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Star Wars Pinball VR

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 8m·analyzed·Mar 12, 2021
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Zen announces Star Wars Pinball VR for Quest/SteamVR/PSVR; Pinball FX3 integration delayed to Q4 2021.

Summary

BlahCade hosts Chris Friebus and Jared Morgan discuss Zen's Star Wars Pinball VR announcement from episode two of The The The Pinball Show. The key revelation is that Star Wars VR is launching on Quest and Steam VR with support for PlayStation VR, but Pinball FX 3 integration remains unconfirmed with an estimated Q4 2021 release window. The hosts analyze Zen's strategy of separate branded VR apps, gameplay features including new Mandalorian and Star Wars Collectibles tables, and the technical/storage rationale for app fragmentation on VR headsets.

Key Claims

  • Star Wars VR is coming to Quest 2, Steam VR, and PlayStation VR

    high confidence · Chris and Jared verify this by checking live on episode two of The The The Pinball Show; confirmed platforms explicitly mentioned

  • Pinball FX 3 integration for Star Wars VR is not mentioned in the official announcement

    high confidence · Chris notes 'It did not mention Pinball FX 3' and Jared confirms Zen said it's 'Quest and FX' only; they estimated Q4 2021 or later

  • Mandalorian table is new and based on Season 1 only with approximately 10 episode-based modes

    high confidence · Chris analyzes the trailer frame-by-frame, identifying forge mechanics and episode-based inserts; Jared confirms 'they said that's only Season 1'

  • Star Wars Collectibles is also a new table announced alongside Mandalorian

    high confidence · Chris identifies it in the trailer: 'This is Star Wars Collectible, which we'll have the trailer for that also. Yes. But here's a brand new table also in addition to the Mandalorian.'

  • Zen used the same intro voiceover as the 1997 Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition trailer and obtained permission from Lucasfilm

    high confidence · Chris demonstrates the parallel structure and credits Lucasfilm permission; notes Lucasfilm Gaming officially tweeted the trailer

  • There are 21 total Star Wars tables in the VR collection

    medium confidence · Chris states 'there's 21 Star Wars tables' but does not provide breakdown or source verification in the podcast

  • Pinball FX 2 VR installation is approximately 2-2.4 GB and holds about 15 tables

    medium confidence · Jared approximates from memory: 'the installation size for fx2 vr is something to the order of two gig' and '2.4 gig and on that package it's something to the order of like i'm trying to remember off the top of my head it's about 15 tables'

  • Pinball FX 3 has over 100 tables total, which would be approximately 25 GB if consolidated into one VR app

Notable Quotes

  • “For an entire generation, gamers have experienced Star Wars pinball the only way it's been possible, on an HD screen. But just wait till you play in VR.”

    [name withheld pending review] @ ~12:00 — Demonstrates Zen's deliberate callback to the 1997 Star Wars Special Edition trailer opening; shows licensing integration with Lucasfilm and creative sophistication

  • “It did not mention Pinball FX 3. Yeah, they were quite, and they said this openly in episode two. It's like, yep, it's exciting to say that this is Quest and FX. That's it.”

    Chris Friebus @ ~23:30 — Key frustration point: community disappointment that FX3 integration is not confirmed; signals platform fragmentation concerns

  • “So it actually makes sense to have smaller chunked apps because we all know these pinball apps can grow rather large.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~31:00 — Technical justification for Zen's strategy of separate branded VR apps; storage constraints on Quest 2's 64GB max

  • “It's literally, I'm done with this app now. Oculus menu, quit, back to your lobby, select the other game, you're in. So 30 seconds, thereabouts.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~34:45 — Practical UX perspective: app switching friction is minimal; defuses concerns about app fragmentation

  • “You're going to have to make some hard decisions yeah if if you do it and if you don't like for example a set of like if you hate star wars for example you don't like it well then if you had to like have all that infrastructure in place in the one app to support all that then it wouldn't be any good”

    Jared Morgan @ ~28:30 — Explains licensing advantage: separate apps allow selective installation and dedicated spotlight for IP holders; reduces friction for players uninterested in specific licenses

  • “I think the level of interaction that Zen is having with Lucasfilm this go around is a lot more than last round and I say that strictly because even Lucasfilm Gaming tweeted out the trailer.”

    Chris Friebus @ ~13:00 — Signal of deeper licensing partnership; official Lucasfilm Gaming involvement suggests higher IP priority and support

Entities

Chris FriebuspersonJared MorganpersonZen PinballcompanyLucasfilmcompanyLucasfilm GamingorganizationThe Pinball ShoweventStar Wars Pinball VRproductPinball FX 3productPinball FX 2 VRproductMeta Quest 2product

Signals

  • ?

    announcement: Zen officially announces Star Wars Pinball VR for Quest 2, Steam VR, and PlayStation VR; represents major VR expansion with 21 tables

    high · Star Wars VR trailer revealed on The Pinball Show episode two with confirmed platform support and table count

  • ?

    product_strategy: Zen implementing separate branded VR apps by IP license rather than unified platform; strategic for storage constraints, licensing visibility, and platform iteration

    high · Star Wars VR is standalone app; discussion of technical rationale (storage limits on 64GB Quest 2), licensing benefits (app store visibility, licensor preference), and consistency with Zen's mobile strategy

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Lucasfilm Gaming's official promotion of Star Wars VR trailer signals elevated partnership depth compared to previous Zen Star Wars pinball versions

    high · Chris notes Lucasfilm Gaming tweeted the trailer and Zen obtained permission for original 1997 voiceover talent; explicit recognition of 'level of interaction that Zen is having with Lucasfilm this go around is a lot more than last round'

  • $

    market_signal: Community frustration over Star Wars VR launching on Quest/Steam/PSVR without confirmed Pinball FX 3 integration; estimated Q4 2021 wait creates exclusivity gap

    high · Chris: 'which obviously bumped people out because they're like oh my god we're going to have to still wait and screw you vr people for getting first dibs'; Jared notes 'That is a long wait. It's a long gap... six months at least'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Star Wars VR features free-roaming locomotion in virtual lobby (walking around to access displays/trophies) vs. static positioning in Pinball FX 2 VR; marks immersion/UX generational leap

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.205

0:00
blockade pinball podcast this is the blockade pinball podcast i'm your host chris freebiss aka shut your trap joining me as always halfway around the world it's jared morgan hello everyone How are you going? Waving frantically. Waving frantically, yes. Not drowning, waving.
0:34
So I don't know how your last two weeks are, but just to be topical and of the times, mine has been trying to chase down a vaccine.
0:46
Oh, right. Have you had success in catching the wild vaccine? I have not had the vaccine yet, but I now have an appointment booked. hey nice work yeah very good so i'm i'm it's like hooray yay kind of you know yay i get to have a needle and hopefully get some sort of immunity from this horrible thing yes but it's so that there there was it's a there's a positive note on that that's very positive um yeah down in australia the rollout is happening as well um it's being prioritized as it should be to frontline workers first and people who are vulnerable. So I'm holding back for now. There's no need for me to get one yet. Ours is prioritized by age and then also by, yeah, what you're working in. They just opened up educator and childcare, and since I've been being a substitute teacher for the past couple of months, I qualify for that. So that's how I'm sliding in on that aspect. Slide on?
1:55
Yeah, well, down here we heard news that, I think, I just saw a tweet fly by before I got on the show that the UN conspired with Italy to block a shipment of vaccines to us down here. Don't know why. That's all I read in the tweet stream, so I don't know why that is. that seems like a not nice thing to do. You know, there's going to be a new board game of risk.

medium confidence · Jared calculates: 'the total collection of tables on FX3 being over 100 now, right? That's nearly 25 gig just on, like if you just had it in one app alone'

  • Oculus hardware supports cross-buy on Pinball FX 2 VR across all Oculus devices (Rift, Quest, Quest 2)

    high confidence · Jared confirms: 'I can install that on all Oculus devices. So if I have a Rift, a Quest, a Quest 2, anything that's by Oculus, they've activated cross-buy on that.'

  • Switching between separate VR apps on Quest takes approximately 30 seconds

    medium confidence · Jared provides direct experience: 'I'm done with this app now. Oculus menu, quit, back to your lobby, select the other game, you're in. So 30 seconds, thereabouts.'

  • “There's a lot of display areas in this. So, like, have a look at the shelves over to the left and everything... trophy cabinet. How are you supposed to navigate to that? It seems like you're walking around, which is kind of cool because that's not how it works in FX, too.”

    Chris Friebus @ ~19:00 — Identifies new VR UX paradigm: free locomotion/walking in virtual space vs. static positioning in FX2 VR; marks generational upgrade in immersion

    • Steam VR
    product
    PlayStation VRproduct
    Mandaloriangame
    Star Wars Collectiblesgame
    Dougperson
    CoolToyorganization
    Arcade One-Upproduct
    Pinball FXproduct
    John Oliverperson
    BlahCade Pinball Podcastorganization

    high · Chris observes trophy cabinet navigation and notes 'It seems like you're walking around, which is kind of cool because that's not how it works in FX, too'; discussion of VR 'locomotion' term and interactive lobby design

  • ?

    machine_intel: Mandalorian table covers Season 1 only (~10 episodes); implies Season 2 expansion planned as separate table release

    medium · Chris identifies episode-based mode structure; Jared states 'they said that's only Season 1' and Chris responds 'Bring on a Season 2 table. That's exciting, because then you know, hey, more table coming up, right?'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Quest 2's 64GB/256GB storage variance drives technical justification for app fragmentation; single monolithic app would consume ~25GB, forcing player uninstall decisions

    high · Jared calculates Pinball FX 3 at 100+ tables = ~25GB if consolidated; notes 'I've pretty much nearly maxed out my 64 gig of storage. Like I've used about half of it' after installing FX2 VR and other games

  • ?

    product_concern: Doug's Arcade One-Up modding project demonstrates end-of-life workaround for failed auxiliary PCB; community practice of gutting defunct cabinets and repurposing as PC enclosures

    medium · Chris discusses Doug's YouTube tutorial series converting dead One-Up to Steam-based pinball via small-form-factor PC; notes sunk cost fallacy and cumulative mod expenses (~$170+ in parts pre-haptics/PC)

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Jared's direct VR experience demonstrates app switching UX friction is minimal (~30 seconds), potentially defusing community concerns about fragmented platform strategy

    medium · Jared: 'It's literally, I'm done with this app now. Oculus menu, quit, back to your lobby, select the other game, you're in. So 30 seconds, thereabouts'; Chris responds 'You actually go from one app to another app. It's not a big deal.'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Star Wars VR multi-platform launch (Quest/Steam/PSVR) indicates Zen's commitment to VR as mainstream delivery channel; contrasts with FX2 VR's narrower distribution

    high · Official support for three major VR ecosystems; Chris and Jared verify platform compatibility including older hardware (Oculus Rift via SteamVR)

  • ?

    content_signal: Zen's use of original 1997 Star Wars Special Edition trailer voiceover/intro structure in Star Wars VR announcement demonstrates sophisticated IP homage and Lucasfilm approval

    high · Chris plays side-by-side comparison of 1997 trailer ('For an entire generation people have experienced Star Wars...') with Star Wars VR trailer using identical framing; notes permission and original VO talent secured

    • 2:24
    But instead of it being armies conquering other lands, it's going to be countries blocking shipments of COVID. Not COVID, but of the vaccine.
    2:33
    It is. Yeah, it totally is. Yeah, so that's good news. I'm glad you're in the queue for it. That's very good. So I'm sure this is what all of you tuned in for. yeah because you know there's not enough talk about pandemic shenanigans uh everywhere uh at the moment you know maybe there needs to be a a covid pinball machine though right i mean you know it's already a little ball so if you had a custom pinball that had lots of little dots on it and you know and as the infection rate grows the multi-ball grows um until it gets just untenable of how to control... You should mod an Apollo 13 and turn the moon into a big COVID cell. So as it turns, all the little things come around. Or you could also mod a World Cup 94 with a big soccer ball and make that. Of course. What would the goalie be, though? The goalie would be like your immune system. And... There you have it. There you have Olbeck going, goal!
    3:37
    Vaccine! What an amazing jab! I mean, you know, finding humor in a dark subject, but it's, you know, truly it's, you know, when you drain the third ball, it's just like, you've succumbed to double pneumonia.
    3:53
    Insert random illness here. Oh, my God. Yeah. So, before we... Never let us decide people we see. We didn't pre-discuss this topic. No. It's totally off the cuff. That's what happens.
    4:08
    You go scripted, everything goes weird. Last time, I had... Obviously, we were talking a lot about at-games and what we wish they would do better on certain aspects. You're going deep on it. Yeah, one of the things that I had mentioned about was how they kind of hide things, you might say. I was saying about pricing and what games are on. And we received a few messages basically saying, hey, you're not looking very hard or in the right spot. You're not using the internet properly. It's right here in front of your nose behind these couple of clicks. And so sure enough, they're correct. There is listing and you can find these things. that being said it's still not the easiest thing in the world so I just wanted to kind of show if you're looking for it here's how to find it and also why it's still just kind of like it's okay show us the user experience of the games so this is the main page that if you're going to the Legends family this is what pops up right on their website and hey look at this you've got all the products. Matrix. We like a matrix. Right. You got all the products and I'm just looking right up here. License games included. You got your 300, 150, 100, 120, right? Here's what I'm wondering. Why isn't the 300 clickable to show you what the games are? That would make sense, right? That would be what you want. But that's not how you're going to find out what the games are. No, instead, what you're going to do is you're going to click on the item and then you're going to go, okay, now I'm on Legends Ultimate, and then you're going to go, oh, view games list, and, oh, look at this. It's just a PDF spreadsheet.
    6:08
    Why PDF? You can make an HTML page with that very easily. It's just, you know, and then what you're dealing with is having to, okay, so, great, you've got this long list of games, but, like, for instance, you have Asteroids and Asteroids. and one says console and one says arcade. It doesn't say exactly which console, but I do believe it's the Atari 2600 version of Asteroids as opposed to the arcade version of Asteroids. But Chris, it doesn't matter what console it is because it's just a console.
    6:44
    Right. You wouldn't want to filter on that information so you can see if your favorite console isn't actually on the list of included games that you get with your product. No, you don't want that. And this is just, you know, it's not visually appealing, and it doesn't speak to you very fast. It's not. And now you have to... Just make this an HTML page and put some filters on it. Right. It's not hard.
    7:04
    So that's that, where I just kind of go, okay, great. Now I've got to... Maybe it's iteration one of this aspect of the website. Maybe the list is changing too much that it's hard for them to maintain a website page on it. So the other thing that I was saying was that the pricing of ArcadeNet was hidden,
    7:26
    and I was thinking that's where the game goes. So if you were to go here under Legends Arcade Platform, and you go and select ArcadeNet, which I had no reason why I was going to do that, but here we go. Here's ArcadeNet, and okay, fine. Hey, look at that. Here's your pricing for ArcadeNet. And I'm glad they at least made, you know, basically said, look, if you pay for the monthly one month at a time, you're a sucker.
    7:53
    Because the six months is basically half that price. It's still going to wind up being $120 for the year, which is twice the price of what Xbox Live or PlayStation Network is. All right, Chris, so what do you get for that? So what you get, well, okay, so here's the Arcade Game, ArcadeNet game list. Okay. And you're thinking, oh, okay, great. Look at all these genres. Look at all these platforms. Cool. And I'm looking down here and I notice, okay, this is displaying 1 through 20 of 104 titles. So it's 104 titles. Okay. And I'm thinking, okay, well, hey, let me click on this Atari and see what we get.
    8:34
    Oh, no games found. Okay, let's click on ColecoVision. No games found. Okay, how about Sega Genesis? four games I've never heard of let's go hold on I want to make a point here Sega Master System yeah doesn't add anything Game Gear doesn't add anything SFC whatever the heck that is doesn't add anything Deco Cassette System okay well it added one game Skater what did it add though it added Skater oh okay because there's no classification on each of the tiles about what platform they belong to. The only time anything really interesting happens I'm going to deselect all these is when you go Neo Geo. Okay. There you go. You got 28 Neo Geo games that it comes with. Yeah right. Okay. So that's pretty good. I mean you know Neo Geo games are at least you've probably heard of them. Yes. And they got Elf Mission 2 which is a great shooter. Right. You know you got your Metal Slug and Samurai Showdown. You know. So okay. That's cool. let's deselect Neo Geo let's go arcade only well then they throw in your pinball machines yeah right I do like those tiles but what the hell is Cisco Heat?
    9:53
    it looks like a help run knockoff what is Battle Flip Shot or Big Karnak or Birdie Try have you ever heard of these arcade games outside of being in Japan?
    10:04
    I've heard of Bang Busters before but not Bang Bang Busters might be the sequel point being why do you list all these platforms when literally only three of them are selectable more or less i can only think that they're doing it for expansion purposes later on like they set the categories now so that they can add to those categories over time but okay that's the only thing i can think of so does that mean you're gonna get a whole lot of game gear stuff on on there in the future. It's just like a preview of platforms. I don't know. Again, it just kind of feeds into that idea of, it's a little bit sneaky how these things are hidden. You're almost like embarrassed by what you have.
    10:52
    If you were proud of the games that you had, then you would make, like that PDF page should look like what the ArcadeNet page is, or at least we're getting the splash graphic. right um it should look like that and it should also have like a number of different ux improvements on it like a spreadsheet is not the way to present information on the web anymore like that you know you can have like data tables that allow you to filter and sort and and do all sorts of stuff so you can find the information you need easily not scroll a pdf that's just like web 2000 you know they want the technology back you know yeah so anyway i just wanted to yes make the correction but also B, make my point.
    11:34
    Yeah, well, I think we're probably going to get more mail. Mail time! That's okay. It's okay, though. Please do send us your mail, whether negative or positive, to Chris's direct email.
    11:48
    Because at least this way we know you're paying attention. That's right. You made the effort. Tell us that we're wrong, because he knows we're doing it right.
    11:57
    The other thing I wanted to highlight, so there's a YouTube channel, CoolToy it's run by the guy that does it, Doug, I don't know what Doug's last name is probably doesn't matter, anyway Doug does really nicely produced video for reviews and everything very good if you haven't checked him out, make sure you check him out but he just started posting videos of modding his marble one-up cab because as he put it the pcb died and so now he just has a shell and what are you going to do chuck it in the trash or turn it into something so so i think what he said is that at a very basic level yes a pcb but but it wasn't the game board pcb it was the interface pcb so the thing that controls all the buttons and everything right i think the actual like the things that has all the drivers for the solenoids and everything the haptics that auxiliary board failed and unfortunately that auxiliary board does a fair bit of stuff in the game so without that you've got a cabinet where the buttons don't work and the the actual um exciters don't work i mean the actuators don't work yeah which is not fun really so anyway he shows um basically like what a down and dirty, cheap way of getting the thing back up and running with a PC running your Steam games that you have. So, Pinball FX 3, basically.
    13:32
    It's a really good tutorial. He really lays it out well. And then he has a part two where he starts dumping money into it. And making the back glass a full monitor, and all of a sudden dealing with the actual plunger. Basically, he bought virtual pen plunger that has also the accelerometer in it for nudge purposes.
    13:56
    And there's going to be yet another video after that. Anyway, it's definitely worth a look. He's going all in, basically. He is, he is. He's going all in. And it's more than worth a look just from this point, which is, it makes no sense to buy a one-up cabinet to gut it, because when you see the money that's being dumped in to turn it into something, you might as well DIY yourself a much bigger screen and, you know, bigger everything, right? You pretty much buy it like a junk project pin to get the cabinet and then just gut the thing. Yeah. And start from there because it's really, it's a sunk cost fallacy if you buy one of these arcade one-ups to gut it right now from the outset. They're expensive for what they give you as far as the existing stuff you get with the product. so but where it's interesting is if your if your thing failed and you want to turn it you know keep on using because you like the form factor and everything else like that he's you know like the art etc on the side so it's definitely worth checking out and uh and seeing but like so far his mod i'm just doing the math in my head of how much it was costing um without the pc he was already up to i think about 170 dollars worth of parts um and that's not including the haptics that he's about to drop in and do a tutorial on and then you got to add in the cost of the pc which is probably going to be you know right around 500 bucks for something if you've got one of those like a lot of people who i think are buying the arcade one-ups that are looking to mod they probably already have a gaming spec pc which is ready to go but the thing that cool toy does differently is his pcs are designed to fit underneath the actual unit because there's quite a void underneath the unit um it's quite a yeah a recess under there you could put a nice little um uh gaming pc little small form factor pc under there and it would fit really nice and you'd be able to access all the all the stuff on it which is a top idea actually um to put it under there like that yeah plenty of really good ideas in there for someone who wants to go down this path so it's almost like a blueprint for what you can do see it's very cool yeah would recommend do watch it. So just wanted to kind of point that out too. It's one of those things I was watching this past week.
    16:18
    Our main topic. Crap. I really shouldn't have said it that way. See, I'm starting to steal, like, I've been watching too much of John Oliver's last week tonight.
    16:28
    That's where you get all main story tonight. So... On tonight's show. So we didn't have a show last week, which many of you were hoping were, because then we'd get to talk about what was revealed on episode two of the Pinball Show from Zen. Pinball Show.
    16:53
    So that is what we're going to be focusing on today, mainly being the fact that it comes down to a very simple announcement Star Wars VR That pretty much what the entire thing was about So good Now I suppose we should start with kind of the trailer Unfortunately, there's a lot of Star Wars music in it. There's a lot of John Williams music flying around in the Star Wars trailer. Who would have thought? Yeah, so we're going to have to watch it on mute because we'll get flagged if we play that. but unless we like talk gibberish over the top now that doesn't work i i've already tried that on one really yes when we did our uh our uh when we showed guns and roses the pinball machine and we were talking over it while it was playing and we still got flagged because you could hear the music so youtube you're too smart stop being so smart if you and your robots analyzing our videos So I just wanted to show, because I don't know how many of you were familiar with this. I caught it right away. But I'm going to show you just the beginning of way back in 1997. There was a trailer for the Star Wars Special Edition coming out. And it looked a little something like this. Let me get my mouse over there. There we go. Here we go. Oh, what happened? for its 20th anniversary there we go for an entire generation people have experienced Star Wars the only way it's been possible on the TV screen but if you've only seen it this way you haven't seen it at all okay gonna stop that before it plays it dun dun dun dun yeah so So the reason why I wanted to play that was, now let's look at Zen's trailer for Star Wars VR. For an entire generation, gamers have experienced Star Wars pinball the only way it's been possible, on an HD screen. But just wait till you play in VR.
    19:12
    Oh, it's the exact same kind of intro. Such a nice little point. It's so good. And the point of that, too, is they got permission from Lucasfilm to be able to do that. And they also got the original voiceover guy to do the intro to the thing, which is pretty cool. Yeah. So, yeah. What am I doing? Hitting the wrong buttons. The wrong one. Hitting the wrong buttons. I can tell you this much that I think the level of interaction that Zen is having with Lucasfilm this go around is a lot more than last round and I say that strictly because even Lucasfilm Gaming tweeted out the trailer yeah there's a little bit of integration so that's quite exciting I'm stoked to see that it's pretty cool but alright so let's we're going to watch the trailer on mute but me and Sherry can do commentary that's where we're capable we'll give it a go I feel like I wish I just had the script from old mate doing the intro I could read it live as the video's playing alright here we go so we're going to do without the audio here finger on the pause button ready to go So obviously we're seeing Rebels and Jedi.
    20:40
    Wooshka. Oh, hey, look at this. This is, there's your VR room. Yeah. Your den, if you will. So you got the one table right there smack dab in the middle. Little shelving unit for it looks like I'm assuming, I'm assuming everything in here is like crap that you can earn. Looks like it. I mean, that's what I'm assuming. Yeah. There's a lot of display areas in this. So, like, have a look at the shelves over to the left and everything. So, there we go with Empire.
    21:13
    There's a Jedi. Oh, hey, look at that. So, that is from Empire. It's one of the modes that you can go into. But it looks like now you get to do a VR mode. Like, that and full VR. You get to have a lightsaber battle. Yeah, that's pretty cool. That's kind of cool. I like that.
    21:31
    That'll be different, certainly. Oh, there we go again. So this looks different from... It's the same thing that you play. Again, in Jedi, you can go into this mode and be able to play this. But it's embedded in the cabinet. Right. So this is like full-on, like you're on the speeder bike, and you're controlling it with this mini-pilot. Yeah, it's going to look... Like here it looks kind of small. Even the DMD looks kind of small. but I imagine that when you're in VR, it's going to look massive.
    22:07
    Yeah, I could probably say that, because you've played some experiences in VR where you're looking at a playback video of it, and it's like, oh, this is really tiny, but when you're in it and it's right there, it's way bigger than what... So I'm expecting this to be incredible, this mode.
    22:27
    So... Yeah, see, here we go. Yeah, so change decorations. There you go. Yeah, yeah. I knew I'd seen something. Oh, there's the Mandalorian table. Yeah.
    22:37
    That's kind of a crazy view. I don't know if that's a view that you can do while in VR. Like, table view? That's kind of crazy. It's pretty sweet. Drop right in there. I've seen Zen do a lot of these, like, almost like pre-render, like, views inside the table. So maybe that's just one of them. So obviously characters to the side, just like what they've done on the previous VR. So that was obviously New Hope, Empire, Jedi. I think they're running through the tables that are here. Rogue One. Rogue One, yeah. Masters of the Force Boo.
    23:14
    Rebels. It's good to see Rebels in there. Oh, new table. What do we have here? This is Star Wars Collectible, which we'll have the trailer for that also. Yes. But here's a brand new table also in addition to the Mandalorian. So, let me say there's 21 Star Wars tables. There's Mandalorian. I'm going to pause on Mandalorian here. I just want to take a look at this. I don't think I've looked at this table properly here until just this moment. I was like, how come I've not paused?
    23:44
    There's a lot of stuff going on. Look at what is going on here. You've got this little swirly scoop here. You've got one, two, three, four flippers. I think that Swirly Scoop is actually the forge from the because it's you know where they put the actual the metal ingots yeah the name of it the special metal that's really rare and Mando always tries to get it I think that's a forge that thing see the little blue things coming up like the flames it's probably a little bit hard to see in there but I can see the little things sticking out I'm only seen this because I've only just watched both seasons of Mando. It's like really... Kind of making sense all of a sudden, huh? So what they said, and you can... It's hard to make out here, but the inserts, these are all the chapter episodes from the first season. So obviously you're going to be doing modes based... Those are going to be your modes.
    24:42
    Yeah. I think... It's a bit hard to see from this shot, but I think... I know. Maybe if I play a little bit more, it'll show a little bit more. might go in a bit more I don't know let's see nope it just that's all you got that's what you get that's what I think it looks like they're all episodes from the that's cool it's all from the same timeline yeah there we go yeah yeah all from I don't know the same timeline if there's two seasons of Mando it looks like there was only like what ten modes in there? I wonder if they've just done Season 1. No, they did. They said that's only Season 1. Season 1. Okay.
    25:27
    Bring on a Season 2 table. That's exciting, because then you know, hey, more table coming up, right? Yeah, bring on a Season 2 table. Based on what I've seen there, hell yeah, let's have more of that.
    25:40
    So we'll take a look at the Star Wars Collectibles table in a moment, but initial reaction to this, everybody went Hey, that looks really sweet, but here's the problem.
    25:54
    It said available on VR and available on Pinball FX. It did not mention Pinball FX 3. Yeah, they were quite, and they said this openly in episode two. It's like, yep, it's exciting to say that this is Quest and FX.
    26:16
    That's it. Yeah. which obviously bumped people out because they're like oh my god we're going to have to still wait and screw you vr people for getting first dibs yeah soz um and i mean even even i'm sitting there thinking uh well i've got my old rift vr is it going to work with that i know that they're designing it for obviously question quest 2 they did say steam vr so would that cover yeah okay yeah you should be able to use your you should be able to use your rift on on steam vr okay i'm so new to this i don't understand the the lingo because even i was going shoot i might not even be able to play the stable when it comes out for vr um you might be okay because i think steam vr is designed to work with with those headsets pretty well so i think you'll be okay okay i'm I'm going to check something real quick here.
    27:14
    Okay, yeah, I'm going to... Let me bring this up here, because this is... Live checking the internet facts. Vital information, look at there. So it says PlayStation VR, SteamVR, Oculus.
    27:25
    Yeah. So SteamVR, you're cool. SteamVR, you're cool, and PlayStationVR, you're cool. Yeah. That's going to be good news for the console. Now, I'm wondering, PlayStationVR...
    27:37
    So that would be playable... obviously PS4 and PS5 because I believe PS5 is using the same headset I'm not sure I'm not really into console stuff you're telling me news here yeah I don't know maybe but yeah so that's we don't know when pinball effects is coming out so it is definitely a case of how long is that wait going to be Well, from what the original, like from in episode one, the launch of TPS, they suggested later this year. So I'm calling quarter four this year. Not financial quarter, but like. I'm calling like, yeah, August, end of quarter three, beginning of quarter four is what I'm guessing. That is a long wait. It's a long gap. But. Yeah, we're in March now. Yeah, that's a lot of months. That's six months at least. We have thoughts on that. We're going to table those for a little bit later, though, because the other question that came up is, oh, wait, so this is a Star Wars VR app.
    28:51
    So it's separate. Is this what Zen's going to be doing for all the VR apps? Like, is there going to be a Williams VR app? Is there going to be a just Zen VR app? is everything going to be separated and if so oh that blows I want everything under the same roof yeah but I had a thought about that because I also had thoughts about that well because I realized because Jared had been telling me about his Quest 2 and the fact that it came in two different versions with different size memory you've got a 64 and a 256 gigabyte version that means you're storing the game on your headset yeah so it actually makes sense to have smaller chunked apps because we all know these pinball apps can grow rather large well look at the amount of like if you i think the the installation size for fx2 vr is something to the order of two gig for for that game and not much more for um the extra add-on pack so if you let's say 2.4 gig and on that package it's something to the order of like i'm trying to remember off the top of my head it's a about 15 tables i think maybe give or take just run with me on this so that's 2.4 gig and you look at the total collection of tables on FX3 being over 100 now, right?
    30:28
    That's nearly 25 gig just on, like if you just had it in one app alone. So that's, now for me, with also the ROM and all the other games on, I've pretty much nearly maxed out my 64 gig of storage. Like I've used about half of it. Which means anytime you want to play a different game other than pinball, you're going to have to uninstall pinball if it was a giant chunk right rather than going well i'll just take off you're going to have to make some hard decisions yeah if if you do it and if you don't like for example a set of like if you for you hate star wars for example you don't like it well then if you had to like have all that infrastructure in place in the one app to support all that then it wouldn't be any good like you you'd run out you run into problems real fast and the other thing too is that you know what zen does and we've seen this on mobile before they use their separate app things to try out new things so that they use their brands to try new new things with the products so they can actually iterate fast on things and like keep things separate and there is advantages of course for the license holders having it like that because they can say the license the licensors love it because it just yeah because it's their spotlight yeah it's their product it's got an like standalone entry in the app store it comes up in search results for that brand it's like advertising for them so while it may be a little inconvenient to go between apps. Let me tell you what that would look like because I've switched between Pinball FX and another app that I've got on there. It's literally, I'm done with this app now. Oculus menu, quit, back to your lobby, select the other game, you're in. So 30 seconds, thereabouts. You actually go from one app to another app. It's not a big deal.
    32:33
    Now, if they're going to be using the, let's say that let's this is speculation here let's say that they're going to be using the pinball fx base product so the baseline let's call it ecosystem framework for fx and they're going to roll all these brands on top of that framework then what you'll have is consistent leaderboards across all the apps you'll have consistent challenge mode challenge mode integration stuff across all those apps but the thing that'll be different is the product you're offering and the experience should again speculation should they go down the path of making more of these vr experiences for oculus and having these apps separate like they have yeah so you know what i'm actually kind of jazzed about that what does that do though for like okay So currently we have Pinball FX 2 VR. Yes. Is that only on the Steam store, or is that available on the Quest 2?
    33:40
    I can install that on all Oculus devices. So if I have a Rift, a Quest, a Quest 2, anything that's by Oculus, they've activated cross-buy on that. So once you buy it once, you can play it on any hardware you own. any Oculus hardware. I was just wondering if they're going to do a full reset.
    34:06
    So again, would they come out with Universal Studios VR and have that be a separate pack so it would have the the monsters tables uh the universal monsters jurassic park and then the uh back to the future et and jaws table because those tables not the jurassic park but the uh et jaws and back to the future are available in fx2 fx2 vr yes so that's why i'm kind of wondering i wonder how they would go about doing that would they would they get i can't imagine that they would continue using the fx2 vr to put in other no that's a dead it's a dead platform yeah um it well it has to be a dead platform now like it's uh i mean don't get me wrong it's i played it just the other day right It still functions. Yeah. It's very good. Like, it's not abandonware like Fastlight stuff. It is... But I imagine they could probably do better with... With the new platform. Oh, I'd imagine so. Like, based on what we see in that experience, like, having a look at the FX2 lobby experience and having a look at what you get in the Star Wars VR app, it's a... Like, it's way more interactive. It looks like you can actually, like, they have this term in VR called locomotion, which means basically you can move around and how you move around in VR. And that looks like you can't just be in a fixed position. It looks like you need to, like, walk around inside that space to get to things. Because, like, you know, there's a, over the far end, there's, like, a trophy cabinet. How are you supposed to navigate to that? It seems like you're walking around, which is kind of cool because that's not how it works in FX, too. No, I think, too, you're a static spot. Yeah, you're a fixed spot in your lounge, and then you can actually look around your environment, and that actually selects the pinball machine that you're looking at. Now, I don't know.
    36:15
    I'd like to see my lounge with a few more pinball machines in it than just one. Yeah, as we've seen with people displaying their arcade one-up, you know, mini arcades. They've got, like, whole walls of these things. It looks cool when you've got a bunch. It kind of looks sad when you only have one. yeah i mean it's very much a feature right in that area and that's pretty cool but the thing i really like about um the fx2 vr is how the environments change all the environment right the entire environment switches like when you're in when you're in paranormal it goes into like this like really dark jungle environment it looks so cool you're looking out the windows and you're seeing this complete environment change around you i wonder how they're going to do that and this app. I wonder if there's going to be some environmental effects around the table apart from the characters. Are you going to get immersed in the set pieces?
    37:10
    Right, so if you're in Jedi and all of a sudden you would select that table that maybe the walls and everything kind of become foresty or the green lighting changes to green. Maybe there's a grass patch now by your side. Yeah, that'd be cool. Or if you're playing Empire that everything goes to ice. That would be like that real immersion is what yeah because that real immersion is it's kind of what you want in vr you want that that break from reality it's almost like with this thing it seems like your you're like lair or whatever it is your den your star wars dungeon yeah yeah with all the cool stuff and it is the environment well what did what did what did echos call it or was it echos that said it? It was the basement. The basement. Because you had to climb under the staircase there. Yeah.
    37:59
    Also, very confusing. Too many ACOSs at Zen. We've got to fix that, guys. Yeah, stop it. ACOS must be like John in English.
    38:12
    Anyhow. It is interesting, though, because I've also heard this brought up recently, how people are like, oh, it's only going to have eight tables to start with. I so much prefer Zacharia just having everything available in VR. And like we said, it's one thing to do VR where you just flick a switch and it's VR. You got VR. But it's not... It's not pleasing to be in for an extended period of time. As opposed to this idea of a lobby to be able to look around to exit the game,
    38:48
    be able to look around. It'd be cool if you were able to move around a little bit um if you've got room scale like it's turned on in your vr you've got a big space that your vr is tracking i think the space is scaled it looks like it's scaled well enough that you could probably walk around you could at least walk around the table if you are indeed walking around the like if you're walking around this environment locomoting through the environment I reckon you could actually do that physical walk around the table and actually have a look into the details of the table from different angles if you had the space now that is something you can't do on FX2 and that would be really cool yeah FX2 you can only lean to the sides you can't do a full lap around the table well you know what I don't know if you can or not I have not tried it because I bump into a wall I've gotten all the way to the back of the table though and looked back forward oh you have? so you've actually looked forward into the oh there you go so you can do it in FX2 but I've never gone behind the back glass okay right well that's something to try that'd be funny if there was the little CE electrical warning label on the back of the back box see the cord coming down it would be really cool if they did that. It'd be kind of cool if they had some sort of Easter egg behind there. You know, like you say, like a CE label or something that's like it's funny. That'd be cool. I'd like to see that. Alright, we're going to... Just reward you for walking around the back of the table like some sort of stooge.
    40:35
    Alright. We're going off the rails here. Let's... We do that regularly. Yeah, let's settle back in. Let's take a look at the new table that was announced, which was Star Wars collectibles, or classic collectibles, I guess is what it's actually being called. So let's bring it. I'm just not even going to play yet. I'm just going to go check out the action figures. That's rad. It's pretty sweet. Yeah. I just like that right off the bat. Looks like there's a Commodore 64 in the background.
    41:05
    Yeah. Is that sort of like, I wasn't really into the Star Wars collectibles at the time. Is that sort of like what the box would look like if you were in a retail store?
    41:15
    Thematically, the top card would be that sort of art on it. Yeah, it was a big... And you'd have the little title card down the bottom. Yeah, you just had the big Star Wars across the top, and then it had the blister pack with the figure just floating in it. And then to the side of that was an image from the movie.
    41:33
    Ah, there you go. So they pretty much emulated that feel in there, which is cool. So this one is Star Wars music the entire time So while we play this Before you go Before you go, look at the brand on the TV Universum I like it Very funny So we're playing Wooshka Whoa, look at that thing Hello Jackpot Wait, what thing? Hold on Look at the big curly tower Hello Jackpot yeah looks like so it's captured ball probably yeah it looks like a magnet there or something I'm not sure is it that no that's just a stand up it's right over here it's the same thing that's just a stand up yeah but even these little lightsabers they look like very toyish yeah very toyish so I'll go through here looks like we got a little toy falcon there got the X-Wing in the back.
    42:43
    Straight-up action figure Jabba the Hutt. Looks like Jabba the Hutt to blow up. Oh, no, that's actually... Well, I mean, I see what you're saying from the glossy, but that was how the character was. You wiggled his head, and the tail wiggled. Oh, right, okay. His head, it would wiggle the tail.
    43:03
    So they've actually got the original... I've obviously done it. I'd be curious to know if they licensed from Hasbro or Kenner, because I think Kenner Toys got bought out by Hasbro. By Hasbro, yeah. But I'm curious to know if they licensed their molds.
    43:20
    Or if their action figures are slightly different enough that they don't have to claim. I don't know. That's kind of interesting. I love that. There's just like this eject of the action figure and then it comes to life.
    43:32
    It's like they come out of the play field. They come out of the packaging. It's a spring that popped it. It's freaking cool. I like this.
    43:44
    And they look like toys. I was going to say, hold on, let me go back there to what Chewie looked like. So Chewie, okay, so here's the thing. Chewie was never articulated that way. Oh, okay. I mean, you know, he didn't, no, he was a stiff arm. He went like that. That was the extent of Chewie's arms. But obviously that would be boring for animated purposes. So I wonder what he's in the box. If he's got the elbow joint or not.
    44:14
    Hmm. All right. Well, it looks like there's locks in the back there. We can see that there's almost like a... There's a multi-ball, lock one, lock two. It's like a ramp. It's like a ramp at the back there or something, maybe. Yeah. I don't know what that is. That thing in the middle that you're hovering the mouse over looks interesting. Right. It looks like a... A loop thing. I was going to say a loop, or does this maybe... Do these block and come down? So, like, you have to open the... the, like, do they hinge up and down? It looks like a hinge. It almost looks like they're kind of emulating the TIE fighter wings. Right, that's what I was thinking myself too. Emperor all sitting back there. Boing! Figures flying all over the place. I think they said that there was 12 action figures that could be collected.
    44:58
    12. Relive classic moments. Oh yeah, see? See the thing moving? Go back a bit. Hold on, hold on. All right, pause.
    45:09
    Where's the pause button? I think this is where the moment that you're... Yeah, the thing, that loop thing moves. Get my...
    45:20
    Oh, yeah, it's closed right there. Yeah. Yeah, okay. And that's all the figurines. That's pretty cool. Oh, yeah. And look at that. Pinball FX, Star Wars Pinball VR. Hold on, I got to... Not Pinball FX 3.
    45:33
    I got to see what action figures that they have here. You've got Han, Jabba, Jawa, Lando, Leia, Luke, Obi-Wan.
    45:42
    Scout Trooper, Storm Trooper. What, there's like 15? I thought it was 12. 12? I thought that's what Mel had said in the episode.
    45:57
    Okay. Could be. Anyway, that's pretty cool. That's interesting. That's an interesting looking table. I mean, for a Xen original to come up with something completely on their own, but still fit into the vibe of the era that they're playing with, because we're dealing with classic trilogy,
    46:17
    it's a question of how it plays, ultimately, obviously. It looks like there's a lot of interesting stuff to interact with there. There's a lot of, I can see, like, Xen originals always play homage to other tables. So you've got elements of Jackpot with the spiral, and, sorry, PinBot, sorry, originally, with the spiral and JackBot. So it looks like they've done something different with that spiral. It looks like there's two paths that you can take on it from the video, which will be interesting to see. And that diverter thing up the back, that's going to be interesting to see how that interacts with the ball and what it allows you to do, because it looks like it's like an integral part to how you access RAMs. just from the way the balls were flying around it.
    47:07
    So let's think here a minute, though, about licensing, because it's our favorite topic. Yeah, licensing that.
    47:15
    I mean, obviously, again, it's not just a matter of licensing with Lucasfilm. Oh, yeah. They're licensing with a toy company also. Again, if assuming, now, nowhere does it mention, I mean, in the fine print at the end, it doesn't say Kenner or Hasbro. No. That'll be a question that we'll have to... See if we can get an answer from someone, maybe Bill. We don't know what that is. But it does... We keep on coming back to this idea that once they went with Embracer Group, that there was an influx of capital. Influx of capital allows you to do bigger and larger ideas. More grandiose things. Yeah. And this would exactly be that sort of thing. licensing with a toy company to put their toys into yours and and to be able to do that so that's a very big like that cross licensing if this is the the way that zen is going to position themselves in what was going to be their 10-year plan but seems to now be there i think mel said at one point it would be like a three and a half year plan now with all the with the money bin of money that they're rolling around in from embracer um if this is the approach then we're in for a wild ride because well again i keep on coming back to that they want they're wanting to uh find inroads to the asian market yeah and toys and collectibles are definitely a big part of that oh yeah i just think of your you know all the hello kitty stuff Can you imagine a Hello Kitty table?
    48:55
    It'd be so pink. It'd be incredible. Yeah, but how many units would it shift? A lot. That's how many. Right. So I think that we're seeing glimmers and glimpses of what we can expect.
    49:14
    If you put your crystal ball into play and you look at the evidence in front of you, there's some stuff going on. Yeah. And look, we make no bones about it. We're definitely half-glassful kind of guys.
    49:31
    Yeah, well... We roll with the punches. Why would you want to be negative? You could totally easily be negative about this. Oh, absolutely. But if I'm already a fan of the game, I want to look for the positives and find things that I want to get excited about regarding it leading up to the point of playing. Like I said, I'm sure that when I first saw Masters of the Force, I was like, ooh, hey, that looks, oh, yeah. And then I played Masters of the Force and I went, this thing sucks. Yeah, that's right.
    50:01
    Yeah. It looked really shiny. And it looked really, really cool. And then you play it and you go, hmm, okay, what's the next table? Yeah.
    50:13
    As opposed to, like, Starfighter Assault, which is awesome. I wonder if it will work better in VR like sometimes you know think of like Paranormal in flat screen Paranormal in VR is night and day incredible so I wonder if that, because that table like the Masters of the Force table always struck me as being a mess it didn't have enough depth in it to actually comprehend what was going on I'm not a fan of splitting the playfield in half with imagery that's hard on my eye and that's not the only table that has done that either it was like Starfighter did the same thing didn't it? yeah but it makes me think though we were talking before about what this VR platform is going to be the start of like you were saying this will be 21 tables now we see 8 in there at the moment I mean they even hinted sort of in TPS2 that well you know if it popular enough we might see some more tables in the future coming to the VR platform It's like, it's going to be popular. People are going to buy this thing. I mean, if you want pinball on VR, you've got FX2 VR and now this. And that is your only options. Well, I was going to say it also gives them a chance to, okay, so they drop eight Star Wars tables. And then let's say next they go, hey, here's eight Williams tables.
    51:57
    And then after that, they drop, you know, some Zen tables. But it gives the team a chance to, yeah, gauge interest, but also not have to prepare everything for a giant dump. They can be spread out over time. because I think that's for the VR people yeah for the VR people you don't want to all of a sudden have here's everything and it's going to cost you this much no that's a big ticket shock hell so you want to be able to stage it out so you pay whatever this is going to be on release and then you like you know maybe three months down the track six months down the track when you sort of explored the games that they have on there and really had fun with them you get oh there's there's i don't know three more six more yeah i don't know how they do it you know um you could even probably split up the way they split the packs on steam and like group them just like do a carbon copy of that dlc but just release them in vr and then you know they'd have time to do all the all the extra character animations and I guess in some ways it's probably maybe easier for them to not theme the environment like they did in FX2 VR because it means all they need to do is plonk you in front of the pinball machine, have a few characters doing things around you and then that's it, you don't have to worry about re-theming the entire room, because I imagine that's probably non-trivial to do No, you're probably right So that would allow them to actually release more frequently these DLC packs, potentially. By having that static sort of environment, like, this is the environment, change the characters, you're done, ship it. I know it's not as easy as that, but it's easier if you don't have to worry about all the other environment stuff. Right. So, let's kind of talk for a moment, and this is pure... Here we go. Speculation! Wee! There's plenty of that in this guy. Our other favorite thing, beyond licensing, we love speculating um yeah so people were like we said they're a little upset over the fact of we don't know when pinball effects is coming out and therefore if they don't own vr there's this large gap between when they're being able to buy more tables for their thing and they're like this is unacceptable i want tables now so the other thing that we don't know and you can go any number of ways on this right but we don't know are your previous table purchases going to carry forward into pinball effects and as i argued before the licensors certainly don't want that they want that second bite of the apple yeah they want more money thanks that's thank you and to be honest i'm saying this is why lucasfilm is working with zen right now they pumped out a completely separate game for switch not that switch had the ability to buy uh star wars previously but boom they pumped out a separate game for that now they're doing it for vr so if you owned it on the switch and then you want it VR, there's bite number two, right? And then let's say you also had it on the PC, boom, there would be that bite number three. On tables that were made, what, eight years ago? Yeah. Some of them? Uh-huh. So as far as Lucasfilm is concerned, they're like, well, yeah, that was eight years ago. Come on, keep the revenue going. You want the license? You want to keep the license? This is what you're going to have to do for us. This is where my head is going. It makes sense, because eight years is a long time to have exclusivity on a license like this. Right.
    55:55
    Now, it's possible in that same kind of vein that maybe all the Zan Originals carry over. Maybe. So, you know, I don't know. Maybe it's because they own the properties. Exactly. They would own it. There's no residuals that they have to pay out to anybody other than themselves. Okay. It would make sense that they come over and they would almost be like you download Pinball FX later on in the year and you get those tables maybe included. Maybe because they're owned by Zen. So maybe you have to throw them in like, hey, here's a starting lot. You buy the app and it's like 20 bucks, but you get all these tables and they're probably going to be like retouched with new physics and stuff like that. So it'll be a different experience on them. So anyway, let's... I don't know.
    56:52
    Speculation again. Again, before we go too far in the weeds in one direction, we're going to focus in on this. Let's assume, or not assume, let's again pretend that this is the case, that it is going to be a case of Tales aren't going to be transferring over. So if Zen is holding things like Mandalorian and Star Wars collectibles from you being able to purchase until Pinball FX comes out,
    57:18
    isn't that kind of actually an ethical business decision? Rather than letting you buy it now and then saying a few months down the line, oh, you're going to have to buy it a second time, in which case everybody's going to be really pissed off about that too? Yeah. Well, yes, as long as they couldn't have done some sort of interim deal with Lucasfilm to say, hey, look, if anyone buys it on this platform, they get automatically upgraded to this one. True. Later on. They could have done that. This is true. Yeah. But that's also... This also makes me wonder,
    57:58
    because I don't think there isn't a reason why some of these tables couldn't wind up coming to FX3, but obviously Zen was going to want you to be in Pinball FX. This is the vision forward. right so i would almost wonder if it's a case where things will become to pinball effects and then a couple months down the road hey do you want it for fx3 you can buy it for fx3 if you didn't want to go the pinball effects room you know for whatever reason you didn't want to go there you know because again we don't know it might be like what happened with uh pinball effects 2 where a couple of the titles the licenses don't drop off they drop off they don't carry over to the next one in which case you're like but i'm still going to be playing pinball effects i'd rather everything be there i don't know there's many ways that this can go but i am kind of leaning towards the idea that zen is using this as a clean break they have the past 10 years they're looking forward to the next 10 years pinball effects is it and if you have to have a clean starting from ground zero square one point this is it yeah i think you know i think having the clean delineation between like fx3 like the old version style fx's to this new versionless Windows 10 version of Pinball FX, it might be a bit of sticker shock to start with, like if you will have to rebuy everything. But I think the chances that you have to rebuy everything again in the short to medium term would probably be reduced significantly because of the way, you know, the Windows 10 model where you've got one version of Windows now and he just keeps getting patches for it and you don't have to buy a new version to get them. So if you have all your games under this Pinball FX platform, then you'll need to re-buy them again, say, in three years' time. Because it seems to be, up until now, it was like a three-year cadence on platforms, right? Like FX2 to FX3, that was around for pretty much a console lifestyle. Yeah, it's a console lifecycle.
    60:19
    Yeah, so if they just got this Pinball FX platform and they'd license things accordingly and say, hey, look, this is now perpetual on this platform for X number of years, like, say, let's say six. No idea if that's what it is, but let's go six years. That way people won't have to, once they buy them on this platform, they won't have to rebuy it again. If they come in from day zero and buy it, they'll have it for six years. Of course, people who come in three years down the track won't have that, but, you know, they'll still have it for three years or something like that. Because I'm even wondering if, and this is looking at the Switch, if it'll be a case of, yeah, Marvel pinball tables just plain aren't available until they come out as a pack. You know, the star Wars is going to come out as a pack. I don't think, I don't think that I don't think the steam version is going to be, uh, or I should say the PC version. I don't know what, again, we don't know what this is all being released on. Um, but, uh,
    61:20
    I don't think that, that's going to be fractured into different things. No, I think the PC audience kind of has set the bar about what they want from a user experience there. I think on the consoles, potentially as well,
    61:39
    so on your PlayStation, your Xboxes, I've got a feeling that that is going to be pinball effects as a platform and all your DLCs contained inside there. But I think on Oculus... The Switch is kind of that weird mobile thing, almost. I think they're going to be separate. And I think you're right with the VR, it'll be separate. Yeah, I think it's going to be separate on the VR platforms. And there's, like we discussed previously, there's architectural reasons why you might need to do that.
    62:10
    And likewise on the Switch, because the Switch has limited space as well. PCs, consoles typically don't. They have large hard drives that you can install things on. yeah your switch doesn't have a one terabyte hard drive on it it does not so you've got space concerns there so segmenting them up into brands is a great idea as much as people will probably push back on that it actually makes a lot of sense to do that from a space management perspective so yeah so where are we going with this thought process though oh yeah i was saying somewhere we always go somewhere no i think i think that this is where i'm just kind of looking at the uh trying to find positives in potential negatives um because there's gonna be people out there going you want me to rebuy everything get stuff yes absolutely thank you right and and they're gonna be and again same with the people that are like and i have to wait how long screw that. Get stuffed. Right. Like, no way. I don't want to wait until the end of the year. But the flip side of that to me is hey, if Zen is purposely holding these things back because they also don't want the backlash of you just sold this to me and now I can't even carry it over to the next version. I'm going to have to buy it all over again. It's almost like you can be angry with us now or you can be angry with us later but you're going to be angry with us so whenever you want to do that doesn't matter when we're just like you know yeah i again it'll be very interesting to see i i'm dying to know i'm really dying to know what as much as you guys sit there and go we want info how come there's no communication believe me we want info too because oh yeah we've speculated ourselves in circles on all the potential possibilities that can come here and basically we've set our expectations at a nice neutral so that we're not peaking high or you know delving low it's just kind of like just let us know the info so that we know how to react uh at a more visceral level there give us a little bit to chew on so that leading up to the launch later on the year we can sort of like then speculate based on fact about what that might look like rather than just like well i'm not like we're not going to get ourselves into a tizzy over something that isn't yeah you know so i need to get worked up over something that's not actually going to be an outcome anyhow so yeah because i mean i was literally just having this discussion in a thread about people that are worried about that being a subscription model um that everything is going to be you pay a subscription and that's how you're going to get your uh you know your tables i'm like you guys all at games players with arcade now oh um well you know they do have things like you know the google play now has their own subscription based model as do ios so you know i think that the zen tables and stuff have actually ended up on there or sorry not zen tables i think they've got the other brands have been on there like but i'm talking about people that are worried that if they're not going to be able to purchase the tables cleanly outright outright oh yeah at all that they're freaking out and my my point in the thread was you're creating a problem that doesn't exist yet so that you can complain about it so that then if the problem never materializes you can go yes all of our complaining mattered yeah when well it may not have been on the table to begin with so you just basically patted yourself on the back um that's not to say that you can't address those concerns and be like god i really hope that it's not a subscription only that we have this option because this is what you know obviously you as consumers need to to proclaim what it is that you want um but there is that factor of sometimes you don't know what you want until you're presented with it yeah well you know it's a henry ford model isn't it yeah you know you don't you don't want a car you just want faster horses until you have a car and then you realize oh that's actually quite good right you know so we're we're in the dark we don't know um it's it's very much a a guessing game and seeing where we're going you know it's just a matter of writing the comments and seeing what people are saying and and like i said yes we're always going to look for the silver lining that's us yeah you don't like that then you're tuning into the wrong station yeah oh yeah we are captain positivity here um as anybody that noticed us all the way during our farsight years um you know it's not that we quickly turned on farsight is that suddenly we got something better yeah that And we went, you're dead to us, Farsight. Oh, right. That's right. We didn't know this was bad until we saw somebody do it much better. Yeah. Then we went, yeah, Farsight, no.
    67:18
    Well, Farsight kind of went no themselves. Yeah, they noped out of everything. Yeah. All right. Well, that's our show. Wow. Kind of went spaghetti here.
    67:35
    Yeah. Enjoy slicing that up into blockade minis, mate. Good luck. We are back in two weeks, I believe, is what our schedule will tell us. I think so, yes.
    67:50
    What it'll be about is a good guess, but you can maybe drop us ideas for what you'd like it to be about. Just, you know, right down there at the Twitter, send us a message. you can also drop us an email at blahblahblockade at gmail.com we certainly enjoy interacting with those stuff drop a comment in YouTube on this let us know what it is you want us to discuss and talk about we're more than happy to take suggestions on that stuff but beyond that what next week will be about?
    68:22
    stuff and things there you go alright until next time folks bye bye