Oh, welcome everybody to a live edition of Canada's Pinball Podcast. The sun is coming in. Today is Pokemon's 30th birthday. Yesterday was Killian's birthday. We went to the city. We went to the Natural History Museum. We went to the zoo in Central Park. We went to the Nintendo store. Then I went out to Tomy Jazz with my brother and got inebriated and had some McDonald's. But happy birthday today to Donald Garrison over here from Don's Pinball Podcast. Don, love you, brother. Love that you share a birthday with Pokemon. We're going to talk about pinball. There's someone in the chat right now wondering what is the American pinball game that is going to be remade. I mean, I couldn't give you any more clues than it's a John Papadiuk game with a very bright light going up the shooter lane. Let me give you one more hint. It starts with the same letter of my children's name. Is that enough? I don't want to say it. I don't want to say it out loud, but it is going to be the first remake from American Pinball. That's going to be exciting. There is so much exciting stuff happening in this hobby. It is not even funny. I'm not going to edit this show. You're going to see how Kaneda bakes live. Okay, so let's talk Pokemon first because I'm on eBay right now and I'm seeing games for $50,000, $29,000. There's one that is an actual auction, which is fun. It's fun to see what these games will go for. I think the auction ends in like two days. Right now it's at $16,000 and counting. that is low in my honest opinion about what this game will go for and we have to have a moment of silence for what might be the worst trade in the history of pinball some dude traded our very own Chris L a Beetlejuice straight up for a Pokemon LE with no money on the table that is a horrible trade for the dude that handed over a Pokemon LE because look, I mean, I love Beetlejuice. I'm waiting to go play it. I might go today and play it at Automated. But let's be honest here. Beetlejuice was $9,999. People are now selling spots for $3,500. That's $13,500. Why would you trade straight up for a Pokemon LE, which is easily worth $18,000 to $23,000 right now? What a moron. I mean, I don't use that word often, but that was a moronic deal. Horrible deal. Don't understand why this guy didn't ask around. He just could have got so much more. A great deal for Chris L. Now, we're never going to hear the end of it. He's been saying that Winchester is the greatest game ever. It's not. It's a good game for sure, but it is not the best game ever. And I love my Winchester fans because you guys are all going to regret not selling it now for 20. By the way, there is not a single person that has offered $20,000 for a Winchester. My friend is trying to sell his. And for those of you out there that are like, well, yeah, man, where are the offers? Where are the offers? All these wanted ads and nobody is even offering anything up for a Winchester. So what do you think a Winchester is worth right now? I would say what the game is, what, like twelve thousand six hundred dollars or something like brand new or eleven six. I would say 18. The game walks. I think, you know, 20 is just this threshold that people don't want to cross. And so I understand. I understand. But let me talk about what I think is happening right now in this hobby. It's going to be a beautiful year. It's going to be a great year for pinball because at these high prices and with these great themes coming out, we've got Sonic, we've got Beetlejuice, we've got Harry Potter, we've got Goonies, we've got Back to the Future, we've got remakes from American Pinball that are going to be exciting. We've got all this stuff happening. We've got the next game from Barrels of Fun. We've got all this stuff happening. Chris Turner is probably going to release the Whitewater 2 sequel. We've got all this stuff happening in pinball and we've got Transformers and we've got Fallout. We've got a new Keith Elwin game, right? It's like all this stuff is going to happen in one year. And yes, Sonic the Hedgehog will be game of the year. I've been saying it. I absolutely believe it. I think Sonic is going to be insane. I think Sonic is going to be what, you know, putting it next to Pokemon. It's going to make Pokemon feel pretty damn empty. And look, I am not going to tell you that Pokemon is loaded. I'm not going to tell you that Pokemon is the most innovative or creative game. It's not. But I think they went simple because they wanted a game that everybody could enjoy and love and have fun with. And pinball needs that. I don't understand why there's any anger around that. If you put Godzilla in front of most people, it turns them off. And I mean casual players. They just can't survive a game that's got really complex layouts. Winchester, same thing. You know, but if you put Beetlejuice in front of most people, they're going to have a good time. And look, Pokemon might be the most basic pinball machine I've ever seen since I've been covering this hobby. And the reason why it gets a pass is because it was the right move. Would I like it to be more complex and have a lot more going on? Maybe. but that wasn't the brief. That wasn't what they wanted to do. And if you just look at the response to this game and what really gives me hope is that people that are into pinball, I mean like diehard pinheads who are jumping on this machine and playing it, they love it. I haven't heard a single negative thing from anyone that actually played the game All the negativity on pin side is from people that either don have an LE or don want people to sort of fall in love with a simple approach because they're like, whoa, if we support this and we invest in this and we tell Stern that this is good enough, then every game's gonna be like this. And I'm here to tell you right now, Transformers is gonna be crazy loaded. It's gonna have so much in it. It's been in development for two years and it's gonna blow your socks off. Now, look, do I think Transformer LE is going to go through the roof like Pokemon? I don't because I think Stern's going to go back to their old ways. I think if it's Zombie Eddie on artwork, I think the LE and the premium are going to look almost exactly the same. And I think Stern needs to learn a lesson here and really make the LEs look like they're worth $3,500 more. You got to remember, $3,500 more, which is more of a gap between the Jersey Jack like Ellie and the CE, 3,500 more, and you don't even get a topper. You don't get anything really different than the premium other than artwork, maybe some inner art blades and expression lighting, but look, there's nowhere near the value. So that's why the art package has to be so much better, Zombietti. You're the art director at Stern Pinball. You need to make the Ellie really stand out. Like it needs to blow people away compared to the premium. And this is what Zombietti's problem has been is he made King Kong Pro look exactly the same as King Kong LE. Same thing with The Walking Dead. You know, I mean, the last game where there was really a nice gap was maybe, what, Metallica Remastered. But for the most part, a dude spending $13,000 on a Stern, which is crazy to begin with because no Stern machine is worth anywhere near $13,000. We all know it. It should look like Batman SLE. Every single LE should look that good. Remember, Batman SLE was $15,000. It came with a topper. It had that beautiful embossed decals on the side. Why don't we get those? I like those way more than the foil decals. What, did we lose the technology, Stern, to make stickers embossed like that? I don't get it. they're cutting corners and it's not going to work. Now look, Pokemon LE looks phenomenal. And so I'm looking at these prices and I'm saying to myself, every day I wake up, I feel differently about it. Like how much do you guys think, now that I've got a little bit of a live audience, how much do you think Pokemon LE is worth today? I keep going back and forth. I had, you know, an opportunity to like see a bunch of these sales. I've been hearing from people in my Gmail about like what people want for the game. and I'm telling you right now, I'm telling you right now, and I'm not gonna edit this show, so if you get a little pause and some burps and my coffee burps and my little stumbles, it's a live show, okay? So go with me on it. So someone's saying 20K, Johnny Pinball thinks 17,000. I think right now, Pokemon, you wanna do a deal right now. Like today, you wanna do a deal. I think 18,000, you get a deal done. I think 20 maybe, but you're gonna wait a few days. And my worry now is, as I've been predicting, is too many people are going to try to sell it. And there's so many people trying to sell it. And someone put up on Pinside a list of all 750 games and who has which number. I think like Flip N Out Pinball has like 15 or 14 games. And then, you know, everyone's going to fill in the number. Can someone do me a favor and go on Pinside and let them know that Kaneda has number 50? I have Diglett. I requested Diglett. I paid extra for Diglett because I wanted to have the most ridiculous Pokemon. You know, look, these things are not going to be worth any more. Like if you have Charizard number six or whatever, Pikachu number like 30 something, it doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter. No one's going to pay extra. Nobody thinks in that realm. And, you know, the plaques are not going to be different. Every machine is going to just say the number out of 750. So another person said $20,000 here. But look, if you want 20, the problem is there's like eight guys want 20 right now. And I just don't think you're getting it. Now, what I love about Pokemon and I love about this game and I love about where we're about to head into pinball as we head into March is simply this. This is going to be the best year in the history of pinball. And I mean that. And we're going to see some of the best pinball ever. The prices are high, but you don't have to buy everything. The problem is you're going to want to buy almost everything. And I think unlike other years where it was really easy to say no, like easy pass, I don't want that. I think this is going to be a year that really tests a lot of people's patience. I think it's going to be a year that tests your wallet. I think it's going to be a year where you're really going to have to like not run at everything or you're going to go into real difficult financial times unless you're really, really, really very, very wealthy because it's going to be difficult. There used to be a time, ladies and gentlemen, where you could buy the best version of a pinball machine from a company, buy three machines, and it cost you around $18,000. We now live in a world where if you want the best edition of the game and you get the topper, you're looking at closer to $45,000 for three pinball machines. For three. I mean, that's just absolutely insane, right? When you think about it like that. They don't want you to think about it like that. And then you look at some of the depreciation, right? If you bought Toy Story 4, if you bought Godfather CE, and you bought James Bond 60th, if you bought just those three games, you lost collectively $26,000 on three pinball machines. They don't want you to think about that either. And now all of a sudden, a game comes out that goes up in value instantly. and you got these gatekeepers like Troy over at Tilt Amusements gatekeeping the sale of this game, trying to go on this moral high horse Is Troy gonna offer you anywhere near what you paid for your Godfather CE if you go to trade it in You know if you gave Troy a check for for Godfather CE not only is he going to offer you probably on the trade in Yeah, where is he there? This is why I don't like the gatekeepers. I don't like the moral police. Robin, the same thing. Robin's a fool. All of these Pokemons that are on eBay should be selling through Pinside. They're not because his new rules are stupid. They're idiotic and they are socialists. Like he's literally trying to control the free market on the game. He's not going to stop scalping. The free market would be the best approach because if he allowed people to just list the games for sale, then all the prices would come down. That's how you combat the high scalping prices. What he's done is he's driven everybody to the gray market, to the black market, which is causing the prices to go up. So what a moron to do it that way. If he simply allowed the free market to do its job, the prices would even out. And that is the irony in all of these gatekeepers. I have a big problem with them because they don't have your back when you're losing all this money. But the moment you can actually make a buck or two, it's like they want to come in and tell you that you can't. So shame on them. Absolutely shame on them. I haven't heard from Troy. it's not a personal attack he's the one who wants to do it this way and he can do it this way it's his business i won't buy from someone like that though i would absolutely not buy from someone like that and i just want to ask each and every one of you a favor and i mean this i'm so tired i'm tired if you want to order a premium of a stern machine will you please order from my friends okay i'm getting zero kickbacks but i'm so tired of hearing you guys order from other dealers and distros. Like I don't do any advertising for anybody, but if you're going to order a pinball machine, will you do me a favor and order it from either Mike at automated, which is now Frank D'Python Anghelo, Frank Mac order from our friends. These are the friends of the show. Like I've got thousands of people that are friends of Canada's pinball podcast. Why are you ordering elsewhere and order from Mike at automated or Chris and Melissa at coin taker? And I get zero kickbacks zero. Okay. There is no, I'm not getting paid to say that. And they will take care of you. And if they don't take care of you, you come to me and they will get you the best possible price. Right. I hear all these other shows. They start out with advertisements for deal. It's just so like, whatever, like nothing, I get nothing for this, but please, I don't want to hear anymore that you're not ordering from friends of the show. And I've never been this like strident or adamant about it, but do it. And when you order, Say, look, Kaneda said order from you and that you'll take care of me. And I would love to hear that you did that, that you just did that, all right? Okay, so here's the thing. Here's the thing. What's gonna happen next, okay? Because it is almost March. Okay, so Pokemon, it might be delayed. I've been hearing there's a part shortage at Stern. There's a company that makes a lot of pinball parts. It's like Savoy, Hap, I think it's called. They make the coin doors. They make the switches. I hear they're shutting down the pinball division. This is the biggest single piece of news in all the pinball that one of the most like prolific suppliers of pinball parts is shutting down their pinball business. And so if this happens, this could be a troubling year for all these games that need to order like all these coin doors and like lockdown bars and switches. Like the stuff that this company makes is not easy to just replicate. Like a lot of the machines they have, like that make and forge these items, they're not like elsewhere. So this could cause a huge delay for a lot of games that you're expecting to buy in 2026. All right. So what else has happened? So what's next? What is next? TPF is in March. Now, remember the good old days when TPF had the twippies before Colin destroyed them? Remember the good old days when games would get revealed at TPF? It's like those days are over. That's why I'm not going to TPF. When people ask me, are you going to TPF? I'm like, no. The reason why is there's no moment anymore at TPF. There's no moment whatsoever. Nothing gets revealed. Nothing is new. If I want to play games, I can go to Automated 30 minutes from here. But it used to be the show. And I feel like nowadays the show is kind of expo for the most part. Like that's the one where I think most of the manufacturers sort of time new releases around that show. And all the manufacturers are in Chicago. but in the end, you know, these shows are just more about hanging out. But again, I'm not going to fly all the way to Texas. I don't have the vacation days I used to back in a, back in the COVID days when all the Gen Z kids didn't want to work. And so we gave everybody unlimited vacation days. And these kids, man, there used to be a time when kids didn't abuse that, but these kids, we had some people taking 59 paid time off days, 59, not, not even to get married. It's like they were going to Burning Man for like three weeks. It's like these kids didn't get it. And now we just got acquired and check it out. If you've only worked at the company for two years, you get 10 total vacation days. It's brutal. A lot of people are leaving left and right. A lot of people have to grow up now. A lot of people have to get used to working for an organization that it's not all cuddly and they're not going to coddle you. And you've got to deal with bosses that don't care about you. It's a brutal world out there. You know, corporate America is a brutal world these days. I was looking at an old photo of my dad working at his desk, mergers and acquisitions man, my dad, senior vice president, Bristol Myers, Squibb. The dude bought Squibb for Bristol Myers, okay? Sitting at his desk, he's got his tie on, he's looking professional. He's got a marble thing in front of him with his name on it and two Montblanc pens, no computer screens, no cell phones, know nothing, just a phone to do a deal on. And if he had to get like in front of somebody, you got on a plane and you had a meeting in person. You had two hour lunches at the Four Seasons restaurant across the street I miss those days I never even got to experience those days really The moment I worked and all of us have worked all it is is like distractions distractions distractions, and it's terrible. You know, yesterday when I brought Killian to the Natural History Museum and we are standing in front of a freaking T-Rex and I'm looking at this T-Rex and I'm saying to myself, how did we go from this? millions of years, this T-Rex roamed this planet. And now people are making all this money just creating PowerPoint slides all day long. I mean, we don't make anything all day long. PowerPoint slides. I go up to work after the zoo. I'm watching like grizzly bears in Central Park, you know, doing yoga. And then I go to work and there's like, you know, energy's low. We're making PowerPoint slides. It's Thursday. No one's like, where are we going to happy hour? How are we going to live our one life in the most amazing way? There's no energy. There's no energy. And I really, really, really thank each and every one of you because what I love about this hobby and I love about this community is every day there is energy. There is excitement. You know, when you want to get someone excited, ask them what their hobbies are. You know what happens in this town? And then I'm going to end this episode of Canadian Spinball Podcast thanking each and every one of you, for the community you've made, for the community we've built around pinball. You know what happens in my town in Roeiden or Darien, you know, these multi-million dollar house towns. You know what people ask? The first question they ask me when I go to Roeiden Seafood and I'm at the bar and I'm just trying to get a lobster roll. The first question when you meet a stranger in these towns, these, you know, waspy towns, they ask, what street do you live on? And the reason they're asking what street you live on is not because they're actually interested in the street you live on. They want to know if you live in a $2 million house or a $10 million house. They want to size you up financially because they need that information to, I don't know, in some insecure way, they need to know who they're talking to and if they should give you more attention based on what street you live on. It is the most pathetic thing ever. And when I first moved in here, and I love this village, I love this town, I told Brenda, like, I got to drive around and get to know the streets because these people are like obsessed. Like, do I need to know what street they live on? And I realized, like, I don't give a rat's butt what street anybody lives on. If I meet you at a bar, the first question I ask someone is, what are you into? What are your hobbies? You know, what's your favorite food item here? I don't care where you live. I don't care how much money you have. Because you know what I also realize in these wealthy towns, the majority of people that are the wealthiest, they're divorced. They're on their second or third marriage. They have these blended families and they tell you about it. And that's the other thing about rich people. They don't get it. They don't get it. I'm not your therapist. I'm just here to get a lobster roll. I don't care that you're, why are you telling a stranger you're divorced? I shouldn't know that about anybody. I should go to a restaurant and we should talk about what we're into. We should talk about the sports on the TV. We should talk about pinball. And that is why I love this hobby. It's because we keep it in the right sandbox. We talk every day about a hobby we love, the games, the manufacturers, everything going on in pinball. It's so beautiful, right? It's so beautiful and it's amazing. And look, we've got the best year ever in front of us. So I'm so excited, everybody, to cover this hobby all year for each and every one of you. I'm so excited to see Back to the Future, to see Goonies, to see the new game from American Pinball, to see what Barrels has after Winchester, to see Transformers, man. We're going to see Transformers. And from what I'm hearing, this game is going to be bonkers. Now, the big question is, is Zombie Yeti going to actually make the LE crazy good? Please, Jeremy, please. You know, he's the only one. And I mean, this is the only one that didn't get back to me when I sent him a nice note about Beetlejuice. Come on, man. Stop being salty. I didn't ruin your life. You know, when someone extends the olive branch, and I mean this, if you even consider yourself a man of God, a man who's unable to accept forgiveness, a man who's unable to turn the cheek, I would hate to live like that, bro. Like literally when Kaneda says like, great job, just say thank you. Right. To ignore me is really, really sad, man. It's sad. I don't want to be that way. You know, look, I say stupid stuff. I do dumb stuff all the time. And look, none of what I've done ever is without forgiveness. Okay. I haven't murdered anybody. I haven't abused any women ever. I haven't said anything inappropriate. Well, maybe the pinball companies, but never like at work. You could go around. I've never said anything that's ever put me in any position to be canceled. I'm a very open-minded person. Look, there are some people in this hobby who I protect from being canceled. I mean, they say stuff in chats. I'm not going to name names. And I'm like, dude, you can't say that. I know you might feel that way. And I respect that you feel that way. But don't say it, okay? It's just not the right hill to die on. Everybody, have an amazing Friday. Beetlejuice coming. Maybe today. If it's available there and Frank is there today, I'm going to go play it. This is a live show. I'm not editing it. I'm just going to put it up now. One Republic. It's going to be a good life. Let's hit the song right now. Canada out. We want this to complain about.