Whatever I said, whatever I did, I didn't mean it. I just want you back for good. Want you back, want you back, want you back for good. I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said. Oh, welcome everybody to John Ehrlich's favorite pinball podcast. I'm rocking my Jack Bar t-shirt. Happy Monday, everybody. What's going on in the world of pinball? If you were around the Patreon chat yesterday, OMG, try to keep up with all that drama going on over there. I love it. You know Kanaid is going to wake up on Monday morning and just drop the clutch and burn out with the best damn pinball podcast on this side of the universe. Ain't nobody talking to you like this. We're going to talk about what are the next six titles from Stern Pinball. Rumor's been floating around. Don's Pinball Podcast had some new stuff to add to the list. Because we've been talking about most of these titles, but there's some new clarity that's starting to be discussed. Let's talk about it. We've got some more clarity on who might be designing what, and then what is the order. There are some surprises on this list. Some stuff that is definitely a take my money now from Canada. But is it actually going to happen? The crazy thing is when you talk about the next six games from Stern Pinball, that's only like a year and a half, not even. I feel like that's like between now and next summer, six titles will be out from Stern Pinball because they're not all cornerstone titles. This company's been vaulting and remastering and remaking stuff. So what's going to be a cornerstone and what's going to be a vault? It's easy to figure it out. Now, this company comes out with a cornerstone every four months, right? It's not a lot of time. Every four months, a new cornerstone comes out. And in between, we get something maybe like a Jaws 50th, maybe something like a Metallica remastered. So let's just get right to it. These are the six titles that is being said to be the next from Stern pinball in order. So number one, John Borg Star Wars. Number two, The Walking Dead Remastered. Number three, Pokemon. Number four is Transformers G1. Number five is Fallout. And number six is ACDC. How does that sound to all of you? Doesn't it sound a little bit like Stern's out of ideas? They are retreading some themes. How many Star Wars games have we had? They already did Transformers. Now, they didn't do G1, which is the smarter move. I'm going to talk about what would be the real smart move if they really knew what Transformer fans wanted, and I don't think they're going to do it. And seeing ACDC up there again, really another run of ACDC, I think that's going to be highly problematic for Stern Pinball if they go back there. So let's just go down this list. So John Borg's Star Wars is the one that's coming out in just a few weeks. Now look, every single day I wake up and I feel like this game needs to be a hit. It needs to finally be a modern Star Wars game everybody loves, but I still can't quite get my head around the fact that people are saying it is episodes four, five, and six again. They already did episodes four, five, and six. Now they did it in 2017. So that was what, like eight years ago. It's a long time, right? It's a long time. A lot of people are new to the hobby. A lot of people didn't buy those old Star Wars games. And a lot of us that love Star Wars, myself included, we didn't go anywhere near that game. So do you think they're going to make four, five and six again? The reason why I still think it's very dicey and it's very risky is now what do you do if there are 8,000 of those older Star Wars games out in the market, and then all of those people most likely are now going to be sitting on something they want to get rid of, you just continue to create what is the problem right now in pinball. It's so oversaturated, and there's too many games, there's too many people trying to move games, and the prices are too high on the new inbox to begin with, that it just keeps sinking just the enthusiasm around pinball. I mean this. I mean, how enthusiastic are you now that these games are this much money? You've got these many games already in your home collection. And to move games, you're going to take a huge hit. Now, all that being said, as someone who only has one pin, as someone who loves Star Wars more than Guns and Roses, I'm here to tell you, if Stern nails this game and makes it magical and doesn't mess up the code and creates an incredible art package and actually makes it limited. Now, look, it's Star Wars. If there ever was a theme where a thousand LEDs made sense, it is Star Wars. And I also think we're going to see Spike 3, which is going to be the biggest thing that Stern has done in a long time, because the rumor is the screen is going to be bigger. It's going to fill up more of that backbox area. The trans light is going to be the same size, which means the speakers are going to get narrower. Now, the other thing we know, if Stern does this and makes a thousand Star Wars LEs, they are also going to increase the price of their games. They need to go look at Porsche right now. Porsche is a brand that had so much demand. Up until the point, they just kept raising the prices and fleecing their customers, much like pinball customers have been fleeced with these toppers and remaking of everything And now Porsche is in a nosedive Like they are really really struggling as a company And I'm just worried that even if Stern nails this game, there's gonna have to be some damage control for all those people who bought the other Star Wars machines. Because again, now you're sitting on a game nobody's gonna want. Now, again, as someone who doesn't own the old Star Wars, as someone who only has a clunky GNR, if they nail this game and it's 13-5 and there's a thousand LEs and it has magical toys and it shoots well and it makes me actually feel like I'm playing as a protagonist like Luke Skywalker going through the greatest sci-fi storyline in history, if they actually get that right, who amongst us is not going to want one? Who amongst us is not going to buy one? So this is it. And what's really exciting out of all of these titles, this feels like the juggernaut. It feels like the big one. There is more enthusiasm for Star Wars than Pokemon, Transformers, Fallout. Don't get me started on that. I'm going to talk about that in a second. But this is it. Like Stern needs this to be the game that moves units. And it was not King Kong. It was not D&D. And they've got to get a game out there that is just special. I feel like they need to put everything against this. Here's the crazy part. If you're going to make Star Wars again, why wouldn't you hand it to Keith Elwin? Like, you know what I'm saying? Keith Elwin is the best designer in pinball. You're going to do Star Wars and you hand it to John Borg? Nothing against Borg, but he's not the hot director in Hollywood right now. It's Keith Elwin. It's Jack Danger. And I'm just shocked that Stern didn't give the biggest theme it has to their best designer. And it's not just Elwin. His whole design team is the best. And this is why I think internal politics are a big issue at Stern Pinball. I bet it's another reason why Jack Danger was just like, I'm good. Like, I don't want to be a part of this anymore. It's kind of killing my love affair with the hobby. And now he's going back to streaming. Now, really interesting. I saw Jack posted, what games do you want me to stream irregardless of manufacturer? And I still don't get this. I will never get it. If you're an employee of Stern Pinball and your job is all about the community now, you want to sell more Stern machines. How can you actually stream a game that's helping a competitor sell its products as you're cashing a paycheck from Stern Pinball? Because look, this isn't 10 years ago. We're getting people into pinball helps everybody. That's not true anymore. These boutique companies and these competitors are taking a lot of money away from Stern. Harry Potter is taking a lot of sales away from King Kong. So you're telling me that Jack could get a Harry Potter and make you fall in love with it and walk into Stern Pinball the next day and get a paycheck? I just don't think it makes any sense. I've never in my 25 years of marketing ever had a client be receptive to us helping a competitor sell more of their product. It's absolutely marketing upside down. All right. So the other thing is this, because we've already had four, five and six, I still think there's a 30% chance that this is episode one through three. There is a new Darth Maul show coming out. We've already gone down four, five and six. And so we never really had one, two and three. Yes, there was episode one pinball machine on pinball, whatever, 2000 or 3000. But that was it. so do you think, knowing there's been a resurgence of the prequels, and the prequels have found a sort of new love affair with the fan base, when Hayden Christensen goes to the Star Wars conventions, now they love him, and he also played Darth Vader in the Obi-Wan series, so I don't know, I really don't know, I don't know for sure, but I love being surprised, because all of the pressure is on Stern Pinball to knock this game out of the park. And we're going to get it in like four weeks. Get ready, folks. Strap on because it's about to be a crazy end of summer for Stern Pinball. And the reason why this game needs to sell like hotcakes is the next game is a game that nobody truly really wants right now. The Walking Dead is coming back. Yeah. And I keep hearing it's going to be that. I know we all want it to be Tron, but it's going to be The Walking Dead. Now, the only way this is going to work is if it's comic book edition, maybe from Zombie Yeti. But I don't think that's what they need. For this to move units, they need to do what Metallica did and actually go get clips from the show. Metallica put all new concert clips into Metallica Remastered. If this is just the old game remade on an LCD screen, and I think they might only make a premium version of the game, like a premium and maybe an LE because it's going to be an all new art package. I think they're going to follow what they did with Metallica. I just don't know. I just don't know. I don't know because so many people have bought Harry Potter. So many people are going to buy Star Wars. And then you're going to hit with this. Now, remember, this is not a cornerstone, The Walking Dead. So The Walking Dead is going to come out just like a month and a half after Star Wars. And it's just going to be too much on top of this community to keep flooding more games in. Here's the game that I think you shouldn't sleep on if you want one. Jaws 50th. Because if you look at the production schedule over at Stern Pinball, I don't think they're going to make Jaws 50th for that much longer. And if you really want one, I would go grab one because the distros I'm talking to, their allotments all spoken for. And so I do think there is some FOMO around Jaws 50th You got to remember they got a lot of other games they got to make And I not sure Jaws 50th is going to be one that goes back on the line between now and the end of the year I think once Star Wars hits, it's going to be all the new titles coming out. All right. So Walking Dead. I don't know if it's going to have show clips, but it's not the game everybody wants. Then we get to what is rumored to be Jack Danger's Pokemon. So there was a lot of rumors that Keith Elwin is a huge Pokemon fanatic and Pokemon was going to be him. But if you look at the order of releases, Keith Elwin is definitely not up next with Pokemon. He just released King Kong. So it does, on a timing basis, make sense that Jack Danger is doing Pokemon. We know Jack is into Pokemon. We know that Stern Pinball wants big things from this theme. Now, Pokemon, if you don't know this, is the biggest IP in the world. It is bigger than Harry Potter. It is bigger than Star Wars. It has the largest fan base out of any IP out there on planet Earth. So if you're stern and you need a big hit, you have to be looking at Pokemon as the moment. You are probably paying a lot of money. Now, I don't think it's as expensive because unlike Star Wars, Pokemon doesn't have like celebrities in the franchise itself. So you don't have to spend as much money on voice actors and likenesses because Pikachu is illustrated, but it's still going to be expensive. Now, I am just here to tell you that I am just curious how the pinball buying demographic is going to respond to Pokemon. When I walk around pinball shows, when I see the people that attend, these are not Pokemon fans. They are not. And so this is going to be a game though, where those millions, and I mean like hundreds of millions of Pokemon fans around the world, if they can sell a thousand and a few thousand premiums and pros, I think they will. It's just that big of a theme that people who love Pokemon, I think will wake up to pinball. Now, when Star Wars first came out, the Steve Ritchie game, we did not see like a ton of Star Wars diehard collectors gravitating towards the title. It's hard to measure this stuff. You know why? Because Star Wars, Harry Potter, Pokemon, these things have over a billion fans globally. So you don't know. Like who is not a Star Wars fan? In our age demographic, who doesn't like Star Wars? In our age demographic, who doesn't like Transformers? Who doesn't like Back to the Future? If you grew up during a certain period within culture, this is what you loved. If you were just a normal person who was into stuff everybody loved. Remember back in the day, we weren't so divisive. We didn't scream about a jeans ad and we didn't argue with people about everything online. There was no online. When Back to the Future came out in the theaters, you went to see it eight times. You didn't have reserved seats. You waited online for Star Wars. How many of you out there got on a line to see Star Wars movies? I love that. Culture now sucks. Reserve seating. You see a movie. You go online. You complain about it. You're on to the next thing you want to complain about. We actually used to look at stuff with much more open eyes, with much more enthusiasm. And then we also waited for stuff. Remember, Star Wars movies came out years apart. When those prequels hit, we had waited a long time for the next Star Wars movies. There was a lot of excitement. Yeah, then we saw Jar Jar Binks. But still, I still think the prequels and those lightsaber battles are better than anything I've seen on Disney+. Albeit, I think Andor is the best Star Wars there is ever. It's just not action-packed enough for a pinball machine. But when it comes down to it, have any of you ever thought about the Force Awakens trilogy? No. The J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson ones, you've forgotten about those. And they're absolutely erased from your emotional being. Like you just don't care. They mess those up. Someone shared a clip of the lightsaber battle between like Yoda and Count Dooku and Darth Maul. And then showed the one between Rey and Kylo Ren. And it's so pathetic what it turned into. It's so pathetic that they turned Luke Skywalker woke. He throws the lightsaber over his shoulder and becomes a pacifist. That's what they turned Luke into. So pathetic. All of us wanted him to kick ass again. That'd be like Tom Antonio Cruz in Maverick. Instead of actually fighting, he just hangs up his jacket and rides off and doesn't want anything to do with it. No, that's not how you react. visit the icons of our childhood. All right. So then we've got Pokemon. So let's talk timing. So I think Star Wars early September. I think we're going to see Walking Dead in November. I think we're going to see Pokemon in January. The next title is really interesting. Brian Eddy Transformers. G1 Transformers. Now, if Stern does Transformers like they did Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles where they didn't take the original footage from the cartoon. I don't want anything to do with it, but I'm here to tell you, I don't even want it to be based on the original TV series. There's too many seasons. There's too much going on. There's almost too much to put into a pinball machine. What they really need to do is make the G1 Transformers the movie. That is where it's at. That storyline is the best. The drama in that movie is the best. It has the best music soundtrack of any movie ever next to Rocky IV It was ahead of its time And when you watch that movie it perfect for pinball There so much going on in it but you could get your head around it and it would make for the greatest pinball machine ever. Unicron should be the biggest mechanism Stern has made ever. The Matrix of Leadership, Galvatron. You know, it's all there for them. Dare. You got the touch. dare to be stupid a lower play field that's the sharktacons remember when they go in front of the quintessons guilty or innocent innocent and they drop them into the shark pit that should be the lower play field and you got to shoot it around the orbit i mean in the movie itself hot rod is driving around in circles to get out of there and then you play the song nothing's going to stand in our way? Not tonight. Like it's so good. The moments would be amazing. Can you imagine a pinball machine in which the topper is the matrix of leadership? It's up there. And when you get to the moment, it opens up and it's like arise, Rodimus Prime, and you got the touch starts playing and a huge beam of light comes from that topper. Can we talk about pinball moments? Can we talk about magic? Can we talk about getting creativity back into this hobby? Or are we just going to say everything is awesome? Are we just going to shill everything like everyone else is doing now in the pinball world? We're just going to accept everything they serve us up for this much money and no one's using real creativity anymore. You got games with no toys in it and people are saying it's packed now. If you want to keep living in this gas lit hobby, fine. But if you actually want to think like a creative and imagine the possibilities and then go execute it because this is it. This is it. Do you think this is going to be around for 10 more years at these prices? Not if we don't make magic now. And I keep saying this, the next three years in pinball are going to make the best three years I think we've ever seen because the pressure is on and these companies need to deliver. Now, this game is supposedly a Brian Eddy game. That most likely means Dwight will be on code with him following up on D&D. Okay, so after Brian Eddy's Transformers, we're hearing Keith Elwin, the greatest designer in pinball, is doing Fallout. Really? Fallout? I know this was like a somewhat successful TV show. It's obviously a successful video game, But name me a successful modern video game that has ever translated into good pinball sales. When the experience of playing Fallout is better on a video game console, why would you want to buy a pinball version? And clearly it's going to be based on the TV show. Now, the TV show was successful. It had over 100 million viewers. But how many of you watched it? I did. How many of you talked about it socially? How many of you can't wait for season two? How many of you hear people talk about it culturally? I feel like it came and went. I feel like it had some people's curiosity, but it's definitely not as popular as stuff like Stranger Things. It's not as popular as Wednesday. Wednesday has two and a half times more viewers than Fallout. So I think Fallout is another byproduct of Stern Pinball not really knowing what people want and trying to do something different. Fallout is gonna be as successful, even if it is Keith Elwin, it is gonna be as successful as John Wick. It's gonna be another Venom. And I think it's gonna be somewhat dead on arrival at these prices. And remember, this is next year. So by the time we get there, people are gonna start realizing back to the future's coming. You're gonna have, Hopefully you got your Beetlejuice order in with Spooky. And I just don't think in 2026, because that's when the next season starts of Fallout, you guys are going to be throwing down this much money on a Fallout. And then after Fallout from Keith Elwin is going to be a return of ACDC for like the 15th time. It makes sense that Stern would put ACDC, a hit game, on its new platform with Spike 3. and you know, it's ACDC. These iconic music acts, you're always gonna find new buyers, but man, they must have 8,000 ACDCs out there in the world already. And this is my worry about Stern's approach. They're gonna keep going back to the well to the point where the well is dry. And I don't think it's a winning formula for them. I really don't know what the way out is for Stern because they're so big. I think the way out would have been two cornerstones a year and one remake, and they should be in their old factory. I think they're just too big now, and they're going to struggle. What do you think about these six titles, ladies and gentlemen? Let me know. Happy Monday. Thank you for being a member of the world's most credible pinball podcaster. Not Kaneda. Kale over at Electric Bat. Later, people. Whatever I said, whatever I did, I didn't mean it. I just want you back for good Whatever I'm wrong, just tell me the song that I'm singing You'll be right and understood See, I want you back for good Whatever I'm wrong, I'll tell you I just want you back for good I want you back, I want you back I want you back for good Whenever I'm wrong I tell you I want you back I want you back You see I want you back for good Oh yeah I guess now it's time That you came back for good