Billy, Billy, you could lose my number Cause you're not anywhere That I can't find you Oh, happy Friday everybody! Canada's back in the saddle. It's been a while. I haven't been able to do three shows this week because I've been super busy at work. But we're going to do a great episode of Canada's Pinball Podcast. How's everybody doing? Is everybody waiting for Texas Pinball Festival? Is March Madden going to return to the world of pinball? I don't really think so. We haven't seen much activity leading up to Texas Pinball Festival, which is crazy. Usually, people are dropping games right now. They're trying to get that early thunder going. Nobody's doing anything. But we do know this. American Pinball, their next game, they've sent them out already to operators. Operators have them in boxes waiting for American Pinball to make the most awkward announcement ever. that it is a barbecue themed game. We're going to get it. Hey, we haven't done something in a while. I want to give a shout out to the club members that are at the top of the tier of Canadian pinball podcast. Mr. Steve Jablonski still at the helm with $100 a month. And then we got Andrew D, Dan Jansen, Kenneth Collins. We got Leaderboard Arcade and Pete Rosen all coming in at $50 a month. Thank you so much, gentlemen. We're going to keep doing shout outs all throughout the month And we're going to give anybody who's given more than five bucks a nice little call out on the airwaves. All right, let's talk about this. We've got TPF around the corner. We've got the American Pinball game. Let's talk about what's going on over at Stern. Any surprises at TPF for Stern? I don't think so. All right, let's go down the horn and talk about what's happening with these pinball companies. All right, so in order of what I think is going to be the talk of TPF, let's start with American Pinball. because this game, we've been making fun of it for a really long time. And the best thing that happened to this game is we have no expectations. Now, when you have no expectations for something, it's a lot easier to welcome it with some enthusiasm. So has David Fix actually pulled off the most genius marketing stunt of all time? Has he spent the last year and a half simply destroying our expectations that American Pinball can release a great game. Was Galactic Tank Force just a Trojan horse to usher in the greatest pinball machine of all time, Barry O's single-level barbecue game by David Fix and Maurice? Some people call me Maurice. Is that going to be the case? I don't think so, but this game is coming out any day now. And it's going to be interesting. Are they going to wait until TPF starts and their seminar? See, their seminar is not until Saturday, I believe. American Pinball is not going to go until Saturday. So I think this game is going to be unveiled before then. They're not going to wait until then because then they're going to miss all of the foot traffic on Friday. And you know they need to sell every single one of these games. And so I could see this game being unveiled to the world like sometime on Monday or Tuesday of this week. and then the operators can put it on location and people can start hopping on and playing it. And then when people head to Texas Pinball Festival, they will head towards the American Pinball booth to put some time onto the new game. So that is what I think we're gonna see. You know me, I'm very skeptical of this game. I think it's gonna be a failure. I think American Pinball needs new leadership. I don't think they've done anything really that successful in so many years. And I think it's a shame because they do screw together a good game. They just seem like a motley crew that doesn't really understand what the pinball community wants. And they banned Kaneda from Facebook, which is also very stupid. Are you going to ban a guy that's got 3,000 people listening to what he says on Facebook? Another 6, 7, 800 here. I have got more people who listen to my show than you sell games. You have not sold anywhere close to 700 Galactic Tank Force machines. and I got 700 people listening to this right now. So banning Canada, when are people gonna learn their lesson? You keep your enemies closer, right? That is the art of war. Banning Canada from your page is stupid. Same thing with Jersey Jack, banning me from their page. Like what are you accomplishing? I mean, I can just log on to like my other 18 fake Facebook accounts and see all of your content. You might as well pull me into the mix. The thing all these companies get wrong is I'm not unapproachable. You know what I'm saying? Like they never even try to engage with me. And that is why when companies do engage with me, of course, I'm gonna be a little bit nicer. Of course, I'm gonna be a little bit kinder on their company and on their games a little bit because we have more of a personal relationship. And that's just the way it goes in life. And you're allowed to have favorites and you're allowed to have people you don't like. So we shall see what happens with American Pinball. I think it's gonna be funny. I've got the popcorn ready. and will it be a barbecue game? I think the second game that has the most anticipation over at Texas Panball Festival is gonna be the Princess Bride. Now, the Princess Bride was just revealed like a few weeks ago by Multimorphic Jerry always had a big presence at the show It kind of like his local show if you don know this Multimorphic is located in Texas so he going to show up with a bunch of Princess Bride machines. He's going to keep taking orders. We'll see when he gets those games out the door. This is obviously the Multimorphic game with the most excitement. It's still a very expensive proposition. Like if you're going to go all in on this Multimorphic platform, you're like 12k or more money, it seems like. And I don't know, you know, with all these games and all this money being lost by people over the last two years, I'm not sure how enthusiastic people are going to be. But that is going to be the next game, I think, at the show that's like the newest, like you haven't played it before. You haven't seen it before. Now, if you were to ask me, which game do I think at Texas Pinball Festival this year is going to be the talk of the show, is going to be the game that people walk away from and say, wow, that's amazing. Like, wow, Kaneda was right. Like, wow, I really should think about putting some of my pinball dollars towards this machine. You know what I'm going to say, people? I think Elton John is going to be the walkaway winner from the show. I think Elton John is going to be the game that when people actually play it, when you jump on it and you experience like this game and this Jersey Jack package with Steve Ritchie flow and the music cranking at TPF, I think this game is going to show tremendously well. Because remember, this game really was only at Expo and we were still getting over our animosity that it was Elton John. Everybody was like, I don't want an Elton John pin. We didn't want the rumors to be true. We wanted it to be Matrix. And our expectations were all over the place. But I think now that we've calmed down and now that we realize Stern is going to continue to rip us off with their pricing. And you walk over and John Youssi that $12,000 Elton John and John Youssi the $13,000 Stern LEs and you look back at the JJP and you're like, wait a minute, this thing looks twice as good. This thing sounds twice as good. This thing plays twice as good. And maybe it is just twice as good. Maybe it's just one of the most fun pinball machines we've had in a really long time. And I think when people get over some of their aversions to it, I think you're going to want one. Now look, I'm in the same boat as everybody though. You still don't want one for full price. You still want one for a little bit less than $12,000 or $15,000. I keep telling people I'm a CE buyer at like $12,000. I'm not a CE buyer at $15,000. I'm a CE buyer at $12,000 because that's what CEs used to cost, $12,500. And look, now we have new news from Jersey Jack. Guns and Roses, after being out for four years, there's going to be a significant, they use the word significant code update for Guns N' Roses that comes out sometime in Q2 of 2024. Now the end of Q2 is what, like June of 2024, something like that. So we're about to see a significant code update in the game that most people own. It's well beyond the expiration date where they should have finished this code, but now it's perfect timing as well because you've got the Ayo board. So now you can make your Guns N' Roses shoot much better. And now they're going to finish the code. They're going to fix it. They're going to polish it. They're going to balance it. Now, look, if you ask me, like, it never felt like Guns N' Roses was missing a tremendous amount of code. And I never really understood all the complaints. I think the most important thing they can do to this is not just scoring balance. They need to dial down the multi balls. They need to listen to what the people have been saying and make it so when you start a song, you're not just flailing like a madman, but you can actually enjoy hitting the shots you're aiming for because you're not just slapping multi-balls all over the damn play field. And so we're going to see a significant code update. And here's the other thing. Like maybe they put a new song or two into the game because Guns N' Roses has released a few new songs and there's more stuff in the Use Your Illusion 1 and 2 and Chinese Democracy Catalog that they could put into the game. And guess what? They don't have to spend a single penny on adding a new song to the game. Now, if there was one song, I think they should get into it because it's knocking on heaven's door. And maybe they have to get the rights from the Bob Dylan Foundation. But knocking on heaven's door would be a great addition to that game. And look, if you want to go get a Guns N' Roses CE right now, you can get it for less than $12,500. And I'm sorry, people. It is still one of the most beautiful games ever made. It's still one of the games with the greatest amount of theme translation and assets ever in a pinball game, especially a music pin. I think it's taken so much abuse over the years that I do think Guns N' Roses, in the long run, is going to have a little bit of a second life. But yes, they absolutely made too many. There's too many out there to the point where nobody cares. and I think Jersey Jack needs to learn a little bit of a lesson. You know me. I think this company should make no more than 2,500 of every one of their titles. There should be 500 CEs and 2,000 LEs, and that's it. Make every single Jersey Jack game a special thing to stand in front of, and they won't do it. I would not be playing the volume game against Stern Pinball. I think it cheapens your brand All right so we got new code update from Guns N Roses No mention by the way people of finishing the code on Pirates of the Caribbean which is about six or seven years past due on finishing that game and putting the final wizard mode into the game. All right, so we got that. Stern, what's happening over at Stern? People are still waiting for their Jaws LE machines. The premiums are going out. I think the LEs are sort of back on the line. I think we're going to start to see more of them. And I forgot to mention that Jersey Jack collector's editions of Elton John are arriving at customers next week. So that's good. People are going to be unboxing those CEs right when TPF is happening. That's going to be good. So Jaws, right? Jaws has been out now for a few months. It's not like Stern to break up the LEs like this. We haven't seen them miscalculate this in the past. Like normally when an LE line turns on, they want to get those thousand games to customers ASAP. Like they don't want to make people wait. They don't want people to feel like premium owners are now having the experience they should be having. And I don't know what the issue was. I don't know what happened, but you're going to get your LEs real soon. And Jaws is making its way into the world. And look, I think Jaws is going to be a game that people enjoy. It absolutely shoots great. And look, they finally sold that Jaws LE on Pinside for $12,500. There was another one that listed for $13,000 that sold immediately as well. So maybe Jaws demand is stabilizing and we haven't seen many LEs go up for sale. Will Jaws hold its value closer to $13,000 and not slide down to $10,000 like James Bond and every other Stern LE that sold for $13,000? You know, look, it's Keith Elwin. So I absolutely think Elwin stuff is going to hold stronger. I still think within a year from now, Jaws LEs will be trading for around 10K. And that means that stuff like James Bond and Foo Fighter LEs, I think they're going to slide even further, people. I think they're going to start to slide to like $8,500. There's just too much coming out. It's all overpriced. And see, look, it would be normal if you bought a 10-5 Stern LE for it to become worth like $9,500, $8,500. That's normal. You lose $1,000 or $2,000. What's going to sting people is when you spent $13,000 on those games and they slide all the way down to like 8,500 and now you're losing $4,500. You're losing $4,500 on a single stern. Nobody's used to that kind of loss and there's no way around it, people. I think this is gonna make more and more people out there just wait, more and more people out there just buy something you never wanna sell because if you never wanna resell it, like you just love the pin, then it doesn't matter. it absolutely doesn't matter. You didn't lose because you never sold and you're just having fun. So the real conversation, you know, following TPF is when are we going to get John Wick? Now, the rumor I'm hearing is that Stern wants to get John Wick out over the next couple of months because they want to beat out the Matrix, right? If it's going to be Stern's John Wick versus Jersey Jack Pinball's The Matrix, I can tell you right now, Stern's not going to want to fight that fight. There is no way a Stern John Wick is ever going to present any better or even be close to what Jersey Jack will show us with the Matrix. And I think that is why Stern is going to want to like get out in front of it. I think we're probably going to see the new Stern game sometime in May. That is my guess. If it comes out earlier, like people were saying at MGC and stuff, I'd be shocked. I'd be shocked if we're going to get it so soon. But let's just say January, February, March, April. You know, April, May seems to be the time you would do it, you know, because that's four months since Jaws has been revealed. And if you have three cornerstones a year, if you go off a normal calendar, that means we're going to see a new cornerstone every three months. So we shall see. And this next game, people, I mean it. This is going to be an important one for Stern. I just can't see them selling a thousand John Wicks at 13,000 a pop. I don't know what these distros are going to do? How are they going to absorb all of these games? Because remember, it's not just this. They've absorbed all of these Jaws premiums. There's been remakes of Stranger Things and Elvira and Jurassic Parks. These games are sitting in boxes at distributors. I think we're going to see another summer sale by these distributors. And the problem is this. When Stern lets these guys cut the prices on their inventory, it must be those distributors are losing money. They're just trying to break even and get the thing out of there. But what that does to the used market, it makes everyone's used games worth even less because now you can have a new in box version of something that's like $1,500 off what it was new. And that's going to create a lot of issues for the secondhand market. All right. So what else is going on in the world of pinball? We've got spooky pinball has listened to everybody. you can now when you play looney tunes you can now select the modes you want to play thank you bug and luke for listening to everybody so now if you only have 20 minutes to play looney tunes you don't have to wait in a random way to play the stuff you want to play you can actually set it in the code of the game to select it as you go you can also keep it random or hit the action button to select it So they really listened and I think it smart And now I think everyone who has the Looney Tunes is going to have a much better experience I hearing nothing but good things from people who have Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Looney Tunes So good job I think the response to both of these games has been positive. And even though they share the same layout, I'm hearing from everybody, they feel like radically different games. And it makes sense. They're radically different experiences. Like the atmosphere of both of them couldn't be more radically different. Would I buy both of them? No, I wouldn't. That just seems weird to me. But look, a lot of cool stuff, you know, and like Ben Heck was talking to a lot of cool things in the code of like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, where he's using the shaker motor to simulate a chainsaw being turned on, you know, and you can't feel that right when you watch a stream of the game, you know, all these pinball streams, they'll never really give you what it feels like to play any of these games. Like you got to play Elton John to feel it. You can't just watch a stream. You know, and that's why I like streams to me. They don't really matter much anymore. Like I don't want to watch a stream. It's the most sterile way to be shown the game without you feeling any of the real excitement yourself. You know, you really have to be in front of these things. And what a novel concept that to spend this much money on a toy that you'd actually want to test drive it. And I think that's where everybody's at. You got to jump on these machines. And that's why these companies, they need to start putting product out on location in the world on their dime. I'm sorry, but Jersey Jack, it's embarrassing. You didn't put a Godfather in New York City. So great, nobody gets a chance to play it. You got to. They should pick the top 10 demographics, all of these companies, and they should have games on location. I don't understand why not. All right, so Stern Pinball, John Wick around the corner. Lots of other rumors happening, but that's going to be what's next from Stern Pinball. I'm also hearing now that over at Dutch Pinball, while they are manufacturing Alice in Wonderland, it is not going to be released under the Dutch Pinball badge, which means somebody else went to Dutch Pinball and has sort of contracted them to make this game. It's a little funny and ironic. It's right. Dutch spent so many years flailing as they hired a contract manufacturer to make the Big Lebowski. Remember the ARA days? Now they themselves are becoming a contract manufacturer for somebody else's Alice in Wonderland. But look, it's probably someone that they know very well. All the pictures I've seen of the game have Dutch Pinball logos on them. I don't know what the company is. I'm trying to find out so you will know. I don't know why it's a big mystery. I don't know why that even really matters. If we were to guess, do we think it's going to be someone like the pinball brothers. No, I don't really see that happening. They feel like competition, Dutch versus the pinball brothers. I think what it's going to turn out being, I think it might be a new pinball company. I mean it. I think it might be a new pinball company coming from somewhere in Europe, some gentleman with the money. It's not the guys who remade the Magic Girl. It's not them, but I think it might be somebody else. I mean, they put up the money, They bought the IP. I also feel like they had to figure out the IP with Bill Brandis and Pentasia. Because remember, it's very sticky who owns the rights to all of this J-pop stuff. Because a lot of people bailed him out over the years. And a lot of these contracts were never fulfilled. People still owe people stuff based on all the Zidware work and art and all that stuff. But we know the game is coming. It's supposed to come out sometime in May. I'm excited to see what's happening with that game. I'm excited to see it in full color. I'm excited to see all the mechanisms dropped into the game. And then, of course, we've got the juggernaut back to the future at the end of the year. That's going to be exciting. And that's it. You know, it's been a pretty calm eve before Texas Pinball Festival. We're going to have a lot more to talk about next week. I think we're going to see that American Pinball game early next week. So look forward to that. Everybody, have a great week. Thank you so much for being a member of the Kaneda Club. This is all about the community. I think everyone's realizing that. The only reason we're all here is to find each other. From all over the world, we've found other nerds and geeks that love what we love. It's not a very big hobby. I'm never going to get rich doing this. But I'm so happy that each week you tune in to Kaneda Spinball Podcast and you contribute to this show. And we've done on this show, because of all of you, what nobody else has been able to do. We've actually been the only pinball podcast that has successfully monetized itself, but in a way where it's such a great community. You just don't see this anywhere else. Everybody, pat yourselves on the back, and let's get ready to see that barbecue game. Take it away, Phil Collins. She said, I can't find you. All I believe. Really, don't you lose my number. Cause you're not anywhere. She said, I can't find you. All I believe. Really, don't you lose my number. Cause you're not anywhere.