Episode 1133: "NEW PIN WEEK!!!!!!"

Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)·podcast_episode·24m 53s·analyzed·Sep 8, 2025

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Kaneda predicts Star Wars LE sells on IP alone despite weak mechanics, criticizes Stern's indistinguishable trim packages.

Summary

Kaneda discusses the upcoming Star Wars pinball release during "new pin week," analyzing expected sales dynamics, game design philosophy under John Borg, and criticizing Stern's limited edition strategy. He expresses skepticism about mechanical innovation, argues for radical LE differentiation similar to Harry Potter CE, and predicts strong sales driven by IP strength rather than gameplay innovation. He also critiques the broader market—expensive pricing, oversaturation, poor LE execution, and unsustainable boutique manufacturer strategies.

Key Claims

Star Wars LE will sell 770 units in one day in America purely because of the theme, regardless of mechanical innovation
medium confidence · Kaneda predicts strong sales based on Star Wars IP strength and casual buyer demographics, not gameplay depth
Recent Stern games (King Kong, Venom, John Wick) LEs have not sold out and sat unsold for extended periods
high confidence · Kaneda explicitly references these games as examples of LE demand failures
Stern's art department (Jeremy Packer) has failed to make LE versions meaningfully different from Pro and Premium versions
medium confidence · Kaneda criticizes Packer directly, contrasting to Ghostbusters Slimer as a counter-example of successful LE differentiation
The Star Wars game will feature an AT-AT as the major mech, likely recycled from Avatar
medium confidence · Kaneda speculates on mechanical design based on recent Stern patterns and themes
Pedretti Gaming is making the Big Bang Bar remake
high confidence · Kaneda states 'thanks to Kaneda that Pedretti Gaming is making the remake to Big Bang Bar. The image is out there.'
Boutique manufacturers (Pedretti, Pinball Brothers, Turner, Barrels of Fun) are struggling and will face difficulty selling their annual allotments
medium confidence · Kaneda asserts these companies are 'in trouble' and slower burn sales indicate design/market fit failures
Community sentiment has shifted away from purchasing every new release due to high prices and lack of mechanical magic
medium confidence · Kaneda describes broad community pullback from 'need to own every single new release' over past four years
Star Wars LE pricing at $13,000 is significantly higher than the previous Star Wars LE which was approximately $9,000
high confidence · Kaneda directly compares pricing: 'the LE was I think like 9,000 at most' vs current $13,000

Notable Quotes

“I'm allowed to think a game is really fun and never want to buy it.”
Kaneda @ ~3:50 — Core thesis addressing disconnect between game quality and purchase decisions; explains King Kong/Venom/John Wick LE failures
“It's still Star Wars... even if the world under glass that John Borg creates isn't the most dynamic and innovative and wow, they're still gonna sell 770 Star Wars pinball machines at $13,000 a pop.”
Kaneda @ ~8:20 — Central prediction: IP strength overrides mechanical innovation for sales success
“The phrase, you know, I got an LE hasn't meant anything in a really long time.”
Kaneda @ ~25:30 — Directly criticizes erosion of LE prestige and market differentiation at Stern
“If the art was very similar to the LE and that topper, which isn't great, is what the topper was, they would not be selling that $15,000 CE.”
Kaneda @ ~19:15 — References Harry Potter CE as counter-example of successful radical LE/CE differentiation
“To quote Han Solo, I do have a bad feeling about this.”
Kaneda @ ~26:45 — Predicts Stern will fail to make Star Wars LE sufficiently differentiated; foreshadows LE sales concerns
“Jeremy, people are spending $6,000 more than they do on the Pro version of the machine. And you've been outfitting your games to look the same.”
Kaneda @ ~21:30 — Direct criticism of Jeremy Packer's art direction strategy; identifies core structural failure in trim differentiation
“The scalper price is going to have to be paid by the person who's not in the hobby, who doesn't understand that this game is even coming out.”
Kaneda @ ~35:15 — Explains secondary market dynamics; new money buyers willing to overpay unaware of MSRP
“If you have a boutique company, you got to make a game where you can basically sell your annual allotment within a couple months. If you haven't sold out within a couple months then you got it wrong.”

Entities

Star Wars PinballgameKanedaperson Jeremy Packerperson Zombie Yetiperson John Borgperson Dwight Sullivanperson

Signals

?
business_signal: Boutique manufacturers (Pedretti, Pinball Brothers, Turner, Barrels of Fun) facing viability pressure; slow sales indicate failure to sell annual allotments within expected 2-3 month window
medium · Kaneda: 'I think companies like Pedretti, Pinball Brothers, Turner Pinball... are going to be in trouble... Barrels of Fun is not having the success they want with Dune... If you haven't sold out within a couple months then you got it wrong'
~
sentiment_shift: Broad community pullback from purchasing every new release; market fatigue due to sustained high pricing, oversaturation, and perceived lack of mechanical innovation over past 4 years
high · Kaneda: 'the majority of us now are really sort of pulling back the need to own every single new release... these games are so expensive. The magic is not in most of them... We've had like four years of that'
?
competitive_signal: Harry Potter CE at Jersey Jack demonstrates radical LE differentiation strategy ($15k pricing justified by visually distinct design), contrasting Stern's approach of similar trim packages across tiers
high · Kaneda praises JJP: 'The way that Harry Potter CE looks nothing like the Harry Potter Wizard Edition. That's why people are forking over $15,000 for that game, because it looks so different'
?
design_philosophy: Prior Star Wars pinball code (Dwight Sullivan) prioritized multiplied points/mode stacking over narrative immersion and movie moment authenticity; expected to be corrected on 2025 version with Ray Day as code designer
medium · Kaneda: 'worse than the hyperdrive being the main mech, the worst part about that entire game is how Dwight butchers the narrative and the storyline... you're stacking modes and moments from the different movies on top of each other to get to pinball multipliers'

Topics

Star Wars Pinball launch strategy and sales predictionsprimaryLimited Edition (LE) pricing and differentiation strategy at SternprimaryMechanical innovation and playfield design philosophy in modern Stern gamesprimaryArt direction and cabinet aesthetics for premium game tiersprimaryCommunity sentiment shift: oversaturation, high pricing, purchase fatigueprimaryBoutique manufacturer viability and sales expectationssecondarySecondary market dynamics, scalping, and new buyer demographicssecondaryPedretti Gaming's Big Bang Bar remake and market reception concernssecondary

Sentiment

negative(-0.62)— Kaneda is skeptical and critical throughout. While he predicts Star Wars will sell due to IP strength, he expresses resignation rather than enthusiasm. He criticizes Stern's strategy, Jeremy Packer's art direction, boutique manufacturers' viability, and broader market dynamics (greed, oversaturation, overpricing). He explicitly states 'I still just can't get as excited as I want to be for a new Star Wars game' and uses Han Solo's 'bad feeling' quote. Positive notes: acknowledges Star Wars theme/IP is epic, respects John Borg's design instincts for casual appeal, recognizes some historical successes (Slimer, Harry Potter CE). Overall tone is critical, cautionary, and fatigued with current market conditions.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.075

All right, it is the best week we ever get in pinball. New pin week. Those three words always, regardless if you're gonna get it, regardless if you're excited about the theme, there's just something that's always fun about a new pinball machine in the world this week. Now, it is Monday, September 8th. The media day is September 10th, Wednesday. The distributor sort of webinar is tomorrow. Now, in a sort of uncanny move, Stern Pinball has asked the journalists, I don't know, I use that word very lightly, to sign an NDA. But that doesn't make any sense if you're going to show the game during the webinar. Now, obviously, the dealers and distros are always under NDA, but they're going to leak it. It's always leaked whenever the webinar happens. once assets are shown to the outside world, there's no way to know who's like leaking what and we're going to see it. And then what always happens is this, we get the crappy cell phone photos and then Stern quickly has to release the HD images because everyone's complaining about the bad photos. Now, I don't want to talk about that because we know that's going to happen, It always happens. There seemingly isn't a real launch strategy happening here. We are hearing a lot about Disney's approvals, and that is why they cannot tease this thing the way they want it to. I don't know who to believe. I don't even care. What I want to do is talk about new pin week and how I think the community is going to respond to a new Star Wars game. Now, I've been hearing from a lot of people out there, and they've been saying to me, hey, Kaneda, how do you think the Star Wars LE is going to do? Because that's usually the version of the game that we look at to determine whether or not the game has been a successful launch. If the LE sells out right away, it's a really good indication that demand for this game is strong. if it sits for a while and never sells out like a King Kong and a Venom and a John Wick, then we know that this game doesn't mean the game is that bad. You know, I'm seeing all this with the King Kong people. And I think everyone needs to realize this. We universally think King Kong is a fun, really good game. We also universally don't want to own one at these prices. those two opposing things can actually be correct at the same time and happen at the same time. And that's what I don't understand is like, I'm allowed to think a game is really fun and never want to buy it. So I started out today's show with the iconic Star Wars theme song. I think just that theme song alone on a new stern sort of spike three sound system with the larger stern screen. I almost think it's, I'm just going to say this. I think it's almost irrelevant whether or not the game is epic or not. Because the theme is epic. The theme song is epic. The assets from the movies are epic. And so even if the world under glass that John Borg creates isn't the most dynamic and innovative and wow, they're still gonna sell 770 Star Wars pinball machines at $13,000 a pop even though they're not going over to Europe I still think they're gonna sell them in one day in America because of the theme and you know look they sold that many maybe of like D&D so you don't think Star Wars is going to outsell D&D. They might not have sold that many D&Ds, to be honest. I don't even know if they made over 770 D&Ds. What was the number there? They always use some weird number based on the theme now. X-Men was 860. Jaws was 1,000. They sold all 1,000 of those. And so Star Wars. I try to remind myself that as much as this might not be the next Godzilla, And it's probably not going to be the next sort of, I don't know, Lord of the Rings or Tron or I don't know, insert your Stern game that you love so much. It's still Star Wars. And what I'm expecting from this game is not a ton under the glass. I'm not. I'm expecting another Stern, a company where the bomb on the actual physical game itself has to be around $4,000. And so I'm not expecting this thing to all of a sudden look like loaded, to have amazing scopes, to have the ball flying through the air, to have magnets grabbing it and doing incredible stuff. I'm not expecting to all of a sudden look down and see a Bally Williams-like game. I think we're gonna see a Stern. I think it's gonna have like one major mech I think it's going to be the AT-ST. I think it going to be a recycle of the mech from Avatar I thinking John Borg might do something fun with the mech from Aerosmith and NBA that shoots the ball out over into something you know sort of like the way it's shot into the Aerosmith toy box. I am thinking that would be a really, really cool moment where the Millennium Falcon shoots out of that asteroid that's actually, you know, when the plane goes into the belly of the beast. Did I say plane? I don't know. How do you describe the Millennium Falcon? Is it a spaceship? Yeah, it's a spaceship. So, you know, it could be awesome to fire it out and, you know, lead them to safety in a really wow, cool way. I love watching pinballs get magnetized. I love them flying through the air. I love it when the ball interacts with stuff. Now, if we look at the most recent Sterns people, we're not seeing a lot of mechanical wow. We're not seeing a lot of innovation in the mechanical area. So I think they're going to play it safe. It's also a two flipper game. Now that doesn't mean it's going to be bad. Look, Toten is a two flipper game. Look how much there is to shoot in that game. Lord of the Rings, last time I checked is a two flipper game. So what I think they're going to do in this game is I think it's going to be most likely a sort of variation of a fan layout. I think what Borg is going to do is play it safe on the design standpoint. I think they're going to make this game very welcoming to the majority of casual pinball players. And I think the really good players that love a King Kong layout and a Jurassic Park, you know, your Elwynn fans, your Jack Danger fans. I think those people are going to look at this game and be a bit disappointed. I think this game's going to have long ball times, and I think it's going to be designed to do what a Star Wars game should do, and that is appeal to the masses. You know, John Borg has taken a mainstream theme that should have been a more fun, casual romp, if you will, a game like Ninja Turtles, and he made it way too hard. And because of that, it wasn't fun. Casual pinball players do not want to have to constantly be nudging the machine to keep the ball in play. Ghostbusters, one of the most universally loved themes of all time Stern made it a gameplay dog You're holding on for dear life It's not fun to play And so I think this game is going to be I think it's going to be fun to play I think the theme is going to make it fun to play I think it's going to be easy to play And I think, you know, Ray Day is not going to destroy The movie moments the way Dwight did That's really When you think about the Steve Ritchie game, I think worse than a tie fighter on spring, worse than the hyperdrive being the main mech, the worst part about that entire game is how Dwight butchers the narrative and the storyline. Like you're stacking modes and moments from the different movies on top of each other to get to pinball multipliers. it's almost like he thought that we wanted multiplied points more than we want to feel the magic of the Star Wars movies and that was a huge mistake and so I don't think this game is going to be anything like that I think they're going to bring all the iconic moments from the three movies to life in a gameplay that is going to be very friendly for most of us and I think it's going to be a lot of fun now that being said these games are really expensive and so unlike the last Star Wars I think when the last Star Wars came out the LE was I think I want to say like 9,000 at most and they made 800 and the premium was like 7,500 and the pro was like 52 or something and change now we're in this modern world in LE is 13. And we're watching all of these other LEs sink in value significantly. The premium is pushing 10 grand and the pro is around like 6,700, but it's Star Wars. Now, here's my final sort of like take on all of this. If they make the Star Wars LE different enough, right? And I mean, drastically different. The way that Harry Potter CE looks nothing like the Harry Potter Wizard Edition. That's why people are forking over $15,000 for that game, because it looks so different. If the art was very similar to the LE and that topper, which isn't great, is what the topper was, they would not be selling that $15,000 CE. It was a genius move by Eric and team over there to radically make the CE special. I think Stern has struggled. And I think Zombie Yeti, as the head of the art department, I'm gonna put it on him because I like Jeremy Packer (Zombie Yeti), but I'm gonna criticize him right now. Jeremy Packer (Zombie Yeti) is the head of Stern Art. He needs to really reestablish the LE of a machine being radically better than the other versions. Jeremy, people are spending $6,000 more than they do on the pro version of the machine. And you've been outfitting your games to look the same. And I know what you're going to say. Oh, you know, we're working hard. We're ill. I get it, bro. I get it. But if you only have time to make two King Kong art packages then the pro needs to be sandbagged a little bit and just make it the big logo You cannot take away the LE Games significance And you cannot take away the reason why the LE Games stands out significantly And I think Stern Pinball of late has forgotten that. And we need another Ghostbusters Slimer, which you, Jeremy, made. Like, you know this better than anybody. You designed the Slimer edition to look so insane. You designed the artwork to work with the lollipop rails on the armor. Like you went all in. And I just haven't seen that from Stern in a really long time. So for this L.E., I've been saying it. Like I want to see a Darth Vader version. if it's the fall of the empire, I want to see on that cabinet something that connotes the fall of the empire. Is the emperor on it? Is it Darth Vader? Is it Luke battling Vader? Is there something dynamic? You know, it's funny for this much money, we act like this is the best we can get for $13,000 and you're only making $770 ever. Stern Pinball could make special cabinets just for the LEs that have lit up lightsabers on them. Can you imagine that? You power on the game and there's that iconic scene in like the Emperor's Chamber Room in which Vader and Luke's lightsabers turn on with the, like you could do that and make that the cabinet of the LE. Who cares about the top or put the effort into something there. And look, you don't even have to like cut the wood differently. Like you could put that over the cabinet and make it like an LED lit up thing. The problem is they don't care. You know, I get served ads by these like LED neon companies and for like 200 bucks, you could get that. And yet you're spending $13,000 on a pinball machine that you wanna keep in your home for years and it's just a sticker. It's just a sticker. They can't figure out a way to light up the cabinet in an interesting way when the theme is Star Wars. And so I hope it is, I hope the LE is heads and shoulders better than the premium and the pro. And here's the mistake Stern's making is I know what they're thinking. They're like, well, we're only able to make 770 LEs. So let's make the art packages just as nice, if not nicer on the pros and the premiums because that's what we can sell for years and that's where the volume's gonna come from. And you're wrong, gentlemen. You gotta remember, these people are spending 13. They should have something that always makes somebody who spent six or ten envious of what they got, that they got an LE. And that phrase, you know, I got an LE hasn't meant anything in a really long time. So to quote Han Solo, I do have a bad feeling about this. I don't think Stern's going to make the LE so much nicer than the other two versions. So we shall see what we get. We shall see what they do. But I think they're going to make them all look similar. And that's going to make it somewhat of a head scratcher as to why someone needs the LE. When you look at the numbers lately, buying an LE really doesn't make much sense. And I think just overall, owning them has really been the issue because nobody cares anymore. Nobody cares. If it had an exclusive topper the way Batman did, if it looked head and shoulders above everything else like Slimer did, it would be a different story. And I think that's on the CMO and that's on Jeremy Packer (Zombie Yeti) to figure this out because that is how you are bringing this trim of the game to the market. And I think they need to really elevate. I do think there's should be an LE only topper that those 770 people get exclusively. Give them a chance at something exclusive and then the rest of the buyers don't get it. It's why when you buy a GT3 Porsche RS, you get an exclusive spoiler that not every Porsche gets and you can't buy it on the aftermarket. it's either you pay this much and you get it and we're going to differentiate you because you spent a lot more money on the product so new pin week we also now know thanks to canada that pedretti gaming is making the remake to big bang bar the image is out there i love all the watermarks everyone else in the content space now has to hesitantly give credit to canada for confirming this. I also don't think people care. I really don't think people care. Once they find out it's Pedretti making the remake, the amount of people that are really excited almost goes to zero. You wanted it to be Chicago Gaming Company. It's not. It's Pedretti Gaming. Does the world need more Big Bang Bars? The answer is no. We're in a really strange place in pinball right now. I think pinball right now is going to be really difficult for a lot of these companies. I'm looking at companies like Pedretti, Pinball Brothers, Turner Pinball. I think they're going to be in trouble. I think Barrels of Fun is not having the success they want it with Dune. They're like have to slow burn this thing now. But this isn't what it's supposed to be. If you have a boutique company, you got to make a game where you can basically sell your annual allotment within a couple months. If you haven sold out within a couple months then you got it wrong It just that simple You got it wrong Because I think the majority of us now and I mean this the majority of us now are really sort of pulling back the need to own every single new release, the need to support every single pinball company. The overall vibe in the community is so much different now than it was. And it's not because anyone's toxic. I just think people have woken up to the new reality that these games are so expensive. The magic is not in most of them. The themes aren't really what we want. And we've had like four years of that. And COVID made everything silly. Like I just posted a dude selling a kiss premium for $14,000, a premium. And I get it has the cheap topper on it that is now worth like three grand just because Stern won't just make more. I'm just over this. Like the greed, and I know you can ask whatever you want, but that's what the entire community has turned into, is like nobody wants to price games at a fair price anymore. Everybody thinks everything is worth so much, and everything's for sale. It's like we're living in this oversaturation, and in the end, where the real enjoyment is happening in pinball is amongst the people. Hanging out with your friends, listening to podcasts, watching content, going on location, going to shows. You don't need more. Most of you wake up. You see your game room. It's really cool. You know, you were the cool kid on the block for a while. Your neighbors now don't care. You don't turn on your machines nearly as much as you'd like to. and you're a grown adult and after a while, it all just sort of gets blended into the same thing. Like I'm a pinball aficionado. I've got a bunch of pinball machines. I don't need more. We're all gonna reach that point. Now, the reason why I still think Star Wars at least sells out is a lot of pinball machines are bought by people that are not like you and me. They don't know how much a pinball machine should cost. They have a lot of money. They have room. They haven't been collecting for 10 years. And I think all of us would be shocked by the sheer amount of new buyers whenever a new game comes out. When Spooky Pinball releases Beetlejuice, the people that are going to have to pay the scalper prices aren't you and me. You know, there really only is like a thousand people in America who really have to own this stuff. The scalper price is going to have to be paid by the person who's not in the hobby, who doesn't understand that this game is even coming out. And I'll tell you this, as someone who's scalped games before, they were always bought by people not on Pinside who saw the game somewhere else and they don't own other games. I mean, I sold a Batman to a dude that owned it for a year. He didn't even know what code updates were. I was like, bro, did you update your game? He's like, what are you talking about? Okay. And so these people have money. They like the theme and they're just happy to get one. They know they missed out. They know it's sold out. You got to remember, we live in a culture too, where people go on StockX and they'll buy sneakers and other items for more than they might've retailed because they missed the drop at MSRP. I always laugh when people get mad about scalping, like you kept the game from it. No, like that's not how it works anymore. Like you're literally the buyer is happy and the seller is happy. Now, what's making nobody happy now are these people just asking astronomical prices. Like there is a dude who just asked like thirty eight thousand for a Pirates of the Caribbean collector's edition. And I'm like, all right, let me just go on the marketplace on Pinside. And there's another one for sale for like twenty seven thousand. Why are you pricing your game, the same exact game, for $10,000 more than another game is for sale? It's probably because you don't want to sell it and that's just the price of stupid money. If someone offered it, I'd take it. So new pin week, is it going to be tomorrow? Obviously, I'm going to be very busy covering Star Wars. We're going to be really excited. I wish I knew what time because I would love to go live with each and every one of you doing the live reactions to these games is always a lot of fun. I'm going to do it. I'm going to try to work from home so that when it does go live, we can quickly jump on together and give our opinions about the game. So, you know, I still I still just can't get as excited as I want to be for a new Star Wars game. I do agree that when you look at what Disney has done to Star Wars, it also plays an impact. They've kind of ruined the theme. I mean, they've made so much garbage that the good stuff is few and far between. But the original movies, people, this is the original. This is sacred ground. And that's why I think it's going to sell out. And those 770, even if not sold in Europe, will be spoken for if they make the LE special. If they don't, then I don't think it's going to sell out. And I think people are going to be happy just waiting for Stern to make thousands of them. And then you pick up one on the used market and you save yourself thousands. That's what I would do. Everybody have a great Monday. More shows coming this week. Kaneda out. © BF-WATCH TV 2021