Welcome everybody to the Kaneda Club. Been some drama in the air lately, but we're going to bury all that because it's my birthday on Sunday. You know, I love doing this show, and we've been doing this show now for six years, and I get it. Manufacturers might not like me. They might not want to come on the show. We don't shill any products. We just call it like it is. We've been doing this now for six years, and because of your support, we're not going to stop. A lot of people would love for this show to go away. 720 something episodes heck I'm going to do 15,000 episodes of Pineda Spinball Podcast and this is the only show that can do this who else can put their show behind a paywall and get this kind of community I love each and every one of you and we're going to rock it right now go go go go go go go shawty it's your birthday we're going to party like it's your birthday we're going to sip a card like it's your birthday Welcome everybody to Canada's Pinball Podcast. John at Jack Barr's Favorite Pinball Podcast. What is going on over at Stern Pinball? They messed up another part of the James Bond release. I can't believe it. Last night, or apparently yesterday during the day, someone just Google image searched for James Bond's 60th anniversary pinball machine and all of a sudden the images popped up. And now we know exactly what the Keith Elwin machine is going to look like from the outside cabinet. We saw all the movie posters. We saw the topper. We saw the shooter rod. And we can start to get a little bit of like the play field. It looks like there's like a Scott Danesi lock that's on the machine. And it's just this single level game in a standard cabinet. Now, here's the funny part. This machine doesn't really have like scoring reels. It's an LCD screen that will like mimic what a scoring reel looks like. And George Gomez says there's also a tiny LCD screen on the play field. But everybody, this is it. Like, this is the game. So Stern's final piece of the James Bond puzzle has leaked. I can't even, like, imagine what the boardroom is like over in the Stern marketing department. This was probably the most botched launch in the history of pinball. I mean this. Like, I haven't seen anything sloppier than the James Bond reveal. And so let's talk a little bit about that. Let's talk about what we see in this Keith Elwin game. And then I want to go around the horn because there is other stuff happening with other manufacturers. And I actually have some news for each and every one of you. So this is why you tune in to Canada's Pinball Podcast. And first, I want to say there's no drama no more. We're moving on. It's a new day. It's a Friday. It's beautiful here in New York City. And on Sunday, it's my birthday. So Hector, I know you're going to throw some stars. I know if anybody wants to give Canada a little birthday, you know, a little extra support, canadapinball at gmail.com on PayPal. I love how it burns the haters. Everybody. Okay. So let's talk about this Keith Elwin pin. We were right about the rumor. This is the game. Now, here's what I thought when I saw this game. I don't know how this game is going to be priced. They're making 500 of them, right? So it's not that rare. and just looking at the machine itself, like remove Keith Elwin from the scenario. Can you even do that? Like, I don't know. Maybe you can't. Okay. But just looking at this machine, this machine, and I'm just going to say this, this looks like a $6,000 machine at most, maybe eight at most. Now here's the scary part. I am hearing rumors that they are going to price this machine around $20,000 is what distributors are going to ask for it. Now, I think this is the straw that breaks the camel's back. This is the real test of the pinball community. If you as a collector, as a community member, as a James Bond fan, if you run to a machine like this and you throw $15,000, $20,000, $25,000 for the right to own a single level machine in a standard cabinet with what looks like no inner art blades. If you throw this kind of money at a machine like this, it's all over. I mean it. It's just all over. Nothing is really collectible. Nothing is really that special. They're just using cash grab marketing techniques to just make rich collectors want to flex and show how much money they have. And this is it. I mean, this is not a $20,000 pin. I think everybody needs to go back and realize, look at the Bally Williams games, people. Those machines sold brand new for like $2,500. Now, even if you adjust that for inflation, you are around $6,000 brand new today. And so at this point, when are we going to say enough is enough? When are we going to say these things are just going way too high in value? At what point do you look at a Stern LE with taxes and shipping, and now you're almost at $15,000 for a Stern LE? And our friends in Australia, did you see these prices? It's like $15,000, $16,000 for a premium, and an LE of James Bond is $20,000 in Australia. That's before taxes. That's before shipping $20,000 for a single pinball machine. Welcome to 2022. This isn't what I envisioned when I said they could charge a little bit more. They could make more money. I thought they would put a lot more into these games, but that's not what's happening, people. These games are not seeing more put in them. They are just seeing the prices go up and up and up. Like, it's really hard when you look at James Bond. And correct me if I'm wrong. Email me at canadapinball at gmail.com. It is really hard when you look at the premium and then you look at the LE. And the LE is $2,700 more than the premium of James Bond. I mean, go look at those two games side by side. They are almost identical when it comes to the art packages, the color palette, everything. it's almost identical. You could go get the armor that's on the LE and put it on a premium and go get nicer inner art blades because I don't even like the LE inner art blades. And all of a sudden, you've basically got a better looking game and you saved yourself $2,700. I'm also worried, people. I mean, I'm worried that $9,700 for a premium is absolutely insane. And here's what I think is going to happen. I think there is going to be like a really short window in which there are sales for games at these prices, but then I think sales are going to start to get soft really fast. And here's the thing. Why would you now buy a premium at 9,700? Because on the used market, it's going to lose value. And the more expensive these things are on day one, the more value they going to lose So do you need to own James Bond right now before the code is finished or do you wait six months and go get a used premium for like I don know or and save yourself a lot of money Now, the other part about Yester that nobody's talking about, and think about this for a minute. Now, even though you didn't give non-refundable deposits on this game, Stern Pinball sold through all 1,000 LEs of James Bond. What didn't we see? We didn't see any real gameplay. We didn't see any real code in the machine. It's being coded by Lonnie, which has some people really nervous. I mean, people will point at Stranger Things and say it got better after like a year. But on launch now, is this game going to be a great coded game? And here's the thing. A thousand people, let's just say ostensibly a thousand people committed to buying James Bonnelli without seeing how the game plays, without seeing how the game is coded. And I'm looking at a screenshot in which someone asked George Gomez himself, are we going to see a stream of this machine this week? And George's response was, the code's not ready yet. We are going to wait two weeks to show gameplay. Now, just think about that for a minute. They want thousands of people to buy LEs and premiums and pros of this machine without seeing anything real on the game, without seeing the truly important stuff. They want to lock in all of those sales. But I will play devil's advocate. If you see the gameplay in two weeks and you don't want your LE, your distributor will give you your money back because they will always be able to find a new buyer, even if it's at 13,000. And the first flippers have shown up on Pinside. I see James Bond LEs for 16,000 firm. 16 firm for a game in which there's going to be a thousand of them, for a game in which there is a plastic sex toy that vibrates back and forth acting as a missile. 16,000 for a game nobody knows is really great yet. The hobby is getting really strange. I've been talking to a lot of you on back channels. Nobody likes this. Nobody likes the high prices. Nobody feels good anymore. I mean this. I don't think a lot of people feel that good anymore. For some of you out there where money doesn't matter, fine. But for most of us, this isn't where we wanted to see the hobby go. This was a huge jump in price. This wasn't subtle. This was a huge jump. Jersey Jack did a huge jump in price. They looked at the crazy marketplace during COVID and they aligned their marketing strategy and their sales strategy to reflect it. And this is not what you want. And I've been saying this for a while. Yes, you could charge more. And yes, in the short term, you might even have sales success. But in the long run, if you remove all of the future value of the game because you're charging too much and you're charging more than you should be for the product, in the long run, you're going to start to lose the buyers because people can't float all these companies and all these games at these high prices. And ultimately, the market will decide. Now, when it comes to James Bond, I can't wait to see more on the game. I do think the LE looks nice. I just don't see a $13,000 game there. And when I saw the video about what's in the game, it didn't make me feel like, oh my gosh, I got to own this machine, right? I'm just going to say that. I didn't get any giddiness. I didn't get giddy like I did when I saw the Guns N' Roses launch video. I didn't get giddy like when I saw the pirate ship for the first time. I didn't get giddy like when I saw Godzilla's video for the first time. There's just something about this game. It's like, I'm just going to say, I think so many of you out there, you want to love this game more than you know you really do. You want to feel like the toys in it are making you feel more than you're really feeling. Don't lie to Kaneda, right? This is a safe place. We can actually be honest amongst each other. When you saw that jetpack move across the playfield and drop the ball like a little squishy fart on top of the tank, don't lie to me. That was so underwhelming. And that's where I'm at on this game. I'm kind of still just like, I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know how this game is going to play. I don't know if Lonnie's going to deliver. I don't know if that missile, right? You bashed that missile. I mean, people have been pointing this out. When those drop targets fall down, you are basically whacking that plastic missile with a pinball. How is that going to hold up over time? Get ready for the mod community to add a bunch of car bumpers to a missile. Missile. I love saying that word. Missile. You know what I'm saying? Like, I just think there's a lot more question marks about this game. Like, looking at the underwater fight, you know, by that upper left flipper between, like, James Bond and the scuba diver. is that going to be cool or is that going to be corny right they're just kind of like shaking back and forth the Aston Martin that's not really that cool like it's not like I'm just going to be honest people the fact that it shoots the ball up just into a buck into a wire form isn't cool I think what it needed was to shoot it out and be more like the toy box in Aerosmith where there's really some dramatic thing happening after seeing the James Bond toys I'm just going to say this I don't see anything as impressive as the Godzilla building. I don't see nearly anything as impressive as the T-Rex. You know, I just don't see stuff that's as cool as the crane in Batman 66. It just doesn't have that one wow toy that's like, yeah, like that's super amazing. I'm not saying it's bad. And maybe the sum of the parts will be amazing. And I definitely have to play it. But right now, like on reveal week, do I feel compelled to write checks for $14,000 or $9,700 or $7,000? No, I do not. And I don't think now after seeing all of this, I don't think this is a pin that's going to keep going up and up in value. In fact, I don't think there's much room for these games to go up in value. People are not going to be throwing over $15,000, $16,000 on games. All right, so that's it. Like, we'll see more about this. game, but it's just kind of comical that the Elwynn pin has already been spoiled, that all of this has been spoiled. So let's go over to other manufacturers. I got some news for you. I wrote this on a post yesterday, got some real good information on American Pinball's game. So it is going to be a 1950s throwback sort of theme. Think about those like quirky 1950s sci-fi movies, you know, with the robot and the damsel in distress. Think about all those movie posters. Just type into Google 1950 sci-fi movie poster and you'll see what I mean. This is going to be what American Pinball's game is with Christopher Franchi, with Dennis Nordman, and I would assume it's going to be Galactic Space Force and it's going to be this really campy, fun, space adventure sort of game. Look I think it going to look amazing I think this game is going to look amazing and not for nothing people James Bond does not look that good Like it just doesn I mean I think everybody wants it to look good But just slapping old movie posters onto cabinets it works But it's nothing that special. I think Franchi is going to crush this game. I think it's going to be gorgeous. And I think Nordman's going to make it really fun. The question is this. How will it do as an original IP? Here's my guess. I think it's going to have like all these sci-fi robots. And you know, Franchi, he loves to draw beautiful women with usually, you know, some of their body parts hanging out. And I think it's going to be like a very sexy pin. But the question is this, will it sell in an environment in which everything else is licensed? Will it sell in an environment in which unlicensed pins have had a hard time finding buyers? Here's the formula for success for this pin. I think they need to change the ugly backbox. I hope it's in a brand new American Pinball cabinet. The game needs to look sexy, which we know it will. The game needs to have great code. I'm a little like, who's coding this game, right? Does American Pinball even have a great coder? Because Josh Kugler's gone. So who's actually going to be writing the code for this game? And then mechanically, I think we need to look down at this game and just be blown away. And I think this is Dennis Nordman's and Christopher Franchi and David Fix's big opportunity to do something that wows us. But that's not the most important part. The most important part to make this game successful in the current pinball marketplace is simply this. The price does have to be right. You know, when you look at a game like Spinal Tap for $9,500 or $9,700, it's dead on arrival. That thing is never going to sell at $9,500. If this game comes out and it's $10,000 or more, I think it's going to be really, really hard to find buyers. I mean that. You might sell like a few hundred, but you're not going to sell probably a thousand. And we've heard from American Pinball that 1,000 games sold is kind of like their goal. It's their benchmark. I hope they get there. And I'm going to be completely honest. I want there to be more dark horses coming out in pinball with alternatives to these $13,000 sterns and $12,000 to $15,000 JJPs. I've got another piece of news for you. And no one's heard this before. And I'm just going to say this. This is going to happen. There is another pinball company about to come into the pinball space most likely next year. You've never heard anybody talk about them. You don't know who they are, but they are coming. And that's not just it. They are coming, I'm hearing, with fully featured, packed, licensed games. So I don't know the name of the company. I don't know who's behind it. This isn't someone trolling me. This is an amazing source of mine. But that's it. Like we're going to have another company throw their hat in to the most difficult category on planet Earth to make a profit, pinball. So more pinball is coming. I mean, it's actually going to be really fun for each and every one of us because we're just going to have more options. And more options is good. Competition is good because we can't just have Stern and JJP making us all go broke every year. I would love to have other people figure it out. The only problem is the boutique world and the new people to the market, they never figure it out. They always fumble. Like I can't wait to get another game from Barry over at Dutch Pinball. And that is also coming. I just gave you news on American Pinball. Let's go over to CGC. So Cactus Canyon LEs are finally in production. It's been a year since you ordered yours. And how awesome now does that purchase price look? I think Cactus Canyon LE was like $92,500. Wasn't it like $97,500? When you look at everything that is in Cactus Canyon LE, it's less than $10,000. It comes with an amazing topper. It has more toys in it than basically Toy Story and James Bond combined. It's a great shooting game. It's a super awesome package. And it's less than $10,000. I will say this. I am happy that CGC now, looking back on it, kept the price where it's at. I'm going to start advocating that we need to get the prices to go south now. It's too much. I know I've been saying they should go higher. But now that we see what that's like, it's no fun. But here's another bit of news for you that I heard, and I'm going to go on the record for confirming this. So here's a bit of news that no one has heard before. CGC is manufacturing Mark Ritchie's Pulp Fiction. But what nobody knows, and what Canada is reporting right now, it is not a CGC game. This game will come into market as a Raw Thrills pinball machine. Raw Thrills is going to enter the pinball space this year. I am hearing this Pulp Fiction game is going to be at IAPA in November. So if you were wondering what's happening over at CGC, now we know that Raw Thrills, which also has the other Sharp brother over there, is throwing their hat into the pinball ring. It's going to get really interesting. Welcome to Canada's Pinball Podcast, John. This is why people pay. This is why we have 556 subscribers. This is why we have five Twippies, John. I love you. I hope to see you this weekend. All right, what else is going on in pinball? So that's CGC news. We are seeing more fathoms arrive to customers, and that is good. The thing about fathom is still this. I really don't know how many a week they are making. It's hard to judge if production is now like smoother or if we're just seeing a couple games a week being unboxed because any fathoms being unboxed looks like great momentum for them. See, here's what I would love at this point. I still would just love for Damien and Marty to just let us know how many people are working there. Have you added new employees? What does the production cycle look like now? because they are still telling people you will have your game in eight weeks. And I was on the thread last night and Viddy, who's over there, was like, guys, I hate to burst your bubble. But even though they just told you eight weeks, I've been waiting 14 or 16 weeks and I still don't have my game because there are people out there that are like, well, I've just got one week to go and I'm going to get my game. And he's like, I don't know, like that's probably not going to happen. And I think it would just behoove Damien to just adjust it. Like, look, I don't think anyone's getting a game in eight weeks. And I don't even think these people care. Like they'll wait eight years to get this game. The game is beautiful. The game looks amazing. Just be more honest. Even if Damien says, hey, look, you see what's going on here. We're on a four month build cycle and we're going to need money four months ahead of your game shipping, but we're going to get you your game. You see games going out and just be honest. Like the whole eight weeks thing doesn't really make sense because you're not really delivering on eight weeks. But look, I am happy people are getting their games. I don want to see Haggis fail I just wonder if they really going to be able to make money with this slow production And they must be looking at these Stern machines now being like see we underpriced it We should have priced it more. We've got all these rich collectors. And now everyone's throwing all this money at premiums and pros. Like, how crazy is it that a Stern premium is almost $10,000, people? If I told you that five years ago, a Stern premium is going to be $10,000, you would be like, no way, you're crazy. The new number now, it's not 10K by Christmas. It's 20K by Christmas. I don't like it. It's not fun. I'll tell you this. I love doing this podcast. And the more they price these games higher, the easier it is for me and many of you to just say no. Just say I'm happy with what I got. I don't need more machines. I don't need to buy three pinball machines instead of a car. Like, I don't need this. You know, I'm at the point now where, like, I'd rather just go buy a Rolex. I'd rather buy something else. I just don't see the value in these things at these prices. I wouldn't want to be a distributor right now and seeing these prices go up and up and up. They must know this is not going to last forever. And then what do you do? It's a lot easier to sell machines for $6,000 to $8,000 than it is for $12,000 to $15,000. And they know that and you know that. Did everybody's salary just double the last two years, right? If these machines are now costing 50% more, did each and every one of you get a 50% raise in your income and your cash flow over the last two to three years it is absolutely crazy so why now I just don't get it I didn't get that kind of raise all right all right who we missing spooky pinball so I'm here to tell you right now it's Scooby-Doo like 100% Scooby-Doo that is their next game it is going to be Scooby-Doo I think they're going to make all of these TNAs I think they will sell every one once people start getting them and unboxing them. And now that they've opened it up past the fan club, I think they're going to sell every one. You know, Spooky's a company now where I don't think we're really going to hear from Spooky much until the spring. And I think you're going to see the TNAs go out. I think they're going to finish production on Halloween. And then we're going to see if Spooky Pinball with their new design team can actually make a great game. I'm rooting for them. I am rooting for them. Scooby-Doo is perfect for a company called Spooky. It's the right kind of campy theme. And I think if they get it right, it'll be super fun. If they get it wrong, man, it's going to be rough. It's going to be rough because they've set themselves up now with their sort of factory and all their employees where they need to make about like 1,500 games in an 18-month period. You know, and every new pinball company that comes into the marketplace, it's going to get harder and harder to find buyers. And as games get more and more expensive, it's going to get harder and harder to get people to buy multiple games a year. I think if a lot of you are honest, you're looking at your pinball collection right now and you're saying, I got a lot of really great games. I don't even turn them on that much. And when I do, your wife is upstairs being like, who did I marry? Why does he keep buying more of these? I heard a story about a guy that wanted to buy every single James Bond game, a pro, a premium, and an LE. and his wife is like, no, you're not doing that. Like, why would anybody do that? I mean, maybe you collect James Bond posters, but that's the silliest thing ever. You know, I think all of us, you know, and I know there's women who listen to this show and there's some wives who are listening right now and they're looking at their husbands being like, listen to this guy. And women are much smarter with their money, they are. They're much more like realistic. They don't need pinball machines to feel better about themselves. You know, a lot of us are just like these grown men with expendable incomes. And for some reason, we just want to create Christmas morning or Hanukkah morning, like as often as we can, because we know life is short. We know we're all going to die and we can't take the money with us. I also think as a community, we need to start becoming a little bit more discerning about what we invest in. And I mean that because if people throw a ton of money at this stern machine that doesn't look like it's worth anything north of like eight grand, the 60th anniversary edition, what message are we sending them? If all these people buy Toy Story and there's no toys in what message are we sending them that you can give us less and charge more? A lot of you out there have a lot of money and I'm not going to tell you how to spend your money. I'm really not like you can buy what you want. But ultimately, a lot of the newbies and a lot of the rich folks and most people who buy pinball, I mean this, they're not on pin side. They're not listening to pinball podcast. They absolutely have no clue. There will be a good percentage of people out there that buy Toy Story CE that have no idea about anything. They don't know who Bat Lawler is. They don't know what old CEs used to cost. They don't know what a pinball toy is. They have no idea. They just see Toy Story, their eyes light up, and they hand over the money. And they just want to put something nice in their multi-million dollar home's basement. And that's all it is. And that's where the majority of the sales are. I think sometimes people like to think that Pinside and content creator tribes represent the majority of pinball buyers. We don't. But what we do represent is this. We represent the enthusiast side of the community. And this to me is where the real value in pinball is. It's not spending all this money. It's hanging out with each other. It's having fun with each other. And that is why I implore each and every one of you, just make sure you maximize that. Like get to know even some of your pinball friends better. And I'll say this, I've been going through some dramatic stuff in my personal life, even some dramatic stuff in my pinball life. And I've appreciated each and every one of you that reached out to me, said, Chris, hang in there. It's not that bad. People have given me phone calls and it's been really nice. And it's made me feel really good as I go into my birthday weekend, because even though we don't know each other that well, the connection we have through this show and through your support, it means the world to me. And I mean this, if you ever want to talk to anybody and it's whether it's about pinball or about life. I'm there for each and every one of you. I might not be able to be there exactly when you need me, but email me, PM me, say, hey, Chris, I'd love to chat sometime. I will absolutely call you and it would be great building an even bigger bond with each and every one of you. And I mean that. So thank you so much for the support, John. Thank you for joining Canada's Pinball Podcast. And congratulations, John, on the new addition to the family, to the Elric family. And he named his little boy Jack. So now Jack Barr is going to have a true air. I love it. Everybody, thank you so much for the support. I'm going to have a great birthday this Sunday. And Hector, thank you for the stars. I know you're going to kick tomorrow. And a big special thank you to my best pinball friend out there, Derek. Thank you so much for the tumblers. And thanks, Susan, so much for the tumblers. You know, people say I got a little bit of a drinking problem at times. And then Derek sends me some tumblers. He's supposed to be like my best friend. And then he sends me tumblers. Ready for my next round of whiskeys. Thanks, Derek. You're aiding and embedding my terrible behavior. Everybody have a great weekend and everybody going to the coin taker tailgating party. Have an amazing time. It's going to be such an amazing time. I'm not sure I'm going to be there, but if I'm not there, don't worry. You'll have so many pinball personalities there and it's going to be a terrific, terrific day. Everybody peace out. Thank you.