Well, it looks like the rumors were true. It took months for Stern to announce this, but now I get to finally see
Transformers Moore than meets the Y robots in disguise. I'm so pumped right now. Let's go.
Oh, hey. Hey, dude. No, no, no, no. I I told you so many times it's not Transformers. What do you mean? It's Pokemon. Come on.
He looks ridiculous.
Are you serious?
I told you this so many times.
Bro, even I knew it was Pokemon.
I made my way over to Stern Pinball in a not so far away land, the Chicago region, for the Pokemon Pinball launch event. This is a game that's been rumored, debated, and anticipated for what feels like forever. And now it was finally time to see it up close. I know most of you watching this can't be there in person, so I'm bringing you with me. And we've got a packed day ahead of us, so we better get started. It's
so torquy. See, with the glove, it's not bad.
It looks cool, right?
Yeah. Yeah. You look great.
Here they are, the official renders. As expected, Stern is releasing Pokémon Pinball in three models: the Pro, the Premium, and the Limited Edition. At their core, the DNA is consistent across all three. Same foundation, same philosophy, but as you move up the line, things start to level up. The Ellie, in particular, brings a little more punch, a little more presence, and a few extras for those of you that want the full collector experience. Now that we got the context out of the way, it's time to really understand these new machines. When we arrived at Stern, they welcomed us with open arms. There's always a certain energy in the building on launch day and it's always usually really positive, but there was something different about today. There was more energy and more excitement and that just got us even more pumped up. Once everyone got settled in, there was no easing into it. We went straight into the games, the vision behind them, the decisions that shaped them, and what they were hoping players would experience the first time they plunged the ball.
My man, you dressing real hard. I don't like it.
All right.
Okay. Okay. So, what's the experience like being here at Media Day? The first thing we do is we go into a conference room. This is called the Cheetah conference room here at Stern Pinball. And what they did is Seth did a full presentation to talk about Pokémon as a license, how giant it is. It's $288 billion license. So, that's huge. That's like overall revenue from Pokémon. So, he went through all of that. George gave a breakdown. Jack was also in here because he co-designed the game with George. So, it's just to kind of lay the baseline even though we're all just sitting here and sometimes it kind of sounds like ww w because we all want to play the game. But, it was nice to get that breakdown before we got to play it. After the presentation wrapped up, they let us into the media room. And that's when it got real. The doors open, the games were lit up, and there it was. Pokemon Pinball in the flesh. There's a lot to take in
to make sense to what we anticipate is going to be a much larger audience than just pinball fanatics. Um, this game had to be approachable. So, something that is like, you know, the the big fun recognizable toys. Obviously, we got a giant Pikachu, giant Meow, giant Pokeball. Very recognizable from across the room. These shots are very
All right, enough already. Let's play this thing. The more I think about it and the more I play it, Pokemon Pinball really starts to show its personality. To me, it feels a little more like a George Gomez game than a Jack Danger one. And that's not a knock on anyone. I've got a ton of respect for both of them. But if you ask me purely on feel, I'd lean Gomez. Whatever the ratio is, it doesn't matter. What matters is this thing is fun. It shoots fast, and every time I stepped up to it, I was having a great time. Oh, that's not good. Damn. All right, we're here for media day. Everyone is very excited because this is the Pokemon launch. We've got the Pro Premium and Limited Edition in the main arcade room, and we're going to show you more about that in a minute. But right now, we're spending some time with the premium. You'll notice there's some animated things that don't exist on the Pro, like Pikachu is animated, Meowth is animated, there's some animation going on with the Pokeball. But overall, if I had to give you like my two second assessment, I've probably played a good five games on it. Very approachable design, and I know a lot of people said that about Star Wars. This is very, very approachable. It's fun to play, man. I I I can't really say that it's not. The shots are a lot wider. You'll get a good flow going. So, I think this game is going to be interesting because if it's a new player playing, you're going to come on this and you're going to feel like you're you're in the groove, even if you're not really someone that plays much pinball, which I think was smart for them to do because it's Pokémon, such a big license. So, on location, I think this thing is going to absolutely kill. As much as I'm saying it's approachable, there's things in here to make it a little bit more difficult for the seasoned player. So, I think for once, I think Stern kind of made a game, at least in their last couple releases that's simple for someone to pick up and play, but it's going to be more difficult for someone to really deep dive the code.
It's a It's a lot of fun, dude. It It'll definitely be easier on it. That's for sure. And like they were saying, like
when we're trying to work on these, she's
like, "You're you're not getting this one, right?" And I said no. I said no.
See, you hadn't been here yet.
I know. It is pretty fun.
So, what else can you do during media day? Well, obviously we're here to check out Pokémon, but in between things, there's some downtime. You have the private room that we were just in, but here you can enjoy a lot of the back catalog of Stern games here in the lobby. So, people will kind of take breaks from the big room because there's a lot of people and just kind of have some fun out here just to break things up. In between all the hype surrounding the games, Stern made sure none of us were running on empty. The food came out, conversations were buzzing, and the room was still riding that launch day high. But even with full stomachs, the party wasn't slowing down. Then out of nowhere, we got a surprise visitor.
Pikachu knows how to swag.
Oh my god, I would love that. I have to like waddle Pikachu catch them with my real to train them is my
Okay, so now I'm going to tell you about the Pro Premium and the limited edition. edition, but we're going to start with the limited edition. So, that's the one where you're getting absolutely everything. So, let's talk about what you get on the playfield. You're going to get the Pikachu, that's an animatronic. You're going to get the Pokeball, which is also animatronic. And then you're going to get Meowth, which moves up and down. And then there's also a magnet there. So, it it adds a lot of like variability to that play when you're in that sort of like battlefield. So, it can swing the ball different directions, which gives you a little bit of chaos, which some people think is really fun. The other things you're going to get is there's like this little sneak in on the left hand side and then also the ramp on the left goes up and down and there's a physical ball lock there. So you're also going to get like aesthetic things. You're going to get all of the lighting. So you're going to get speaker lighting. You're going to get cabinet lighting on the inside and on the outside. And then on this LE they added a custom shooter rod which looks really nice. People always complain that maybe the LE doesn't have as much value. So they did add one more thing. What I'd like to see them add in the future. You add a topper to the Ellie and then I think the complaints about pricing would completely go away. But I have a feeling because this is Pokémon and because there's so much hype around it and it's such a big license, they might not have any problem selling these Ellies to begin with and they might be gone with only 750 being offered. So that's pretty much what you get in the Ellie. And of course, you're getting like the better back glass. I don't know if Stern's gone completely away from the foiled artwork. You're not getting foiled artwork at all. But you're getting the powder coated armor, which is this nice purple. So, you're getting basically everything. You go down to the premium, you're going to get all the things I talked about minus the aesthetic things. So, you're not going to get a shaker motor. You're not going to get the powder coated armor. You're not going to get speaker lights. You're not going to get cabinet lights. You're not going to get the custom shooter rod, but the playfield is identical. You're getting basically the same game minus some aesthetic differences and the shooter rod. So, the premium is kind of a nice little sweet spot. Now, the Pro is interesting because normally people complain that they stripped too much out of the Pro. Well, they didn't this time. So, they didn't replace any of those sculpts I talked about with flat plastics. They're all sculpts, except Pikachu doesn't move, so he's not animatronic. The Pokéball doesn't move, but it does light up and do all those things. That ramp on the left side does not go up, so there's no physical ball lock. And then on the Meowth, you're not getting the magnet underneath it. The other thing, too, is you're not getting the toilet bowl. So, that little toilet bowl swirly thing, that's on the premium and the LE, but not on the Pro. You know, you're not going to get a shaker motor either. But what I do like that they've done now with Spike 3 is you can add almost all of the things I talked about. You can add cabinet expression lighting to the Pro or the Premium. You can add a shaker to the Pro or the Premium. That's pretty much been standard this whole time. You're not getting powder coated armor, but you could do that if that's something that you want. So, on this particular Pro model, I don't think you're making as many concessions as they did in prior years with Pros. Now, I don't know if that's going to be a shift in how Stern does things, but I really appreciate it cuz to me, the Pro is very well equipped. I think it's going to do awesome on location, but don't sleep on it. I think you could buy it for your home and be very happy, especially if you're a Pokémon fan. we haven't talked a lot about code. So, codewise, there's a lot to chew on for it being a new release. And a lot of times these games come out and there's not a lot packed in yet. There's already 180 Pokémon in Insider Connected that you can catch and have inside your app, which I think is really cool. Callouts and everything and all the lights, it's very obvious what you have to shoot. I find that like a really nice departure from maybe what they've done in the past where everything is so enthusiast based. It's for everyone that knows a lot about pinball. The thing that's really hard to do that they achieved here is if you're an enthusiast, you're going to like it and there's going to be enough for you to latch on to and make you feel like it's challenging. But for someone that's brand new, there's enough easy multiballs and the shots are really wide so they're not tight. It's in a good cycle from its development being new. And there's so many cool ideas that they have that once they implement, I think it's going to feel like a pretty deep game. After Pikachu's visit, the energy in the room was still skyhigh. Everyone was having a blast getting more time on the game, comparing notes, capturing footage, just soaking it all in. Creators everywhere, cameras rolling, smiles all around. Before we knew it, the afternoon had turned to evening, and Stern kept it going. This time with sushi for dinner. Pokémon is one of Japan's most recognizable creations. So, yeah, sushi for dinner just felt right. It was a fun little touch that tied the whole day together. Okay, so a lot of time has passed, right? It's been we've been here for a long It's been a long time. It's been a long day. They treated us amazing here. And the question is, am I going to get this game? And the answer is absolutely not. No, not going to do it. But I could trade something. All right, so I think this might be like my fifth media day. And I've never filmed in this room. This is Stern's Merch HQ. So, if you want to pick up like a hoodie or a t-shirt or even like a shooter rod for one of your games, you can get one when you visit. And actually, now that they have all access on Insider Connected, uh, if you pay for that, you can actually do a Stern tour and like at the end of the tour, if you want to buy something from the merch store, you can do it right in here. So, it's kind of cool they offer this for people that are coming in to visit. And that's a wrap on Stern's media day for Pokemon Pinball. What sticks with me the most on days like this isn't the game, it's the people. So many of these peer creators started as usernames and avatars, and somewhere along the way, they became real friends. We've shared launches, debates, laughs, and moments like this just remind me how lucky we all are to be a part of this hobby together. and the Stern team, you can feel how much they care.
I'm with Seth Davis, the CEO of Stern Pinball, and uh I was telling him how, you know, sometimes these games can get really expensive and it can cause us to maybe impact our family vacation. So, he said that I should take my wife to Pokemon Island for vacation uh this year.
Yeah, Seth, that's not going to go well. That's not going to go well. And I am going to make sure This is Seth Davis, Kim, my wife. This is Seth Davis. He says Pokemon Island or wherever is where we're going for vacation. So, he said it. The passion is real. When they open their doors and invite us into their house, they make us feel welcome every single time. And that means something. Now, here's the part that surprised me. I walked into this knowing next to nothing about Pokémon. I mean, I knew it existed, but it's not a franchise I grew up with. I didn't have nostalgia carrying me through the experience like some of the others, and I still had a blast. That to me says a lot. For a company that's taken some heat lately, it genuinely puts a smile on my face to see them get a W. I think this game has a real shot of being a big hit. It feels accessible, fun, and something special. Will I get one? Well, I don't know. But hey, you got to catch them all, right? Never say never. Later, Chicago. A heart so true. Our courage will pull us through. You teach me and I'll teach you. Okay, Mike. Got to catch them all.
We got to catch them all.
Yes.