Episode 716: "Stern's 2023 Surprise Revealed?"

Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)·podcast_episode·19m 56s·analyzed·Sep 5, 2022

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Kaneda breaks alleged Stern 2023 plans: James Bond multi-film variants and major DMD remaster incoming.

Summary

Kaneda speculates on major Stern releases for 2023, claiming James Bond will launch before Venom with four Sean Connery film variants and an Aston Martin DB5 mechanic. He also predicts a Stern DMD-to-LCD "vault" remaster, discusses weak Toy Story and Total Nuclear Annihilation 2.0 sales, and expresses concerns about JJP and Spooky's market positioning and pricing strategies.

Key Claims

James Bond will release before Venom in 2023, based on Stern's development timeline
medium confidence · Kaneda citing 'reliable sources' mid-episode; framed as breaking news but presented as speculation
James Bond machine will feature four classic Sean Connery films with separate LE editions for each (250 each = 1,000 total)
low confidence · Kaneda's interpretation of anonymous tip saying he was '25% right on Thunderball'; highly speculative reasoning
James Bond will feature an Aston Martin DB5 as the main mech that fires pinballs
low confidence · Stated as rumor from unidentified source; Kaneda emphasizes uncertainty and speculates on mechanical implementation
Stern will release a DMD-to-LCD remaster of a classic game in 2023 with new art, RGB lighting, and improved sound
medium confidence · Kaneda presents as major scoop based on unidentified sources; specific about feature upgrades but vague on title
Toy Story sales are comparable to Dialed In! Collectors Edition weak performance
medium confidence · Kaneda cites 'another reliable source' claiming similar sales enthusiasm levels; anecdotal evidence from secondary market pricing
Toy Story LE will settle around $7,500 and CE around $10,000-$11,000 in six months
low confidence · Kaneda's price prediction based on market saturation and game reception; framed as confidence but unverified
Spooky's next all-original title is a 'major improvement' over Halloween and Ultraman
medium confidence · Someone working with Spooky Pinball on next game; claim relayed by Kaneda but not directly sourced
Total Nuclear Annihilation 2.0 did not sell out in first four days; should be released outside Fang Club to reach full 250 units
high confidence · Kaneda's direct observation of sales status and public availability; factual market observation

Notable Quotes

“This game is going to be the single biggest loss in the history of Jersey Jack pinball releases. You are never going to see games lose more value than these two games.”
Kaneda @ ~24:30 — Strong market prediction for Toy Story LE/CE depreciation; reflects Kaneda's pessimistic assessment of JJP's current product
“I think James Bond is going to be based on four Sean Connery movies... Imagine if Stern offered LEs based on each movie in which they made 250 of each film in LE format.”
Kaneda @ ~35:45 — Core machine intel claim about James Bond multi-variant structure; speculative but central to episode scoop
“Imagine if they made a DB5 in which the pinball goes into the car and then you press a little red button somewhere on the game and that acts as an ejecting seat and you can eject the pinball from the DB5 whenever you wanted to add another ball into play.”
Kaneda @ ~40:00 — Mechanic speculation framed as creative suggestion rather than confirmed intel; reveals uncertainty about DB5 implementation
“Stern Pinball go into its portfolio and put an older DMD game into a newer cabinet with an LCD screen and we are going to see them vault a game that everybody has been asking them to vault.”
Kaneda @ ~47:00 — Major remaster announcement claim; presented as 'breaking news' that Stern doesn't want public to know
“There is no code that's going to save this game people. It is what it is and Jersey Jack's got to figure out a solution.”
Kaneda @ ~16:30 — Dismissive assessment of Toy Story's long-term viability; suggests design fundamentals beyond code fixes
“I'm not looking for more artwork. They're not going to hoodwink us with art anymore. The one thing I really want to see in the next spooky game, I want to see some toys.”
Kaneda @ ~29:00 — Design criticism of Spooky's strategy; reflects broader industry sentiment about mechanical depth vs. cosmetics

Entities

Kanedaperson Drewperson Jack Dangerperson Zach Menyperson Ed Robertsonperson Icemanperson Johnperson

Signals

?
machine_intel: James Bond pinball machine rumored for Stern 2023 with alleged multi-film structure (four Sean Connery variants) and Aston Martin DB5 mechanic firing pinballs
low · Kaneda cites anonymous tip saying he was '25% right on Thunderball' and constructs multi-variant hypothesis; speculates on DB5 ejection seat implementation; explicitly acknowledges uncertainty ('I could be right, I could be wrong')
?
machine_intel: Stern planning DMD-to-LCD remaster of classic game in 2023 with new artwork, RGB lighting, improved sound, and full lighting system
medium · Kaneda frames as major scoop that 'Stern Pinball doesn't want you to know'; claims it will drive purchasing decisions; vague on title identity but specific on feature set
?
product_concern: Toy Story Pinball experiencing severe secondary market depreciation with CEs unsellable at $13,100 (discount from $15,000+); Kaneda predicts LE will settle at $7,500 and CE at $10,000-$11,000 within six months
high · Direct secondary market observation: 'you can't even sell a CE for $13,100'; anecdotal location feedback; comparison to Dialed In! weakness; Kaneda's pricing predictions based on supply saturation logic
?
product_concern: Toy Story Pinball plagued by outlane drainage issues even after JJP-directed height adjustment; lacks 'magical pinball moments' relative to pricing; insufficient gameplay depth to justify $12,000-$15,000 cost
high · Kaneda's direct play experience at Jack Bar: left sling to right outlane drains immediately without hitting rubber; conclusion: 'There is no code that's going to save this game people'; dismissal as location game, not home machine
?

Topics

Stern 2023 Release Pipeline and RumorsprimaryJames Bond Machine (Alleged Multi-Film Variants and Aston Martin Mechanic)primaryDMD-to-LCD Remaster Strategy at SternprimaryToy Story Pinball Market Failure and Price DepreciationprimaryTotal Nuclear Annihilation 2.0 Sales Stalling and Fang Club StrategyprimaryJersey Jack Pinball Business Pressures and Pricing CrisissecondarySpooky Pinball's Next Original Title DevelopmentsecondarySecondary Market Pricing Trends and Collector Sentimentsecondary

Sentiment

mixed(0.35)— Kaneda expresses excitement about upcoming Stern announcements (positive energy, frequent "super excited" language) and enthusiasm for potential mechanical innovations. However, sentiment turns sharply negative when discussing JJP's Toy Story struggles, predicting severe depreciation and calling it 'the single biggest loss in the history of Jersey Jack pinball releases.' Critical toward Spooky's past games (Halloween, Ultraman) and their pricing strategy. Generally optimistic about Stern's strategic direction but pessimistic about market saturation and current state of JJP/Spooky products. Self-promotional tone throughout (emphasizing exclusivity of his sources) adds defensive undertone.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.060

Whatever may come somewhere deep inside, there's always this version of you and I, so just kiss me the way that you would if we died tonight. I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said I promised you if I ever got any information about what's coming down the road in pinball, I would tell you first, right? And that's what we're going to do on episode 716 of Kaneda's Pinball Podcast, everybody. I am going to tell you some information that is coming from one of my most reliable sources. And I think this is going to get everybody super excited about what's coming out in 2023. It's coming from the biggest pinball company in the world. And it's something that a lot of you have been waiting for. So get your wallets ready, people. It's going to be a brutal year for your checkbook in 2023. But before we get there, I want to ask each and every one of you a favor. Now, you know, when I started Kaneda Club and I started this whole thing behind the paywall, that my goal was to get to 1000 club members. And we're kind of, you know, we're halfway there. I want to welcome Iceman to the party from Pinside. I want to give a shout out to Ed Ed Robertson, who's a member, Jack Danger, Zach Meny's listening. I know that Drew over at Poor Man's Pinball Podcast You're listening to the best listens to every episode and Drew, by the way brother, I need to come on your show and give it some energy. That last show, those 20 minutes, it sounded like you were doing it from the bathroom and you didn't even want to be doing this show. Just hit up Kaneda, I'll be your co-host, Ian ain't coming back and Orby can't save it, man. I got you. I got your back. Just hit up Kaneda and I'll do your show. But my goal was always to get to a thousand club members and I just have a simple favor to ask each and every one of you. Every single one of you who's listening right now, you have a pinball friend out there that's not a member of the Kaneda Club. And I am just asking a favor that you could invite one of your friends who doesn't have a club membership to join the Kaneda Club and just like that we would hit a thousand club members. I'm in on Labor Day. I love doing this show. It's a new month. We're going to get a new Stern machine this month. But that's not going to stop Kaneda from giving you what's coming out down the road because the speculation is where the fun is all at. I mean, if you've been following this show, I am probably the only show when I hear something I know you want. I'm going to tell you because I don't have to worry about not getting the interviews. I don't have to worry about getting shunned at the pinball shows. People don't want to take photos with Kaneda. People are not asking for Kaneda's autograph. They just vote for Kaneda every time the Twippies is opened up. Okay, so here's what I want to talk about before I reveal the big thing you're going to be waiting for on this episode. First and foremost, I want to say this. I went to Jack Bar yesterday and I played more Toy Story 4. And I played it for like an hour and I had a good time on the machine. But I want to say, you know, John over at Jack Bar, he was told by JJP to raise the outlanes on the game. And on the right side of the game, he lifted the posts up. And I'll tell you, it just destroyed the fun of the game. Absolutely ruined the fun of the game, because now anytime the ball hits that left sling and shoots towards the outlane, it immediately drains. Like, it doesn't even hit rubber. It just goes right into the outlane. And I'm sorry, but this isn't going to help. This is not going to help this game. And again, I think this is a great location game. I had a lot of fun putting $20 into it, but I would never put $12,000 or $15,000 on the table for one of these machines. Right now, on the marketplace for this game, you can't even sell a CE for $13,100. Like it's crazy how much of a discount that is and people are still not buying this game. I still think Jersey Jack has to figure this out. Are they going to put the games on sale? Are they not going to make a thousand of these games? Now I heard from another reliable source that sales of Toy Story are somewhere around the same sales enthusiasm for Dialed In. This game is not selling well. LEs are sitting at distributors. Think about it. You're sitting Speaking with LEs, how are you going to go order then the CE and have that sit when everyone is seeing that you can't even sell a CE for $13,000 and you're going to go place an order for $15,000 CEs if you're a distro? I don't think so. This game is going to be a huge problem for Jersey Jack and they are going to have to either get out the next game soon or they're going to have to figure out a way to lower the price. There is no way Toy Story sales are going to happen throughout the fall and into the winter The jig is up on this game Like everyone knows the same thing about this game It's fun to shoot. It doesn't really have magical pinball moments and there's not enough in the machine to justify the price and that is the story on Toy Story. There is no code that's going to save this game people. It is what it is and Jersey Jack's got to figure out a solution. Now talking about it is what it is and is it worth the price, as of today, Total Nuclear Annihilation 2.0 still has not sold out. So they did not have a day one sellout, they did not have a week one sellout yet, but it hasn't been on sale for a week. It's only been on sale for like four days. I still think this game is going to sell out if they do the following. Spooky needs to offer this game for sale now outside of the Fang Club. Everyone who's a Fang Club member got the email that the game is available to buy. Everybody. So, why are they still keeping this game for sale behind the Fang Club? There's nobody on Mars who's on a spaceship who wasn't on planet Earth, Spooky, when you sent out the email. I think it's time for Spooky to now open it up for everybody else. There are people out there that don't want to spend $9,000 on this game, but there's also a community out there that just doesn't want to sign up for the Fang Club. They don't think they should have to pay you an additional fee for the privilege to spend $9,000 on a game that cost $6,000 just a few years ago, Spooky. So look, it's over with the fan club sales. Open it up to everybody else and I think you will sell all 250. I mean we heard from Scott Danesi himself. He doesn't even think it's worth $9,000. I would also add that I think the original version of the game with the chrome armor looks better than the powder coated version they're bringing out. It's almost like they're trying to do too much. They don't have to do everything. But the original chrome armor I think looks much better than the powder coated version they are putting in this $9,000 version. But it didn't sell out. And I know a lot of people out there were rooting for this thing to sell out day one because they wanted Kaneda to be wrong. And I wasn't wrong. And I'm not wrong on this game. This is a great game. This is a great $6,000 game, people. Everybody knows that it's not a great $9,000 game. It's not worth $9,000. If it's worth $9,000 to you, congratulations. I hope you got one. And then I hope you see in six months how you can go get one for 7,500 because that's where the price is going to settle when there's another 250 of these things out in the world. And don't say Kaneda didn't tell you that. I mean, look, Toy Story. I'm going to say this right now. Toy Story Pinball. If I were to predict how much Toy Story LE and CEs will be worth in six months. Are you ready for it? I think Toy Story LE is going to be a $7,500 pin and I think Toy Story CE is going to be like a $10,000 to $11,000 pin. I think this game is going to be the single biggest loss in the history of Jersey Jack pinball releases. You are never going to see games lose more value than these two games. It's the perfect storm of what could go wrong. Nobody wanted the fourth movie. The game doesn't have these magical moments in it because nobody remembers magical moments from Toy Story 4. The game is significantly overpriced and the game has significantly little in it. And you add all of that up and why wouldn't you just go buy a dialed in for like 7,500 bucks? Or go get a Willy Wonka which is clearly the much better game. Everybody knows this. Everybody knows it. But Kaneda is the only one who's going to tell you this with a straight face. I just can't imagine they're gonna make all thousand CEs of these games and I think you're gonna see distributors getting really antsy because Stern's game is coming out maybe this Wednesday I heard that's the latest rumor on Wednesday of this week they're gonna reveal the new game I don't know are they gonna surprise us after this holiday weekend who knows all right a couple more things and then we're gonna get to the whole reason for this show which is what's coming next year from the big dog I heard from someone who is working with spooky pinball On their next game, I heard the following. I heard that the next spooky all original title, right, which is like Scooby Doo apparently, I heard that it is a major improvement over Halloween and Ultraman. That it is a big leap forward for this company which is music to the ears of everybody because as I been saying at this price point they need to make the games better now what does this mean for Halloween and Ultraman I keep saying this to everybody get ready for both of these games to be worth around sixty five hundred dollars they are gonna keep sliding in value when the dust settles a year from now I think these two games are going to be two games that not many people want and hopefully the next spooky game The next game delivers because these two did not deliver and they are done on the marketplace. They're going to keep sliding down. All right, so huge improvement. So the one thing I'm looking for, if you ask me, I'm not looking for more artwork. They're not going to hoodwink us with art anymore. The one thing I really want to see in the next spooky game, I want to see some toys. I want them to actually show us they can engineer a toy or something with some complexity to If it is just more off the shelf parts or stuff that slows down the gameplay or ramps that are as wide as a three lane highway, that's not what I want to see. They went from making games that were a brick fest to making a game that's just too easy to shoot and is too slow and doesn't have great flow. So I really hope that we get a game that shoots well but also has some toys and a great world under glass. And I mean like a world and not just artwork, a sculpted world. All right, Kaneda, what was in your coffee this morning? You're just excited because you finally got a scoop. Now, look, I know that I've been giving you guys a lot of rumors of late. And the truth is this, like all of these rumors we've been talking about for a long time. Now, we all know that it is either James Bond or Venom coming out next. I'm here to tell you right now I am being told it is going to be James Bond and Venom will be delayed to a later date. Here is another thing that is breaking news. I told you earlier that this machine was going to be based on Thunderball. I got a little anonymous tip and it said to me, Kaneda, you are 25% right on Thunderball. And I am taking that as information that there will be four classic James Bond movies in this pinball machine. And so I am here to tell you right now, I think James Bond is going to be based on four Sean Connery movies. And I think what happened is the person who told me Thunderball, I think Stern is probably going to use artwork from each of these movies and make four different James Bond cabinets. Yes, you heard it here first. I think they might do an addition for each movie and yet each game will have in it all four films to choose from. So I could be right, I could be wrong. But here's what they might do and it might be smart. Imagine if Stern offered LEs based on each movie in which they made 250 of each film in LE format. So imagine that. Imagine if you had 250 of each title. What if you had From Russia with Love, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, and maybe Goldfinger or maybe Doctor No. Right? It seems to make total sense. And if they made 250 of each and there's four movies, guess how many L.E.s that equals? 1,000 people. How many L.E.s are Stern making right now? 1,000. I don't know. We shall see very soon. And here's the other thing I'm hearing. There is going to be an Aston Martin DB5 as the main mech in this game. And it is going to fire pinballs. Okay, let's think about this for a minute. If there's going to be an Aston Martin that fires pinballs, well, there is the machine guns that pop out of the headlights in this car or like above the headlights. But wouldn't that really be hard to do unless you had a really big front fascia of the DB5 like as the back of the game? Like that would be super cool or I was thinking about it. How awesome would this be? Are you ready for it? Imagine if they made a DB5 in which the pinball goes into the car and then you press a little red button somewhere on the game and that acts as an ejecting seat and you can eject the pinball from the DB5 whenever you wanted to add another ball into play. Just think about that for a moment. Think about how creative Kaneda is and think about how now that you've thought about this, that would be such a dream mech to have in a game. In Aston Martin, where you as the player, because you're James Bond, you get to control the ejecting seat which ejects another pinball into play And you can eject that pinball into play whenever you want Like whenever you need an extra ball you can add it as the player Oh my gosh I super excited I hope they thought of that I hope the creative geniuses over at Stern Pinball can do a better job than Kaneda who's just a PR hack in New York City who has no engineering skills whatsoever. Don't let me beat you at your own game Stern. I hope this game has an ejecting ball DB5 mech in the game. So we shall see this week. All right, before I run out of oxygen, before I run out of air, I'm bringing too much energy to this show. This is like the poor man's pinball network like on speed right now. Drew, you got to take some lessons, man. So here we go. Here we go. Without further ado, I'm going to give all of you a scoop. I'm going to give all of you something I think a lot of you have been waiting for. So I am here to tell you right now, and I'm going to put my show's credibility on the The line that after all the years of waiting, after all of the speculation coming in 2023 from Stern Pinball is going to be a super duper surprise. Now we know we're going to get Jack Danger, most likely He-Man, we're going to get Gomez's James Bond, Brian Eddy's Venom, and we're also going to get the next game from Keith Elwin which might be Jaws, but who knows? Who knows? There's no assets apparently in JAWS. You can't even get the damn shark apparently when you talk to people about this license. But here's also what is going to happen in 2023. And this is why Stern Pinball doesn't want you to know this right now. Because you might not buy the next game. You might save your money for this. So we are going to see in 2023 Stern do something it's never done before. We're going to see Stern Pinball go into its portfolio and put an older DMD game into a newer cabinet with an LCD screen and we are going to see them vault a game that everybody has been asking them to vault. This game is going to have new artwork, it's going to have full RGB lighting, it's going to have improved sound, it's going to have all of that new lighting system they do too. And so I just want you to close your eyes and imagine this game with better art, better sound, and better lighting, and then look at your wallet and just take out a blank check and write Stern Pinball and date it for 2023. Everybody, thank you for being a member of the Kaneda Club. This is the only show that will do this. Nobody else gets these scoops and nobody else would tell you because then they'd burn their relationships. It's a good thing for you that nobody likes me. Here we go. Coming from Stern in 2023. I promised you that if I ever got any information about your dad, I'd tell you first, right? I was paged last night. Came from your dad's office at the arcade. So, so, the number's been disconnected for 20 years. Two nights before he disappeared, he came to my house. He said he was about to change everything. Science, medicine, religion. He wouldn't have left that, Sam. He wouldn't have left you. Alan, you're acting like I'm gonna find him sitting there working. Just, hey kiddo, lost track of time. Wouldn't that be something? on cabbage Timing and Subtitles by the Amara.org community Closing music