Hey, what's going on pinball land welcome it's a special edition of flipping out pinball podcast Greg bone is with me today and I am Ken Cromwell on Pokemon launch day. what's up greg bone pokemon pokemon i gotta say this we're gonna kind of go over our thoughts on this game really quick as somebody that uh full transparency not really familiar with pokemon i must have just missed it my brothers who were younger than me never got into pokemon and there was like a little gap there um so i was a little bit hesitant as to how much i would really be enthusiastic about the release now i do work for a pinball distributor so i can see where this might come across as me being a little bit of a showman or a salesman but i gotta say seeing the game it looks like it's pretty fun man and if you're a pokemon fan this should probably really hit home for you and for me just getting familiar with the theme i'm very intrigued by it so i don't know what your thoughts are and i don't know if you're a pokemon guy exact exact same sentiments um you know pokemon that that whole thing maybe missed my generation by about two or three years or so maybe so just you know i was kind of out of touch with it really wasn't looking forward to it and dude seeing i i i actually agree like i was i felt that i was going to be disappointed i felt because it was a theme that i i personally was not into that it wasn't going to really resonate with me and it's like yeah whatever but dude it does look fun it does look fun there's a lot going on there because we had some early rumors that like oh there's not a lot like you know blah blah blah but dude so maybe going in with like super low expectations because of here and all that like i was i was beyond surprised i i am too i just the whole composition of the game is nice the artwork seems spot on with the theme it's fun artwork it's colorful artwork the game has toys it's got moving parts and and mechs and pieces which is what you would expect what i really think is important is that you're tying in all the assets that come from that animated series that was huge for Pokemon. I mean, and Pokemon is just the biggest IP on Earth. It's bigger than the following four IPs combined as far as like revenue and generating sales and merchandise. It's good. You know, and real quick, the game, basically, this is what you're doing. You're going to discover, catch, train, and battle in the Pokemon world under the glass. So you're going to travel around the play field world as a Pokemon trainer, and you're discovering Pokemon in their different habitats. So you're going to shoot a Pokeball lock, which is on the left, right? Which rocks back and forth. Which is under a lift ramp. Yeah. And it looks like, so the way that I assumed just by watching the trailer and the video is that when you actually capture them, it looked like there was a lift ramp there and you shoot underneath that lift ramp at the Pokemon ball, at the Pokeball, and that's your capture. So I like that. Okay. Yeah, that's cool. It's Pokemon themed play field Including Ball Pissar, Outer Loop Squirtle Ramp with Whirlpool Action And that Whirlpool Action looks like it's To the left of the flipper when you're kind of coming through the return It kind of Goes through there like you would see In the upper right of Star Wars Where that pit is To drop down into your end lane by your flipper Correct, there were efforts to be made On that Whirlpool Ramp That you're not going to be living in there in perpetuity So they're taking that into consideration You don't want a ball spinning around there for 45 seconds while you're trying to feed that left flipper. So that's good. You've got the Pikachu ramp with ball lock and an animatronic Pikachu that reacts to play field events and the Charmander outer loop with fire energy spinner. The Pikachu's cool. I mean, it's a big sculpt in the upper right. And it's a little head. It follows the ball. It's mechanical action. It's animatronic. Yeah. I mean, can you imagine? Dude, if you're on location and you're family and you walk in there with your kids, I mean that game is colorful You going to notice it And then you going to see it doing all these cool things The Pikachu is moving you know the ball rocking left to right you got well all the sounds and the theme song that you familiar with uh it but to me what stood out the most and what nice is it's across all three all three games pro premium and and le was that uh the the meow uh balloon in the middle that goes up and down and he goes down like sort of like uh slimer but slimer like 10.0 because he's large and he moves you know straight down in front of you you can bash him and then he raises up uh like i dude that it's one of those things that i think that we've kind of been missing as simple as what that is it's just what you said like you imagine going on location and John Youssi that like that's a fun wow thing that makes you want to shoot at it and hit it the middle of the play field is the most successful part of any play field and naturally anybody that's playing pinball early on you're trying to shoot kind of up the middle and when you do it on this game you've got you know stand-up targets on the left and the right that are angled towards each other you've got very much like junkyard very reminiscent of junkyard correct correct you've got that the magnet balloon that's kind of coming down or it's just a balloon that's coming down but underneath that area too is a magnet that introduces additional chaos so for a very familiar shot you've got a lot of reactionary things that can happen up there and just make it feel a little bit more special. And then off of that left ramp, back over to that left ramp. So I was trying to kind of decipher that, and they called it a jump ramp. So what it looks like is when you shoot up that left ramp to capture your Pokemon, it's a jump ramp over almost like a crisscross plastic ramp. So it almost looks like you jump over. Then it does like a 180 or a 360, well, I guess a 180 around, and then it goes back under the area that is the jump ramp, if that kind of makes sense. It's kind of hard to almost like... It's very hard to describe what's going on on a pinball play field on an audio podcast. But I like that. I haven't seen that. Yeah. I would recommend after this podcast or pause the podcast and run over to flippingoutpinball.com because the pictures are up there. The launch video is going to be on our social media. You can kind of get an idea as to what's going on and how the ball is moving. You're becoming a Pokemon master by competing with rival trainers in Team Rocket. So you train Pokemon to get them ready for rival battles, win your rival battles to compete in the Pokemon Arena, battle the ball-interactive Meowth Balloon. The Meowth Balloon is right in the middle, which is cool. It's a bash toy that goes up and down, as you were explaining, Greg, and that's to protect your Pokemon when it descends to the Playfield Arena. Mm-hmm. So, go ahead. I'm sorry, buddy. No, no, no, no, you go ahead. I want to see where you're going. So this is where I was going because a lot of people had an interest in the LE, right? And there were only 750 LEs that were going to be available. So the next, you know, the obvious choice there would be to go to a premium if you're not able to get the LE. But if pro is where you're at, at $6,999 on this game, I don't really think you're missing too much to where you're feeling you're getting a lesser game. And that's very relieving to me. So like I said, you've got the meow balloon that still moves. Now, I do believe that the magnet is removed from that, so you're missing that. Pikachu's head doesn't move, but I mean, hey, that's still just more of a cosmetic thing. The Pokeball does not shake. It's still there, but it's stagnant, static. And then there was something that they were saying. i i for there's a subway sneak in on the upper left that was replaced with just a stand-up target yes to hit yes but again instead of it being going those are all nice cool things but you're not like you said you're not going wrong with the pro no i think if they would have removed the meow balloon a different story yeah yeah and they could have they could have just had that be static up in the air and you hit a target in the back but that's still yeah i mean i know i was pleasantly surprised you're shaking my head i'm like what what is going on here yeah i'm pleasantly surprised too because again i not every game's gonna have to appeal to me i don't need to want to buy every single game i was pretty convinced i like i you know i i happy for everybody else i don really need to get into pokemon uh happy to help answer questions but i don know man It starting to get to me where it like do I need to get a Pokemon And this is going to be disappointing because I didn get an Ellie Greg But I don't usually get Ellies. I'm a premium buyer most of the time. I originally told Zach that I wasn't going to pick up a pro for my location. Yeah. I said, man, I said, I just don't know if I want to. I've got a lot of games right now. But now I'm just seeing it. I swear to you on everything, I'm second guessing that. because I think this thing is going to kill on location. I do too. And if you've ever thought about the potential of operating a game, I don't see how you go wrong throwing a pro anywhere. You could put a pro in a pizza hut, in a bowling alley, in a sushi restaurant. Because kids are just going to flock to it. And adults are going to flock to it too. Like I said, our age demographic, we missed it just barely. But there's still going to be a lot of adults in their 20s and 30s that are really going to want to play this game. agreed and so this is a jack danger george gomez design you have tanyo kleiss and team on code and it sounds like the code is going to launch you know for what it is at at 0.80 which i think is fine the game is going to be coded there at least there's inserts or whatever for three wizard modes the game is going to launch with one wizard mode at 0.80 and it's pikachu versus charizard um that's going to be the wizard mode that's gonna gonna happen at lunch there were there were some questions because we just got out of the distributor kind of preview meeting uh there was some q a and we can go over some of that anything else that stands i mean we could talk about the art packages le is that pikachu yellow with with the uh that le is pretty that kind of took me by surprise too that le is pretty i like that that purple powder coat a lot more than what i thought i would yeah yeah it looks it is a pretty game yeah i'm like like see it's very basic art in a sense but i mean it's like you said like it fits the theme i'm kind of glad that they didn't go over i mean granted it could have been a licensor type you know approval type deal or whatever but i i'm glad that it wasn't overboard like i that makes me happy about this that it it stays within the theme it looks pokemon uh the styling of the entire game is pokemon you know it's it's not a reimagining it's not over oversaturated it's not you know overly busy it it's you say oversaturated i love it yes it's so funny i get a little worked up about my oversaturation i know i know but no you're right and and there was uh there was discussion in the distributor meeting that we just got out of where the ip holder very involved in the artwork so all the assets that they received were direct from the ip holder yeah see and essentially stern pinball is then taking these ip assets and they're creating compositions that then get passed to the licensor again for approval. So it's completely on brand with Pokemon, completely on brand with the animated series. You've got some custom call-outs by Pikachu himself, which I thought was interesting to hear. It's not just things that they're plucking directly out of the animated series. You do have some custom speech and custom speech by Giovanni, who I guess is the show kind of announcer. He's got some custom speech in that game. You do have the iconic theme, gotta catch them all. So that's in there. That's a big deal. I took some notes. And I mean, I can go through my notes one at a time if you just want to comment on it. I don't want to keep people here too long. You're going to want to get out and you're going to want to see the game. You're going to want to, I would assume, order a game. But no anniversary game for this. This was something that they were very clear on. This was the anniversary game. Exactly. This is the 30th anniversary of Pokemon. Now, do we see one on the 40th anniversary? It's 10 years down the road. I don't know if anybody's going to care about that point. but they made a specific point to let us know that this is the anniversary game. Insider Connect is going to play a huge role in this game, too. This is what I'm excited about. Correct. The platform is really going to allow you to collect each Pokemon and kind of store it in your virtual database, which is going to be through Insider Connected. The game is going to launch with over 180 Pokemon, but there are more coming. So you going to have to complete objectives and tasks throughout the game to earn these and they will reside in your inside and connected profile You not allowed to trade them You going to have to catch them all yourself For those of you that have locations and you want to put one on location, the rollout schedule essentially is going to be pros first with locations having priority, which is huge. You'll be able to get one of the first pros off the line. They're going to come right to your location, and you can start earning and spreading the love. And then as we get into March, you're going to see LEs on the line, followed by premiums, and then back to pros. So that's the current production schedule for Stern. As far as add-ons and accessories, they're going through licensure approvals for some of that stuff. And they basically said to be announced, but it's going to come out sooner than later. Yeah, but just kind of give us some time so we can finalize. The LE has all the bling that you're looking for anyways, as far as your expression, speaker lights, your interior, speaker expression lights. LE comes with the Master Ball Shooter Rod. Yes, yes, exactly. You've got the outside armor rails to have the lights embedded, and they're going to be screened or inked with patterns. And I don't mean to focus solely on locations, but I found it interesting. Somebody in the chat thought this would be a good game for redemption. And Stern Pinball games are set up to dispense tickets, so if that's what you're looking to do, if you've got a redemption center or you're solely redemption-based at your facility, you can set this up to spit tickets. So I think that's cool too. Overall though, man, pleasantly surprised. It's going to be a banger for Stern. I agree. Man, pinball market. They need, and I'm happy because I was still a little bit on the fence with this. Like I said, more so because I was trying to remove myself from a theme that I personally wasn't into. But yeah, seeing this, man, like this is a hit that they needed and this is going to be a hit. you know because i was a little worried about where things were going to go from here you know for this this first quarter but you know breath of fresh air like can breathe yeah yeah and this is going to sell like crazy they've got to be pretty pumped up about it and there's something to be said about the simplicity of a fan layout because a fan layout can be very satisfying not everything has to be so complex and convoluted and this is going to be it's going to be something can be very accessible for somebody that's new and and stepping up to a pinball machine for the first time where it should uh satiate more experienced pinball players but hey i mean if you have anything to do with pokemon and this is something you've been waiting for it does not seem like it's going to disappoint now this is a first impression video right or this is a first impression podcast so we're going off what we're seeing gameplay video as far as like a stream which i would assume is going to be hosted by jack danger and team is pending uh you know working some things out with a licensor as well so i would assume it'd probably be something that's pre-recorded something that the licensor can see and that it'll come out so they're working on that too i don't know when that comes out but hey man it's gonna be a heck of a day and it's like part of me is uh i'm excited but it's uh you know how the launches can be and i just we're We're going to be up all evening. We're going to be working tomorrow morning, tomorrow afternoon. It's going to be a fun-filled weekend. I finally got an excuse to not make plans. People are catching Pokemons, and we're catching customers. Come our way. We're going to catch you all. So if you want to order the game, three easy ways to do it. You can go to flippingoutpinball.com right now. Pros and premiums will be available. LE is tentatively sold out. If we have some become available, if you're on our list, we will call you to let you know that a limited edition game is available. But as of right now, we don't have availability. If you prefer to contact one of us directly, we will just take care of your invoice, send it to your email with a secure link for payment. It makes it real easy. You can hit me up at Ken at FlippinOutPinball.com. That's Ken, K-E-N, at Flip, the letter N, out to Pinball.com. Or you can hit up Greg at Greg at FlippinOutPinball.com. And if you have any questions, let us know. We'll do the best that we can. We're learning as we go through, but it's an exciting day. It's a stern launch day. it's Pokemon and it looks like it's going to be a hit, Greg. So for Greg Bone, I am Ken Cromwell. Don't forget to take some time out of your day and play some pinball. So long, everybody.