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Speculation a-go-go

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 10m·analyzed·May 2, 2021
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Website migration, Arcade1Up shipping chaos, and speculation on Zen's 2021 pinball content pipeline.

Summary

Chris and Jared discuss technical infrastructure changes (Medium platform suspension forcing migration to a custom static site), Arcade1Up Legends Pinball supply chain issues and pricing discrepancies, and speculation about Zen Studios' content roadmap for Pinball FX with 11 tables planned before year-end 2021.

Key Claims

  • Arcade1Up is experiencing severe supply chain issues with two-box shipments from Sam's Club arriving incomplete, leaving customers with only the playfield box and no backglass.

    high confidence · Jared reports customers contacting Sam's Club and Arcade1Up about missing second boxes; confirmed this is a widespread issue affecting pre-orders.

  • GameStop raised Star Wars Pinball pre-order price from $550 to $600 to match Best Buy's Marvel pricing, then to $799.

    medium confidence · Jared saw a post with an image showing the $799 price but couldn't verify directly when he checked GameStop's site later.

  • Arcade1Up Legends Pinball will be available in retail stores (like Costco) around Christmas 2021.

    medium confidence · Chris and Jared's prediction based on current supply scarcity and production timelines; Chris predicts Costco availability.

  • A hardware revision (Generation Two) with new features is unlikely for Christmas 2021 due to chip shortage and production constraints.

    medium confidence · Jared's revised prediction after discussing supply issues; was previously predicting Gen Two by Christmas but now thinks 2022 is more realistic.

  • Zen Studios plans to release 11 new pinball tables before the end of 2021, with some arriving before Pinball FX platform launches.

    medium confidence · Hosts reference Mel's statement from episode 220 interview about 11 tables; speculation about delivery mechanism (mobile, VR, DLC).

  • Arcade1Up has a secret service menu accessible via Konami code that allows calibration of screen and accelerometer.

    medium confidence · Jared cites Facebook Arcade1Up Pinball group post; describes accessing hardware calibration menu separate from games.

  • Williams Pinball Platform is now locked and will not receive new content.

    high confidence · Jared confirms Mel stated this during their interview; direct quote reference to episode 220.

  • Arcade1Up Star Wars and Marvel Legends Pinball available in Australia from Arcade Gamer at $1,299 AUD with free delivery over $200.

Notable Quotes

  • “What if the URL changes? Can we edit, or are we going to have to buy a new video?”

    Chris Frebus @ ~5:00 — Illustrates the practical problems with relying on third-party platforms for content hosting.

  • “Box number one is the playfield. Box number two is the backglass... They only had a tracking number for that one box.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~18:00 — Describes the critical Arcade1Up fulfillment failure affecting Sam's Club customers.

  • “Yeah, it's glue and sawdust. It's the by-product of wood.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~26:00 — Skepticism about lumber cost justifications for price increases on MDF cabinets.

  • “I think they're going to actually be hard-pressed doing any hardware or software revision to this. Maybe a software revision with an update to fix bugs and stuff. Maybe. But a hardware revision? I don't think we're going to see it this year.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~32:00 — Revised prediction on Arcade1Up Gen Two hardware timeline due to supply constraints.

  • “Well, I definitely think they've got a fair bit of catching up to do.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~30:00 — Assessment of Arcade1Up's production backlog vs. demand.

  • “The Williams Pinball Platform is now essentially locked. Yes, it's not going to get any new content in it.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~48:00 — Confirms end-of-life for Williams Pinball Platform content updates.

  • “If they're going to be releasing eleven tables this year, some... could think that some of those are going to be packaged with Pinball FX.”

    Chris Frebus @ ~50:00 — Speculation on how Zen might distribute the 11 promised tables before Pinball FX launch.

  • “Well, that's what I was wondering: is it going to be mobile?”

    Chris Frebus @ ~54:00 — Uncertainty about delivery platform for pre-Pinball FX table releases.

Entities

Chris FrebuspersonJared MorganpersonArcade1UpcompanySam's ClubcompanyZen StudioscompanyMelpersonGameStopcompanyBest BuycompanyMediumcompanyRenderforestcompany

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Medium platform suspended Blockade Podcast account without warning or explanation; hosts migrate to open-source static site to avoid platform dependency.

    high · Chris describes sudden account violation banner; no email notification from Medium; prompt decision to build custom website using Jekyll/AsciiDoc/Netlify infrastructure.

  • ?

    business_signal: Arcade1Up facing severe supply chain constraints limiting Gen Two hardware revision to 2022 or later; current production barely meeting existing pre-orders.

    high · Jared's revised prediction from Gen Two by Christmas 2021 to 2022+; scarcity of pre-orders disappearing within 3 hours; chip shortage cited as constraint.

  • ?

    community_signal: Arcade1Up service calibration menu accessible via Konami code documented in community Facebook groups; enables user-side troubleshooting without factory support.

    medium · Jared cites Arcade1Up Pinball Facebook group post describing hardware calibration menu; suggests users contact Arcade1Up for menu access instructions.

  • $

    market_signal: Arcade1Up Legends Pinball availability in Australia at $1,299 AUD (markdown from $1,399), contrasting with severe US scarcity and pricing inflation.

    high · Jared confirms Arcade Gamer has Star Wars, Marvel, and Attack from Mars in stock with free shipping over $200 AUD.

  • $

    market_signal: GameStop raised Star Wars Pinball pre-order price 45% from $550 to $799 without manufacturer MSRP increase announcement; potential retail markup speculation.

    medium · Jared observed price escalation on GameStop ($550 → $600 → $799); no official Arcade1Up announcement of MSRP change; hosts questioned legitimacy of lumber cost justification.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.212

0:00
blockade pinball podcast this is the blockade pinball podcast i'm your host chris frebus aka shut your trap joining me as always halfway across the world it's jared morgan hello everyone how How are you going? How goes it? Well, it's been a week.
0:32
Yeah, we could say that. So, folks, I don't know if you noticed, but there in our little intro video, you might have noticed a slight change to the URL. And that is it's finally, finally just blockadepinball.com. not blog.com slash episodes yes why you may be wondering why did they finally after all this time put a proper easy to spit out url rather than have that episodes well jared wow yeah well something happened this week so i was uh you know on tuesday i thought uh it's well i'm well overdue for getting episode 220 done so i um got on to um medium to put up the new show post you know like we always do linking out to all the goodness that we put into the show and then i log on and see a big scary red banner saying and the red banner says that your account is in violation of the medium rules or under investigation um and i went what do we do very curious um we post and have been posting the exact same kind of content for years for about two years now on medium um when we switched over last time and and i don't know why they think that we're in violation we reset we certainly receive no email or no messaging from yeah i was gonna say you know at least you'd think that we'd have the courtesy of medium sending us an email saying hey we pulled your site because yeah no yeah you've done goof because of this this and this reason like if they had done that i would have gone oh fair call okay it wasn't aware of that i don't read the medium terms from cover to cover because like whoever does that um i mean it's not like they have a YouTube policy, you know, with the violation strikes or anything, you know, there's, I don't know, it's very weird, but to say the least, bye-bye, Medium.
2:54
Yeah, that's a polite way of putting it. Yeah, so Medium is no longer a thing for the show. What I had to do is, and I've, it's kind of, I'm looking this with a serendipitous lens on but it's sort of good that medium did this because i've been sort of thinking for a while that medium we're going to go down this path of like restricting things and being basically dicks about it um so what i did is uh set up a brand new website in three days so it's like magic yes it's magic when you do you know when you finish your day job and then work up until midnight each night i was gonna say meanwhile i'm getting messages from jared constantly going oh god it's not doing this these aren't transferring and why is it fighting me on this and i'm just like i don't know i don't know because it's the it's the internet so i managed to use this system um without going into too much boring detail though please message me if you like the idea of it um and we can talk off off off the airs but um what i did is i set up a static site and it just it all uses ASCII doc syntax and which is what I use in my professional job to write technical documentation I just picked the theme and using Jekyll to set up a static site and then there's this service called Netlify which allows you to continuously build one of these static site websites as soon as you commit files up to a branch in Git so I've set that up it's all wired up every time i commit a new show to um the main branch of the the repo it will just build the website for me and i've been it's like once i got the theme decided on and did some tweaks to it and everything um i just started converting episodes so on that subject it's probably worth knowing that i'm gonna have to draw a line in the sand where i stop converting episode show notes over because if you think about it our show is sort of like a weekly or fortnightly review show about all the news happening at the moment so it's quite temporal in nature and except for those shows that deal with interviews like all the male interviews and going back in time the interviews with bobby king from far side etc um those ones are probably more time stampable sort of like retrospective but really the the sort of day day-to-day uh week to week or fortnight to fortnight shows that we do don't really have much meaning six months down the line like they're sort of you know new shows so i'm probably going to not convert all 219 show notes over because i don't think anyone's i don't think anyone's going to go back to episode 10 and listen to us for example so you know so well here's here's what i would love absolutely love because i don't have the time for this no but my god it would be so awesome if you know one of our fine listeners went back in time especially with the all the youtube stuff is up by the way the youtube stuff didn't change um but i would love to see like a a super cut a massive edit of just like i don't know some 10 minute long video of just edits of throughout the time. It'd be kind of interesting. You're kind of cool. Wouldn't it? Yeah. Especially seeing it from somebody and out. Well, I shouldn't say an outsider, but from, uh, rather than us who create the show, but from you who watch the show, uh, it's just one of those things. If anybody's feeling saucy or really bored now, which is, that's, that's the thing. So brand new website. I don't know if you can actually, um, bring it up, Chris, but it's uh where can i find the new website chris uh blockade pinball.com easy as that yeah so and you know you may be wondering why did they put blockade pinball.com slash episodes again i could tell you thanks medium yeah so i think this is probably i've been trying to work through the reasons why medium did what they did i have a feeling i've worked it out so recently medium allowed you to actually use custom domains again on your medium publication and this was probably around i'd like to say about one or two months ago now but they re-enabled this feature so what we were doing is we were using rebrandly which is a url rebranding service to basically rebrand the black eight pinball podcast publication on medium um with black eight pinball.com for such episodes so you could just jump to the main site because there was no way of actually doing it when i when i originally switched over to medium there was documentation out there you could use custom domains and then when i actually converted all the posts over i went oh yeah there's no way of doing that your message to me back then he goes i've already put in all this time and now I'm finding out it's not going to work that way. What do I do? And I'm just like, just go with it. Yeah, exactly. And we worked out this solution and it worked for, well, nearly two and a half years, I think, since we've been using Medium, but they've cracked down on it now because, you know, it's $5 a month to use that custom domain thing. Yeah. And have a guess how much it costs with the system I'm using now.

high confidence · Jared provides specific pricing and website name; notes this is markdown from $1,399 promotional price.

Pinball FX
product
Arcade Gamercompany
Williams Pinball Platformproduct
Star Wars (Legends Pinball)product
Marvel (Legends Pinball)product
  • ?

    product_strategy: Pinball FX expected to launch in Q4 2021 (November timeframe) rather than earlier; delay potentially caused by platform development or content licensing.

    medium · Hosts discussing 'last quarter' launch; Chris speculates November specifically; gap between now (April/May 2021) and launch creates uncertainty about content distribution.

  • ?

    product_concern: Arcade1Up fulfillment failure: Sam's Club customers receiving only playfield box, no backglass/second screen; customer service unable to provide replacement.

    high · Jared reports multiple customers affected; Sam's Club told customers they have no second boxes to send; Arcade1Up claims ignorance of retailer's decision.

  • ?

    product_strategy: Zen Studios planning 11 new pinball tables before end of 2021; two confirmed as Star Wars VR tables; delivery mechanism (mobile, DLC, or packaged with Pinball FX) unclear.

    medium · Hosts reference Mel's statement from episode 220 interview; speculation about content distribution channels to bridge gap before Pinball FX platform launch.

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Host sentiment toward hardware revision timeline shifting negative; previously optimistic about Gen Two by Christmas 2021, now expecting 2022+ due to production constraints.

    high · Jared explicitly revises prediction: 'I don't think we're going to see it this year' and later 'soonest you'll see anything is 2022 Christmas.'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Williams Pinball Platform now locked with no future content updates; new content will be exclusive to Pinball FX platform.

    high · Jared confirms Mel's statement during interview that Williams platform is locked.

    • 8:26
    Nothing. Yay! We like free. that's the right price for us yes because our show is the uh the cash cow isn't it oh absolutely we get so much money from sponsorship and donations so we've just spent the last uh you know five minutes here plugging and dissing so dissing medium plugging uh i don't know what is it that we plug did we plug anything jared uh plug the static site system that we're using and so the people who well i guess you know the new technology i'm using to do this right um because it deserves a shout out it's very good right so speaking of shadows though i want to point this out so our opening video that was something that uh we put together on a site called render forest and we paid a fee to be able to download that video um and you'll have it in 1080p and it's ours no watermark we can do with it what we want when i signed up for it and built it i was under the impression that we would be able to edit because i was specifically worried about that url what if the url changes can we edit or are we gonna have to buy a new video yeah so now that the url worked i was like all right let's go back to render forest and and do that edit And so, easy enough, found my account, found the video, went in there, was able to go push edit, put in the new URL, and then I could not for the life of me figure out how to upload and download that. And everything that I was clicking kept on bringing up pricing, of which the pricing has changed since we did this two years ago. So probably a lot more. No, it's actually less, go figure. Oh, is it? Oh, there you go. But it's less because it's a one-time feature.
    10:20
    The thing that I bought was, I believe, unlimited edits to your logo, but to any text that was going to pop up. Oh, I see. So I was like, well, shoot, how do I do this? I don't know if it's even valid. There was no way of bringing up the documentation of what our invoice said. so I fired off an email to their support. Within 10 minutes, I got a response saying,
    10:50
    okay, we hear what you're saying, and yeah, it's been two years since you've activated that, so we've kind of archived, but don't worry. We brought it back up. Here, check this. Boom, I click on the link, checked it. Sure enough, it was all edited, ready for download. Downloaded it. I mean, like, it was quick response. I was blown away by how fast. 10 minutes is exceptional. That's exceptional service from Renderforest. Yeah, so big shout out to Renderforest, even though they don't sponsor us either. But hey, they made us have a nice little video at the front there. So I was glad that our money at least was still valid and was allowing us to do that. Because, you know, that was two years ago now. So, you know, a lot of businesses will go, yeah, that was two years ago, right? And I'll tell you guys out there, if you're doing shows, if you want to do, you know, have that kind of video. I've seen, because believe me, when we were doing the logo, I went through every single video. Oh, yeah. It was a long, long time. We had a look at a lot of different options, and that's the thing. Like, Render Forest has so many different logo animations like that. But in the process of doing that, there are a lot of videos out there that I go, hey, they used Render Forest. I've even seen the same intro that we do, but obviously with a different logo of some other thing. I was like, hey, that's ours, but they didn't have the same music. So it's a lot of plug and play. It's super easy, but I just want to say, hey, you know, they did us a solid today and didn't have to. I was honestly expecting it to be, nope, too bad, that was old, you know, and it wasn't. Yeah, I would have expected that too. I probably would have just gone, oh, yeah, well, it's two years old. I'll just pay again. But, you know, you're right. It never hurts to ask, does it, with these things? Yes. Because you never know what the response is going to be. Yes. Other things, don't worry, folks, we'll get to pinball. Yeah, it's coming. Yeah, we haven't done this kind of thing in a long time, so let's get this out of our system. That's right, long intros. Right. Yeah, that's right. The other thing that I've learned my lesson this week. Oh. So I finally decided to retire the office chair. Oh, you're right, yes. And mainly because it was squeaking a lot and it was driving my wife nuts, whatever anybody, me or my son, were sitting in it. Because it would just like, like any kind of movement that you did on it. It was like, all right, if I've had the chair for like 15 years, sure. It doesn't owe you much. No, no. Maybe it's time for toast.
    13:25
    Yeah, maybe. Yeah, so I'm like, let's go on to Amazon and see what they got. And I'm like, hey, look, hey, there's a chair. It's only $65.
    13:35
    Bam, that looks like it. That looks like what I want. Yeah, let's go. Let's order that. Ordered it up. Got it up. Showed up two days later. Built it.
    13:45
    Sat in it. And went, ew. That's not good. No. Why is it like wobbly side to side? And why is it when I lean back, I feel like I'm about to fall over? and oh i don't like where it hits in my back and damn it i knew i should have just not trusted the internet and tried a seat in person yep that's so that's right hey like with the stuff like seats and i think shoes as well they're really a retail purchase aren't they they're like not really something you can go online and do you've got to really try them out well the thing is i'm a quite individual and and i've always been go to brick and mortar go to brick and mortar i don't like internet shopping except for for things that are easily internet shoppable but a lot of the things in my opinion i much rather want to be able to see it pick it pull it you know touch it touch it right you know even if it's just because i'm like oh this one has a crease at the bottom of the box i don't want that one you know just so i can see that kind of thing and uh if anybody's been following, you know, at-games shipments or arcade one-up shipments of their pinball machines, you've seen a good reason why people don't like internet shopping because boxes are coming damaged or boxes aren't showing up at all.
    15:04
    Or boxes have forklifts going straight through them. Exactly. You know, that you could see when you were buying it in retail. So, yeah, I'm... The chair manufacturer included a little note saying, hey, if for any reason you don't like to purchase instead of leaving us just negative feedback give us a email and we'll try and make things right so yeah i'm going to give them the chance to make things right we'll see what happens mainly because even if i return the chair my little excursion today basically told me that any chair that i would buy is going to be twice the price of what this one was yeah and the thing is that chairs are like shoes for me like you you buy particularly for like shoes i buy like i'm in these shoes like every day like they're my daily driver's shoes right so i spend the money on them because i know that if i don't it's gonna it's it's a false economy right yeah it's the same with chairs like if you're in that chair for even five hours a day it's got to be a comfortable chair because that's your connection to the floor um and you kind of just got to spend the money and like buy the best you can with the budget you've got and and just do what you can to get like the best chair you can because it's going to be like you say it's going to be there for 15 years probably so you're going to be happy with it like really happy with it so Stay tuned for chair journey. Chair. Because I know you all are just like amply excited about that. Oh, yeah. I can see everyone just jumping out of the video right now with all this. Which is why we're going to switch it up. Switching it up. All right. Let's talk pinball here a moment.
    16:54
    Let's actually start with the cabinet stuff, Jared. Okay. So interesting things have been happening and popping up. First interesting thing is this one's screwed. I feel bad for this. People that have been buying their At Games Legends pinball from, I believe, Sam's Club online. Yep. They're getting one box. It's a two-box shipment. Yeah. Box one of two and box two of two. Yes. Box number one is the play field. Box number two is the back glass. Now, when things were starting to ship initially, sometimes they'd get one of the boxes, and then maybe two days later get the other box Not always were they being delivered on time But with the one that from Sam Club if I remembering what I read correctly they're getting only that one box. They only had a tracking number for that one box, and when they contact Sam's Club and say, hey, where's my other box? Sam's Club goes, no, we only had one box.
    17:57
    And there's no way of getting you a second box. We don't have a second box to even send you. if you're not happy with your purchase feel free to return it return the playfield the massive playfield box yeah okay what yeah yeah and if you or or you can hold on to your box you can have your box i mean it's like thanks and and and from what i understand you know they've been contacting ad games ad games is like we don't understand either we don't know why they're doing this and unfortunately there's not really a way for us to correct it because retailers purchase and then are responsible for their own stock stock yeah so what have they done to the box two of two i don't know it's the weirdest thing i'm like i feel really bad for these people because you know they pre-ordered and then yeah waited all this time and yeah that's terrible yeah it's totally messed up i because you can't use it you can't it needs the head box that's where the um well you can still use it it doesn't need the head box to run you just don't get your second screen not exactly what you purchased is you know yeah gee i tell you what yeah it's i don't know what sort of consumer protection laws you've got over there in the in the us but over here that would be straight to the australian competition and consumer commission a triple c i think that's what it stands for and it's like yeah this product is not fit for purpose and very quickly you would get a response from sam's club or insert vendor here saying oh i'm very very very sorry so i will fix that up for you um because you know when someone opens an a triple c claim against you here in australia it's twenty thousand dollars so yeah you you pay attention pretty fast yeah It was either Sam's Club or Walmart. They're the same corporation. Oh, I like that guy. Sam's Club is kind of Costco.
    20:02
    Oh, okay. As opposed to Walmart being just the big box store. But yeah, it was that. So that's what's going on over there. That's really messed up. That's terrible. I really feel sorry for those folks.
    20:15
    Then on the Arcade One up front, pre-orders still scarce. you know they pop up and they're gone within like three hours uh everybody just floods the site and they're gone again until who knows when but somebody had posted uh they went to go do pre-order at gamestop and gamestop said first off it said expected shipment delivery date november which is like what right that's what they did anyhow, go ahead. Tell your story. Yeah, basically they're just covering their butts on that front. Then, here, check this out. So, now GameStop initially, when they put Star Wars on sale, $550. Then GameStop saw that Best Buy was selling Marvel for $600, and GameStop went, yeah, Star Wars, that's $600. That's what that is. That's what that is, yep. Well, now, when they posted their image from GameStop, the pre-order price, $799.
    21:26
    What? I mean, $200 markup? Why? That's a jump. Right. And here's the thing. Everybody's going, well, if you've noticed, lumber costs are through the roof. They're going sky high. Okay. I get that. I understand that. Um, it's a little messed up, though, if the manufacturer has not raised the MSRP, uh, or made any announcement about raising the MSRP, which you would expect to have seen from Arcade 1-Up, if that was the case. But, more to the point, this thing's built out of MDF. Yeah, it's glue and sawdust. It's the by-product of wood.
    22:08
    Yes. Um, I don't think the cost of sawdust has gone up. well who knows what the market on sawdust is you know if everyone is producing these sort of cabinets it could have actually had a premium slept on it it's supply and demand chris whatever whatever so i'm very curious to see how that shakes out uh like it popped up i saw the person's post i saw the image um i clicked on the link to verify for myself thought that that matters because then when i went to gamestop the pre-order was already gone so I couldn't verify it that way. Yeah. But shenanigans.
    22:47
    Shenanigans, all right. Well, you know, I think all that says is just don't buy from GameStop or just wait a little bit until things settle down. I know waiting for things is hard. It is. It sucks. It really sucks, particularly when you're expecting these things like Christmas time and, you know, we're in April, nearly May now. but i don't know i'd be sort of just holding my dollars for now and just either waiting until supply improves and you can see them in shops and actually work out whether it's right for you or not um because it's even at games it's going to be like putting the legends pinball into shops around june allegedly yeah um yeah you know so just wait until it goes into shops and just see it and touch it and feel it and see what you reckon and look at the boxes make sure there's two there or buy directly from the manufacturer because well yeah if you bought straight from at games well if they only sent you one box they're gonna send you the other box that's exactly right you can order directly from um rk1 up as well correct or are they only going through no because they're only going through retail well currently because they don't have stock it everything's been pre-ordered there's nothing that has gone nothing is even seen steps foot into a retail space right right um they're all being done through pre-orders yeah yeah so that's why you know mel was hoping you know that that maybe arcade one-up could ramp up production somehow um yes he's got connections but he's not arcade one-up he's he's zen zen's not responsible for the hardware so that's right But it does make me, okay, so Jared, knowing what you know now, your initial prediction, you felt that there was going to be a, let's not even call it wave two, because wave two to me means it's the same product, just the next wave of it incoming, as opposed to generation two, which is when there's been an actual physical change to the machinery. Yeah, right. Whether it's adding Wi-Fi, adding a second screen or a third screen, any of that. So knowing that, your initial prediction was that this holiday, this Christmas, we'd be having basically a Gen 2 machine out there. Yep. With this news, what's your prediction now? So with this news and stock availability, you mean? Yes.
    25:25
    Well, I definitely think they've got a fair bit of catching up to do. And I think that from the looks of things, just to see how scarce these things are, we're in April. I don't know if that prediction is correct anymore. I think they're going to actually be hard-pressed doing any hardware or software revision to this. Maybe a software revision with an update to fix bugs and stuff. Maybe. But a hardware revision? I don't think we're going to see it this year. yeah i'm gonna say the soonest you'll see anything is 2022 christmas you reckon they're gonna just play it safe and do it that would probably make sense because like they you can't get you can't get screens and chips are in short supply so they're going to be hard pressed actually getting the equipment they need just to service all these pre-orders it seems so So, you know, I think, yeah, I think we can throw that idea of a wave two out this year. I don't think it's going to happen. I think we might start seeing more available in retail stores at Christmas. I think they might do that. Yes. But I don't think, I think that will probably happen. Yes, I think this Christmas I will see one at Costco. Yeah, I think I might too here in Australia. Now, for the record, in Australia, you can still buy these. So there was a shipment delivered down here, and there's a website down here called Arcade Gamer. and they have in stock available now um i came one of star wars pinball for 1299 australian um yeah that's that's the regular australian markup on that in fact that's that's cheaper than i thought because i thought it was going to be 1400 so hey look saving some money in fact it's actually being marked down it's an april promo so it was 1399 it's now 1299 so bark it They're actually marking him down down here in Australia. Well, let me ship it from there then.
    27:21
    Well, yeah. Look, free delivery on orders over $200. So off you go, America. Have fun with that. So, yeah, you can buy that. And I think they've actually got the – they've got – yeah, they've got Marvel, Star Wars, and Attack from Mars. And let me see if Attack from Mars is available. Yep. Yeah, you can get that down here too for a discount for $1,299. Pennies. So there you go.
    27:47
    Basically free, right? You're right. What did you make of, we'd asked Mel in episode 220, our interview with him, we'd asked him about the software updating. Yeah, yeah. And I don't know, what was your, did you feel like he was doing the old Farsight, yeah, that'd be nice? Or do you think there's some intention behind there? I know I definitely think that it's going to happen because they they're fully aware of the bugs they know that um there's there's problems with white water um and there's a few other bugs in there that they've also been made aware of that the that the community has told them about and you know Mel did say in the interview that um you know they just need to get the bugs together fix them all in one hit and then submit the patch because the whole patch process that costs money and the only reason why it costs money is that you need to develop the patch, test it then roll down to a package that you can actually have consumers plug a drive into their thing and go here's my update and it's got to be foolproof you don't reckon it's going to happen? No, I reckon that I think that they will do a patch to address Whitewater.
    29:09
    Because, again, not having played the machine myself, I can't tell what is going on with Whitewater, but enough people have complained about Whitewater to the point that obviously it's severe and noticeable.
    29:26
    So I think that that will get addressed. But when it comes to, are they going to let us have contrast and brightness control over the screen? Are we going to be able to...
    29:42
    What was the other thing that we'd mentioned? Oh, the nudge sensitivity. Will that be adjustable? Addressed. Addressed? I don't know. I really don't. I don't know about that. That's where I kind of think that Arcade 1-Up might just go, it's fine. that's what that's what with that's what generation three is for yeah well there is actually uh i've read on i think it was the arcade one-up pinball group on facebook like so many of them you gotta know well which one but there's one that said there is actually a secret menu you can access on the pinball machines that allows you to go in and check calibration and stuff like that it's essentially it's because the system's based on an android system on a chip build you can go in and access a service menu that's separate to the game that allows you to calibrate the screen and the accelerometer and that sort of stuff as well. Interesting. I did not know that. So you can, it's like you've got to it's like the classic, you know, hold select and start and hold, you know, stand upside down and it's a bit of a contortion to do it. It's a Konami code. It is definitely a Konami code to actually access it and do it. But it does bring up essentially like a hardware calibration menu and I'm pretty sure that that's what Arcade 1-Up do in the factory to actually calibrate the game. They open up this menu, they do the final calibration on it and they ship it. But yeah, so you do have that access to that menu now. Go and have a look on how to do it and if you think you need to access that you can get in touch with Arcade 1-Up and they can give you instructions. If you're having trouble with accelerometers etc. you can do it so if you are experiencing that now as a person who owns one uh get in touch with them you probably already have and they're probably already told you about this so there you go um and if and if people do like can't find these instructions let me know and i'll see if i can go trolling through facebook and and find the post that has it it was a while back now so it's probably gone you know yeah um something else that people have been peppering us with questions about and i think that we let's have a crack at speculating ourselves um the 11 tables that mel mentioned before the end of 2020 uh let's wipe off two because that was the mandalorian and uh star wars collectibles was part of that correct so nine let's count nine nine tables what's your best guess how do you think these are going to get into people's hands prior to pinball effects launching i think well if they're not going to be releasing the core pinball effects until later on probably yeah we're thinking last quarter at this stage right i'm definitely thinking last quarter the but yeah you kept on saying end of the year and i think that was just your version of saying last quarter and now i'm almost like in my head i'm almost going you know what jared might be right it might be like november november it could be like i don't know but the only way i can see them releasing any new content now is and mel confirmed this in the interview that essentially like the williams pinball platform is now essentially locked yes it's not going to get any new content in it so that that's not a way that you'd be able to see new content so if they're going to be releasing 11 tables this year some like you could think that some of those are going to be packaged with pinball effects which is reasonable to assume but it sounded like to me that mel was suggesting that we're going to see actual content releasing before pinball effects is coming out correct so I mean obviously the Star Wars, those two Star Wars tables are going to be via VR so there's one but he wasn't saying that it was going to be 11 VR tables prior to the end of the year no, and I mean that's the only announced thing that they're releasing so you have to assume that they're going to be doing I don't know, something on mobile I guess well that's what I was wondering, is it going to be mobile but he also said And you've got to realize, we actually got him to talk about mobile before he was ready to talk about mobile, because they said they weren't going to talk about mobile until second half of 2021. Yeah, so we kind of got him to... Yeah, we got him to spill a few beans on that. But even if you're waiting until second half of 2021 to talk about mobile, well, that puts you past July. Again, no new content.
    34:37
    That's a big gap. But you're right. I do think that it's possible that they would be standalone apps on mobile, but could they... I'm wondering, could they do standalone DLC on Epic Game Store prior to... Like a one-off app sort of thing? Yeah. I guess they could. They could release like a little mini-app. Well, yeah, they could. Because then what I wondering is if and I got to believe that Zen thinking the same way Whatever gets released prior to Pinafx that going to grandfather in to Pinafx
    35:27
    Yeah, that's right. So everything that was released up to this point, Mel was referring to Legacy as Legacy. Everything that was done and out available publicly now, except for Star Wars Pinball VR, is Legacy. so anything from now on I think you're going to see that in pin effects let's say they came out with Operantia Pinball we've been saying Operantia, Castle Storm and Disco Dodgeball now I'm saying Dreadnoughtical but anyway those are the three most recent games that Zen has done obviously they've got all the art assets it only makes sense integration, synchronicity. So let's use those titles as our examples. So suddenly, Zen comes out with a pack of those three. Right? And releases as a standalone app.
    36:28
    You know, it's the Zen RPG Pinball Pack. It's the Zen Indies Pack. Zen Indies Pack, right. And could we see that on mobile? sure would make sense because especially since we now know that it's being used with unity um that's what they were building williams with that's what they built williams with yeah right um that's a good question are they going to can i don't i don't see a reason why they would use unity on mobile when they could use um epic um on mobile as well using unreal compatible so here's That's something to think about. Apple is in a big old giant fight with Unreal right now. Yeah, that's right. They're not the best buddies, are they? No, they're not the best buddies.
    37:19
    And Zen doesn't want to necessarily be caught in the middle of that little war. It's not their fight.
    37:28
    So I almost wonder if maybe that's why we haven't heard anything about mobile. That maybe Zen is waiting for the dust to settle. Maybe he thinks the dust is going to settle soon. and if it goes the way of Apple saying, nope, screw you, Epic, we will not be carrying any game that runs Unreal, then Zen goes, all right, Unity it is. Yes, that's right. We've already got a build that works, so let's use Unity, I guess, on mobile. Which would suck because, again, they'd have another platform. Like Mel said, they don't like platforms. That's right. Or multiple, multiple, multiples. So, okay.
    38:12
    Let's say then, let's say the dust settles. And it goes the way of Apple saying, okay, fine, we've made a deal with Epic. Unreal it is. And then, so Zen says, yay. And they release a mobile app of these Zen Indie Pinball. Yep. So then what I'm saying is on the Epic Games Store, they would release Epic Indie Pinball also. That would be basically your first taste of pinball effects without all the bells and whistles. In other words, it would just be the tables and a leaderboard probably. That's it. Probably. It wouldn't have challenges. It wouldn't have friend score. It would just be its own isolated little thing. And then when pinball effects actually comes out proper, that then I would assume that Zen would say, and you can link that because it's the same engine, it's the same... I definitely think that that would be a thing. They wouldn't release a standalone thing and then get people to buy it again. That wouldn't make sense. They would definitely put it over into the core app, essentially, when it comes out, particularly on PC. but it makes me wonder if they're going to be doing a, um, an Epic games store release, then where does that leave console? Like a console going to be left waiting or would they get the same release as well? Like how, how do you think that would work?
    39:52
    I don't know. You can imagine like it'd be, because zen's been very upfront about saying look we want to support all platforms day date of launch product launch so for them to do that they would already have to be going hey we're going to publish on all these platforms and hey well i mean which is not unreasonable to assume because they they do that now but that's a lot more engineering planning entitlements management how you do that on console versus something like Epic Games Store, which may be easier to manage cross-buy entitlements on. Well, you know how they could do it then. I'm just thinking this. What if they did... Doesn't Google have a Google Play or something like that? Yeah, yeah, they do. Where it's just you pay your fee and then all these games are there, right? Oh, that's from Google All Access, a little bit like Apple's Arcade Pass. Right, Arcade Pass, and obviously Xbox has their Xbox Game Pass.
    41:07
    That would be a way to let the consoles play if you were paying that. So then you'd be able to have access to it to pay leading up to then when Pinball FX comes out. that's so it's almost like it's almost like a a soft launch beta maybe yeah that's true there's an option could do that yeah because i was thinking about that too i was thinking about with pinball royale i was like are they really gonna wait until pinball effects comes out to throw that to everybody or is that going to get its own soft launch and then just like it's like all these disparate parts swirling around in a whirlpool and eventually they're going to funnel down into Pinball FX. I guess the question is about Pinball Royale is how core is that thing to Pinball FX? Is that going to be something that's actually essentially built around Pinball FX or you know it sort of like pinball effects is like a it's a core requirement of it or will it almost be like a standalone app like is it going to be a separate stream because you know like i remember how mel was saying that you know they're looking at different revenue models and all that sort of stuff it's would they be using something like pinball royale as like a way of introducing people to pinball or something like that like i i don't know if that's a thing that they do but if they to do that,
    42:47
    then we might actually see it earlier. I keep on coming back with Pimber or Eyal. I really do think that they're going to lean on Epic, and it's going to be very much a hybrid between Rocket League and Tetris 99. I think those are your two touch points that it's going to be taking a little bit from column A, a little bit from column B, and mashing them together. Now, Tetris 99, obviously, is its own beast. But Rocket League very much depends on you downloading Rocket League as a whole. So, you're right. It might be too integrated into pinball effects to be a separated out app. Yeah. It might rely too much on the core engine to do it. Although if I understand where Zen's vision is going with this, it sounds like Pinball FX is like a base platform and then everything else gets put on top of that. Yeah. So maybe they could actually take essentially Pinball FX base and then add the Royale layer on top and then add other stuff on top and sort of separate it out like that.
    44:15
    It's going to be interesting to see what happens. But there's lots of possibilities, it seems. Just talking about it now, there's plenty of different ways I could go with this. There are. Yeah. So, okay, let's go back into our hypothetical game pack. Yeah, okay. And let's say, hypothetically, that's after the Star Wars VR comes out. Which, by the way, folks, comes out this week. Oh yeah, this week.
    44:44
    It's happening. Because like Mel said, they want to have it out ready for May 4th. May the 4th. May the 4th be with you. So our hypothetical game pack. When do you think the earliest we would see it? so the the zen indies yes pack yes okay well they would have let they'd obviously want to let the hype from star wars pinball settle yeah so i reckon give that two months and then we'll maybe see something happening so you're saying maybe june i reckon like end of june beginning of june let's just say June at this time I'm going to say we're not going to see new content or the earliest that we'll see new content I'm going to say late June and the latest that we'll see new content that's not VR this is what I'm saying there's not vr content just regular flat screen 2d just because i don't want people going ha you were all wrong it came out on april 29th no um yes eliminate the vr platform we're trying to figure out where are these other tables gonna drop uh beyond vr uh at the latest i would say so i said for me the earliest would be late june i'd say at the latest late july so somewhere between june and july you think i think it will be because if you went late july and then you went with the cadence of tables that zen's gonna want to put out um like he said they want to put out 20 a year uh pretty much 2022 would be a year of having 20 well if you put out late July, skip a month so three, skip a month to September now you're up to six skip a month to November, now you're up to nine and then they'll do well but there's nine and then there was the two that were with Pinball VR that's eleven so then there's just one more left over no, because those are the nine plus the two that are the Mandalorian and Star Wars collectibles, that makes 11. Oh, yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. So, I mean, that's what I'm saying. If you went to late July, skip the month, so every other month you would have a release of tables. Yep. That would actually work out. So I think we probably both agree that it would be July. It's just when it drops in July would be the time that we do it. Well, I'm saying that's the latest that we'll see anything. I think the earliest that we'll see anything after this Star Wars VR would be, you're saying June, I'm saying late June. I reckon that, unfortunately, we're a touch out of sync with the pinball show this time around. We really have to work with Zen to get in sync with it, don't we? They really need to work with Jared's schedule. I really do. It will make it a lot easier. anyhow uh so i don't think if if we're thinking of how they would roll this out from a marketing and promotion perspective i don't think that they might they might if this was the strategy they're going with we might hear an inkling of it in the pinball show number four and then in tps5 we will get probably an announcement about it so that will be april's tps4 which is coming up this week i think um and then tps5 is in may which you could say probably they might either go with the announcement and then release in june or they might hold it over the the month and then go july if we're looking at the other timeline so because again thinking about zen when they make an announcement versus when you're able to purchase it typically it's been about a month it's about a month yeah i mean it's a bit different this year yes they've had to stretch things out a little bit more this year yeah but generally speaking and given that they're actually like doubling their pinball division um essentially you know they're they have they will have the capability i'm not necessarily they're saying that they've got it right at the moment because they're still recruiting but when they do get up to that desired level of staff and capability then we will be able to see probably monthly releases probably if they wanted to do monthly releases because if you think about it if they're shooting for 20 a year right 20 tables right so that's going to be like maybe a three pack every other month if you sort of do the math on it which has been up until the pandemic hit kind of what they were shooting for with all their zen originals and stuff like that well it's a three pack every month but then now and then if you have a license table that can't be packaged with anything else then they would get it that's an only special release yeah so that would be the other the off month that they'd be um like putting those out so yeah if they sort of start to get back into that essentially using 2021 as a bit of a year to kind of get back into that swing of things and get the studio back up into like releasing content on a semi-regular basis again that would make sense from the timings that we suggested i think yeah all right what do you think will when we see another williams table.
    50:47
    This year? Or pack. Yeah, this year. Do we think we're going to see Alphanumeric? Or are we going to see DMD? Because, again, knowing that the rating is not going to be an issue,
    51:04
    okay, let's eliminate Cactus Canyon because, like we said, that one's really hard to find. But that leaves two that have not been done.
    51:11
    Whodunit and Jackbot. Both of which were problematic on the gambling front. And there was, I think, smoking and stuff in Whodunit, maybe. Sure, maybe. I don't know for certain. But, so... And there was Slot Machine. That's definitely Slot Machine. Definitely got Slot Machine. So, that's what I'm asking. What are we more likely to see? Are we more likely to see those two? Or are we more likely to see Alphanumeric as the next William's release.
    51:44
    Hmm. Well, they've invested the cash in Alpha Numeric now, and they've got to make it back. So I reckon we might actually see Alpha Numerics coming out.
    51:56
    I'm kind of there with you. I think that that's probable. I think they need to get the cost on the amount of time they've had to put in to getting the Alpha Numeric tech sorted out. I'll be probably releasing a fair few of those, I think. Yeah. Maybe not this year, but I would expect that early into 2022, we're going to see a lot of alphanumeric content. I honestly think once the wheels get rolling again, I think what you're going to see is you're going to see a Williams pack, a Zen Originals pack, a Williams pack, a Zen Originals pack. I think they're going to get, with this influx of artists and designers that they've been hiring, it's going to let them to do that. Because, as we've said before, those Zen Originals, those are much more profitable for them. They may not sell as many but they way more profitable for them Yeah they don have to worry about licenses Well they don have to worry about licenses if they not creating Zen original license tables Because you know they could go and create a brand Zen table. Sure, but you're not having to pay Williams or Scientific Games on top of that. And you'd be striking those licensing deals now. Yes. rather than trying to track down spending lawyer fees because, believe me, it's not the lawyer fees.
    53:31
    They're charged by the minutes. Again, going back to the conversations that we used to have with Bobby King at Farsight,
    53:39
    as he said, the most difficult part of licensing was tracking down the IP holders and then getting your lawyer to talk to their lawyer to hammer out the deal. and how quickly could any of that be hammered out. Yeah. So the fewer amount of time spent with the lawyers, the better. The better for everybody. Yeah. So that's what we were saying. It's much more profitable for Zen to strike new licensing deals for a Zen original than it is to try and go back and, again, secure the property, you secure the voice talent, all that other stuff, because Zen can control all of that. Yeah, they don't have to essentially go, well, we'd like to do this game, how much do we have to pay you? It's more like, we'd like to do this game, let's cut a deal. Like, the language is totally different. Like what Mel said, because he's got licensors knocking on their door. That's a good position, because that means you've got the leverage. Yeah, it's like, so you want a game? Well, here's how much we want to pay for your license? Or how much are you going to pay us to produce the game for you with the license? I'm dying to know what... Because Mel has dropped hints. If you go to his personal Twitter feed, not Zenz or PinballFX's Twitter feed, but just Mel's. Mel underscore G underscore Kirk. Exactly. Now and then he'll also post a tweet that'll be like I'm so excited! I can't believe this finally came through! And then that'll be it. and you're like, what? What have you been working on?
    55:22
    Those are the ones that I always go, flag that for later on. Postmark that tweet for speculation six or eight months down the track saying, ah, so that's what the big deal was, you know? Yeah, yeah. That's what we do, yeah. So, I don't know. It'll be interesting to see where that all goes. Jared, was there anything else that you wanted to kind of crack the speculation can open on?
    55:52
    I don't think so. I think on the VR side of things, I would like to probably hope that there's going to be more VR content this year. I mean, surely once they release Star Wars Pinball VR,
    56:07
    I would suggest that we're going to see more content being added to that. I think they'd be mad not to. because there's so many good Star Wars tables out there that aren't in that collection. There's eight in there. And what were you like over nearly? We were at 21. Wait, no, we were at 19, because that's what was on the Switch. 19 tables and then plus the two that got announced. So there's plenty of room in that particular app to add more content and bring more tables into VR, which would delight me. I would love to play more of this content in VR. It freshens it up so much, like playing it in VR. You know, I hope everybody caught what Mel was saying too with the difference between Zen doing VR and Magic Pixel with Zachariah Pinball doing VR. That the licensors consider VR an entirely different contract. Yeah. And that's why they can't just flick a switch. Flick the switch. Yeah.
    57:20
    It's very different. I mean, in the case of Magic Pixel, they essentially own everything for, like, Zachariah Pinball. They can do what they like with that. Right, because there was no licensed Zachariah table.
    57:31
    That's right. A third-party license, I should say. That's right. In fact, a lot of them knocked off a lot of themes and alluded to them.
    57:40
    But, you know, in classic Italian style. when they were doing all these games like yeah exactly yep so yeah when you're bringing in licenses into the discussion here they they don't just want like oh yeah my game in with the rest of the other ones they want like they want that star wars experience like imagine what you could do with the marvel stream with that like the mind boggles that just how good a marvel vr experience would be with all the Marvel content they've got. And there are some tables in there that do need VR because they're a little bit on the hard side to see. But yeah, I mean, that's another untapped market, which I would put some money down speculatively to say that we might see a Marvel VR package next year. I would say that's going to be the next big pack. And I think that it'll be also coming to Switch as a standalone game. I imagine the two would be getting announced at the same time. So Marvel for Switch and Marvel VR. And Marvel for VR. Yeah, I think you're probably right. Because that's the only... I mean, people are gagging for Marvel on Switch. They want it so bad. So, yeah, I reckon you're right. They will do a consolidated launch on Marvel on both platforms. Yeah. But they'll need to do some... I mean, I think some of those tables do need a bit of work. Like they could do with a bit of spit and polish at the same time. Oh, sure. so you know why not like look at like do what they did i think what they did with um this first round of vr tables for star wars they they literally picked the eyes out of the collection with maybe you know the exception of some of those tables in the muscles of the force um but uh uh yeah in most cases they they chose them deliberately because they knew that it would be the best fit for VR up front and promote the platform. You know what's funny is I keep on hearing people say, you know, we always rag on Masters of the Force. It's our least favorite. Yeah, we do. It's our least favorite Star Wars table, hands down, and it's one of my least favorite Zen tables, hands down. You know, that V12, they can go suck it. They really can. But I've heard a lot of people, they're excited to play Masters of the Force in VR because they are hopeful it'll improve the experience.
    60:04
    Yeah, it's it is a weird looking table and I think having those layers in VR is going to help it out a lot.
    60:17
    So it will be interesting. Maybe I'll change my tune on it when I get to play it in VR. I don't know. But hopefully we'll see more content in that package because it will be very nice to play more VR content. Star Wars VR content, I think.
    60:35
    Alright. Well, look, we haven't had a good proper just wing it and speculate episode in quite a while. We haven't. We've actually had hard news to deliver. And so, yeah, it's been fun to sort of go back and sort of think a little bit more between the lines and talk about some of these things and what might happen this year. So it's good that we get to speculate again. Absolutely. I want to, and I'm sure Jared feels the same way, big thanks to everybody. has been viewing our content, subscribing to the content.
    61:10
    You guys have really helped grow the show, and it helps open up the eyes of other people to help us maybe get interviews with. Certainly, I know that Mel appreciates it. It's why he comes on our show, part of the reason. Yep. Just because he understands what the audience expects out of him and what he can deliver to them rather than just a general mass. So I just want to say again, thank you. You guys have really been rock stars with just how much of our content you view. We get all the statistics. And I've heard other sites what their content statistics are. And I'm like, damn, we got a good following. So just big shout out to you guys. And again, thanks for putting up with the medium shift to now us having the proper blockade.pinball.com URL. That's right.
    62:10
    Yes, that's right. It's good to actually have a proper place on the internet now and not have to sort of like use another platform. Because the thing is that when you use another platform, you have no control over it. But now I have total control over the site and what we can do with it. And if I need to change the theme going down the track, I just switched the theme and do a little bit of changing here and there and we're going brand new website up. So it's far more maintainable now. Yeah. And I think, I hope that you, you'll see the difference and actually want to go to the site and get updates and things. There's even like, we've got the discuss system plugged into the site now. So you can actually comment on each, each show post if you want and give us feedback that way. So there's more ways to reach out to us now. Yeah. And I mean, the usual ways. Email us. Blahblahblockade at gmail.com Hit us up on our Twitters. Mine right there and Jared's right there. Or the show proper right there at Blockade.
    63:11
    Let us know. What do you want us to speculate on? Let us know topics of discussion. If there's something that you've heard that you're wondering if we know anything more about. If we know anything more about it, we'll try and comment on it and talk about it.
    63:25
    Next time Obviously, the latest The Pinball Show will have aired, so I'm sure that we'll have stuff to discuss about that. But otherwise, it's what Jared likes the most.
    63:39
    Stuff and things. See you all next time. Bye-bye. you
    69:26
    you