Coming back with a podcast that lasts through the ages. Let's hit the intro music. Bringing it up there, it's Don's Pinball Podcast. This is episode number 91, the last one of the year? Who knows? We got some crashing news through my email inbox. Princess Bride image, what in the heck is going on? Let's get into all that and a little bit more here, coming up. Here we are on a pre-holiday Saturday. I believe it's Saturday now. It is a 1230. We got one more day left of this year. We ain't ready to say goodbye to 2023 yet, but it might be a good time to start looking forward to 2024. Because this morning, as I was stretching myself, getting out of bed, I checked my email. And sitting there was an email from whoever this mystery company is that is producing this reported, up until now strongly rumored, Princess Bride pinball machine. These mad lads launched a website, Princess Bride Pinball. Just a little cryptic message saying, you know, subscribe here to learn more. So as a dutiful rumor hound, that's exactly what I did. And then this morning I got an email. The email did list, let's see if I have it here. Thanks again for your interest in the Princess Bride pinball machine. We hope you're all enjoying a happy holiday season and looking forward to an inconceivably amazing 2024. And then attached to that was an image of what is apparently the play field for this game. So that was kind of cool to see that. So I went ahead and put that up on my Patreon, released it to the Facebook page there, so everybody that's following, you got a little alert there. And then I got contacted by Jason Knapp. I went over to his site, because surely he had more information, and it was nothing. Maybe he was sleeping in. Well, apparently he's been digging around, and I guess I'm the only one or the first one to get this email. I wonder if they're doing a little piecemeal thing like what Scooby did. Scooby, oh man, that's going to persist forever. Spooky did with their recent reveal for TCM and Looney Tunes, where they've picked content people and sent them each a prototype part and we all kind of reviewed together. But I kind of figured this was just an email list serve. So check your email inboxes. Check your spam boxes if you signed up. If not, head on over to the Princess Bride Pinball page and put in an email address there so you don't miss stuff like this. But, yeah, so we're left with actually some confirmations. First of all, this looks like a game because we have an image and it's an inconceivably amazing 2024, that would tell me that they are looking for next year for this thing to release. That could come as early as TPF, man. March might be here again, and we'll get a repeat of what we got last year with a deluge of games in a starkly different consumer environment. Let's go over this photo. So it's up on naparcade.com. It's lead off right now. Or head over to the Don Spinball Podcast Facebook page where we're having a robust discussion about it. But this image, it appears to be taken from the left side of the rear of the pinball machine because it kind of looks out across what would be considered, you know, towards the right. It looks like this is probably towards the back because there's a prominent ramp there that's in the middle. It's in soft focus, but you can see there's also prominently featured this Newton ball. And I'm looking at the reflection of it, and I see it looks like there's a chair in the background. I don't see anybody's face. I see the camera. But I'm sure some people might, you know, kind of CSI this thing and say enhance a few times, maybe get some more information out of here. But we're seeing a Newton ball against a couple of posts. It looks like it's raised just a little bit above the play field. And the play field art includes, you know, actually looks a lot like Labyrinth, given that there's, you know, a rocky path there, some waves breaking. So are we looking at, you know, a Newton ball at the base of the Cliffs of Insanity? Maybe. There's a, looks like some plastic right above that. It looks like the A-frame of a house. So is this the cottage of Miracle Max? I don't know why it's sitting on a waterfront. Is this Wesley's stable from the beginning of the movie? That would be kind of a weird thing to make an interactive toy out of. Or is this a base of the cliffs? I don't know. It's hard to really speculate too much about this, other than there is an A-frame of a cottage. I'm going to go ahead and call it the Miracle Max, Miracle Newton ball, captive ball that's right here. Otherwise, what else do we got to glean from here? Stand-up target off in the distance. some other plastics and the really super soft focus. But there's a ramp prominently going up. So there'll be some verticality to this game. We can determine that from looking at this ramp here. It's interesting, though, the ramp, instead of just having the bare metal at the bottom, maybe with a piece of mylar, looks like there's a full graphic going up there and also the sides. So whoever's making this, it looks like they're going to be bringing it in terms of some fit and finishes. So, yeah, it's better than a machine that I could make. So that's all we can really speculate on so far. We're left with still a ton of questions, right? Which company is making this? Is this a brand new company? Is this an offshoot of a different company? Is this barrels of fun being cryptic? I don't think so. That really wouldn't make much sense. You know, they're gearing up for the release of Labyrinth here. But the first game's leaving between now and February for the first orders up to 600 or so. Or no, 700. 700. So I'm included in there. So I'm hoping to have a Labyrinth here by the end of February. So it would be weird for them to tease something like this when they're really just trying to get their labyrinths out and make sure their factory is operating appropriately, plus doing all the QC checks probably 10 times on each game before it leaves so they don't own a reputation of having poor build quality, which can really sack the reputation of a new company like this. So, yeah, so it's probably not them. Who else is that? It's got to be apparently a new company. We'll find out. We'll find out. Now, one rumor came across just about five, ten minutes ago that just made my heart sink over this. You know, this is a full-size pinball machine, apparently, and, you know, I'm scrambling in the budget to see where I could fit this in. I don't know that I could unless it's not going to come out until, you know, Q3, Q4. But somebody mentioned that this may actually be a P3 module, and then there went my heart over the cliffs of insanity. That would be inconceivable. That would get me to choke on a peanut. I've made my position known on the P3 Multimorphic it's a very heavy machine with a lot of moving parts very novel concept, excellent execution but just not a product that I'm interested in adding I've played them on location a few times I've played them at the shows and the people that have them seem to enjoy them except if they're trying to sell them and so that's kind of where I'd worry I'm somebody that likes to buy a game with resale in mind so I can move it on once I'm done with it and get something new. I think that's okay. I think that's healthy to do. And I think if I got into a multi-morphic P3 machine, I would kind of be just locked in for the long term with it, and that not a position I ready to get into right now And I do like the technology behind it and the concept of dropping games in but really all you getting is one of a play field And for a license like this for a movie that as beloved as this it's got a fire swamp, it's got rodents of unusual size, it's got Princess Buttercup, Iocane Powder, Andre the Giant, how do you fit all that in the back third of a play field? Without full cabinet graphics, without full topper, back glass, the shooter rod, like the whole bit, right? The whole bit. I want a Dread Pirate Roberts mask to wear while I play it. I want everything, man. I want everything. So how would you fit all that into a P3 module? It would be a killer app for the P3, though. I mean, this movie is beloved. People love it. You know, it's like, you know, I don't know if there's labyrinth levels of fervor, but in my household, we grew up with this film. We like the property. So if I was on the fence on getting a P3 between Final Resistance and Heist and Weird Al and this, there would be a stronger argument for it. I think it would only benefit P3 for sure, but I think the rest of us would be let down if this wasn't a fully featured, full-size, king-size cabinet game. So we'll wait to hear and see more. Now, what are they doing? Are they just starting the teaser hype train? They kind of came out concurrently with Labyrinth with their teaser on the website that this was in production. The rumor that I had heard prior to this was that Spooky Pinball was making this. I see that as exceedingly unlikely, and this isn't really their style to do this. you know, they're going to go all in on these two brand new games they have, and the Spooky, Spookies, the Scoobies they still have left to sell. Man, that's done. Spooky Pinball and Scooby-Doo are going to get mixed up in my head every time going forward now until time immaterial. You know, so that was the rumor then. This is what I'm hearing now. I think it would move some P3 units. I just, I don't know if, I don't think it would encapsulate everything that's in this license, everything that could be by a P3. I hope that's just people being crazy online and not actually the case. But in a way, it could make sense. This could be a brand-new pinball company that is making a P3 module. The cost of entry for that, of course, would be much less than making a full-size machine for sure. I think the guy making Drained is doing it in a storage unit somewhere or in a little industrial area, roll-up door kind of process because it's okay. But it's Drained, right? It's Drained. Don't take the Princess Bride and make drained out of it. Don't do that, please. We'll wait to hear more. So far, no confirmation if we're going to hear more about this at Texas or later or when in the year it's coming. But we have heard 2024, and we do have a picture. There's a machine existing. So that is fantastic, and this is something that we'll be following here going into the new year. So, hey, yay for that. What else is in the news? Everybody and their mama and their mama's sister's brother has been talking about the Pinburgh tournament or what we know about it. So apparently in July, this gigantic tournament in Pittsburgh is being resurrected from the dead and dropping from 1,000 players to around 120. And I heard, you know, I don't have any firsthand experience here with Pinburgh, but I think the old Orbital Albert there at the Pinball Nerds podcast just did a great synopsis of the time that he went there. But from what I understand, this is one of the biggest tournaments kind of in the world, right, that occurred in Pittsburgh and had a match play format that would match people of like skill level as you went on. So you weren't just completely wiped out like I'd expect I'd be if I showed up at District 82, which made it fun for people to travel from really all over the country, all over the world, to descend on Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to put French fries on their Primanti sandwiches, and to go stop at Sheetz, say yinz everywhere, catch a Stiller game, and then go play at Pinberg. So it's great that the thing is coming back. And, of course, after selling off all the games, going through the whole COVID thing, and in a period of rebuilding, starting smaller, not a bad idea. But people are really worried about this 120 participants because there generally seems to be a heck of a lot more interest than just 120 in getting into this thing. I think February 5th is when tickets go for sale. F5, right? So, you know, expect website crashes, I would imagine, if 1,000 people are jumping out at the same time to try to get 100 tickets. No details yet on if you'll be able to buy multiple tickets so your whole crew can roll up in there, or you can build strategic teams. Say you have like seven people on your team and everybody's on there trying to buy the seven tickets, and if somebody gets through, then you're all good. Other people have speculated that maybe a lottery system would be a little more fair. it wouldn't guarantee that the fastest finger or the best internet connection or just dumb luck would get you through there other than at least making it the same dumb luck for everybody it would take a lot of the urgency away I think if you could just enter the lottery and then get contacted in the order that you come back and then when tickets are sold they're sold but at least everybody would have the same fair chance I think I would appreciate that and if I would consider entering something like this just for fun and the experience I think that's probably something that I would appreciate too so there's my take having no real firsthand knowledge of the Pinberg tournament or what it was before. That's what I would imagine. So I guess we'll learn some more information between now and then. I'll defer to the tournament peeps in the room. Triple Drain looking at you guys. Why don't you guys educate me? Let me know what the Pinberg situation is. Is it going to be worthwhile heading out there? I do love Pittsburgh. It is a very pinball town. Also, Kennywood, one of the best little traditional amusement parks in the country, located in West Mifflin, which is in the greater Pittsburgh area. So check that out if you have a spare afternoon. Some awesome classic wooden coasters and dark rides at the old Kennywood. What else do we have? I guess we have Jaws around the corner. Well, let's speculate a little bit more on 2024. So we've got Consumer Electronics Show coming up in Vegas, January 6th to the 9th. And so the strong rumor from several other places is that Jaws is going to be there. So will that be the grand opening reveal, lift the curtain on the machine? It doesn't really seem like SternStyle to do that. It seems like SternStyle to go ahead the week before and do a teaser, followed by a reveal, followed by maybe a gameplay stream, and then more to come, similar with Venom, at the San Diego Comic-Con that we saw. So we'll look forward to that. I'm imagining January 4th or 5th we're probably going to get the reveal for Jaws that it's officially coming. Hopefully we'll find out prices. Hopefully prices didn't spike at all. and given the soft reception on Venom, I could see them doing the smart thing and holding steady on the prices. Now, Venom, you know, the LE for Venom, $12,999, was its sticker price. People paid it. They're available now for around $10 and probably out the back door of a distributor if you keep it on the DL. So, you know, I don't like this across the board pricing with Stern LEs. Certainly there's value in some games much more than other ones. And so tagging the same price, the same MSRP across the board on a limited edition, when the quality varies so much, I don't know that that's the best approach. Because, gosh, that was a lot of money to pay for a Venom, even though the cabinet art was awesome. And even though the side rail armor was really cool, you know, I was able to replicate that. And aside from a mirrored back glass and the cabinet art I essentially had myself an LE for much less price But you can also get an LE for much less price right now Now Elvira Blood Red Kiss came out at and it is absolutely loaded First off it a beloved game with some of the best coders some of the best shots, some of the greatest theme. For me personally, that horror-gothic kind of comedic take on the theme. Who doesn't love Elvira? This guy definitely does. Plus, they did something special with the art, not only on the back glass and the cabinet, but the play field as well. and okay so they've been doing the foil art for the le's um it looks great on rush it looks great on venom but the finish that they're doing on the cabinet art for the 40th anniversary of velvira for the blood red kiss edition it's just such like three levels above um you know what we see which is that regular foil cabinet art so it's just criminal to ask the same price of venom le as as elvira's blood red kiss it came with a shooter rod come on man it's just it's a gorgeous gorgeous game with a great powder coat. It rivals the 40th anniversary edition for sure. You know, so we're going to see that again with Jaws. Let's go to the recent Elwynn release, Godzilla. Let's look at their LE. So the side rails were fairly bland. The powder coat, they're going with a Mecha Godzilla theme. It just looks great to me, you know. So it's a great powder coat with those angled lollipop rails. You got a mirrored backlash. You got HD glass. You got a shaker motor. The cabinet art wasn't really much different. It's still zombie Yeti. It's still awesome, but, you know, didn't really jump out, you know. So if they come with that approach, you know, they come out with Jaws and they powder coat it and they have, you know, a little different cabinet graphics, mirror, back glass, HD glass and a shaker motor. I don't know if that's enough to really compel me to divest three thousand additional dollars for new in box. I just don't think so. I know it's Elwin. I know it's going to be awesome. I know he's coming hot off the heels of Godzilla and Bond 60th, but really, unless it's got like, I want to see laser-cut armor. I want to see something interesting done with the powder coat. I want to see powder-coated coin door. I want to see cabinet art that looks like something I can't go out and have reproduced. I want an awesome mirrored back glass, something different. Give me something more compelling. It's going to have the premium play field. I think we all know to expect that. But, you know, it would be nice if you bought the LE and then down the road the topper was included once it was available. I think that would be something that would really set it apart and really push it. Now, who's going to hold their value, right? I mean, look at Venom. Venom's prices on the secondary market have just fallen. Everything's fallen across the board, and I think Venom's responded in kind. I don't think Venom is particularly terrible of a game. I quite enjoyed my premium. I do miss it. It was fun coming down here and firing up and playing through five different games and leveling myself up. But, you know, with the market where it is, you know, definitely the LE didn't hold any value. Would a JAWS LE hold that value or would it drop by $1,000 or $2,000? Like where was it going to be? And if that's the case, I don't know. I don't know. This is a hotly anticipated title. I'm sure it will sell out and LEs will still be available above MSRP for quite a while. I think it would be a safe bet to go ahead and go in on this, but it is going to tie up your money. and then you have the hassle of selling later on. If I do go in on it, I'm probably going to be at the premium level. I can't wait to see the reveal. This game is rumored to actually have some bonus accoutrements on the premium versus the pro this time in the form of a different powder coat on the armor, at least. I do like that. So we're going to see a black powder-coated Jaws premium and a polar white powder-coated shark belly-colored Jaws LE, possibly. I'm going to go ahead and put my money on that. My $5 is down that that's what we're going to see. When are we going to see it? I mean, honestly, this time next week, we may know. So let's be on the lookout for that. All eyes will be on Vegas for the CES to see what they reveal. And then, yeah, we're into 2024 with a Stern release, Cornerstone, right at the beginning of the year. And then we'll watch that get sold and made over the next two to three months. And then we'll be looking forward to, I don't know, maybe Metallica in March. Metallica March! I think that would be great. And then we'll see what other things Stern's got up its sleeve coming from the new factory in the new year. And will there be people with a little jingle in their pocket to still buy these things? I honestly may see a situation where I don't buy any other new games in 2024. Once I have what I have on orders coming, I've got a couple of spookies coming. I got Labyrinth in the wings. And then Pulp Fiction is still way on down there. And honestly, at this rate, I would not be surprised if I didn't see Pulp Fiction until 2025. and here's why. So I purchased the game or I pre-ordered it in June after I went to Interium and I actually played Pulp Fiction and it was like, you know, for the single level game throwback design that I wasn't sure really was right for me. It is super fun and I do like the call-outs. I appreciate the game for what it is. Do I wish it was a full-featured wide body loaded with mechanisms and gunshots and violence? Of course, I do and that's why I didn't go in right away. But for the price tag, remember we're talking mid-2023 We're talking about $8,000 for the standard edition. It seemed appealable, especially after playing the game. Then later on, we heard from Josh Sharpe in an interview, and it may have been a mistake on his part to even reveal this, but he said that there were some skews that were leaving the factory in October, was what we were led to believe there. And I took that to mean, like, it's CGC. I know they're slow. Maybe they'll get a couple games out a week, and we'll start seeing it show up on locations first, right? And that just never, ever materialized. October went by November came and went December here we are at the end of it and nothing I was at IAPA and I talked to a gentleman representing CGC and I was like hey guy where do games be at and you know essentially it was impressed upon me that quality is job number one you can pick do you want it cheap fast or quality and you pick two of the three and I get that but at the same time your game could be incredible It could be the most well-made game in the galaxy, in the known universe. However, if it never comes out, it's just as good as the one that I have that also nonexists in my garage right now, right? You know, they're both kind of at the same level. Where are the games, man? When are they coming out? When are they coming out? Can we get, like, you know, an update every couple weeks, you know, where they're at? Are there people in the factory? Are you hiring? Can I come down and turn some bolts so I can get a game? You know, and at this point, I didn't buy day one, right? and you have those 1,000 LE buyers, I would hope that they would get service before I would. So that's why I'm thinking, you know, at this rate, you know, we're here, we're about to start 2024. No games have left the factory. So even if they start trickling out next month, you know, by the time they get through the first run of the SEs and all of the LEs to the LE buyers and they get to my number, gosh, we're going to be probably this time next year, 12 months from now. So I'm not even considering that a game that's preordered anymore. It's out there, but the money that I had allocated for that game back when I pre-ordered it in June 2023, it's gone. It's been reallocated, man. Elvira is sitting here. I've got TCM coming so I can go grind balls all day. And so I'm just going to have to, I guess, get an email that my game is finally ready to be built, and then I have to make a decision on if I want to cough up money for it then or do I want to try to defer it Or try to pre my deposit for to somebody else Because I just I don know And that's really kind of the rub there. So, if Princess Bride is revealed next month here, with Jaws coming out, with Metallica down the road, Pokemon strongly rumored, Elton John's are still kicking out there, and JJP will have another game probably in the next six months, is there a market for this? Maybe that would speak to the probability of this being a P3 module because you have an installed user base and even if you're not making the games fast, you'd be able to sell the ones that you have. Now then, if you did want to pre-order a game, where the heck would you go to? Well, you would go down and email Jeff at madpinball.com As soon as he gets back from Katy, Texas at Bucky's What? Mad Pinball is the official supplier of Don's Pinball Podcast. Jeff, I changed my mind. Send me a Jaws right now. Give me them robots. All right, email jeff at mattbinball.com. Tell them Don sent you. And Don's probably going to want a Jaws. I don't know that there's any way to hold off from that. Luckily, I don't have to make a decision on buying one or either of Spooky Pinball's next games because they invited me to the factory, and they held me down. They beat the money out of me, and I can't wait to get Looney Tunes, man. I can't wait to get TCM. I can't wait to grind some balls. drain some blood with Grandpa, flip those flippable shots, and go right back to the flippers so they're safe and I can keep playing. Listen, I'm not a top ten tournament player. I want games that are fun and not drain. Brick Fests, I don't want my sanity challenged every ten minutes. I want to go on an adventure in the TCM universe. I want to go play around with Looney Tunes. I want to jump off the canyon. I want to lock balls on meat hooks. I want to grind. I want to load anchors into that ship. Bring it to me. Hopefully I get them in February. there was another stream on Bugstream and Scream and Swing and Stream if I believe it's called on Twitch. He had the misfortune of trying to broadcast on Twitch in the middle of a Wisconsin snowstorm. So internet was spotty in and out, but the dude has done us all a solid. And he's taken that gameplay footage and he's put it up on YouTube, so you can go check that out from Bugstream. TCM, man, what an atmospheric game that is. I can't wait to get it in a home environment, turn the lights down low, turn the music up, and just get absorbed into that world and just start meat grinding balls like you wouldn't believe. I can't wait. And repeatable shots. And oh, oh, when that Vuck shoots the ball back into the orbit, comes right back to the flipper, and you can hit the inner orbit again and then right back into it. Love it, man. I'm just going to do that all day. I'll do that all day. I'm going to go between the upper play field on Scooby-Doo, and I'm going to play up there and do the multi-balls and listen to Shaggy sing that zombie song to Scooby. And then I'm going to go over and I'm going to grind balls for a while, and then I'll go over and hit the door on Taz and watch that phantom magnet grab it and just gobble it. I can't wait, man. I'm going to have a whole spooky corner going up in my game room here soon. I can't wait until that happens. And so I want to say thanks to everybody that does listen to this. I try to broadcast frequently one to three times a week whenever there's news, whenever there's something to talk about, whenever there's a view that you cannot afford to lose. That's where I come in here, tie your shoes, and, you know, easy with the booze. everything in moderation. So thank you to all the new Patreon members, the people that have joined the Producers Council that's going on. Man, I had no idea that that was going to take off like it did. I know people have been reaching out, wanting more tiers, wanting more interactivity, more benefits, and so I went ahead and did it, and it's popular. People dig it. We've got a whole robust conversation going on in the Producers Council on the Discord. We have the regular Don's Pinball Podcast Discord as well. Go ahead and join that. DM me. I'll get you a join link if you need one. But we're having fun on there. We're having fun on the Patreon. We're having a heck of a good time on the Facebook page. Just last week, I was closing in to 888 on my Facebook followers. And so I put up, you know, what's going to happen first? Is Spooky Pinball going to produce 888 Looney Tunes, or am I going to get the followers? And it seems like 12 to 24 hours later, I was already surging past it. So I'm internally grateful for all of that. We are now up to about 941 followers on the Facebook page. I'm going for 1,000. That was the goal. How great would it be at the end of the year to meet that goal the first year out of this little podcast I could? So go ahead and hit a follow if you haven't. I know a lot of you have liked the page, but that's where you're going to find news drops like this morning when I just in my email inbox, here's a picture of Princess Bride pinball machine. Rumored machine, well, here's a picture of it. And apparently I was the only one that got it. So I put that out there for everybody. So if you're following, you got that alert to shut up in your feed this morning while you were scrolling through your Cheerios or your Cinnamon Oatmeal Raisin Bran Crunch or your Cinnamon Toast Pops or whatever it is that you had dribbling through your beard. So thanks for joining that. Shout out to Daniel, new listener, contacting me. Hey, man, love the show. Just started listening last week. Been binge listening. This bad lad has gone through episode 57 in a binge format. Started from the beginning all the way to here. I haven't even listened back to all those episodes, but this man has been tearing through it. And so hopefully he's out there listening, Dan. Thanks for reaching out to me. Anybody else, you can do that too through the Facebook page. You can DM me, no problem. And then we have robust, good conversations. Or hit me up on the email, donspinballpodcast at gmail.com. And we are 24-7 live on the Patreon with more and more content coming in there, bi-monthly giveaways, all kinds of nuts stuff. But as long as you – stuff that is nuts, by the way, not what you were thinking. Also, Facebook Lives, hopefully we'll pick back up in their frequency as we go into the winter doldrums, and I can get back to doing the giveaways. I'm redoing the whole workshop here. The whole studio is being redone. The game room is being redone, and we're shipping where it needs to be so things are much quicker to come right out. We're doing ship station, y'all, from me to you. I still have some T-shirts in inventory, extra-larges I've got plenty of, and I've got a ton of mediums. So for you smaller guys, you bigger guys, I got shirts all the way up to XXX. All you have to do is email me to order. DonSpinBallPodcast.gmail.com or DM me or something. Give me an address. Venmo me some cash, and I'll send these to you. $25 delivered in the U.S. Canada, we can talk about that. Anything else? I think we've exhausted all the content for today, but maybe we'll do a recap show tomorrow? An end-of-the-year recap. Let's go through everything, where we were, where we are. and then later on we'll do a show talking about where we're going. I know where I'm going. I'm going to find out more information about the Princess Bride and I got to get my name back on the list. Jeff, I need a Jaws, man. Can you hook me up? I'm making bad decisions. It's time to spend tax money. Take care of yourself.