a very happy new year and a very enjoyable start to 2023. yeah and the same goes for me I wish you all the best and a fabulous fantastic 2023 and we hope you'll be back to listen to our pin cast early February ok so until then bye bye