It's the final countdown! The final countdown! Alright, we got one day to get Sonic the Freakin' Hedgehog. It's like one day, four hours and eight minutes from now. Sonic the freaking Hedgehog from Jersey Jack Pinball will drop. New pin day is always very, very exciting, but this game carries a lot with it. This isn't just another pin. This isn't like Padretti Gaming doing tails. This isn't like the next game from the Pinball Brothers. This is the biggest drop I think in the last five years of pinball. I mean it. I think this is bigger than Potter. I think it's bigger than Beetlejuice. And here's why the significance of this pin is unlike anything we've ever seen because this is Steve Ritchie, the king. He's migrated over to Jersey Jack. Elton John was an okay shooter. It was a great shooter actually, but it wasn't really a theme people got excited about. I was there when Elton John dropped. There was not much excitement. This is so much different. The amount of people excited for this game is incredible. I'm over these teasers. I don't mind them, but I want to see the thing in all of its totality and I want to share with you and enjoy it as a community at the exact same time. Yeah, I'm glad I didn't go over there. When people are like, oh man, they're all going to have content ready to go. I don't care about the content. The best thing you can do is to all see it together at the same time. It would be like this. It would be like showing five of those content creators the end of a movie or the movie before everybody else has seen it. Isn't it more fun to see it with everybody together in the theater? That's what we're going to do. And coverage is going to start tomorrow on YouTube and on Facebook at 1130 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Now, I am banking that the game is not going to leak tonight, that they are actually going to reveal the game at noon Eastern Time tomorrow. So let's all huddle for a half hour. Let's get excited and let's see this freaking game. I want to be like, move that bus, J.J.P. Show us this game. But the reason why I think this game is so significant, more than Harry Potter, more than Elton John, is this is the first Steve Ritchie, Jersy Jack game that I think is actually going to land with incredible significance. And I think it's going to be the moment in which we finally realize the significance of Steve Ritchie migrating from Stern Pinball over to Jersey Jack Pinball. This is a guy that's been doing this for decades and clearly he was not happy over at Stern Pinball. Now Steve made some games at Stern that weren't really like the greatest ever. He also made some of the greatest games ever at Stern. Games like ACDC, games like Star Trek. People still, to this day, absolutely love those games. Game of Thrones, maybe the worst art package ever. His Star Wars was a miss. He had a bunch of misses in a row, Led Zeppelin. And so what I love about him coming over here is the very simple thing of does Steve Ritchie have one more masterpiece in the tank? Now, I think he's got more than one masterpiece in the tank. And if my early sort of rumors I'm hearing about this game are accurate, I think this game could be incredible, incredible fun. It comes with an incredible price, but it could be incredible fun. And here the thing We are now witnessing what I think everyone has seen for a while but now it unavoidable that Jersey Jack games are just next level when you put them next to a Stern platform and game And I mean that And this is the thing It a tale of two companies Stern scaled up so large that they made Spike 3 a cost measure And so Spike 3 as a platform in a lot of ways looks even cheaper than Spike 2 And look at the teases on Sonic They innovating They putting more into the games They're getting more creative on how they approach their platform, which a decade ago looked much better than Stern Pinball's do today. And you can't survive like this. You know, Stern Pinball is in a period now where they're letting people go. They're pointing fingers. I know they're now going after content creators and want to explain themselves. But here's the thing, Stern. You have nobody blamed but yourselves. You've had all this time to innovate, all this time to make Optimus transform, and you didn't get it done. And for this much money, people just want to see a company that is executing at the highest level. We're seeing it over at Spooky. We're seeing it over at companies like Jersey Jack right now. And it's just going to keep getting better and better and better. And that's why the customers will go where the quality is. Now look, here's the hard part about all the pinball is all the pinball is fun. So yeah, like I'm reading the reports about Transformers and everyone's like, yeah, it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. Nobody's saying the game is not fun. Nobody's saying that Elizabeth is not going to make the code amazing. But what the community is saying is we know that you yanked out Optimus Prime transforming. And because of that, I'm not going to buy this game right now new in box. And that's the thing that I don't think people get. If we exercise a little patience and if we display some pinball standards and don't run at every new Stern, Stern's going to have to get better. That's the end result. So I don't care how much fun Transformers is because I know deep down in my Cybertronian butt that the game would be even more fun if it had Optimus Prime in it doing what he's supposed to do. I know that this game would be way more fun if there was a single thing in Transformers that transformed. And because of that, I won't run at this game right away. And by the time this game is even code 1.0, we're going to get Back to the Future and Goonies and Fifth Element and Sonic the Hedgehog and all these other games. So it's like, what's the point? What's the point? What Stern Pinball did not count on is Steve Ritchie going over to Jersey Jack five years ago. What they didn't count on was Jersey Jack Pinball not helping to bail out Stern Pinball. Oh man, there's a story there. What they did not count on was basically everybody else getting so much better. So tomorrow I feel like is going to be a glorious, glorious day. Jersey Jack is going to show us Sonic the Hedgehog in three trims. There's no FOMO. There's no you need a relationship with the distributor to get this game. Nope. If you want the nicest version of this game, they will make it for you. You might have to wait a little longer, but you won't have to pay over. Nobody has to pay a single dollar over to get a Sonic the Hedgehog. They are going to make a CE, they are going to make an LE, and then they're going to make an arcade edition. A lot of people want the blue armor on the CE edition. I can't blame you. I would have put the blue armor on the collector's edition, but it is what it is. I think they're going for some contrast, but it's Sonic, man. And I felt this way when I first saw it. How do you not make the Collector's Edition blue? It is Sonic. I know there's a little bit of the topper that's floating around, some of the playfield, some of the back box, all the lighting in the game is starting to leak out. I don't care anymore about the pieces. Don't show me the pepperoni. Show me the pie, baby. Show me the pie, Jersie Jack. You know, look, as a rollout, it is what it is. It was what it was. You know, nothing like has blown me away. But again, I expect to be blown away. I think we all can agree a Jersey Jack launch just always does carry with it a lot more because we know the entire company is focused on one game. See right now the problem at Stern is like there no focus There no focus even as a buyer So right now even if I want to get into Transformers I can because I already focused on how disappointed I am in Pokemon And if I want to get into Transformers I can even focus because I rather wait for Fallout from you know Kee Thelwin the new king over at Stern And that the issue You know I downloaded the new Pokemon code I put it in my game And there's nothing in it. It's more nothing. In fact, what they're adding into it is actually making it a little bit more crowded and complex. Like there's moments now where like a character's face pops up over half the screen with a circle around it. What is this? They've got no plan for this game. And I am here to tell you right now, I'm getting very, very close to getting rid of Pokemon. I don't care. I don't care. I just don't care. I don't want to own something like this. I don't want to wait two years of my life until the game is fun. If Sonic the Hedgehog comes out and it's awesome day one, yeah. You know what's crazy about kids though? I'll tell you this right now. So Killian, all of a sudden yesterday on Father's Day, by the way, happy belated Father's Day to all the dads out there. For each and every one of you out there, you are amazing. To be a father, to provide for a family, we don't get thanks enough, man. It's hard. It's hard. The modern world, man, keeps coming at us like men and dads. Like we just keep getting emasculated and relegated to being we have to be everything now. We have to be the dad. We have to be the mom. We have to be the provider. We have to be the caretaker. We have to be that is with that. It's like it's incredible. It's absolutely incredible. What is expected of us these days? And now, you know, it is what it is. But, you know, look, I think it ranks like 20th in terms of like the most celebrated holidays. But anyway, I know that when you look at your family and anyone out there who made you a dad changed your life forever and hopefully for the better. I know for me for the better. And I spent yesterday in deep, deep reflection that I just want to be a better dad. I want to be more present. I want to stop drinking as much. I don't want to keep acting like I'm trying to hold on to my old life with my new life, with my city lifestyle, with my suburban lifestyle. And it's been a bit challenging. I have to be honest. It's a lot of energy. It's a lot of go, go, go. There's not much pausing. But I will say the thing that I don't want to do is I don't want to escape. I don't want to like get out. I want to double down in on these beautiful kids. And Killian, he made me this Father's Day card. I mean, it just broke me down. It was a picture of him holding my hand like these stick figures. And he's like, Mommy, I really want to make it. So I'm holding Daddy's hand. And like literally like that just like broke me down like nothing else. And I'm like, I wish I was a better father to you. I wish I got you a pinball machine that had decent code. I've been a horrible father to Killian by putting this Pokemon into the house. I'm being a little facetious, but I'm not. It's ridiculous that you can buy your kid a toy. So here's the thing. He started getting into Transformers now. Like, it's crazy. The kid goes from Pokemon to Sonic to Transformers in like a four month period. So we started watching from the beginning and he loves, I mean, we're watching the first like three episodes of the original Transformers series. You know what he says? He's like, Daddy, why does Optimus keep losing? And he's right. All he does is get his ass kicked by the Decepticons in Megatron nonstop. He's like, when does he win? He's like, it's Megatron 3, Optimus 0. It's also funny when you go back and watch these cartoons now how there's so many weird inconsistencies that you would never notice as a kid. I'll give you an example. So there's a scene. Well, all throughout the show, when they're on Earth, they can fly like they can take off to the air and they can fly like Superman. Okay, then there's a scene where Optimus is fighting Megatron at a dam and he's like falls down and he's holding on to this bridge, but he's holding on like he might fall. And Megatron is stepping on his feet and I'm like, why is he nervous about falling? The dude can fly. Like it makes absolutely no sense anyway. But when you go back and watch it, you do realize that like the show itself, it doesn't hold up as well as you remember. And it's not the same as like the toy line along with the show and just the way we played and used our imagination. If you go see Toy Story 5 you know what I talking about But now he in the Transformers And I like oh man do I think about getting him a Transformers And I like I can do it I won be that father that puts a Transformer pinball machine in this house in which nothing transforms And look there nothing I know Stumbler the mod guy it not going to work They originally had Optimus transforming and it changed the way the game played You can't do that now. They've had it coded differently. The shots are going to be different. It's just not the same. I don't want to just hit a start button and he transforms up and that's it. Like that's not going to cut it. So we are one day away. I just saw on Pinside somebody sold a Big Bang Bar original, number 12, for it was $35,000 or best offer. I mean, you know he didn't get $35,000 on the dot, but man, $35,000. And what do you think? It got me thinking a little bit about like what will pinball collecting become? Like what will the games be that the high-end collectors are looking for? Interesting that that Big Bang Bar sold for that. Pedretti Gaming does have a remake coming of Big Bang Bar. It's just not happening right now. I do think the tales of the Arabian Nights sales are going to be weak. I do. Even though they're only making $3.99 of the limited edition, I just don't feel any energy anymore. We used to, but there's just no energy anymore around any of these remakes. CGC, which makes a much better game than Pedretti, which has made like the third or fourth Merlin edition of Medieval Madness, that game is way better than Tails. Those games are tanking in price. Like you can now go get those games for $3,000 off. And so I'm hearing there might be more Twilight Zones coming. I don't know. I just don't think people care. There's so much new stuff. So speaking of new stuff, I have to make a correction. I was wrong every once in a while. Canada's wrong and I admit it when I'm wrong every single time. I'm hearing that the ACDC coming back is not a totally new game. I'm hearing it is a remaster of the Steve Ritchie game and they're going to have John Borg work on the remaster. Ozzy Osbourne is still coming. It's just been scheduled for next year. I'm also hearing that Fallout is also coming out this year. So here's now what it's going to be. It's going to be Fallout next, then ACDC and another James Bond Goldfinger edition coming out at the end of the year. And then I think at the very end of the year, maybe it's Brian Eddy's Dracula. And then I don't know, man, then it's going to be Keith Elwin's Star Trek next year. And who knows what's going on in the world of Stern? It's not good. It's not good. You got to just read the room, read the vibes. And unfortunately, it just feels like Stern is always in much more damage control than they are doing victory laps. And again, I don't think they have anybody to blame but themselves. And I know Seth is trying to shake stuff up. I still feel like, you know, he brought in that CMO guy. Do you even know his name? Has he ever introduced himself? Has he done focus groups? Has he pulled in guys like me and Kerry and Ralph and Don and other guys? Has he asked us like, hey, guys, you guys, you guys are probably the most plugged in individuals in this hobby. You wake up every day and you make content. Tell me what you would want to see us do. They haven't done it. They haven't done it. And so I'm just going to say it's what I said to them two years ago. You're going to bring in someone from outside the organization and they're not going to know pinball and you're going to make a lot of mistakes. And they've made a lot of mistakes. And even though the numbers are probably better than everybody else's, the big number is not. I think their overhead is just so significant and I think the loan they've taken from the private equity people is significant and I think the goal of the organization is to find someone to buy this company. But as I always say, who wants to buy a pinball company? It's not like you're buying a company that makes one product that never changes and the more money you pump into it, the more sales you're going to get. Every four months, you have to recreate the damn thing. Every four months. Thousands of parts from around the world and you have to assemble this complex thing and the margins are not great and the community seemingly hates you. You know what I'm saying? It just isn't the business I would go into. So everybody look, it's going to be a very, very fun day tomorrow. I look forward to seeing this game for the first time tomorrow with each and every one of you. Let's have a great lunch. Let's have a great moment in which we see this game. And I think the order banks are going to open. I think they're going to get a ton of orders. And I think it's going to be a glorious day in the world of pinball. And I think that this is going to be, again, the new bar has been set. It was set by Evil Dead, Beetlejuice, by Winchester, by games like Sonic and Harry Potter. Guess what company we are not saying is setting any bar. That's a problem. It's time, Stern. Seth, you know what you need to do. Make them transform, baby. Kaneda out. Final Countdown. It's the final countdown. The final countdown. Godzilla, Hally Potsdam