Episode 1004: "Kaneda Confirms Spooky's Next Title & Who REALLY Has Sonic The Hedgehog"

Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)·podcast_episode·20m 57s·analyzed·Oct 4, 2024

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Kaneda confirms Spooky's Evil Dead reveal & reveals JJP has Sonic license.

Summary

Kaneda reports two major confirmed industry developments while recovering from surgery: Spooky Pinball next title is Evil Dead (not Goonies) designed by Ben Heck, featuring a spinning cabin mechanic and releasing in December with an expected 800-unit run; Jersey Jack Pinball has secured the Sonic the Hedgehog license, with Mark Seiden expected to design the game after Avatar. Kaneda also analyzes the X-Men vs. Avatar debate, criticizing Avatar's lack of mechanical depth despite visual beauty, and discusses Alice's Adventures in Wonderland's limited 500-unit production.

Key Claims

Spooky Pinball's next game is Evil Dead, designed by Ben Heck, featuring a spinning cabin mechanism, revealing in December
high confidence · Kaneda explicitly states these are confirmed facts, not rumors, sourced from industry sources
Jersey Jack Pinball has licensed Sonic the Hedgehog
high confidence · Kaneda claims this is confirmed via multiple sources and an industry insider verification
Mark Seiden will design Sonic the Hedgehog for Jersey Jack after Avatar
medium confidence · Kaneda's inference based on Seiden's video game passion and JJP's game lineup timeline
Avatar lacks major mechanical features compared to X-Men
high confidence · Kaneda's personal critical assessment based on gameplay observation
Avatar's UV eclipse effect doesn't work as intended due to insufficient playfield lighting coverage
medium confidence · Kaneda's technical analysis comparing Avatar to Guns N' Roses lighting
Spooky Pinball will produce approximately 800 units of Evil Dead
medium confidence · Kaneda's prediction based on Spooky's stated production strategy shift
Jersey Jack's lineup includes Harry Potter (Eric Minear, February), The Matrix (Steve Ritchie, end of year), and Sonic (Mark Seiden, unspecified)
medium confidence · Kaneda's interpretation of JJP's confirmed and rumored pipeline
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland will have 500 total units with ~300 in America and 200 overseas
medium confidence · Kaneda citing production numbers discussed with Melvin
Goonies and Beetlejuice remain in Spooky Pinball's development chamber for future releases
medium confidence · Kaneda's statement of remaining planned themes after Evil Dead confirmation

Notable Quotes

“And I'm going to just rip the Band-Aid off right now and tell you two things that nobody else has told you. And these are confirmed. These are not rumors.”
Kaneda @ ~51:00 — Signals major confirmations about to be revealed; establishes confidence level and exclusivity claim
“the Goonies is not going to be next from Spooky Pinball... What I do know is this, the next game from them is going to be loaded with some really big mechs and toys... the next theme is going to be... Evil Dead.”
Kaneda @ ~52:00 — Direct confirmation of Spooky's next title, contradicting previous speculation
“I heard the big mechanism in it is gonna be that big cabin that's in the forest and it spins around and does all this awesome stuff.”
Kaneda @ ~54:30 — Describes the primary mechanical feature of Evil Dead; sets expectations for complexity
“Sonic the Hedgehog has been licensed by a company nobody's been guessing. It is no other than Jersey Jack Pinball.”
Kaneda @ ~62:00 — Major surprise revelation; resolves long-standing community speculation about Sonic license holder
“Mark Seiden is a video game nerd. Like he made Metroid. He loves video games just as much as Ryan McQuaid... it makes sense now that Mark Seiden's game after Avatar will be Sonic the Hedgehog.”
Kaneda @ ~63:30 — Rationale for Mark Seiden as designer; connects Seiden's homebrew history to industry assignment
“when you ask people, just name me one toy in Avatar, nobody can give you one single toy.”
Kaneda @ ~17:00 — Core criticism of Avatar's mechanical depth; summarizes community concern
“X-Men has a lot more toys in it. I think X-Men is the better shooting game... X-Men runs circles around Avatar.”
Kaneda @ ~16:00 — Direct game comparison establishing X-Men superiority; influential voice shaping collector sentiment
“both of these games are going to come down to the code and the software.”

Entities

Kanedaperson Ben Heckperson Mark Seidenperson Melvinperson Ryan McQuaidperson Christopher FranchipersonEric Minearperson

Signals

?
announcement: Spooky Pinball's Evil Dead confirmed for December reveal with order bank opening following full announcement
high · Kaneda states 'the next game from them is going to be revealed in December' and 'this is confirmed. This is not a rumor.'
?
machine_intel: Jersey Jack Pinball confirmed to hold Sonic the Hedgehog license with Mark Seiden expected as designer
high · Kaneda reports 'Jersey Jack Pinball. Did you expect me to say JJP has the license for Sonic the Hedgehog?' and 'the thing that is 100% true is that Jersey Jack has the Sonic the Hedgehog license.'
?
design_innovation: Evil Dead features a spinning cabin mechanism comparable to or exceeding Theater of Magic's trunk in complexity
medium · Kaneda: 'I heard the big mechanism in it is gonna be that big cabin that's in the forest and it spins around and does all this awesome stuff... even more impressive maybe than the trunk in Theater of Magic.'
?
product_concern: Avatar's UV eclipse effect fails to create gradual darkening due to insufficient playfield LED coverage; lights are all-or-nothing rather than gradual
medium · Kaneda's technical analysis: 'you can't gradually light up the UV ink on the play field. It's kind of all or nothing... you never get that feeling like an eclipse is slowly starting to happen.'
?
gameplay_signal: X-Men objectively superior to Avatar in shooting layout, toy count, and mechanical engagement; Avatar lacks identifiable signature mechs
high · Kaneda: 'X-Men has a lot more toys in it... X-Men runs circles around Avatar... if you ask people, just name me one toy in Avatar, nobody can give you one single toy.'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.063

0:00

But if you can't take me at my worst, you don't deserve me, you're my best. Oh, welcome to Kaneda's Pinball Podcast. Kaneda, what are you doing? You're not supposed to do a podcast for at least another week. Well, one word, oxycodone. This damn drug is the only thing that has taken away the pain. And I'm looking over at the microphone and it's sort of like got this gravitating magnetic power to me calling me to do a podcast about pinball because I have pinball news to share with each and every one of you. And as a thank you, and I said this on the live, we had the least amount of people ever leave Canada's pinball podcast at the end of the month. And I thought because I was going into surgery and I wouldn't have content up that people would leave the shores of Kaneda's Pinball Podcast. It has been anything but that. So thank you so much. We had 742 going into the end of the month. And now we're at 743. So as a thank you, there's so many well-abled body pinball content creators. And as Kaneda is injured and recovering, he's going to give you more than anyone else in the pinball media space right now. And it's going to be fun. I'm going to say some stuff on this show that's going to be confirmations. I mean this. This is not a rumor. I have two very strong confirmations that are going to happen. And they're both going to be maybe somewhat surprising to each and every one of you. Before I do that, I want to go around the horn a little bit and just talk about what's going on in pinball lately. And don't think you're going to get like three episodes a week now. I'm just feeling really good right now. For those of you who have gone through surgeries and I had an epidural, people, like a freaking epidural. They didn't tell me this. I wouldn't have done it. I thought I was just going to have general anesthetics. and then I'm on the operating room table and I see this guy come over like a trapper keeper. I know there's like really long needles in there. And so now I know what it's like for all you women out there. My wife who had to get an epidural, it's not fun. But you're not listening for Canada's Spinal Anesthesia Podcast. You're listening to Canada's Pinball Podcast. Okay, so a few things are happening right now. A lot of people are trying to decide whether or not you get X-Men or whether or not you get Avatar. And I think for most people out there, probably for the majority of people, you're probably not looking to buy either game right now. And I think those people are the smart camp when it comes to these two games, because in my mind, both of these games are gonna come down to whether or not the code in the game is gonna give you the kind of pinball enjoyment that makes you wanna own the game in your home. I think if you play both of these games on location, you're gonna have a good time and you could save yourself 13 or $15,000. Now, that being said, I do think X-Men has a lot more toys in it. I think X-Men is the better shooting game. It just is. Look, you could argue with me on this. It's not to say that Avatar is not fun to shoot, but it's not nearly as good of a shooter as X-Men. And I think X-Men's layout is also a lot more creative. And after that, when it comes to toys and mechs and WoW stuff happening on the game itself, X-Men runs circles around Avatar, in my honest opinion. You've got the Sentinel. You've got all these things happening mechanically. And when you ask people, just name me one toy in Avatar, nobody can give you one single toy. And then the JJP apologists are coming out of the woodwork again, saying that like a game is the sum of its parts. And I get that. But if a game is $15,000, then some of the, some of those parts or some of those parts better sum up to being some awesome freaking things where it looked like a lot of engineering went into that stuff. And I'm just not seeing it. And I do think people are giving Avatar a really big pass on not having any major mechanisms in the game. It doesn't feel like you're diving under the ocean. There's no big whale. There's a crab that's just sitting there stationary. if Stern made this game I think people would be a lot more harsh on it now that being said it's beautiful Avatar is one of the most beautiful pinball machines I've ever seen walking up to the machine itself it's very stunning I just want there to be as much wow in the gameplay and in the mechanisms and in the experience of Avatar I want the pinball moments and the magical mechs to have as much wow as the visual stuff happening on the physical game itself. Like the artwork is beautiful. The topper is amazing. You know, the UV lighting is another area. Like I'm watching people talk about this game and stream the game but it just not working the way they describe it And here the thing I been thinking about The whole thing about this UV eclipse right It supposed to make you feel like the eclipse is overhead and the sun and the moon are touching and it getting darker and darker slowly. The whole thing that's magical about an eclipse is that gradual movement of the moon blocking the sun and that should light up the bioluminescent world in Pandora. And when I look at the gameplay, gang, it's not that. Like there's nothing gradual happening of the game getting darker. And I think I figured out why. They can't create this like gradual effect. If you look at the play field of Avatar, it's not filled with lights. Like there are not nearly as many lights covering from east to west and north and south. That play field as there is in like Guns N' Roses. You know, Guns N' Roses can light up all of those little lights throughout the game to really create an effect that something is happening. Whereas in Avatar, the thing they want to light up to create that gradual effect of an eclipse happening is the UV ink, right? But the problem with that is you can't gradually light up the UV ink on the play field. It's kind of all or nothing. So like you're playing the game and then all of a sudden things start to change color, but you never get that feeling like an eclipse is slowly starting to happen, like gradually moving over the game. And look, I would have loved for them to have nailed that, but it just doesn't nail it for me right now. And then from there, much like X-Men Ali, I think both of these games are going to come down to the code and the software. who's going to be able to code their games to have pinball moments that are going to make you excited that are going to get your blood going I'm just going to say this and this is why theme is so important because in my mind it's a lot easier to get x-men and the uncanny x-men to create moments of excitement than it is in avatar look we know stern's going to put the x-men theme song into the game and that's going to be a moment right when you get there I don't think it's going to start out right away. I think they're going to hold it to a wizard mode. But let me ask each and every one of you a question. When it comes to music and getting you emotionally going, if I walked up to each and every one of you and said, hey, I'm going to give you $100,000 if you can hum the theme song to Avatar. Just think about that for a minute. If I walked down the street and offered people $100,000 to hum the theme song to Star Wars or Indiana Jones or He-Man or the A-Team or heck, even different strokes I could do.

7:59

Okay, I'm not going to do the different stroke song anymore. But you know what I'm saying? It's like, that's it. When you hit the start button in an avatar. And again, I think about moments in pinball. when you hit that start button in a pinball machine, there needs to be a feeling that you're going on a journey, that you know what you're here to do. And I was just thinking about this. You're a human being and you're playing avatar pinball. Jersey Jack has a little camera on the front of the game. How come when you hit start, there's not a sequence in the game that basically shows you and then you morph into the avatar version of you? I feel like they easily could have done that because that's what the whole damn movie is about. Human beings adopting an avatar body to help the Na'vi sort of save the planet. And when you hit start in the game, does that ever happen? And look, Keith can put a freaking Greek diner menu in front of each and every one of us and say, look at all that's in this game. All of this is in the game. And again, back to that metaphor. But the sum of these parts, I don't care if there's like 30 modes or 22 modes. If it doesn't add up to something that's delectable and delicious, then what are we doing here? More does not equal more enjoyment. It doesn't. And that's my thing. I think it's way too early on both X-Men and Avatar to know they're going to deliver that magic. I just haven't seen it in any of the streams. I think they've both got a way to go. And the thing is this, by the time you're going to know whether or not it has it or not, we're going to be six months from now. So I don't think there's ever been a greater period of wait and see. So speaking of wait and see, we are going to see Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. It is most likely going to be sometime either like Monday or Tuesday of this next week. I think they're aiming for Monday for a full reveal of the game. When we get the full reveal, order banks will open up. But you know me, do you think they're going to sell out? Well, with only 500, and if Melvin truly has captured a beautiful pinball experience in a box that not everybody can have, I think this game has a real good chance of creating FOMO, where the other companies, they just make too many. Stern going to make thousands of X games Jersey Jack is going to make thousands of Avatar games 1 thousand CEs at 15K a pop Does not feel like it ever going to be something that difficult to get But if Melvin is making 500 Alice's and there's going to be roughly 300 in America and 200 overseas and it's loaded, it's got that cool Cheshire Cat topper. Now that we've seen that, that is neat. I don't know. I still feel like at all of these prices, You want to have people play the machines, playing a pinball machine and making sure you love it. Shouldn't be something you have to do after you spend like $10,000 to $15,000. But that's where we are at in pinball. It was so much different when Sternell Lees were $7,500. You could easily buy every single one and not lose any money. I've seen too many people now. They're all losing like $3,000 to $5,000 on every single collectible version of a game. I mean, isn't that just nuts? You're buying something because you think it's collectible and it's going to hold value. And that item is actually losing more money than any of the other editions of the game. So we're going to get Alice and then three units are going to Pinball Expo this year. So if you're going to Expo, you're going to be able to play the game. I've never played the game. And as I've told Melvin, I'm not just shilling this game. Like, I want to hear what you think about it. I think it's going to have way more toys than Avatar. I think it's going to have some unique stuff in it. I think it's going to be a work of art. But I don't know what the sum of the parts will be. There just won't be many of them. So a lot more to come on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland next week. All right, I'm starting to feel a little lightheaded. I probably shouldn't have done a show, but it just goes to show you how committed Canada is to giving you something you've never heard anywhere else. And I'm gonna just rip the Band-Aid off right now and tell you two things that nobody else has told you. And these are confirmed. These are not rumors. These are happening. And these are things that we've been wondering about for a while. So I've been saying that Spooky Pinball could march in December and sort of steal the stage, like have the game of the year and sort of drop a title that's going to remind us like everything we want in pinball. It's going to be based on something nostalgic and it's going to be the Goonies. I'm here to tell you right now, they do have the Goonies license, but unfortunately for you, the Goonies lovers out there, the Goonies is not going to be next from Spooky Pinball. I know, even I had it on my calendar like a week ago. It's not going to be the Goonies. What I do know is this, the next game from them is going to be loaded with some really big mechs and toys. And I think what they show in December for the money they're going to charge for that game is going to make the folks over at Jersey Jack work harder at getting more mechanical fun into the game. Because if Spooky Pinball starts putting more mechs and toys into its games, they have no investors, they have no financial backing. If that little company in Benton, Wisconsin is going to deliver more loaded games than Jersey Jack with a billionaire backing it, something's wrong and we need to speak up more and we need to get more toys into these JJP games. So here's what the theme is going to be. And, you know, it makes sense. It's not a theme you haven't heard before. And it also makes sense because we know that he's been working on a game for Spooky for a while. And his name is Mr. Ben Heck. So Spooky's next game that will be revealed in December is going to be Ben Heck and Spooky Pinball making Evil Dead. All right. it will be Evil Dead. And I heard the big mechanism in it is gonna be that big cabin that's in the forest and it spins around and does all this awesome stuff. And so I think we're gonna see something a la even more impressive maybe than the trunk in Theater of Magic. And so you're gonna get major mech. You're gonna get toys. You're gonna get Evil Dead. And I bet you that Christopher Franchi is on the art package. And so this is kind of like a niche theme, but it's a good theme for pinball because if you've watched Evil Dead, it's like campy horror. And campy horror does really well. I think I said horror better or horror better the second time. Campy horror does much better for me in pinball than real horror like Texas Chainsaw Massacre. You got to have games with personality that make you laugh. And also, we know, unlike Avatar, we know they're going to have all the video footage from the movie or maybe movies where it's going to be synced up with the voice actors. They probably got the voice actor from Evil Dead to do call outs in the game So that is going to be what is coming from spooky pinball It is confirmed It is happening Kaneda is not going to be wrong on this one So when you take it to pin side you can say Kaneda said it's Evil Dead Next, not Goonies. That leaves Goonies, Beetlejuice still in the chamber for Spooky Pinball. The next three to five years for Spooky is going to be cool. I also don't think Spooky Ever is going to make 2,000 of any theme anymore. So expect Evil Dead to have a run of somewhere around 800 games. I think they want to make 800 of these games, and then they're going to move on to the next. So we may see two spooky titles over the next 12 months. All right, so let's end this show with something that's really strange. Like when I heard this, I was like, that can't be true, but this is also confirmed. Now we've been wondering for a while since Ryan McQuaid walked around with his Sonic the Hedgehog homebrew game. We've all been wondering when that license was not obtainable by the company we won't speak about anymore. Everybody wondered who has Sonic the Hedgehog. We've been attributing it to all these different companies. I've been doing it. You've been doing it. We've all been wondering because I do think we all believe that Sonic would be a great theme for pinball. The damn video game character acts like he acts like a pinball when he runs through his world. I mean, there's basically pop bumpers. He's shooting all over the place. He's doing loop de loops. And I'm just going to say this right now. If somebody makes a Sonic the Hedgehog pinball machine, how do you not have a back box that's like bonsai run where Sonic, one of those red springs, you hit it and it shoots the ball up into the back box. And that's where you do like horizontal, move the ball and do a big loop-de-loop back into the game of play. I mean, that would be the coolest way to do Sonic the Hedgehog. We know that's not going to happen because those were the Bally Williams heydays. All right. So Sonic the Hedgehog. So I finally figured it out. And you might be wondering, How did you finally figure it out? Well, I've got some sources. And when all of my sources are pointing in one direction, and then I have one source buried deep within the industry. And I said, is it this? Is it them? And I asked it in a way I was like, look, all they want you to do because I'm about to do a show. I want you to just tell me if they don't have it. I'm not going to ask you to tell me who has it. But if they don't have it, I just don't want to be wrong. I'm recovering from surgery, man. can you just give me something and let me know the truth? And so I'm here to tell you, Sonic the Hedgehog has been licensed by a company nobody's been guessing. It is no other than Jersey Jack Pinball. Did you expect me to say JJP has the license for Sonic the Hedgehog? But then all of a sudden I was thinking about it. Like, first of all, JJP has got the weirdest lineup of themes ever. Like it's really hard to collect their games because you're never going to want all of them. But the thing is this, I was thinking about it. Mark Seiden is a video game nerd. Like he made Metroid. He loves video games just as much as Ryan McQuaid. I'm not sure he loves Sonic as much as Ryan does, but it makes sense now that Mark Seiden's game after Avatar will be Sonic the Hedgehog. And now I'm starting to realize what the JJP lineup is. We've got Eric Minear's Harry Potter in February. Then I think we're gonna get Steve Ritchie's The Matrix sometime at the end of the year. And then I think the game after that is gonna be Sonic the Hedgehog from Mark Seiden. Now look, they might have the license to Sonic and not make the game, But the thing that is 100% true is that Jersey Jack has the Sonic the Hedgehog license. So take that to Pinside and all of your forums and say, Kaneda has given us more juicy news when he's recovering from surgery than everybody else. And that is why you're a member of the Kaneda Club. I'm going to go pass out on the couch right now. Everybody be good. I'll talk to you soon. I swear I do And I ain't sorry about it You can't take me at my worst You don't deserve me In my best Gotta keep it going, gotta keep my head up on you I gotta keep it going, gotta keep my head up cause life is about