Let me sleep and hear my band. I was dreaming but I should have been with you on the stand. Wake me up before you go-go. Don't leave me hanging on like a yo-yo. Wake me up before you go-go. I don't want to miss when you hit that high. La-sit, la-sit, la-sit, la-sit, la-sit, la-sit, la-sit, la-sit, la-sit. Welcome everybody. Monday morning. It is March 9th. Spring is in the air. Welcome to Canada's Pinball Podcast. Thank you to each and every one of you who is a loyal subscriber to the show. I don't know about you, but this weekend I did a lot of spring cleaning. I put away a lot of stuff I haven't used in a long time, put it up in the attic, out of sight, out of mind. And I encourage each and every one of you to do the same thing. It's amazing in life how much stuff we just accumulate. We don't even use it. I haven't worn that jacket in two years. Why is it still in my closet? Why did I even buy all this new stuff when I've already got all this old stuff? And you can apply that metaphor of spring cleaning to pinball. We all should probably thin out our collections. We should let go of some stuff. We should let go of some games. We should let go of some of the vitriol we spew on pin side. We should let go of the anger and just appreciate the fact that we're all still above ground having opinions about this really fun toy, this box of lights that is a really difficult creative thing to execute. Not that difficult, but difficult enough, it seems, in the world of pinball. Okay, so let's talk about what's going on. Pokemon LEs are 10 days out. That is what people are saying. People have been invoiced. People are waiting for their games. And, you know, they sent out a few Pokemon pros to locations only. So the first home buyers are still going to be the limited edition people. I like this new strategy. Send out the pros to locations. And then the second people that get the game are the LE owners. It gives you like a few weeks to catch any manufacturing issues with the game. And it's smart because then the home buyers who are buying the cheapest game aren't cutting the line. It's the operators. I think it's a really smart strategy. So here's what's going to be fun. Seeing this Pokemon LE sell for $18,000. Both of them sold pretty much right away within two days. And so now it's going to get real interesting because now I think a lot of these games are going to be unboxed and played and bolted to a lot of floors. because I keep hearing great feedback about the game. You know, if this game was a dog and shot poorly and wasn't fun to play, yeah, then the hype would die super, super quickly. But I think this game is gonna be just fine. So now that both of these games sold for $18,000, what does that mean for the market on Pokemon Elite? Well, look, I think it's gonna go back up just a little bit, but also this. In just 10 days, Stern Pinball is going to turn on the manufacturing of Pokemon LE, which means in just two weeks, not two years, not two months, in two weeks time, all 750 Pokemon LE games will be made and shipped to customers. Two weeks? Not like a year. Not like six months. Six months ago, the reveal of Winchester happened. There's maybe 40 games out there. Spooky Pinball revealed Beetlejuice to the world like four months ago. I think there's only 30 games out in the world around there. 30 after four months. Stern is going to put 750 Pokemon LEs into the pinball world. It seems like a tiny, tiny number when you think about it. This franchise has millions and millions and millions of fans all over the world. You could go into one building in Tokyo and there are over 750 Pokemon fans in that one building that have enough money to buy a Pokemon Elite. They just don't have any space because all the apartments are tiny in Tokyo. But you know what I mean? When you really deconstruct it like that on a global pinball audience, on a global Pokemon fan base, there is only 750 ever of the nicest version of Pokemon pinball that will ever come out ever. No more additions. This is it. Okay. So when you think about it like that, all of a sudden, maybe those guys who grabbed the $18,000 ones were smart. I still think this thing, once it's out there, I think it's going to keep heading to the moon. I do. I think it's going to settle around 20. I do. Just right now, it's going to be hard. It's going to be hard. And also look if a sternly ever settles at 20 that an insane thing because every other one has lost so much money or just broke even after a year I know some of you are like why do we talk about this Why don't we talk about the game? So let's talk about the game. I think there was a little bit of miscommunication that Pokemon features clips from like seasons 10 to 25. I think what they meant to say was it features clips from episodes 10 to 25 in the Indigo season, which is season one. I still need some clarity on that. I thought they said they were doing later seasons because the animations were better. I think it might be a mixture of those things. There's also a lot of people waiting to see how the code develops. There is a great rule sheet for the game developing over at Tilt Forums. Now, I do agree with what someone said. I was reading this. Why doesn't Stern put out their own official rules for the game? Why do they not do that? I don't understand. They're making the game. Nobody knows the rules better than them. The game is out there on location. LE owners are about to get their games. And Stern has no official rules of the game out in the world. You have to have players go and deconstruct it. Now, the community is amazing. These guys will go and they will figure out everything and they will write it on a forum. But, you know, the majority of pinball buyers are not going to go to tilt forums to know how to play their game. So I think it would behoove Stern Pinball to actually put out more of an official rules of the game. And here's how the game is going to work without spoiling how the game works. You know, I don't like seeing everything. I don't like ruining the magic. I like people being able to buy a game, play it and see all the magic as it comes. The code that it's shipping with is .80. So we've got a ways to go. Because I think when Stern does code updates, it's only like .80, .81. I don't know if it's like all that or .825. We'll see what it is. But there's a lot they want to put into this game. They're going to get it right. It's George Gomez baby. The team on it knows what they're doing. So I'm excited for everybody getting Pokemon. I think there's like a small minority of very loud people that are rooting for this game to fail. I don't know why. I don't know why anyone would be unhappy that pinball people are happy. It's such a weird thing to root against people's happiness. Okay, strange. You might need a new hobby if you're waking up and that's what you feel about Pokemon enthusiasm. All right, so what else is going on in pinball? Let's talk about Spooky right now because Cary Hardy got his game. It's a really great video series he did. His daughter's reaction to the game was incredible. I hope to capture Killian's reaction to Pokemon LE when it comes into this household. And he set the game up and he's been playing the game. He's been bringing up what it's like owning a Beetlejuice pinball machine. And look, all the gameplay stuff is fine. We all know about it. The one thing that he brought up that I think is a little bit of like, does it really work? is the spooky speak because he's also had issues with it. If you saw my Facebook live, when I walked up to the game for the first time, I said, Beetlejuice, yup, it did something. I said, Beetlejuice again, yup, it did something. I said, Beetlejuice again, and it did nothing. And so like, yeah, it's a little bit of a gimmick. It is a little bit of a marketing gimmick. They obviously are not using the technology that's in our Alexas or our Google technology in our home. but you know I wish it worked a little bit better it's got a microphone that's up on the topper so I don't know what the deal is with the spooky speak you see how like a marketing video can show you something working effectively and when you get it if it has issues it does become a little bit annoying because you're so excited to show people it and it was really embarrassing the first time I went up to the machine because you know I'm Canadian Spinball Podcast I got all these followers is people are wanting to see what my first reaction to the game was. And I was so excited. And there was just that embarrassing moment where Frank and I couldn't figure out what to do. I don't even think the start button worked when it froze from doing this. I think maybe you have to hit the action button to bypass the spooky speak to start the game. Look, I don't think it's gonna detract from the enjoyment of owning this machine. If you have a Beetlejuice, I think you're gonna use this when your neighbors and friends come over, but you're not gonna use it every time you walk up to the machine. It's just nice to have. Look, if it wasn't in the game, this wouldn't change the value of the game one iota, okay? So the other thing is this with Beetlejuice. Where are they? Like, where are the games? It is March 9th. I thought these things were going on the line beginning of January. And Spooky normally 25 games a week. I think they can get up to 40 games a week at full capacity. I think they're still shipping like games number like 30 or 40. Maybe they made a bunch of games for show games that weren't numbered, but still, it's March 9th. I just thought we were going to have more Beetlejuices out in the world. So I heard a rumor. I'm going to throw it out here right now. I haven even asked them yet if this is true or not but I heard a rumor that there are more than 80 show games made Okay Kaneda exclusive here an exclusive rumor Kaneda Pinball Podcast you haven heard this anywhere else. So I am hearing that on top of the 999 and on top of the 80 show games, I am hearing that Spooky Pinball has also made, and the number here is a little foggy, I heard like 30 to maybe 50 more games of Beetlejuice. That sounds like a lot. But here's what I'm hearing. This rumor could be false and they'll reach out to me. But I just want to say now because it's Monday morning and they're sleeping. And I know you love some juicy rumors. I'm hearing that the Spooky Pinball Company has made an additional bunch of games for the Tim Burton Beetlejuice folks. For the folks over at the movie company associated with the film. I think they made games for people associated with the movie that are not numbered. They're not placked. They are for the crew and the staff, if you will, of the people who made the movie. I bet Tim Burton might be getting one. What about all the actors? What about people associated with the film? What about the movie studio? So that is what I'm hearing. Not sure if it's true or not. Again, you know, I don't like the show games. I don't have any problem with making specific games for the people who made the movie. if they didn't make the movie there wouldn't be a beetlejuice pinball machine so you can't really get mad at that whatever even if it's like 1080 even if it's like 1120 it don't matter people this game is a damn masterpiece it is one of the nicest pinball machines i've ever seen i can't wait to get 999 stay tuned i'm gonna do it soon in the springtime i will do the canada lottery to win a chance to buy one of those five spots. I've been a little bit slow on it. I'm sorry. It's been a busy, busy, busy winter in this family. We've got a lot going on. And I know that we're number 500. So there's some time before these games are made. So we're going to do it. Don't worry. Those games are going to go for sticker. It's going to be the last place on planet Earth you will ever be able to buy a Beetlejuice machine at MSRP with all the works, the butter cabinet, the topper. Everything's going into these bad boys. But hopefully we see in the next few weeks, the next month or two, Spooky Pinball really ramping up production because they typically get games out faster than this. I know they want to get this game right. And so that is probably why the wait is a little bit longer than usual. Speaking of waits, we're still waiting on more Winchester games. I don't know when the Dunes are going to be done. We saw on Naps Arcade, Jason Knapp had a story and this made me laugh. He's like, he's confirmed that Dungeon Crawler Carl is not the next game from Barrels of Fun. Okay, cool. No one ever said it was the next game, though. David did not deny that they are making this theme. So I think this is almost like confirmation, bro. Think about it. If you went up to George Gomez and said, are you making Dungeon Crawler Carl? Hell no. If you went up to Brett Abbas, are you making Dungeon Crawler Carl? Hell no, man. What are you talking about? What is that? if you go up to David David Van Es and you say are you making Dungeon Crawler Carl it's not our next game I'll tell you that our next game is an IP everybody knows cough cough the never-ending story or GI Joe I think those are my two guesses this company has done a good job of keeping secrets it's not Goonies they're trolling Spooky by the way you know this you know that that's a troll Spooky has Goonies not David David Van Es I would be shocked and you could take this clip and re-air it everywhere. I would be shocked if Goonies is a game being made by Barrels of Fun and they have Goonies stuff lying all over the office. Come on, everybody. Like, whenever you do that in plain sight, put your next themes, it's a troll. They know they don't have it, okay? I love the competition between Barrels of Fun and Spooky Pinball. In my honest opinion, this is the best competition because it's no competition anymore between JJP and Stern. It's really not like Jersey Jack just crushes Stern on every level. But man, barrels and spooky, similar, similar sizes, similar, similar like theme integration products. And I think both have pros and cons. I do. I think there's things that barrels does better than spooky. When you lift the play field on a barrels game, well, once they get the wiring harnesses down, but when you lift the play field on the barrel game, Winchester, man, look at that thing loaded. Absolutely loaded. No servos, like really good engineering. their cabinets look amazing but man they don't beat butter cabinet but both of them if you put beetlejuice and winchester next to each other both of those can stand their own next to harry potter and then stern is like a distant fourth now and this is crazy because like five years ago if i asked you who do you want to make your dream theme all of you would have said stern all of you you didn't like the way jersey jack games flipped spooky games had issues and you know barrels wasn't even in the picture really. So now look how the tables have turned. If I asked you who do you want to make your dream theme, you might start out by saying Spooky or Barrels or JJP. Stern is fourth. Now I do think Stern is coming back I think Stern is on the recovery tour right now with Pokemon and I keep hearing Transformers is insane I hear that Transformers has a mechanism in it that is the greatest Stern mech of all time. I'm expecting something big in the back there, like Metroplex or Omega Supreme, something like that, like a base that actually transforms. If you were to ask me, how awesome would that be? I could see like Metroplex, the Autobot base actually transforms and moves in different ways to change the gameplay experience. As I say it, I'm like, Kaneda, this is stern, man. This is stirred. They couldn't even get a Pokemon ball to open up. All it does is shake back and forth. And you think they're going to make a transforming Autobot base under glass? Check yourself, Kaneda, bro. Check yourself. They put a crane in Batman. There's not even a crane in the Batman storyline. Okay, so we want to see more Beetlejuices go out the door. We definitely want to see more Winchesters go out the door. And now that we're in March, the other question is this. Like, TPF is around the corner. It's in like two weeks. Nobody talks about TPF anymore. I think it's lost its luster. Now that Ed and Kim don't run the show, there's no trippies. And there's usually not a lot of game reveals anymore at TPF. It's lost a lot of its luster. No, I will not be going there. But I think we're going to see some reveals. I think Chris Turner might show up with his Whitewater 2, his Yukon Yeti. That might happen at the show. I think we're going to see some news or updates from American Pinball. I know Melvin's going to be at the show. American Pinball is going to be there. I need to call Brian and Ronald this week. You know me, I don't like the new logo. They revealed the new logo. It's not where it should be. And, you know, my conversation, and I said this on Saturday, all these little details matter because if you think this is good enough, it really does start to telegraph that you don't have incredible taste. And again, this company just needs to hit timeout. I should fly over there and meet with these guys. I should just hit timeout and walk before you run. You shouldn't have done all those interviews. You shouldn't have revealed all your plans. You shouldn't be making different logos every month. Just time out. Get in a room and figure all this out first before you start speaking. And I know they're excited and I'm not mad about it, right? I'm happy that American Pinball is coming back, but it just goes to show you, you have people coming from different industries, but none of them come from marketing. None of them are used to figuring out branding on this level. This is a consumer facing product. And I bet you Brian made a lot of money in a product that wasn't really consumer facing. You know, they probably got contracts. I know he was making LED road signs and he made a lot of money, which is great. It's good to have a lot of money to go into pinball. But, you know, until you've actually made a product that's targeting a consumer and also you're building a brand. This is the part everybody gets wrong. It's like they never sit down and think, what kind of brand do we want to be? How do we want to do things differently? Who do we want to learn from? What do we want to improve upon? I think they always think about if we just make a game, that's all that matters. And yes, that is like 80% of it. But the other 20% is the branding. It's how you treat the community. Look at CGC. They can make great games. Nobody cares anymore because they treat their customers like crap. So nobody cares what else is going on in pinball. Let's end this show with what is going to be one of the rarest games of all time. And nobody cares. Predator. I was in the thread, Pinball Brothers Predator, right? This game in total is only going to have 200 units made. They said it in the thread. Only 200 units of this game. That means even when they said we're only going to make 300, At that point, they had only sold like 100. So that means they only sold like 100 more. And there's a reason why, right? No Arnold in Predator, no dice. Yeah, it looks okay. But again, the game's like $13,000. The tariffs killed them. I don't know what Pinball Brothers does next. How do you recover from this? How do you financially recover from making a game that didn't sell any volume? But it's gonna be an amazing year, people, because in just like two months, we're gonna get Sonic the Hedgehog. I think so. We'll see. I mean, Jersey Jack has so many Harry Potter orders that I think they can make it all the way through the end of the year. And remember this, those deposits are non-refundable. So every order they got, they could just sit on it and you're going to have to take your game or you're going to give them the margin on the game for free without having to make a game. Everybody, happy Monday. We'll talk to you soon. Don't you dare to leave me head on like a yo-yo-yo-yo Take me dancing Boom, boom, boom, boom I'm not a man, I'm not a man Boom, boom, boom, boom Yeah, yeah, yeah Take me dancing tonight Yeah, yeah you