Episode 1089: "Harry Potter Rumor That's Shocking But Not Surprising"

Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)·podcast_episode·32m 30s·held·May 9, 2025

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Kaneda warns Harry Potter may disappoint mechanically; current new pinball machines losing $2k-$4k+ in value quickly.

Summary

Kaneda discusses King Kong disappointing secondary market performance and shares industry rumors about Harry Potter mechanical design limitations. He argues that recent Stern and Jersey Jack games lack the mechanical complexity of classic titles, attributing this to manufacturing constraints, and warns collectors against buying new premium machines at current prices due to rapid depreciation.

Key Claims

King Kong LE lost $1,100 in value in one week after launch
high confidence · Kaneda citing secondary market data from Pinside
Harry Potter will not have more mechanical content than recent Jersey Jack games (Toy Story 4, Godfather, Elton John, Avatar)
medium confidence · Kaneda citing unnamed industry source who works in the pinball industry
Jersey Jack reduced mechanical complexity in games since Guns N' Roses to ease manufacturing, not for lack of capability
medium confidence · Kaneda citing unnamed industry source's explanation
Uncanny X-Men LE lost $4,000 in value in one year (from $13,000 to $8,995)
high confidence · Kaneda citing Pinside secondary market listings
Foo Fighters LE lost $4,400 in value (from $13,000 to $8,600)
high confidence · Kaneda citing Pinside secondary market listings
Avatar CE released at $15,000 is now selling for approximately $10,000-$13,500
high confidence · Kaneda citing current Pinside secondary market listings
James Bond Premium lost $2,000 in value (from $9,500 to $7,500 with 168 plays)
high confidence · Kaneda citing Pinside secondary market listings
Walking Dead LE remake is coming out with the original topper and improved LCD screen/artwork
medium confidence · Kaneda stating this as news he is sharing
Dune's sandworm will have more impressive mechanical features than anything in Harry Potter
medium confidence · Kaneda making personal prediction based on unnamed industry source's information
Jersey Jack's bomb (manufacturing cost) on games is approximately $7,000-$7,500
low confidence · Kaneda speculating based on pricing structure estimates

Notable Quotes

“I am hearing that Harry Potter is not, and I repeat, not going to have more in it than in the last four installments of Jersey Jack games... I am hearing that Harry Potter is not going to be a return to games like Pirates. It's not going to be a return to a game like Wizard of Oz.”
Kaneda @ mid-episode — Core rumor about Harry Potter's mechanical design constraints, central to episode thesis
“The reason why since Guns N' Roses, if you've lifted the playfield on Jersey Jack machines, the reason why comes down to one word. They need to manufacture these... they don't want to make games as loaded, as complex, as tricky to put together.”
Kaneda @ mid-episode — Attribution of Jersey Jack's design philosophy to manufacturing economics
“King Kong LE, where there's less than a thousand, lost a thousand bucks in one week. In one week.”
Kaneda @ early-mid episode — Emphasizing rapid depreciation trend affecting premium machines
“If a Stern bomb is around $3,000 to $5,000, then a Jersey Jack bomb is probably $7,000, $7,500.”
Kaneda @ mid-episode — Speculative estimate of manufacturing costs informing profitability analysis
“Don't rush at Harry Potter new in box. Just don't. Play it first. See where the code is at.”
Kaneda @ late episode — Direct advice to collectors based on depreciation concerns
“If you listen to me, I have saved you tens of thousands of dollars over the last four years.”
Kaneda @ late episode — Kaneda's credibility claim about secondary market predictions
“The normal depreciation... the most you would ever have lost on a game was $1,000. Now the most anyone has ever lost on a new in box game over the last four years was $12,000 on a James Bond 60th.”
Kaneda @ late episode — Highlighting abnormal depreciation compared to historical pinball norms
“It should feel like a pirate had a baby with Wizard of Oz and was put into a standard body cabinet.”

Entities

Kanedaperson Harry Pottergame King Konggame Alice's Adventures in Wonderlandgame Dunegame Jersey Jack PinballcompanyStern Pinballcompany

Signals

$
market_signal: Multiple premium machines losing $2,000-$4,400+ in value within weeks to one year of release; James Bond 60th cited as extreme case of $12,000 loss
high · King Kong LE: -$1,100 in one week; X-Men LE: -$4,000 in one year; Foo Fighters LE: -$4,400; James Bond Premium: -$2,000; Avatar CE: -$2,000 documented, expected to reach -$5,000
?
product_strategy: Jersey Jack planning unlimited production of Harry Potter CE at $15,000 MSRP while keeping mechanical content similar to Pro/Premium versions
medium · Kaneda citing industry source about manufacturing strategy to maximize profit margins on CE variant without adding mechanical complexity
?
design_philosophy: Jersey Jack intentionally designing simpler, less mechanically complex games since Guns N' Roses era to reduce manufacturing difficulty and assembly time
medium · Kaneda's industry source: 'The reason is not that they don't want to. It's not that they don't know how to do this stuff... they don't want to make games as loaded, as complex, as tricky to put together'
?
rumor_hype: Strong community expectations for Harry Potter to feature complex mechanical toys (castles, candles, flying mechanics) rivaling Pirates/Wizard of Oz; industry source suggests these expectations will not be met
medium · Kaneda discussing expectations vs. rumored mechanical limitations; citing Pirates, Wizard of Oz, Theatre of Magic as aspirational benchmarks
~
sentiment_shift: Shifting collector attitude away from new in-box purchases toward used/secondary market due to rapid depreciation and perceived poor value at premium prices

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.097

0:00

Welcome everybody to Kaneda's Pinball Podcast. Happy Friday. How is everybody doing? All of you Kong LE buyers doing, we're going to talk about what's going on in the pinball world. We are at the end of another pinball week. We're getting closer to Harry Potter. I got some news for you on Harry Potter from someone who works in the industry and has heard stuff about the game. I'm going to share that with you. Consider it a rumor. We're all going to see this game very soon. All of these are going to be on the pinball show soon, but man oh man oh man, what I'm hearing might make this spring into summer a very interesting time in pinball. And what else is going on in pinball? We got a lot of people waiting for code updates on some of these Stern machines. We're going to get that. They're going to push everybody on to the new menu system. We're still waiting for Spike 3. The first Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has landed in America. What does that mean? I'm not really sure. The first game, it is mid-May. These games were supposed to be on the line in January and we're getting one game at a time. There's no way. We're gonna see 500 of these by the end of the year and I don't think people care. You will wait because the alternative was waiting 12 years for a freaking big Lebowski. So the only thing about Alice is this is when this game gets unboxed and when you see people play it, you're not gonna see some like humongous progress from what you saw on this game back I've been wondering with all these things, what is posted on Twitter saying that there's no time limit. If that's true, what is your opinion and I'mус dwey think you'll have different people to figure through. The game right now for collectors, if you really want something that not everybody's gonna have, if you want something that's gonna always be in demand, I think the game is Evil Dead. And I think we're seeing it. There's more people that want an Evil Dead than Evil Deads will ever be made. 888, that was the smart game to get if you're a collector. Everything else is sitting. King Kong LE just went up for sale for it sold for $11,900. So in $1,100 loss in a week. Now there are still a lot of King Kong LEs for sale at distros and Kerry Hardy just unboxed his. It was the first LE he ever got and he's underwhelmed by it. I could have told him that. I know he wanted to get an early game. Talk about a striking fear, that's why I'm making this episode even more intense. I'm going to order my lastbal workshop in an instant, leaving out levels of safety and bothni, my happy and throw out those령ants. The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi.

4:34

The number one game of all time. It is not happening. And I think there is early delusion by those people who paid all this money right away to get it. And people have stopped responding to me. I have friends who bought LEs. I sent them a screen grab. More than one of you. So don't take this personally and start texting me. How dare you call me out? I'm not mentioning any names. I sent it to a bunch of my friends who bought LEs and all of them are disappointed in what the game is doing in the second hand market instantly. And whose fault is it, right, that the game is not where it should be on launch? When it comes to code, and I mean this, when you watch streams of King Kong and I watch the Flip N Out stream, there's just something not clicking. The game is not giving people goosebumps. It's just not. I'm not saying it's a bad shooter. It's a phenomenal shooter. It's got a great layout. But that's not enough to separate you from all this money. And I think what's about to happen next is really going to be the issue. And let's just get right down to business. So I am hearing from somebody about Harry Potter. Now when you think about Harry Potter, it's coming out after we got Dune, after we got King Kong, after we got Portal, we didn't get Predator, and who knows when Cuphead is happening, but Harry Potter sort of has been the one that everyone is waiting to see. So the expectations for Potter are through the roof. Everybody wants a game and I mean this. Everybody just wants a game to come out to make us feel something magical. And so Harry Potter as a theme seems like the perfect game to do that. After all of these price increases, all we really want is something that checks all the boxes and justifies where this hobby has gone. That is what everybody is waiting for. Everybody knows that King Kong just feels a lot like more of the same from Stern. And you have to remember, it's like it's a weird company. They don't give you everything in every game. And that's it. I hope you enjoyed this video. I hope you found it helpful. And if you did, please subscribe to my channel. I'll see you in the next video. Bye. between the LE and the premium but no they don't do it and i think people are just tired of feeling like they're spending this much money they're not really getting something unique enough and that is why kong sales across the board are very soft and so now that we move over to a fifteen thousand dollar Harry Potter CE The feeling on the street is this This game better bring it Like it better be magical No one denying the fact that the theme is impressive But if there ever been a company that has fumbled themes before it is Jersey Jack Pinball I think the worst fumble in the history of pinball was making Toy Story 4. Even worse than Godfather because you had a franchise that everybody wanted to buy. Toy Story is just iconic. Everybody wanted it. And you made the one movie that was like the woke fourth installment of Toy Story. If they had made Andy's Room, Toy Story 1 only, they would have sold 8,000 of those games. I'm going to be honest with you guys, every single one of us would have owned that game. If it had a claw machine, if it had Zorg, if it had everything from that first movie in pinball form with toys like dialed in, we would all be owning that machine. Instead we got a Toy Story 4 that had no toys in the game. A little flap that pops up is not a toy. There are zero toys in Toy Story. And then we got Godfather, and then we got Elton John, and then we got Avatar. So here's what I am hearing, and this is making me nervous. I am hearing that Harry Potter is not, and I repeat, not going to have more in it than In the last four installments of Jersey Jack games, it might have two upper playfields or a lower playfield and an upper playfield, but in terms of toys, in terms of a game that's going to have a lot of mechanical stuff that interacts with the ball, I am hearing that Harry Potter is not going to be a return to games like Pirates. It's not going to be a return to a game like Wizard of Oz. We are going to get a game that has multiple levels of play. I think there's going to be a lot happening on the screen, but I am hearing that even a game like Dune is going to have more impressive mechanical stuff going on than Harry Potter. Now the question I want to pose to each and every one of you, if Harry Potter comes out And doesn't have this Harry Potter universe under glass. If it's not filled with a lot of fun toys and magnets and castles and candle lit stuff going on, if it doesn't feel loaded and it's more about flow and diverters and shots and gameplay but not magical moments. I mean, when you think about it, Harry Potter should have mechs in the game that should rival stuff like the Theater of Magic Magic Box. It should have stuff in it like the Totem Disappearing Magnet. It should have something in it like the Houdini game that fires the ball all the way across the playfield. It should have something in it like the Star Wars Hyperdrive, like a game of Quidditch where you go up there Thanks for watching. rando

15:09

All of these games should rival games like Godzilla, like Toad and Theater of Magic, like Wizard of Oz and Dialed In. It should be on the same pedestal as games like The Twilight Zone. And again, we're talking $15,000. What do you think the bomb is on a Jersey Jack game? If a Stern bomb is around $3,000 to $5,000, then a Jersey Jack bomb is probably $7,000, $7,500. So, think about it. If the bomb on Harry Potter, it's got to be like $7,500 because if they're going to sell this standard wizard edition that's going to have everything mechanically in it as the Thanks for watching And that why the version has the same stuff in it as the version And if the bomb on the game is like 7,500, that sort of makes sense because if you're selling a version for 10 grand, that means you're only making $2,500 on top of the bomb. And you've also got to give some money to the distros for selling the damn game. And that's why they want to make unlimited CEs because then they're making $7,500 on every single game they make. And they're not putting anything more in it mechanically. Again, all of this is hypothetical, but I'm starting to feel like here's what's going to happen. And I'm just going to say it on Kaneda's Pinball Podcast. I have a feeling that Harry Potter will be underwhelming because there won't be that much in it. I think the gameplay will be fast. I don't think it's going to be loaded like you expect. I also fully expect the majority of the clips in this game to be muted. I do not think it's going to be like Dune. I spoke to the people over at Barrels. The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. I bought in it mechanically. I just don't know. Unlimited CEs, I think people are going to say enough. We're not spending this if this is what you're going to give us. You gave us Wizard of Oz loaded wide body game for $6,500. I know that was a decade ago, but still, a decade later, there should be more in the game. The game is $80 something hundred dollars. It's $8,500 more than Wizard of Oz was. So if you're gonna charge us 15, how? How could a $15,000 game have exactly the same mechanical stuff as the $10,000 version of the game? So then you're spending $5,000 on rad cows, A topper and some glass and a shaker motor. Gang, Kaneda's just saying this right now. And then if this happens, right? If this happens and you've got Kong that was underwhelming, you got Dune that is incomplete, you got Harry Potter that's not loaded, I think what you're gonna see is this. I think you're gonna see a lot of people just be like, I'm done with new inbox. I'm done. I'm absolutely done. The only time I'm even going to consider new in box is if it's a boutique game that's built on a theme I want or has a lot of special stuff in it like Evil Dead and then I will buy it because that's the only time you should ever move somewhat quickly to a new in box game. And it's not that you don't want to play Harry Potter. It's not that it's not going to look fun. I just think most people are going to be smart and not want to lose five grand because if they make unlimited CEs And this game is not magically loaded. You best believe easy to get one for 10 grand in just a few months. Gang, King Kong, L.E., where there's less than a thousand, lost a thousand bucks in one week. In one week. And the days are over. And I mean this at these high prices, the days are over of if the code gets good eventually, that's not going to course correct these games. It's not going to bring the value back. Now speaking of value, let's just look real quick at recent games that went up for sale. Okay, I'm just pulling up inside right now. These are games that went up for sale recently and let's just all collectively ask ourselves why buy new in box. All right, James Bond Premium. That game, brand new, was $9,500. You can now get one with 168 plays for $7,500. And I'm just going to go off the new games because there's older games for sale too. So that's a loss of $2,000. Foo Fighters Premium, same price as Bond was, $7,500 or best offer. You know what that means? Seven grand. That's a $2,500 loss. The Walking Dead LE. You know why this game is for sale? Sál knew walking dead is coming out. Now, walking dead le brand-new was what like, 6500 bucks. This was the only stuff that held value and went up. Now, this person wants $10,500 for their walking dead le. The problem is nobody's going to go near this because a new walking dead is coming out. It's also going to come with the topper so I'm giving you that news. The Walking Dead is coming back and they're re-running the topper with the three heads. So you're going to be able to get all that in a newer package with an LCD screen and I think better artwork. So nobody's going to want the old Walking Dead. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Premium $6,400. That's a loss. Metallica Remastered Premium. This game just came out. $8,700. Cheaper than it was new. Here we go. The Uncanny X-Men LE. This game was $13,000. $8,995. In one year, $4,000 loss. Now everybody's hoping this game is going to get a significant code update. I hope so. I still think X-Men is a better layout than King Kong. I think it's the best layout we've had all year. Just nobody wants this code. Let's see what else we got here. Foo Fighters LE. Remember Foo Fighters LE? Right? One of the fastest selling LEs ever. Foo Fighters LE. The game was $13,000. You can go get one now for 8,600 firm. Ladies and gentlemen, are you sitting down? That is a loss of $4,400. In Elton John Platinum Edition, if you really want an Elton John, the Platinum Editions were 12 grand. Now, $10,200 or best offer. 10 on the table. You could probably get that for 9,500. So what is the cardboard box worth? So speaking more recently, for all you guys who bought an Avatar CE for 15, there's one up here for sale, 13.5 or best offer. Now, whenever there's an OBO, you can knock off 500 bucks immediately. So all of a sudden, a game that just came out, $2,000 off. How long has it been since Avatar has been out? It's been out a year and it's $2,000 off. And it's not gonna sell for anywhere near that. We all know Avatar CEs are all gonna be selling for 10. So gang, this is it. This is it. This is the problem with all modern pinball. And somebody needs to just make the first move. If you own a hotel and people are not booking rooms, What would you do? You would either improve the hotel and make people realize that the rooms are worth it, or you would lower the price of the rooms until you get occupancy. And I don't understand what's happening. So all these pinball companies are just gonna make games and people forget there thousands of games in a box in a warehouse in Chicago The Valley Company Subsidiary of Walter Kidde Co Inc Mirco Playfields Tim Kitzrow Scott Danesi I'm gonna tell you this right now. I think the sandworm in Dune Pinball is gonna be more impressive mechanically than anything In Harry Potter, you know why I'm going to make that proclamation? Because it's more impressive than anything in Elton John, Toy Story 4, Avatar and Godfather. And if my source is accurate and I trust him because he's in the industry and he knows everybody. If my source is accurate, there's nothing more mechanically interesting in Harry Potter than is in Dune. And he didn't say it's as impressive as the sandworm. Nope. He said, I think people are going to look at Dune and say it's got more mechanical wow than what's in Harry Potter. That's not going to make us quit the hobby. It's not going to make you cancel Kaneda's Pinball Podcast because of this stale content that I won't stop talking about. What it's going to make you do is re-appreciate the games you already have. It's going to make you understand that you got into the hobby at the right time. Now is the worst time ever to get into this hobby as a buyer of new in box, but it's the best time ever to be in this hobby if you've been in it for many years because, gang, it's entertaining. It is absolutely the most entertaining thing happening in pinball is watching these big companies try to convince us to spend this much money on new in box games as all of them lose thousands of dollars a year. And the people that are like, well, it's just like a car, like normal depreciation. No, it wasn't normal. None of this was what this hobby was built on. It was not normal. People didn't normally lose one to $6,000 in one year on a game. The normal depreciation and why pinball was so popular amongst us, the normal depreciation, the most you would ever have lost on a game was $1,000. Now the most anyone has ever lost on a new in box game over the last four years was $12,000 on a James Bond 60th if you bought it from Stern with tax. $12,000! So don't tell me this is normal. Don't tell me this is like car depreciation. It's not. And unlike a car, yeah, when you drive a car, the wear and tear on it is horrible. People can do all sorts of horrible things in their car. They can get in accidents you don't know about it. When you buy a used pin, it's like brand new. I mean brand new. Like there's nothing wrong with the game. These are not cars. They don't break down over time like a car. There's not all these moving parts that are really getting wear and tear. There's not. There's a few things that are moving that you can replace, but none of it is significant. The way a car used is nowhere near as good as a car is new. But a used pin is oftentimes better and dialed in better and better looked out for. I mean, a lot of these manufacturers are sending you stuff that's got problems. And it takes the first owner to fix them all. And then when you buy new, you have less headaches than new in box buyers. So that is where we are at. So the fun now is more about playing the games you own, listening to Kaneda's Pinball Podcast, because if you listen to me, I have saved you tens of thousands of dollars over the last four years. And all the people telling me to stop talking about this, if you listen to them, you've lost tens of thousands of dollars. I wish more of them would just come out and say, this sucks. This sucks. I bought four Stern LEs because I just wanted to have fun and make pinball content and I lost $16,000 on these games when I traded them in. Where is the brutal honesty about the reality of the secondhand market and the overpriced nature of these games? Ladies and gentlemen, here's my advice to you. Don't rush at Harry Potter new in box. Just don't. Play it first. See where the code is at. If the game is absolutely magical, and I hope it is, and if it's loaded, and I hope it is loaded, if it's everything that it should be, you know, based on that letter that Jack wrote about, this is the culmination of our entire company's dream, then this damn game better be better than everything else. It should feel like a pirate had a baby with Wizard of Oz and was put into a standard body cabinet. But if this game comes out and it doesn't have a lot of stuff, if it doesn't have flying monkeys grabbing the ball and bringing it up to the upper playfield with a magnet, if it doesn't have a witch coming up underneath the playfield, if it doesn't have a huge dragon that's talking to you, if it doesn't have a ship that rocks back and forth and fires a freaking cannon shot to another upper playfield, If it doesn't have magic, if it doesn't have stuff that's cooler than that stuff, then why the heck is this game 15 grand? Have we learned nothing? Are we going backwards? If it has muted clips, and if the thing is just all about layout and diverters and shots and kickbacks, it's not good enough. Everybody, happy Friday. Listen to me. I will hold your hand through the launch of this game. Don't rush in, especially if they're making an unlimited amount of the CEs. Let the dealers and the distros and the newbie chumps, let them buy them up. You and I can march in if we want a CE, get one before the holidays, and get it for thousands less. Knaeda, the stalest pinball podcaster and the most entertaining at the same time saying have a great weekend. We've got a new pope in the world and I heard the first thing he said was the biggest cardinal sin is buying new in box pinball in 2025 and he's from Chicago and he remembers what pinball pricing should be. Knaeda out.