Oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Welcome everybody to Canada's Pinball Podcast. I hope everybody had an amazing Thanksgiving. If you're listening to this right now and you are above ground and you've got friends in pinball. You've got healthy family. You've got maybe a pinball machine or more, right? I mean, everyone should be thankful just for one machine. The amount of times I take a lot of flack for only owning one machine. And I tell people you could only play one machine at a time, given I have Guns N' Roses and I barely turn it on. It is time for a new machine. I am going to get a new machine very very soon you know what it's gonna be but I am number 999 in Beetlejuice so that's not gonna be the next machine that comes into this house it's gonna be something before that now speaking of it there's a lot happening in pinball right now we need to talk about there's a lot that's gonna transpire over the next like six weeks people forget this Stern's next game their next cornerstone game doesn't it feel like star wars didn't even come out yet nobody cares about it nobody talks about it got some x-men owners they got berserker multiball that doesn't seem very fun at all but oh man once you get to it it's a brand new game that's just lost four thousand dollars it seems like star wars it seems like stern hasn't had a hit cornerstone since jaws really, and that was a couple of years ago. Their next cornerstone game is coming out January 6th or sooner. See, that is the date of CES, and they are going to bring the big one out then. Is it going to be Pokemon? Is it going to be Transformers? It's one of those two. I think it is going to be Pokemon. So think about that for a minute. On next Friday's date, It is going to be December 5th, just like 30 days from next Friday. We are going to get the next cornerstone game from Stern. The Walking Dead remaster didn't really wow many people. It's been a long time coming for Stern to have a juggernaut hit. We haven't seen a game on Spike 3 that's really wowed us or made us believe in the new platform. Personally, I don't really like the new platform. I know they made the screen bigger, but making those speakers smaller doesn't look as good. Just aesthetically, it doesn't look as good. Zombietti, art director over there, he's got his work cut out for him. He needs to now find a way to release a game that aesthetically people fall in love with. Like, think about it. 99.9% of people have only seen the images of Beetlejuice and they love it. 99.9% of people have seen the images of The Walking Dead and they don't love it. Most people just don't love it. Now, they don't hate it, but it needs to pop. They need to figure something out here. It's been too long. Yeti knows how to do it. They all know how to do it over at Stern. See, I keep saying Stern. I don't know. Maybe they just have to reach a point where they get tired of being ragged on and they let that anger fuel them to make something amazing. But they haven't done it in a while. So we're going to see their cornerstone game early January. We're going to get the Beetlejuice machines on the line in January. So all the hype will now become a real pinball machine. The spots. Have you seen these? The spots now. Some dude wants to sell you his spot because his dog is sick. And now we're supposed to say, hey, it's okay to scalp if there's a sick pooch happening out there in the world. But here's the thing. Robin put up a poll asking probably the most cynical crybabies on the planet, the Pinside community. He asked people, should we sort of do something to change the way selling spots happens on Pinside? and overwhelmingly 42% of people said don't touch a thing. Let the free market do what the free market will do and that is the best approach. And it is the best approach. I mean, think about it right now. I get there was like a frenzy the first couple weeks. Everyone's got FOMO at the highest degree. It is always the time to scalp. I tell this to people all the time. if you're gonna scalp scalp right away that's when the FOMO is the highest everyone's like I got a spot I got a spot and for the people who don't have a spot they feel the pain that's when you want to sell your spot for more like I have friends they are turning down five thousand dollars for Winchester's mystery house and they're making a mistake I mean it they're making a mistake And here's why. It's not that Winchester's going to lose value, but if you can get $5,000 on top of the MSRP for Winchester's Mystery House, you sell it. You pocket the $5,000. and you're telling me in six months, after all of these new games come out, after Winchester is on the line and they're out in the world, there's hundreds of them available. You're telling me you're not gonna be able to go get one for cheaper or at least 11.6? Of course you will. Of course. $11,600 is a lot of freaking money, people. Okay, so let's say you do find one, 11.6, and you sold yours for five and you buy back in Now your game only cost And I not seeing anybody scalp their spots I don know I think it a mistake I would have scalped it That's what I tell my friend Derek. Derek's listening right now. He's like, yeah, but I didn't even know the damn Winchester Mystery House existed a month ago. You guys are all clowning on this game. I'm glad it sold out. David picked the right theme at the right time. It's a unique layout. It's got Carl. It's got a lot of great stuff. Brad's artwork is amazing. They did a lot right with this game. It just looks like a great world under glass. You put it next to a damn stern, and this Winchester game looks really special. I think you put anything next to Star Wars LE, and it looks damn special. If there's anything that might make me want to buy a Predator, if you put Star Wars next to Predator, then I might want a Predator. Still not buying it. Still not buying it. So speaking of pinball brothers, people are waiting on their predators, man. I don't know. I keep hearing from people in Australia, the games aren't shipping. And they told people like two months ago, the games were shipping in two weeks. I mean, come on. But I said this to Wayne. Wayne, I know you listen. If you're going to believe that something is shipping in two weeks, the phrase that we always make fun of, then it's on you. Why would you send in full payment to a company that clearly is failing? There is no way the Pinball Brothers is in a financially good place. They thought they were going to make 800 of these and they barely sold 200. There's still like 100 of these games unsold even after they've been celebrating the fact that there's only going to be 300. There's only going to be 300 because the demand is only like 150. It's a colossal failure. All the money they put into the game. And you know what I heard? They didn't even try to go another way to get Arnold. So Wayne was saying, you know, people know Chris Hemsworth and he's friends with Arnie. And they didn't try to go the personal route. They went through the movie studio and got shut down. I don't even think they did that. They didn't even like approach Arnold's agent. They went through the movie studio and I think they got the generic price. So I think you got to do it different. You definitely got to do it different. You know who's friends with Arnold? Arnold Slash. You know, maybe he's trying to find a way to get to him and be like, hey, we can't afford it if we go the traditional route. But they didn't do it. Now they're never going to get Arnold in the game. No one owns the game. And now that Disney is yanking the license, that's also the reason why there's only going to be 300. Disney does not want them making this game come January 1st. So Pinball Brothers, I think they're kind of, I don't know what's next from them. You want to hear a bad rumor I heard that some Bally Williams games are going to be remade by Home Pin. You haven't heard this before. Home Pin. Rick has inked a deal with Home Pin to remake Bally Williams games and get them at the price point of around $6,000. Take a pinball gun to my head and pull the trigger. That's how I feel about that deal. Enough with these remakes. See, nobody cares about a $6,000, I don't know, what are you going to make? Like Roller Coaster Tycoon or Baywatch? I mean, you're not going to make the classics for that cheap. There's no way you're going to get like all those mechs from Adam's Family into a game for $6,000. The problem is, and Rick doesn't seem to understand this. It's not that games are not available at $6,000. Yeah, new in box might not be a $6,000 game anymore, but there are hundreds of thousands of pinball machines in the world that are $6,000. And there are so many of them that will be of better quality than your cheap remakes and if there's one company nobody wants to buy from and see the logo on their trans light it's home pin so i'd rather just go get the original bally williams game and know where it came from when it came from and who made it there's something to be said about the classic car is valuable for a reason and so yeah there's something you didn't know and i also told everybody on the live the other day, we're going to get the next game from Jersey Jack Pinball, most likely in April. Steve Ritchie's Sonic the Hedgehog, not based on the movie, based on the original Sega video game. I think this game is going to be huge. I think it's going to shoot so well. It's going to be adorable. It's going to be the perfect game JJP needs. When you think about game. It's ironic that we say this, right? Because we're slamming Stern over here for being overly colorful. But look, that indictment is valid. Stern's been making everything look like a Skittles bag for too many years. It doesn't matter what the theme is. We're going to hit it with the color stick. Now, Jersey Jack, a bright blue Sonic the Hedgehog with the gold rings and everything. It's going to be so fun to look at. It's going to be gorgeous. And look, nobody knew the game was coming this soon. We just assumed they're going to be making Harry Potters well into like later next year, which they are, but they're going to turn on a second line. And if you've visited Jersey Jack, you know this, they have room for a second line. And look, they are too big to only do one game a year. They know this, like they're bigger than Spooky. They're bigger than CGC. They're bigger than Dutch Pinball. They're bigger than American. They're bigger than everybody other than Stern. They are the second biggest pinball manufacturer in the world. So if Stern is kicking out four to five games a year, it only makes sense that Jersey Jack finally gets to two games. The other reason why they need to get to two games is they've got so many designers. You can have a designer at the end of the line waiting four years to get the game out It just doesn work Now what going to be interesting and I have to call Brett I have to talk to him about this It going to be interesting to see what they do with the collector edition Are they going to keep it unlimited again? They did it with Potter for all the obvious reasons, but we haven't seen yet the huge depreciation Potter CE will have, I think, one day when all 3,000 are out in the world and people might be tired of the game. Now, what's going in Potter's favor, unlike every other Jersey Jack game, is it's Harry Potter and the fact that it shoots so well. So I don't think people are going to let this thing go very often. I think those people might be wrong. I don't think Harry Potter is going to have a huge depreciation because as I've been saying recently, I think the changing of the pinball guard has happened. I think the collections that are going to start to be built are going to be built based on foundational games that every great collection should have. And I think Harry Potter is one of those new modern games that changes the game. It looks 10 times nicer than any Stern ever. okay so what I think is going to happen now is all these newbies and all the new pinheads and all the people that want just like to build a new collection I think Harry Potter becomes a linchpin in that collection I think Evil Dead becomes part of that collection Beetlejuice part of that collection Winchester part of that collection you know what I'm not saying is most sterns anymore don't feel like you want to build your collection around Stern LEs. They've ruined it. Now, absolutely, there are some amazing Stern machines that should be in any great pinball collection, but no longer. And gone are the days where people's collections look good when it's a row of just all the new Stern LEs. Because if you bought all the new Stern Oles over the last like five years, you look like an idiot. You lost about like $50,000. I mean it. If you add it all up and you bought everything new in bucks, you've lost about $50,000. I mean, you lost $10,000 alone, baby, on just James Bond's 60th. So I think we're seeing a changing of the guard. And I think Stern's stubbornness to losing the collector is the biggest single mistake Seth and George and Gary have achieved. They've achieved this mistake. They had the collector. They had collectors buying every single new LE. And they were arrogant to think that they could keep on passing so many significant losses to those collectors that they wouldn't one day wake up and say, I'm not buying a Stern LE anymore. It's a fool's purchase. And so is the premium now because if I buy a premium for 10, I'm an idiot as well because the LE is going to be worth this in just a month or two. It's no longer taking years, people. It's months. It's not even months. It's days. Star Wars comes out and the LE is instantly worth $10,000. Instantly. And so we'll see what's going to happen. I don't think Pokemon's going to change it. It's not going to be a theme like Pokemon. It's not going to be a theme like Transformers. It needs a theme like Batman 89. They need a game like Back to the Future. They need a game like Die Hard. They need something like Karate Kid or The Matrix. They need something that's nostalgic by their demo. And Pokemon's not nostalgic by the demo, not by any means. I do think they're going to be a little bit shocked how the pinball buying demo doesn't want to catch Jigglypuff. I think it's going to hit them and they're not going to realize what happened. You know, look, Hello Kitty is a huge theme. They would have sold more Barbies than Pokemon. I mean it. They would have sold more Barbies than Pokemon. They would sell more K-pop demon hunters than Pokemon. I mean it. It's just what do people want? What do the kids want? I don't know. We'll see what's going to happen. I know kids don't have the money to buy pinball machines, so it's going to be an interesting thing to see the way the market reacts. Now, speaking of interesting moves happening in the market, you know, I guess I missed this on the on the YouTube stream of the news over there and at the Dutch Pinball Museum. But JP to win the guy who's done all the amazing graphics and code for Jersey Jack game all these years. Everything that's on that display is JP to win. He has left Jersey Jack and he is doing back to the future. So back to the future now is JP to win, Christopher Franchi, and a company that loads up its games. I mean, they don't really have many games. They have one game. But still, I mean, you look at what's in the Big Lebowski. It's still very impressive what they put in that game 12 years ago. So they've had 12 years to look at everything else. But, man, it's starting to look like this game is going to be, if you think Beetlejuice is bad trying to get a spot, try getting one of those SLEs of Back to the Future. Guess who's going to have some of those SLEs? Yours truly. So yeah, it's time to start kissing Kaneda's babies and start calling him and becoming chummy with Kaneda. Bill Brandis is like, what do I do, Sabrina? How do I do this? I don't even know if Bill listens to every episode, but he's like, ah, what do I do? I've got all the money. I just don't have a spot for Back to the Future. How do I put it next to my Ferrari? Which house does it go in? It's going to be the game that really shows us how wealthy some of this hobby is. And I'm going to tell you this right now. If they only make 88 Back to the Future SLEs and Franchi puts on the side of it a DeLorean the way he does the Batmobile on Batman SLE, and there's only 88 in the world. And also remember, this game is not going to be mass produced like thousands every year the way Stern would do it. I think you're looking at a game that on the secondhand market will push to dollars Oh where Can you say that I just said it Then you looking at a game that going to push 40 to if there only 88 Now I think there's going to be more than 88, but you'll see what they do. Not a lot more, but you'll see how they do. It's going to be regional. It's going to be regional. I think, none of this is set in stone. So we'll see what Barry does. I need to talk to Barry about this because when it comes to marketing, I don't necessarily know he knows exactly what to do. I told him a few years ago, I think it was a mistake never to set a number of big Lebowskis, you know, and once he just kind of had it open-ended like the way he's doing it, ah, you kind of just don't know what you're getting, right? How many total big Lebowskis did they make? You still don't know. I don't even know. It shouldn't be something that's a mystery, okay? Everyone should know I've got one of this many, one of 1,079 Beetlejuices in the world, the show games, baby. We stopped talking about those show games, but they're out there somewhere. I'll tell you where they're not going to be at the shows. They're all going to be scalped and flipped. And it's extra money for these dealers and distros. And Luke knows it. And that's why they're never doing it again. It's good. And we also know, confirmation now, baby, that the next two titles from Spooky, which we already knew. I mean, it's like confirming this stuff is funny to me because they just have it so good. Knowing that it's Goonies and then Gremlins. That's what I'm hearing the order is. It doesn't do anything. It doesn't do anything. It's not going to hurt Beetlejuice sales. It's not going to hurt Beetlejuice reselling price. It's just going to make it harder to get a Goonies. Because now you're already going to want one. And Gremlins, same thing. You're going to want both games. You're going to want all three. Did I just tell you the foundation of the new collection is going to be stuff like this? It's going to be Goonies. It's going to be Gremlins. It's going to be Beetlejuice. That's three years now. For the next three years, how happy are you that Spooky Pinball is making these games? The pressure is going to be on American Pinball and barrels of fun to get it right next. Dune did not get it right. I know there's new code. They're still never going to sell all the Dunes. David's going to have a wall next to that labyrinth wall with 100 labyrinth games unsold. You might as well just turn the corner and there's going to be another wall of 100 Dune machines unsold. You just don't want the theme. It doesn't matter what they do with the code. You just don't want the theme the way you want Goonies, the way you want freaking Gremlins, the way you want Beetlejuice. Iconic, iconic, nostalgic things. Yes, I will say this. If he made the David Lynch Dune, he would have sold better. He would have sold more. it's nuts to think about it like that hey go make twin peaks if you think winchester's mystery house sold quickly twin peaks would sell even more so it's funny to me now because it's like spooky for the next three years is the bell of the ball who's gonna knock them out of our favorite right they're our favorite right now what they've got cooking is our favorite i don't know anything nostalgic happening over at stern i feel they've got nothing nostalgic they're not going to be able to win with Fallout. You know, if CGC's got Halo. No, this is not it. It's Ferris Bueller's Christmas Vacation or Chevy Chase Vacation. Go look at anything. I mean, you pull up anything from 1981 to like 1996 and you look at the top movies every year. You could cherry pick hit after hit after hit in the pinball world. It's just that easy. The licensing might not be that easy. Fine. But go make something that you can get. Go get the last star fighter. Just go get it. Go get it. You could sell 500 the last star fighter. You would. And don't even get me started on Big Trouble in Little China. Don't even get me started. Don't even get me started. Everybody have a very happy Thanksgiving long weekend. I'm going to do my Saturday morning spectacular later today. A lot of fun stuff is happening in pinball. It is a really fun train to be on. I'm so happy each and every one of you are club members. We're going to get Dan Jansen back. I made a mistake. He wasn't at 30 a month. He was at 50 a month. He said, Kanae, I've been feeding you steak. Now I'm feeding you something else. I think he said like, now you get the candy. I don't know what. I don't know why. Dan, we'll get you back. We'll get you back. You were one of the good guys up at the $50 realm. The world's gotten stupid expensive. I'm very happy each and every one of you are here. Took the family out for just lunch yesterday. Just like we didn't even really eat, We got a couple things for the kids and we got a drink each. Bill comes $111. Then you tip on top of that. We just sat down and didn't even have a lunch for four and we cost $140. It's just stupid. It's stupid. You know what I didn't fall victim to this year? Any Black Friday, anything. I'm not buying anything. I don't need new TVs. I don't need new this. I don't need new that. The whole world is upside down. You know, people need necessities. They want the price of groceries to go down. They don't care anymore about replacing something that doesn't need to be replaced. See, you don't buy impulse things if you don't have an impulse. And I think it's great that a lot of people are starting to realize what makes life valuable, health, happiness, and family. And it's not the stuff. And this is what the pinball manufacturers need to understand. We don't need more pinball. But if it's magical, we'll buy it. But we don't need it. We've all got too much stuff in our houses and our lives to begin with. Happy Thanksgiving week. Kanaid out. Yeah.