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2019 in review, and more!

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 22m·held·Dec 30, 2019
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

2019 pinball review: Zen dominates digital, Farsight fades, 1UP pinball cabinet rumors emerge.

Summary

BlahCade hosts Chris Friebus and Jared Morgan review 2019 in pinball, discussing digital pinball releases from Zen (Volumes 3-5, physics updates), Magic Pixel/Zachariah (UI improvements, platform expansion), and Farsight's stagnation. They speculate on 2020 developments including 1UP Arcade's rumored digital pinball cabinet with Williams tables, potential Zen licensing surprises, and retail pinball cabinet iterations.

Key Claims

  • Zen Studios released Volumes 3, 4, 5, and the Monsters Pack in 2019, plus new physics updates that improved ball behavior and weight simulation

    high confidence · Chris and Jared discussing Zen's 2019 output; direct discussion of release cadence and physics improvements

  • Zen Switch received all Star Wars tables, making it up to date with other platforms, and Zen was the first Star Wars game on Switch

    high confidence · Chris states 'Switch got all the Star Wars tables' and 'first Star Wars game on the Switch'; later corrects himself that it was Zen, not Farsight

  • Farsight released no new pinball tables in 2019 despite promises, only a pinball soccer mobile app and a Pinball Cadet update

    high confidence · Chris explicitly: 'there was no new table coming' except newsletter; discusses Pinball Soccer as mobile app

  • Farsight abandoned pursuit of Stern license and new engine development, choosing to recycle existing Gottlieb content for Toy Shock Walmart cabinet

    medium confidence · Chris: 'They are not even pursuing the Gottlieb license anymore...they just recycled the junk they've already got' and 'they're truly done and over with with stern'

  • Toy Shock's 12-in-1 Gottlieb pinball cabinet sold out at Walmart and Sam's Club despite complaints about bezel design and flipper lag

    high confidence · Chris: 'completely sold out' at Walmart and Sam's Club; discussion of flipper lag complaints and bezel quality issues

  • Magic Pixel/Zachariah completed their remake table run, upgraded UI, released on Switch and Xbox, working on PS4 version, and planned more premium tables for 2020

    high confidence · Chris and Jared discuss Zachariah completing remakes, platform expansion, and Facebook post about 2020 plans for PS4 and premium versions

  • 1UP Arcade is bringing a digital pinball cabinet to CES in January 2020 featuring Williams tables, possibly with live backglass, small DMD display (~7 inch), and ~30 inch playfield

    medium confidence · Jared posted video link in Digital Pinball Fans Forum; Chris and Jared discuss speculation based on podcast references about features; Jared speculates price point ~$6.99 (currency unclear)

Notable Quotes

  • “if you have played real pinball, you'll know the ball does not whip around at lightning speed. And I beg you to go watch Spacey's Arcade, Greg's video, where he puts a marble on the table because that nailed it.”

    Chris Friebus @ ~13:00 — Defends Zen's new physics against player complaints about ball speed being too slow; references authoritative comparison video

  • “they're not dropping tables in time with them because they actually wanted to see the movies. So then they could develop a story based on that.”

    Chris Friebus @ ~20:30 — Explains Zen's strategy for Star Wars table releases, suggesting new tables will come after video release; establishes precedent for staggered content strategy

  • “I put a fork in it. It's well and truly done. There's nothing... They are moving on to other... They're not even pursuing the Gottlieb license anymore.”

    Chris Friebus @ ~38:30 — Declarative statement of finality about Farsight's pinball development; signals industry perception that Farsight has abandoned core pinball licensing

  • “the amount...the thing that's great about about magic pixel is that when they get a license they absolutely utilize every last bit of that license to really drive a really well polished product”

    Jared Morgan @ ~47:00 — Praises Magic Pixel's execution; contextualizes quality differential between manufacturers and potential for Gottlieb license opportunity

  • “Mel specifically in one of his tweets said we've got holy grail licensing we've really excited about what's going on in 2020 and things are going to get wild.”

    Chris Friebus @ ~70:30 — Teases major Zen announcement; hosts speculate this could relate to physical pinball cabinet partnership

Entities

Chris FriebuspersonJared MorganpersonZen StudioscompanyMagic PixelcompanyFarsight Studioscompany1UP ArcadecompanyToy ShockcompanyTastemakerscompanyWilliamsgame|product

Signals

  • ?

    product_launch: Zen Studios released new physics engine for digital pinball tables in 2019, improving ball weight simulation and variability over previous volumes

    high · Chris and Jared extensively discuss improvements to ball physics, comparing earlier volumes' 'draggy' flipper action to newer snappier mechanics; community complaint about slower ball speed addressed by hosts as weight vs. speed confusion

  • $

    market_signal: Toy Shock 12-in-1 Gottlieb cabinet achieved complete sellout at major retail chains (Walmart, Sam's Club) despite quality complaints, signaling strong retail demand for affordable pinball products

    high · Chris: 'completely sold out' at Walmart and Sam's Club; hosts discuss this as validation that refined cabinet could capture larger market

  • ?

    machine_intel: 1UP Arcade planning digital pinball cabinet release with Williams license, targeted for CES January 2020 showcase with features including live backglass, small DMD, ~30 inch playfield

    medium · Jared posted YouTube video in Digital Pinball Fans Forum; speculation based on podcast references cited in video; hosts identify Williams as most likely due to 1UP's nostalgic market positioning

  • ?

    industry_signal: Farsight Studios appears to have abandoned core pinball licensing and development, evidenced by zero new table releases in 2019 and shift to mobile/retail partnerships

    high · Chris declaratively: 'I put a fork in it. It's well and truly done' and 'they're truly done and over with with stern'; observation that Toy Shock cabinet reuses existing Gottlieb content rather than new releases

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.247

0:00
blockade pinball podcast this is the blockade pinball podcast i'm your host chris freebus aka shut your trap joining me as always halfway across the world jared morgan well hello there How are you going? How I'm going is I'm going. The Christmas holidays are past. We are about to head into the new year. So, you know, it's that mild chaos, I guess. Indeed. Not only that, but into the new decade. Oh, yeah. That's happening, isn't it? Yeah, it's a thing. Well, apparently it's the new decade. Some people will tell you that it starts this time next year. But no one actually knows. Those people can just go right to hell. It's a new decade, folks. Well, tell us how you really think, Chris.
1:01
It's Aussie, Chris. That's what's going on here. Here's the thing that I like about this particular decade, starting now, is now we can say, hey, we're in the 20s. It's really weird saying you're in the teens, and it was dreadful trying to do anything that was in the aughts. In the aughts. Noughts. The noughties. Yeah. So, I mean, because it's weird how – so back then everything was 2008, right? It doesn't – and then even when you got to 2010 and then these past 10 years have kind of gone into now like, oh, yes, 2018, 2019. But now saying 2020 or just saying it's 2021, it just flows so much better. But, you know, there's something that's going to be a bit interesting with the 20s now being the thing. we're going to have to be quite specific when we want to actually do like a 1920s gangsters and flappers party we're going to have to say 1920s now rather than 20s because it's not going to be a very good gangsters and flappers part it just turns up with what we're wearing now is it although yeah i know i definitely see your point but it makes me wonder were anybody in the 1920s worried about what the 1820s were thinking well maybe i don't think they probably would have had the concept of, oh, let's do a dress-up party of the 90s. Right, because they only had three outfits complete anyway. Pretty much, yeah. I don't think they had the luxury of actually having costume shops with zoot suits available for them. Right. You know, they had their dress finery, their work clothes, and the other clothes. Yeah, probably their pajamas or their sleeping clothes. Yeah. Or maybe they're there, I've gotten home, I've got to take off the work clothes and I'll put on this other, the house clothes. Call it the house clothes. House clothes, yes. It's one of those things that I learned from watching, when I watched Deadwood, which I don't know if you ever saw that, but it was basically the whole gold rush mining, but up in the Dakotas. And so, you know, Wild West kind of thing. I've heard of it. And, you know, of course, everybody had the exact same outfit that they wore every single day, but you could see where it was, you know, their jackets were tattered and everything. And what a huge deal it was when they were able to buy a new jacket. You know. It was like a big deal. Like they might get one once every couple of years. Right. I mean, this, you think about it, that was now going to be your look from that point forward.

  • Zen Studios has 'holy grail licensing' and plans surprises for 2020, potentially including physical pinball cabinet involvement

    medium confidence · Chris references Mel's tweets about 'holy grail licensing' and excitement about 2020; speculation that this could relate to 1UP cabinet deal

  • Farsight was unable to get head-to-head functionality working for Alvin G Soccer table due to latency issues and never released it

    medium confidence · Jared: 'they were developing it...they couldn't get the latency working out for it...it never saw the light of day'

  • Demon's Tilt moved from early access to general availability in 2019, though community feedback suggests underdeveloped modes and repetitive gameplay

    medium confidence · Chris: 'gone from what do they call early access to GA in this year'; discussion of complaint about repetitive modes and lack of intuitive gameplay

    • Gottlieb
    company|product
    Medieval Madnessgame
    Star Warsgame|product
    Demon's Tiltgame
    Pinball Soccergame
    Melperson
    Spacey's Arcadecontent_creator|venue
    Digital Pinball Fans Forumorganization
    Alvin Ggame|designer
    The Williams Pinball Mobilegame
    CESevent
    Mondial International Corporationcompany
    Scientific Gamescompany

    product_strategy: Zen Studios employs strategic timing for IP table releases, delaying Star Wars tables until after movie video release to develop story-based content

    medium · Chris paraphrases Mel's explanation: 'they're not dropping tables in time with them because they actually wanted to see the movies...develop a story based on that'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Community divide over Zen's new physics update regarding ball speed perception; hosts reframe as weight vs. speed issue, citing marble comparison video as authority

    medium · Extended discussion of community complaints about slower ball speed; hosts defend via Spacey's Arcade marble physics reference; consensus that newer physics feel more realistic

  • ?

    product_concern: Toy Shock Gottlieb cabinet experiences flipper lag issues ranging from milliseconds to full seconds, affecting playability and causing family players to abandon the game

    medium · Chris: 'flipper lag on the Toy Shock version...Some people aren't. Some people are saying it's up to a millisecond, up to a second'; anecdote of family unable to play due to timing disruption

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Toy Shock planning multiple cabinet art variations and design improvements (black bezel versions) for 2020 based on first-generation feedback and competitive pressure

    medium · Chris: 'they're creating a black one...releasing different cabinet art versions of the cabinet in the new year to compete with the other ones'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Zen Studios teased major 2020 announcement with 'holy grail licensing' mentioned in tweets, generating speculation about physical pinball partnership with 1UP Arcade

    medium · Chris: 'Mel specifically in one of his tweets said we've got holy grail licensing...things are going to get wild'; hosts speculate physical cabinet partnership aligns with teaser

  • ?

    product_launch: Magic Pixel/Zachariah completed multiplatform release strategy (Switch, Xbox, PS4 in progress) with UI upgrades and cross-platform upgrade support for existing customers

    high · Chris discusses Switch/Xbox/PS4 releases; Zachariah Facebook post announced 2020 PS4 release plans and premium table versions

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Stern licensing fees represent significant barrier to entry for digital pinball developers; new Stern digital licensing consolidated IP payments but still requires substantial upfront cost

    medium · Chris: 'any of the titles that they want to do carry a huge hefty licensing fee...stern has now incorporated digital licensing...you still have to pay the licensing fee...fork over the benjamin'

  • ?

    content_signal: BlahCade podcast extended 2019 review into 2020 speculation about retail/digital pinball cabinets, representing community engagement with industry hardware developments

    low · Episode structure dedicating substantial discussion to 1UP Arcade rumor sourced from YouTube video and forum posts; represents podcast's role in amplifying and contextualizing unconfirmed industry news

    • 3:36
    That's right. You had to be very careful of what you bought. Right. Yeah. And yeah. But it'd make it a lot easier to identify people because it's like, you know, the cartoons, you know, Scooby-Doo. They always wear the exact same outfits. Yeah, exactly right.
    3:50
    And the Simpsons, you know. All cartoons, really. Yeah, you know. All right, but that's not what you all came to here to be with, right? We're going to kind of do a little, I mean, it's not much to year in review, but let's do a little year in review in pinball, shall we? Let's do that. Let's start with the big obvious, and that would be with Zen. Think about what we have gotten this past year. Basically, we got Volume 3, 4, 5, and the Monsters Pack.
    4:25
    Top quality, DMD, Williamson Valley pinball. Not bad for one year. Not bad. And, you know, from a release cadence perspective, that's kind of the release cadence you need to get quality. if you think about it. And in between there, the Switch got all the Star Wars tables, so they're now up to date with everybody else.
    4:53
    And that was no small feat for Farsight to pull off, and it's one they're still very proud of, being the fact that they are the first Star Wars game on the Switch.
    5:02
    Yeah, I mean Xen, not Farsight. Oh, excuse me, yes, Xen. Did I say Farsight? Oops. Yeah, you did. For those wondering, not much Farsight news to talk about in the year in review. But we'll get to that. We will get to that. Right at the end. Yes, right at the end.
    5:20
    What else did Zen provide for us? Oh, hey, we got new physics update, which I know some of you hate, some of you like. I don't know. Where do you fall on this little debate that's been going on in terms of people complaining that the ball has slowed down and now it's too easy? What's your take on this, Jared? I don't think we've even gone into this. Okay. Well, look, I was playing, I forget which one I was playing the other night, but I was doing a repeated kick out, like a shot to one of the kick outs and then letting it bounce on a flipper to see what it did. And it was variable. It's not like it's railroaded like it was in TPA or the pinball arcade. It's variable. So it's got a bit of variable to it, that variableness to it still. That's been my impression too, but go on. yeah so for me um it feels right in fact it's funny you know i'll go back to the um uh the earlier tables on williams pimble mobile on android and the flipper action is different like it has the the flippers almost feel like if i was looking at these from a mechanical perspective they actually have drag on them when they flip so it feels like the the flippers drag up to their their full stroke position and then drag back it's like they've lost their spring the little return spring on the mechanism underneath compared to the new ones which have a really snappy flip action. But I even noticed that I've been playing because of the Challenges and Williams People app I've been playing for some reason a lot of Roadshow. Every single time I restart the Challenges it's Roadshow all the time. And it's got that sort of draggy flipper feel to it. so I'm quite happy to welcome the newer tables and their newer flipper style because they're significantly better than the old ones and it just feels like pinball more to me yeah so we're in agreement then because my take is that and to me it's especially noticeable on mobile there is variation in the ball purely me playing Circus Voltaire and playing Monster Bash Circus Voltaire being where the ball comes off of the various loops can be of a variance but Monster Bash specifically is the kick out the ball does not do the same thing twice in a row, it does variations of those things and then just even not regarding the kick outs but when you're flipping the ball and the ball interacting with the flipper you can see the ball do variations of of changes in movement in direction and i don't see that in volumes one through three no i don't know for sure no it's definitely it's definitely different yeah in the other volumes and i think it's different in a in a positive way and then the the other thing that people are complaining about they're saying the ball speed oh the ball's too slow now and to those people i seriously pose this question have you played real pinball or are you purely basing this off of you playing digital pinball? Because if you have played real pinball, you'll know the ball does not whip around at lightning speed. And I beg you to go watch Spacey's Arcade, Greg's video, where he puts a marble on the table because that nailed it. That nailed completely why the ball speed or what the ball speed was like previously compared to what the ball speed should be, which is exactly what I feel deep has applied, addressed in these new physics. Yeah, exactly. It's got, I think, the ball, what people are attributing to slow is actually weight, I think. Correct. And that's the difference. Like those, like I've got a ball right here. This is not light, right? This thing here is not light. and you need that feeling of heaviness to it. Look, inertia is one thing when you actually flip the ball and it has this feeling of continuance around the playfield, but you look at the difference between zen regular physics versus the classic arcade physics and the way the ball flies around the playfield in the Zen physics mode, it's very different to the way it behaves in a classic arcade. Again, it's closer to a ball gliding rather than a ball rolling, and there's a weight issue. A marble is going to glide and then kind of roll. A heavy steel ball is going to roll. It's not going to just slide across the playfield. That's right. What's interesting to do is if you put... I don't know if anyone's tried this, and I can't try it myself, because I don't have any four-star tables unlocked, so I don't have access to Pro Physics. But if you activate the Zen exclusive members club ball, the one with the star on it and blue, you can really see the ball spin on that when you're playing with that ball.
    10:42
    And it might be interesting to compare what the ball does with that skin on versus what it does with just a regular chrome ball skin because you might be able to see the differences quite apparently between the classic arcade versus the Zen original. I'd be interested to know if that's a real physics representation because the ball looked like it was spinning in Pinball Arcade. The ball did not spin. It was just a simulated look. Yeah. No, I think it does, because when it goes into a... Notice that the ball, it may not be fully accurate, because when the ball is trapped on a magnet, you can actually see the ball spin while the ball is on a magnet. And when it's in a saucer, the ball will actually rotate when it's in a saucer as well. So perhaps it's not, but it would be interesting to test what it does, because I can't do it. Yeah, I don't have any of the new tables. I don't have any four stars yet. I've got all five of the new tables up to three stars, and that's where they sit. And I'm kind of of the mind to just let them sit because that way I'll play the challenges when they actually populate. But then I'm also like, wait, am I going to get hosed? I don't know. Anyway, that's neither here nor there. But I did want to kind of touch upon that. but I truly appreciate the new physics. Yeah, I think they're good. Yeah. But that was an additional thing that we had. Yeah, well, I haven't really had a lot of... I really don't play anything other than challenges on the Android version of the Williams Pinball. Oh, that's all I play on the app. No, if I'm playing real pinball, I'm playing it on PC. Steam, yeah. Yeah, Steam. So for that reason, I haven't seen a lot of the new tables come around in the rotations. Like I said, with all these challenges that we've been playing over the holiday period um i always seem to get roadshow all the time it just never changes for me when i reset the challenges like with the one token with the one token reset sure always roadshow never anything else really bizarre and i've got all the other tables to i think all the it could be because the other tables aren't yet two starred um and that's why I'm not seeing them in. But normally if they're like special challenges, they open up those tables for the special challenges.
    13:13
    But it doesn't seem to be happening for me. Yeah. What else did Zen give us this year? Operencia. Yeah, but I'm thinking Pinball. Pinball?
    13:26
    What else did they give? I think those were the main things, because nothing really happened in FX3. No, Zero happened. No, certainly not on their original tables. But let's have a look at the new movie that's out.
    13:42
    The new Star Wars movie. Well, you know what Mel said, and that is that they're not dropping tables in time with them because they actually wanted to see the movies. So then they could develop a story based on that. So I would say come video release, you're almost inevitably going to get a new Star Wars table. Oh, yeah. We're well overdue. a new one or three. And they want to add content to their Steam line as well and leverage that hard work they put in for, not Steam, Switch,
    14:15
    and leverage all the hard work they put in to get that onto that console platform. So they're going to want to do, for sure, another Star Wars multi-platform release in 2020, for sure.
    14:28
    Let's switch over to Zachariah. So our friends over at Pixel Magic They Magic Pixel I'm always going to say Pixel Magic Pixel Let's see So they completed their entire run of remake tables Yes They upgraded their UI which was a good improvement Long overdue Yes Yeah They Got put out on Switch if I'm not mistaken On Xbox they're currently working on the PS4 version they put out a new version for Android yes they did and also very nicely cross graded everybody who had I think yeah I think they cross graded yeah they managed to work out a way of doing that they figured it out so yeah Zachariah was busy this year too they did a lot of improvements if you check out they communicate mainly by Facebook so So go subscribe to their Facebook page, and you'll keep up on updates. They posted an update during the holidays, basically saying here's what we've got planned for 2020. Main thing being doing a PS4 release, and then also doing more of these...
    15:46
    Pro or premiums, whatever they're calling them. Yeah, I can't remember what the... Well, it's... Yes, these new tables. Yeah, the new ones. The ones that look like new Sterns, because they've got a big digital color display on them. Correct, which I actually still haven't checked out what the most recent release was, so I personally haven't had any experience with them yet. I haven't either. We need to get a key off our friends at Magic Pixel there to test them out so we can talk about them a bit, I think. Yeah. Oh, over in the chat box for our Twitch stream, Gabura has mentioned a movie and Mandalorian, maybe. Oh, yeah, interesting. Maybe. That's certainly a possibility.
    16:30
    Yes. That could be quite interesting. And then, oh, and then PinballWith45B says, Star Wars Episode I would be tricky. Yeah, I seriously wonder if they're going to go through the effort of doing any Pinball 2000. I think, well, I think we discussed what Pinball 2000 would look like. It would look like a regular Zen table. It would, really. They'd just do away with the hollow projection and just do the projection directly onto the playfield. Yeah, that would be the only way I think that... It would be the only way that would make sense to me. Yeah, exactly.
    17:06
    Because trying to simulate the hollow with just a black pit would make the table look really short and odd. And yeah, I wouldn't be... It would, yeah.
    17:18
    Okay, here's a question for other things. Did Demon's Tilt come out this year or was that the year prior? It has gone from, what do they call, early access to GA in this year. Okay. So it's actually now a proper release, which is really cool.
    17:38
    And it's a really very interesting take on Pinball, that one. Like, it's still, I go back to it every now and again. I go, yeah, this is really interesting.
    17:48
    And then, I never know what the actual title is. Pinball Wicked. The Black Flaggers Pinball, who knows what the official title of that thing is. It's still in early access, I believe. Yeah. But they have made a lot of changes to it. Yes. Call it code updates, if you will. Be interested to see when they actually finalize it, though. Yeah. When I played it last time, and albeit this is probably a good six months ago now, it just felt a little bit repetitive in what you did. Maybe I was doing it wrong. It's quite possible that I was doing it wrong because I maybe didn't know the rules fully. But it just didn't feel like the modes were well-developed.
    18:32
    Yeah, that's been my complaint with it myself. There's a lot of flashing lights and a lot of chaos, and you throw the ball around a lot, but actually starting up anything or doing anything seems... Not super intuitive. No, not particularly. That's probably why I haven't touched it in six months because I sort of played it, I went, okay, that's nice, and then I haven't played it since. But the great thing about Steam is you just leave your games on there and eventually they'll do an update that makes you go, oh, okay, I might actually go and retry this again. That's the beauty of it, right? Right, absolutely. It's constantly changing. Yeah, it's pretty cool. And then finally there's Farsight who,
    19:12
    despite all their promises of, there's a new table coming, there was no new table coming. There's no new table, except for the newsletter, which some people did and didn't receive. And thank you to everyone in the Digital Pinball Fans Forum for cross-posting that for people who didn't see the thing, the announcement. But there's a new, let's call it pinball game coming out, pinball soccer. Pinball soccer. It's a mobile app, and I was joking with Jared. I said, gee, I wonder if this is the Alvin G. Soccer just re-skinned. well i wonder because because they were developing it i mean they had every intention of putting it out they just never got their head-to-head working ball working head-to-head was for it was for that table exactly specifically for that table but they couldn't get the latency working out worked out for it like it was just too hard for them to try and do it real time so yeah it never saw the light of day in fact i think they actually had one they actually had a table in their studio i'm pretty Oh yeah, no, they did. I physically saw it. I think I even played it, maybe. Yeah.
    20:22
    I would be surprised. I would be putting money down on the fact that's what the layout will be. That certainly my guess And then I think that the newsletter also made mention of there was an update to Pinball Cadet Ah yes that right sure what i haven actually i uninstalled that a long time ago um but yeah um i guess we should check that out maybe so i'm just saying folks in case it has i mean there's a reason why we haven't been talking about farsight because i was just done there's no there's no sense in speculating on things that aren't going to be happening.
    21:01
    As far as I'm concerned, and I did this a long time ago, I put a fork in it. It's well and truly done. There's nothing... They are moving on to other... They're adding value elsewhere.
    21:15
    They're not even pursuing the Gottlieb license anymore. If they were, they would have leased completely different tables for the Toy Shock physical digital pinball offering at Walmart. But they didn't. They just recycled the junk they've already got. yeah so that's what i'm saying if i know that there's a few that are still uh holding out hope but no i'm going to i will be pleasantly surprised if all of a sudden they announce a brand new engine and a whole new deal with pinball but they're they're truly done and over with with stern um they can't yeah and and the reason why i say that is because it was made mention any of the titles that they want to do carry a huge hefty licensing fee and yes although stern has now incorporated digital licensing into their current contracts you still have to pay the licensing fee it's basically preventing anybody from having to do what was having to be done which is you know take the case of like adam's family you got tracked down to the actors the movie studio all the you know the music all that stuff instead it's just all in one nice ball but you still got to pay for the ball yeah that's right you you've got to like fork over the fork over the benjamin so you can get access to all the all the license stuff the intellectual property correct and then they made mention that of the got leaves they don't want to make ems which is ridiculous but okay sure so like someone else got leave got leave go and i don't know who actually holds the license who who the actual you know how um uh williams pinball is held by scientific games Right. I think I don't think what is it? The company produces a premiere. Yeah, it's who is the licensing body that holds the Gottlieb license? That's an interesting question because we we haven't really had to look into that. Yeah, I truly don't know. I don't know. But I don't think it's the pinball resource. I mean, the pinball resource got all of the tooling. Yeah, they got all the parts. Molds and stuff, the physical reproduction parts. But I don't think they actually got the intellectual property rights for it. They just got right to produce parts. So I don't think it's them. And I think if you have a look at the bottom of the Toy Shock digital cabinet, it still cites Gottlieb LLC, I think, as the license holder. So I think there must be an entity still that is... Somewhere. Yeah, Gottlieb still, that holds the license for it. so anyway that's that's kind of someone needs to just approach them and say hey look can we just like take this over like honestly get get um magic pixel do it they do a top job of reproducing all those just imagine what they could do with a gotlib license i i honestly jared think that we need to convince magic pixel of it first yeah well yeah because i have made mention time and time again to mart and he just kind of goes well we're really busy and i'm like why would you want to be busy on doing things that are just well i mean okay on the one hand if you're only dealing with your own creations you're not having to deal with licensing and you can do whatever the heck you want with it but um why would you not want to get godly but take yourself to the next level just saying yeah the the amount i mean the the thing that's great about magic pixel is that when they get a license they absolutely utilize every last bit of that license to really drive a really well polished product yeah you know there's like the with all their remakes and their new versions and they're like premium versions which i think is what they call now the premium tables you know no other like not even zen goes to that level of of reuse and reappropriation of license within the risk like the the boundaries of the license yeah there's There's no one else that does it. So over on the chat file there, pinballwiz45b says, Mondial International Corporation is who is the Ghalib license holder. Interesting. Nice bit of sleuthing there, pinballwiz. Yeah.
    25:26
    All right, that moves us into the coming year. And we're going to dip a little bit. So here's the deal. Obviously, Toy Shock, Tayo, whatever their company name is, they came out with that 12-in-1 pinball. right in time for the holidays $3.99, $12.01 Gottlieb Tables, it was Farsight working with them I think the major complaint that I would have just on looking at it is the hideous bezel it's gross and Toy Shock are addressing it at least they're creating a black one in their ones, because what they've done is they've done like the Haunted House one was their essentially their alpha and then what they're doing is they're releasing different cabinet art versions of the cabinet in the new year to compete with the other ones, which we'll be talking about shortly, coming out. But I think they need to just bump the bill of materials a little bit and just put a full screen in there because that bezel is ridiculous. It is just horrible. Now, the good news for them, apparently, completely sold out.
    26:38
    Oh, is that right? Very nice. Somebody just pointed that out as far as Walmart, and I forget who the, oh, and Sam's Club. Those were the two that were places, retail places that were selling it. Completely sold out. So, awesome. Right. Good success for you. Yeah. Apply. Not that I'm happy about. No, that is good news because, hey, it was a risk. Now that you know that it's not so much of a risk, just refine. Yeah. Put a little more money into the product to make it look better and be better.
    27:10
    Yeah, because there's people complaining about flipper lag on the Toy Shock version of the cabinet. Some people aren't. Some people are saying it's up to a millisecond, up to a second. Oh, that would be unplayable. It's very, very hard. There's some people going, look, you know, we have real pinball machines in the house, and my kids can't play this game because the flipper lag is that bad on it. Like, it just throws their timing completely. You know, it's interesting because when I was, I dealt with flipper lag a little bit back in the day when I was playing on the PS3, playing TPA, and it was the difference between my TV and... Somebody else's. Well, I'm just saying there was lag, and I was playing on a rear projection screen, and there was nothing I could do about the flipper lag. And it was slight, but it was there. And the interesting thing was I got used to it, and I learned to deal with it. And then when I flipped over to Steam, I had to relearn because all of a sudden now my timings were all too early because I was anticipating.
    28:16
    You're doing a lot of shoulder passes. Yeah, a lot of shoulder passes, yeah. So I'm not, I mean, that might have been inherent in the game itself all along. It's just more noticeable with whatever screen that they picked that it wasn't, you know, it's pronouncing the lag. Because there were plenty of people that had flat screen TVs that were saying that, oh, the lag is unplayable on. So, okay, anyway, but yes, so they had great success. Well, then Jared goes and posts in the Digital Pinball Fans Forum a link to a YouTube video of somebody saying that they have word that the company that makes the one-up cabinets, Was that Tastemakers?
    29:09
    Is that correct? Tastemakers, yeah. Yeah. They are bringing to CES, which is the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, that happens every January, I believe the second week of January.
    29:21
    Very soon, in other words. Yeah, and folks, if you've never been, it's fantastic. Nuts. Go. I've been twice, and it's a good time.
    29:31
    But basically what they're going to be doing is they're not only bringing the new arcade cabinets, that they're going to be producing, which I think I saw an image of like, it was either Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or The Simpsons, but four joysticks across. They're also doing coffee table, cabinet, cocktail style.
    29:51
    They're calling this functional furniture is what they're bringing this product line as. Yeah, putting refrigerators in the bottom of the cabinets. Yeah, which, look, it's a creative way of not having to worry about a riser. Um, isn't it? Right. But the main thing that he pointed out was they apparently are also going to be putting out a pinball cabinet along the same line.
    30:18
    And there's some interesting features with this one. So, well, we don't know any features, do we? It's all guesswork. And I think this guy, the guy did the video. Um, uh, he was referencing a couple of podcasts of which the name explained me, but go and check out the show notes and watch the video and you'll see them. linked in the video but the the person that they had on one of these podcasts was suggesting a few features about the the digital pinball cabinets and and it sounded like they were less suggestions and more hey i've seen this and i'm putting a thinly veiled speculation around this so um that's I think that's what it seemed like to me.
    31:06
    So what they were suggesting is it will have a, like a live back glass and it will maybe have, they say it will have a small DMD in the way of a video screen. I think they were saying something like probably around seven inch, which isn't huge, just like a tablet size DMD, but Hey, look, it's better than alphanumeric displays, right? and that opens up the possibility for lots of different games that can use that tech.
    31:38
    And I think it will have... I think they're looking at just a little bit below 30 inches, I think, if memory serves me, Chris. I didn't watch that. I just watched the little screen, listened to the blurb, and then up popped a little tab of what they were thinking was going to be in, which was funny enough, I hadn't watched the video when I made comments on Jared's thread. And then I watched the video, and I'm like, hey, they're taking off the things that I said that would be good things to speculate about. Well, some things. Pretty much, yeah.
    32:15
    Well, let's just kind of go. First off, the main speculation is, of course, what tables? What company? Well, and as Jared pointed out. There's not many options. It's going to be Zachariah. It's going to be Zen. Or it's going to be Zen Williams. Right off the bat, I can pretty much say it ain't going to be Zen. And here's why. If 1UP is doing it, 1UP is making real life and stuff.
    32:41
    They're going after the nostalgia market. And if you put out Zen Adventureland, people are going to go, what the hell is that? They're not going to care. But you put out Medieval Madness, people go, I remember that. in fact i'm playing it in the arcade now as a remade version right that's so so there we go it's either zacharia or zen well zacharia just made their announcement about what to expect in 2020 and there was nothing that said there's a surprise no zen mel specifically in one of his tweets said we've got holy grail licensing we've really excited about what's going on in 2020 and things are going to get wild.
    33:27
    Yeah. Hmm. In other words, they got surprises. I don't know. I think a physical pinball machine you can put in your home is pretty wild, don't you think? Yeah, I would say that's pretty wild and kind of right up their alley. Considering they do actually have a pedigree with cabinets. Right. Yes. So that would be my... That's our best guess, obviously, is that it's going to be Williams pinball. Now, this is where – now, Jared, you put a price point of how much? Did you guess? I think – well, maybe this is Aussie dollars, but I'm thinking like $6.99 Aussie. Which I think is too much for – Too much US. Well, remember that the 300 – what is it? $3.99 is Poitras. Add 40% to that, which is our current exchange rate here in Australia, and you've got $6.99. Okay. Like, after imports and markup from probably a local retailer here that did the arcade one-ups was Eldie, I think. So, you know, with their markup on it as well, $6.99 is probably what you'd be paying for that. Okay, because my thinking was most of the one-up machines are $3.99.
    34:45
    Some have gone on sale for $2.99. That's more like a holiday special. Some are a little bit more expensive, depending on how many buttons and joysticks they have going on. I think the most expensive one was like $500. And to be honest, I think that's the sweet spot. Because if you go much... It's about $500, do you reckon? Yeah, because $500, that's what people are dropping on a new... Like, whenever the PS5 comes out, it's going to be close to that. um it's also like if they make that home like if they make functional furniture like it's a bit hard to do that with the pinball cabinet but like for functional furniture like that coffee table model you know i'd pay 500 for that probably well that's going to be a lot more expensive no doubt i because you are doing more functionality but i'm just thinking if you're going for a hey, that's a family fun item.
    35:43
    You hit that $500 mark, you're still within that, hey, it's fun for the whole family. You start going north of that, then it becomes a luxury item.
    35:50
    And I don't think that that's one-up's market right now, is getting into a luxury item. Well, this might be what they're doing with the functional furniture aspect of it. Maybe, yeah. But for a pinball game cabinet, I think you're pushing it. And I don't see why you would need to actually be more expensive than that anyway.
    36:14
    I think, and me and Jared also had a little bit of discussion about this, and I'll kind of, I'll touch upon it a little bit more, but I think that they need to institute plug-and-play options for these things. What's the off-price? That would obviously increase the price of the cabinet, but at least you start at a base rate that's more affordable for people that want to get into this kind of thing.
    36:39
    The other thing that I'm wondering is how many tables will they put per cabinet? Because that's the other thing. What's the, I guess, the prior art with Arcade 1-Up? Is it like one game per cabinet? No, three. They've been putting about three games per cabinet. Oh, okay. So like, for instance, the one that's sitting in my home right now is Street Fighter 2, Street Fighter 2 Tournament Edition, and some other version of Street Fighter. Turbo, probably. Yeah. So it's three. If you bought Pac-Man, I think it was Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, and I don't know what else. But I know Galaga, it's three different versions of Galaga.
    37:20
    So, well, how would they group them then? If we're speculating that it will be Williams, Pinball, they probably have to work out how they group the tables and they have to be quite careful because of the interface requirements, right? Exactly, so what I'm thinking is A, group them by Williams or Bally because then you can put proper Williams badging on the thing but that would probably be kind of minor you could probably skirt around that not a big issue more importantly I think it regards does the game have a plunger or does it have a button plunge so like medieval madness doesn't have an actual button i mean an actual plunger neither does monster bash they just have a button that you push that launches the ball that's right um that's right so why not pair games that are all alike in that manner and save the cost of having a plunger rather than having to put a plunger and a button a button and confusion matters yeah although you know we're talking in a bill of materials we're talking three dollars extra Exactly. I mean, it's not much. So, not a big deal. But let's hope they choose a better plunger hardware than the one that was in the toy shop cabinet, because apparently it's rubbish. Yeah. It looks like a toy plunger. It really does. Yeah. I think if they're going to do it right... Look, Arcade 1-Up seems to use pretty decent arcade hardware in the cabinets. I know a lot of people have swapped them out for real arcade buttons, etc. But they look to be decent quality. Which, that's the other thing, is not difficult to do on theirs. I mean, for instance, the joysticks, if you want to get a top-quality joystick to put in there, well, they're only $20 on Amazon. So go spend your $20 and put one in.
    39:04
    That's right. And people have. I think what people are doing on the ToyShot cabinets to address some of the slipper lag is they're actually putting in leaf switches into the buttons. And it looks like it's making a difference. to lag. So putting a leaf switch with the contacts adjusted very finely is giving you more of immediate flipping. So it could just be the buttons are really crap.
    39:32
    It very well could be. Yeah. So that's definitely one thing that the folks over in the Toy Shock official fan page have been sharing. It seems to work all right. So give that a go if you've got one of these cabinets. The other thing is that I don't believe they'll do anything close to a 12-in-1 table. It wouldn't make any sense from a business perspective because the idea is, hey, you want people to have a couple of these, not just buy one.
    40:05
    Obviously, it's not going to have internet connectivity either. Or maybe, maybe not. If they're using Williams Pinball and they actually put the full Williams Pinball experience on this and you can actually play it. Sure, it's not a mobile app, but I'd say for the price point, they're not going to be putting a Steam box in there. Let's be honest. They're probably going to be putting a mobile build in it if it is then. so uh you know having that online play capability and getting ad revenue from physical pinball machines in your house i don't think it's gonna happen i don't think it's gonna happen because it's not it's not in any of the one-up machines right now it's an added cost and an added headache if anything they put a usb port in there so that if a new update comes out great you download the update, you plug in the USB, boom, it downloads. There you go.
    41:03
    There might be challenge mode, might be in there, but I think by and large it going to be pinball and that it You going to just standalone pinball That the idea it not trying to be anything that is on your console or on steam it trying to be what it was like to walk into an arcade yeah true intro gabira was saying maybe a touchscreen would solve the problem of you know being able to use the mobile style interface on there but uh i think what they'd do is they'd reskin it and simplify it so they'd make it button presses um yeah i agree I think it's going to be button presses.
    41:41
    And again, if navigation is easy, you pop up with a main screen. If there's only three tables to rotate with, which, by the way, what did Zen do for that big beast of a machine with all the electronic finery that they were going to be putting into Dave & Buster's? They created exactly that thing.
    42:02
    Strangely enough. And what did Zen do? They only put three tables on it because they didn't want to overstimulate or give too many choices to everybody. Yeah, in before the skin on Dave and Buster's commercial pinball cabinet. That's what it's going to be. Yeah.
    42:21
    Something else that I think will be addressed, I don't think it's going to have that gigantic ugly bezel by any stretch of the imagination. There's a real simple solution to preventing the screen from getting damaged. Put a piece of glass over it. Yeah, or Perspex if you don't want to spend the money on it. Like, good quality Perspex will do the same thing. What is that?
    42:41
    Perspex. I don't know what that... Oh, okay. Yeah, like a plastic sheet, basically. A clear plastic sheet.
    42:48
    The only problem with that is people will try and clean it, and then they're going to scratch it. Yeah, but, you know, it's not in an arcade. It's in a home, so people won't be using, like, arguably they won't be using, you know, nasty chemicals on it. Yeah, I'm just thinking about what happens, you know, everybody that's ever bought a protective screen for, you know, whether it's their PSP or even the Nintendo Switch, eventually it gets nasty unless you bought one that's nice glass, you know, those really thin glass covers that static electricity attached to the screen. Oh, yes, yeah. But point being... Shipping weight as well, remember. Right. Point being, I don't think it's going to have that nasty bezel. I think it's going to look like a proper pinball machine. I think if they're going to do a cabinet, they're going to do as close as possible to edge to edge. Yeah.
    43:41
    Like, you know, I'm thinking like, you know, your traditional PC monitor with maybe a half an inch bezel around it, you know, like let's say two centimeter bezel around it. And then some sort of lockdown bar that you can rest your hands on. And that's literally all you need. Yeah. um the other thing i saw in all the toy shock fan pages that some of these units when they shipped they were coming and the screen was like out of alignment because of the way it was strapped to the underside of the bezel so you know there there have been some interesting things going on with these cabinets when they've been shipping so the other thing is that they're gonna like anything they do to make this cabinet look cosmetically good they're gonna have to work out like the the pros and cons for shipping weight and actual robustness in shipping as well.
    44:36
    Because if you put a glass pane in a screen, in a cabinet that doesn't have that glass pane rigidly secured, you're going to end up with a lot of shipped cabinets with some problems, I think, when they end up. Understandable, yeah. So I think that's a concern. I also question whether there'll be a full video of Backglass. To me, it's unnecessary. If you're only doing three tables per.
    45:07
    It's just a generic branding, right? Well, Zen already did their art for the volumes. You just put that up as the Backglass. I do think that they'll have, it'll be either a true DMD or, well, highly unlikely to be a true DMD. it'll be a small screen that'll have the DMD overlay, basically, is what I'd imagine. Yeah, I think it'll be a little mini LCD. Maybe that's what they were suggesting, that it has an LCD in the back grass. Maybe it's just the little DMD size LCD. That's what I would think. And look, I think that'd be perfectly acceptable, you know. Oh, absolutely. For a home-use only machine. Like, you look at the examples of, you know, the Stern, the PIN models that they bring out for home-use only. They actually have alphanumeric displays in theirs. And I think in the later models like Star Wars, they've actually got a really small 7-inch display in them now. Like they've got that LCD display in them now. So it's probably going to be the same bill of materials they'll be using, you know, really. They'll be using that display. Yeah. So that's why I'm thinking, oh, and then the last thing is not buttons for nudging. That's just ridiculous. That's ridiculous. It literally cost me, I think, somewhere between $15 and $20 to buy the accelerometer that's inside that minicab. Yeah, that was retail. That wasn't like... Yeah, that was retail. That wasn't Shenzhen when you buy a thousand of them. No, no. And it's tiny. It's literally like two poachers stamps big, and that's it. Yeah. So there is no reason why you can't have that in there. I mean, would you want a plumb bob? Hey, that'd be ideal, but I don't think that Zen is even set up to understand a plumb bob No, that's what accelerometer is just that it's a digital plumb bob So here's the deal that's what I'm saying obviously a pinball cab has a little bit more going on than an arcade cab so I think the price point's going to be $100 more than, which is what I'm saying So $4.99 is what I'm guessing.
    47:13
    But here's where I want plug-and-play, and that is that then if they sold a rumble motor for those tables that have rumbles, that you put it in and you just plug it, boom, it goes. And I'm not talking about a true pinball rumble motor either. This is something that just have them make, that does the same functionality, but it's also a priority to their software and cabinet. It's basically what Arcuda was wanting to do. Wanting to do, yeah. Have plug-and-play modules that you can upgrade the machine with. But that won't work in anybody else's cab. That's right. Yeah, exactly. So do a rumble motor. Do solenoids so that when you hit the flipper button, you feel that smack of a solenoid firing. Same thing with the pop bumpers. There's a solenoid that simulates that kind of thing. You know, because then you could sell a pack of Rumble and solenoids, and it's an extra $100 for those that want it. So you'd actually sell these as like, so you'd have your base table, and then sitting right beside that base table in Walmart, you'd have a box of extras. Precisely. And you'd sell that. Precisely. So you wouldn't sell them individually. Because imagine, like, no way Walmart would want to carry this random box of, like, a different product line for each thing. It would be like, it's either if you want vibration and you want solenoids.
    48:49
    Sorry, if you want vibration and you don't want solenoids, too bad. Right, no, you get the whole pack. It's one thing. Yeah. It's essentially base model plus enhancements. And the reason why I say that that can work twofold, one, 1UP sells risers for their arcade cabinets so you don't have to hunch down and play. And they sell those things for, I kid you not, it's just a wood box. I think they sell it for like $60 or $80. Really? Yeah. No, it's absurd for what it is, what they sell it for. How much it would have cost them to make it. That's a huge markup. Right. the other thing is think about again when you buy a PS4 it only comes with one controller oh you want another controller well that's going to be $60 yeah right you know so the cost for those that just want an entry it's there for those that want a complete experience then you pay a little bit more and you have it you know you get it yeah so that would be what I would I think would be cool if they did whether or not they would actually go that far again who knows who knows it would be it would be a good way to keep the cost point low for those families who just want belly williams tables in their home and can't afford four thousand dollars you know right because you know i i don't know i if they did this and they did it well it might be something that i consider like it'd be tempting it'd be really tempting but But when you put the Aussie tax on it, it'll be close. Like, I think the RK1 up cabinets, when they landed here, what is it now, two years ago or one year ago, when the Aussie dollar was around 70 cents to the US, they were, I think they were around the $500 mark, Australian. Okay. But with it at $0.60 now, I think if we even see these plus the extra cost for the extra bill of materials with the display and the new cabinet stuff and the extra size of this thing, because it's going to be a bit bigger than a regular cabinet, I would imagine.
    51:02
    From a shipping dimensions perspective, I think we're talking $700 or $800 Australian. I think that's what we'd be looking at. Like, I'd love it if somehow they would keep the costs down. But apparently with Toy Shock, because they're based out of China and Shenzhen, they will be shipping from Singapore in 2020 all of the ones for our region in Australia. So that could keep the costs lower than having to ship it from over in the US or whatever. Yeah, absolutely. I'm surprised that that hasn't happened already. But again, they may not have known the market. Now that they know that there is a market for it, it makes more sense to, okay, now we'll expand.
    51:50
    That's right. What I'd like to see, though, I think they should just spend the money and just put leaf switches in for the buttons. It's not that much more. one of the funny things is like as a side story in some of the um the actual real pinball machines like doctor who and um all the belly wounds machines that actually had optical switches um for the flipper buttons they had like this proper board and had like little like opto that made the flippers go um and since that they were open one of the first things that ed does um at the pinball shack here in brisbane is he takes those things out throws them away and puts a leaf switch in because they are just so unreliable and i think the buttons that are in the i'd like this confirmed but it looks like the buttons are so low profile in the um the the toy shop cabinets they might actually be like an optical sensor in them i don't know if they're micro switch if that's the case junk those junk them if that's the case because they're rubbish get rid of them so if they can put proper leaf switches in which really if they're well adjusted you don't need to worry about adjusting them again with the amount of use you're going to get that will be a much better interface feeling you'd have a real flipper button feeling then now the one whole wrinkle in this whole scenario is that in this video another company was mentioned what was the name of that company was it At digital. At games.
    53:28
    They're apparently also going to be coming out with a pinball cabinet. Which begs the question, what tables are they putting out? Yeah, well, we were saying in the back, who's going to get the sloppy seconds? But it's not really sloppy seconds, because whoever doesn't get Zen still has a pretty good option to choose from. We're not talking shabby stuff at all with the Magic Pixel. That's a good product to put on a pinball machine. Yeah, but I really think I would be surprised if that's who it is. Because Zacharia is, I mean, let's face it, it's niche. They are niche. They're niche in a niche industry. Yeah. And there's not, because those tables were not readily available anywhere in the U.S., they were basically a European thing, there's next to no nostalgia factor on them. you might as well put out Zen Originals. You may as well. Well, you may as well put out Zen Originals.
    54:30
    How about that? A completely separate license from the same manufacturer. Right, that would be rather interesting, and I would say if Zen went that route, then you probably would have like 12 tables to a cab. A pack. Oh yeah, you'd have to, like to get around the whole, well, I don't know these tables, what are they? Right. But you put some popular licenses on there, like the Doom license. Well, hold on. Hold the fort. What if you put all the Star Wars tables? And what if you put all the Marvel tables? Imagine that. Yeah. That would sell. Imagine seeing Marvel and all that branding livery on the box sitting there on the floor of your Walmart or your LD. Like you'd be going, Marvel pinball tables? shut up and take my money dude if zen is doing a two-pronged attack then that's pretty bold that's just like same manufacturer two different product lines two different companies that would be entry that would be one hell of a hedge a bit wouldn't it oh my god that would be yeah big time i'm not singing that so uh at games at games are the people who um uh produce a number of different things. If you have a look at their website, they've got a lot of those connect the console up to your TV and play it. Like we've got the Bandai Namco Arcade Blast. We've got Star Flashback Blast and things like that. So they are TV console games like you're in the same vein as the Sega Mega Drive or Sega Genesis plug and plays. But the one product that's different from all of those is their Legends Ultimate Home Arcade.
    56:21
    Ah, now I recognize what you're talking about. They're the ones that are competing directly with 1UP by having a buttload more games in their cabinet. That's correct. And they're not shabby titles. They are well-known games in this cabinet. And this cabinet is interesting. It's a two-player cabinet. It's got potentiometers, so it's got the Arkanoid-style potentiometer controls. that allow you to go left and right analog. It's even got a trackball in the middle of it. So you can play Tron. Centipede and... And Tron. So Tron actually has a trackball and all sorts of stuff going on in it. So it's got a lot of hardware attached to it. What is its price point?
    57:04
    Well, unfortunately, it's sold out on the website, but I think that P-Dub on P-Dub's arcade, who is Patrick Walton, so not Don Walton as I originally referred to him in the podcast last and I had to apologize to him in chat because I got his name wrong sorry Patrick so Patrick's got a review of this product up there and there's pros and cons to it and there's some things that would be nice to have fixed up in the next iteration of it and next iteration you can pretty much guarantee that AtGames are going to be bringing out another one of these in 2020 to compete with all the other home furniture products coming out.
    57:50
    So, you know, I think it was a little bit more expensive. I think it was around the $500 mark, although I think Patrick could probably confirm that if he's listening.
    58:01
    What's interesting about this is, again, going back to Arcuda, they this is what they were doing commercially putting out commercial tables and they were paying the actual license fees associated with these titles I'm assuming that this is the case that 1UP has been doing also that they're actually paying the true license fee for these not just putting in a MAME version I'm not sure technically what they're running these on I don't know there certainly wouldn't be original boards they would have to be emulations because they wouldn't have 12 boards in there because each board is quite well no I don't know what the Legends cabinet is doing but I'm saying the 1-Up cabinet yeah I'm not sure because if you're only having three titles and they're all very similar in nature you're probably working on the same motherboard exactly or custom board It seems like that's what they've done with the Toy Shop cabinet. It's using what I think no one's really been able to confirm this either way. I know Patrick and I have been having a chat offline about the hardware that's inside the Toy Shop digital cabinet. And it's really hard to get technical specs information from the boards and stuff. They look like commercial off-the-shelf mini PCs, but there's little to no information about what the mini PCs are. You can work out what the monitors are, which are generally standard monitors that are used in all of the, I think the arcade one-up monitors are the same as the ones that are in the toy shop. So they're from the same monitor family, but the actual PC that's driving this, it's hard to find information about. but that suggests that it still is some sort of custom some sort of board that stores the roms on it because there's no sd card on it there's no removable drive like you see in some of the dodgy um chinese import um multi-game cabinets so it looks like it's a it's sort of custom i i'm leaning towards custom i would imagine so but i think so because it's cheap It's cheap for them to produce custom cabinet, and it's more reliable. So if they're producing their own actual circuitry for this, and it's a floated board, it's going to be more reliable than, like, using a PC, for example, and trying to power these things. Here's my plea. Hey, one-up, we'd love to review this thing when it comes out. We can only have it on loaner. That's fine. be happy to ship it back to you. But let's get our fingers on it. Wouldn't that be nice? Yes. Yeah. Yes, it would. Of course, our friends at Zen, too, if you have any pull. Yeah, that's right. If you could accidentally ship one of those things to the harbor or down here to Bristol. Again, we're assuming it's Zen that's going to be involved. Watch it. Totally not. Well, I think putting two and two together, I reckon it probably is. Right. I mean, we're doing what we love to do here. This is a proper speculation podcast, which we have not had in some time. Oh, we do love it. And the thing is that when we – it seems that when we speculate, we often get it right.
    61:24
    And we can kind of tell because we hear crickets. Yeah. There is zero action. I tweeted about this in – like just casually before I even saw this news back to Zen about, you know, what would be really cool to get in 2020 in the tweet stream? I said, you know what? You guys should counter with the digital pinball cabinet. I think this market going to be huge in 2020 Crickets Not a single response back in the tweet thread And that could mean that they didn see the comment but it also mean they going Ooh can really talk about that yet So, yeah, I'm just, I'm just playing with you. The, the, the company tastemakers, uh, hi, we're the blockade pinball podcast, the premier digital pinball podcast on the web. Trust us. Zen has even said so. Uh, so that's right.
    62:13
    Tastemakers meet tastemakers, the podcast. Right? You know, hey, hook us up. Jared, make sure you at them.
    62:25
    Yeah, absolutely. So if anybody does happen to go to CES this year, take pictures if you're there. Take pictures and share them with us. We'd love to see them. Yeah. And I know that, I mean, shoot, that even goes to, I'm sure that some of our more tech Twitter friends of the nature of, like, say, Jeremy Williams, I would have no doubt would be at CES. Oh, yeah. Hey, send us pictures.
    62:53
    For sure. I know that Patrick is going to be there. Patrick Walton from the Toy Shock fan page will be there at CES. So he's going to be there on the booth, I think, actually, helping out. So he's probably going to be the one to give the most up-to-date pictures. I'll be stalking the Facebook page for official pictures from him. Yeah. because I would seriously love to get my hands on the toy shop cabinet also just to get a feel for it, just so that I know what it feels like so I'm not just talking out my butt based off of pictures and what other people are saying. Yeah, me too. But I'd like to get the second iteration of it because I think the ones that we're going to be seeing in Australia when they eventually come here down to Aldi because they have confirmed they're going to be doing it in 2020 for us down here, they're going to have black bezels that hopefully they're going to have a little bit of a bigger monitor. Hopefully they're going to address the, probably hopefully put better cabinet buttons in there to address the lag issues. Yeah. You know, just little things. And if they did that and they keep the price point the same, look, it's for 12 and 1, like all the people that have got these and like they're sharing to the Toy Shop official fan page and they're going, look, you know, most of them are going, the kids love it. Like, everyone that's come over there for Christmas Day and over the holiday period there, they're just nonstop playing it. They love it. Well, it's certainly a sight better than those, you know, cheeseball plastic where the flipper is directly connected to the button, you know, that we're like, really, that's pinball? Exactly. It's great. Like, from that perspective, like, the kids are having a ball. for those kids who don't know a lot about pinball and for those families who don't know a lot about pinball and don't have access to real pinball they have zero problems with the toy shop products like they love it but for those people who do have experience with pinball and for those people who perhaps have more advanced taste requirements it doesn't really seem to be the product for them at the moment with the current configuration so you know if they can make some subtle improvements and guarantee they will to bring the product in line with the other products in 2020 coming out, it could actually stand up as a pretty decent offering, I think. All right. So we've made our shameless plea to get one of those or both of these configurations, anything. All of them. All of them, we say. Yes. Okay. I will make room. I can easily, yes. That's not a problem. I'm going to move on to just the final bit here which is I hooked up this gigantic monitor that's sitting in front of me right now that I'm not I didn't even measure what size it is it's got to be at least a 28 inch but the beautiful thing is it rotates and goes into portrait mode and so I was finally able to actually play Zen in portrait mode, leaned back a little bit, probably about 30 degrees leaned back, with the microcab, and it feels really good. Does it? And then I wound up, I found out how to put the DMD on the second screen, so I was able to do that. But truth be told,
    66:13
    view 8 for the Williams tables works great, because since I can't have the table, or since I can't have the monitor completely flat,
    66:21
    It's raked quite a bit. Well, that matches then the rake of View 8, and you've got the DMD up there, and it's much bigger than if you're playing in landscape mode View 8. So it works out really, really nice. That's what I'm playing all the Williamson tables in, is that. So View 8's the one with the DMD in view all the time. Yes, correct. Yes. Works out really well. And Circus Volterra looks amazing on it. Oh, yeah, it would. It's almost like it's designed for cabinet play, really. Right. That table, isn't it? Right. Yeah. I don't mind, in the least bit, the illusion being spoiled when all of a sudden it goes into a magnification of something or shows me something animation-wise. Because I'm not fooled. I'm not looking at a cabinet. No, it's just digital. Yeah, I'm looking at a PC build with a monitor.
    67:13
    The Zen regular tables, there's where I'm like, where's my View 8? So, come on, Zen. make a Vue 8 they need them it wouldn't be that difficult to do and it would be nice to be able to have that because now I'm used to that and then I've got to go back to regular and I throw the DMD over to the other side here's the plea that I have I already had help with somebody getting me to get the DMD over there that was a task that I didn't understand because it's not very intuitive how to do all this stuff the back glass art I got linked to a page where a whole bunch of back glass art is, but I'm still not sure of all the processes of where to drop any of the files. So if anybody out there is a cabinet person, hey, Greg from Spacey's Arcade.
    68:02
    Hello, friend. How about sending me over a step-by-step idiot's guide to putting back glass art on the second screen? I'd greatly appreciate it, because it seems to me that the info is kind of scattered about. Or if somebody can just link me to where the proper info is, but I'm having flashbacks of Visual Pinball just with all the... It's not that it's particularly complicated, it's just that you kind of have to know exactly where to put the stuff and what to do with it. I'm fine resizing my screen. That's easy enough to do within the interface of Zen Pinball. But it's just where to put it in the local files because I get kind of twitchy when I have to start digging under the hood for that kind of stuff. So, my cabinet friends, if you can send to either via Twitter or blahblahblockade at gmail.com an email with kind of a step-by-step instruction, I would greatly appreciate it because absolutely being able to flip this monitor, rotate it, stand up, and play that cabinet the way it was meant to be played is pretty fantastic and I and enjoyed it greatly. So I want to enjoy it greatly more.
    69:22
    As an aside, the monitor that I've got here that I'm doing the podcasting on, it's on a mount as well, and it's not a massive monitor. I think it's only like an 18-inch or something like that. But it does pivot, and for a long time I've been hesitating doing a portrait orientation for it because it feels like a bit of a stuff around to actually get it working right in Windows because you've got to go into your settings, you've got to flip the orientation, you've got to do it. And then if you want to change it back for regular Steam games and stuff, you then got to do it all over again. There doesn't seem to be a way to just have a one-click button to flip the profile.
    69:58
    Wait, you're talking about for FX3? Yes, but generally just setting it up so it works. Well, okay, so here's the deal, though. In FX3, there's a little pinball cabinet up at the top. You click that. you get a key. So you get the key, but once you have the key, then you can set up the monitor how you need it to be set up. But the point is that if I click it again, it goes back to regular landscape mode integration. I don't go into Windows and rotate the monitor. It just works. You just click the pinball cab up at the top of... Because then it knows you're going into cabinet mode. And then it will orient the screen properly. So it basically takes all the settings and offsets that you've set up in the configuration. You have to tell it to rotate. In your initial setting up, you have to tell it to rotate the screen 90 degrees, 180 degrees, 260 degrees, whatever direction it needs to be set. But that's it. And then every single time you click that button, it toggles back and forth, basically. Right. Okay. So it's quick to do in Zen Pinball. It's quick to do in Zen Pinball. I have no idea what it's like to do in TPA. I'm not going to find out.
    71:22
    And I have Demon's Tilt. I know Demon's Tilt has a setting to go portrait, and in app you can just click it and it will go portrait. Yeah, I'll have to try that. And I haven't tried it in Zacharia either. Yeah, I'm pretty sure they have support for cabinet mode. They definitely have support for it, yes. Yeah, so it seems like a lot of the pinball apps on Steam will have a one-click or mostly one-click solution to do it. So I should try it as well. I don't have a pinball cabinet with buttons, but I can certainly elevate the screen to like a pinball machine height and sort of orient my buttons, orient my laptop screen as like the DMD sitting below instead of above because I can't get it that high. And that would be pretty decent. Yeah, because I don't have my screen above by any – it's over to the side. But it's not much difficult. I mean, to me, it's not much difference from doing that to look at the DMD to doing that to look at the DMD. I mean, again, I'm not going for a purist version. Then let's be serious. It's a lot cheaper doing it the way you're doing it. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
    72:33
    A lot cheaper. So, yeah. From that respect, it's a very cheap way of doing it. So that's kind of neat. And one of these days, my friend also, like I said, I'm storing a bunch of his stuff while he's in transition and moving.
    72:47
    That's why I'm being able to. He's the one that said, use it while I'm not using it. So I'm like, fine. Electronics need to be used. Otherwise, you run into trouble. We're doing the same. We're babysitting an 80-inch LED TV. Oh, bummer. Yeah, it's really hard. I want to go out there and commandeer it for a day and set up my gaming laptop on it and just play games on it all day. But I can't do that. I do have, however, my 41-inch TV in my room at the moment, not connected up because it would look ridiculous on my table. But there's always that that I could actually play games on, which would be pretty amazing. But anyway, he also has a full Oculus Rift setup.
    73:35
    I might plug it in. Here's the problem. I don't have any Oculus or any VR games, and all I want to play is pinball. That's all I would want to play anyway.
    73:47
    I never bought any of the Zen VR because I didn't have the setup. I have his computer also, but I don't really want to plug that whole thing in just to do that. So we'll see. I don't know. I never got a chance to play the MicroCab with the VR headset. So I'd be very interested in checking that out. It's just a matter of do I bother hooking up his computer or not.
    74:17
    But it would be cool to check out properly on my terms with it set up to my height and play distance and everything else like that. So we'll see if I get around to it or not.
    74:29
    Yeah, right. Yeah, so... Geber says, on wireless Oculus Quest, Zen is amazing. Yeah, this isn't the wireless version. This is a little bit older. And my problem was it had a little bit of a screen door effect when I did play it.
    74:47
    And I am a resolution freak. So to me, although the reality of it is pretty cool, the resolution is a hindrance if I can't read inserts it drives me nuts he did give you a tip about where to put those DMD files the back glass files for you so try that yeah I still want just a dummies guide give me in this folder put it here Because that's what I've already seen. I've seen various posts where people are like, oh, you just put it here. Just give me a step-by-step guide. Just treat me like an idiot and I'll be happy.
    75:34
    All right. Well, folks, that is it for Blockade in the year 2019. We will see you again in the year 2020. In fact, this decade. Yes, yes. This decade. As far as we're concerned, this decade. and beyond that next time we podcast not quite sure it's kind of hit and miss with my schedule right now and also whether there's anything to actually podcast about we at the very least try and come on every two weeks if there's a lot going on obviously we do it weekly but if you see us popping on for the sake of popping on It's just because we want to say hi and communicate with you all.
    76:19
    Yeah. And apparently it's also time for me to do some new videos regarding the new tables on the app and post those to YouTube. So I might get around to doing that too. We'll see. Yeah, true. Hey, also, don't forget at the moment there's a holiday. If you haven't already started spending your Zen coins on it, there's a holiday promo going on on the Williams mobile app. William's Pinball mobile app.
    76:47
    You've got a chance to get some serious table parts if you're playing it at the moment. I've probably not played William's Pinball as much as I have in the last three days just to try and get table parts built up. It's a really fast way of doing it, and I would encourage you to drop your token to reset the challenges and get some more table parts because it's worth the token in this particular case. You get at least two table parts, sometimes more. Yeah, absolutely. I did that for sure. And then I started doing the, it's 1,000 tickets for 10 table parts, I think, for the loot box. Yeah, that's worth it. I was at 48,000 tickets. I'm now down to, I think, 8,000 tickets. because between... Well, it cost me 15,000 tickets just to upgrade all five tables to three stars, which I'm now at, and the other portion of tickets was used just to get the remaining table parts. And I'm kind of... I'm not spending it to get all the way to four parts because I'm still just like, hey, it's kind of fun to play the challenges and get parts because once I get all the parts, I kind of stop playing the app. So, hey, Zen, how about making table parts available in the regular daily challenges? Yeah, that's right.
    78:06
    It will be very sweet. But yes, I'm in the same boat. I'm having the same problem in the daily challenges.
    78:13
    But look, it's worth it. It's getting me in the app, that's for sure. I was playing it all the time when I was up at Christmas in the in-laws and just chipping away and splitting those tokens. It's worth the spend. Get on it.
    78:26
    All right. That being said, make sure you check out the website. It is blockadepinball.com slash underscore, excuse me, episodes. No. No, it is slash episodes. Let's try that again. BlockadePinball.com slash episodes. That's where you'll find all the past episodes we have, as well as the current. Jared likes to drop in show notes that include websites and links to things that we talk about during the podcast. So make sure you go there. I haven't mentioned it in a long time, but I'll say it. RedBubble.com, search Blockade. There you can find T-shirts. We would appreciate the support. it helps us uh fund this little dog and pony show that we do um or if you just want to actually have website renewal coming up um which is uh we'll have to dip into the paypal for so yeah if you want to if you've liked what you've heard this year send us a couple of bucks buy us a beer and it's really appreciated yeah you can actually directly uh donate into our paypal so shut your traps paypal but it's he's all right he doesn't spend it on on beer nope i don't i only spend it on stuff directly applying to this podcast. And Slurpees. No, no, no. If I use it for Slurpees, it'd be gone in a month. Yeah, that's right.
    79:44
    And then you'd come back around and go, hey, it's time to renew our website. Ah, screw the website. That's right.
    79:52
    Anyway, we truly do appreciate you guys watching us when we come on here and interacting with us on the old chat stream while we're doing the Twitch broadcast. And for those of you that watch on YouTube, it's greatly appreciated there. Do leave comments. I try and respond to any comment that gets posted on YouTube. And then there's our long-time listeners that don't watch us at all. They just listen to the podcast. And to you guys, we very much greatly appreciate that because you've been around the longest. Yeah, you stuck with us through all the craziness. Thank you. Yeah, PinballWiz just posted driveway cheese which was a uh a bumper sticker that uh we had yes it was um truly an in-joke a very old one yeah i'm i'm kind of curious i might even have one hold on over to you jared oh no yes so the whole story behind driveway cheese is we wanted to see how many people were actually listening to the show early on and uh and chris actually produced these stickers to see if um we could get it. Here it is. I don't know if you can see it. Yeah, there it is.
    81:01
    It makes zero sense whatsoever, but it made us laugh all the same. Just like this show, really. So, yeah. Yes. All right. Well, that was, wow, we went to a very long time today, which is not a bad thing. Well, yeah, we had to, because we're not doing it every week. We've got to fit a lot in. There was a lot to talk about this show before we actually end for the year, so I think it's justified. It was one of those things, too, where it was like, I was kind of debating, ah, are we going to skip again? And then all of a sudden, this whole speculation thing popped up and i was like no we need to do a podcast now jared and since i'm busy tomorrow we're doing it today yeah we've got to get all the speculation away we haven't done this for ages and we need to do it yes because speculation is our absolute favorite thing to do um it's one of the black paint brands actually i think yeah yes actually we should probably we probably have another speculation show coming up next which would be just what is planned in 2020 because a lot of people already started that thread and had a lot of ideas. Oh yeah, in terms of just what tables they think that Zen will put out, what's Zen's plan in general.
    82:03
    There's a whole bit about people thinking there might be an FX4, to which I have a lot of reasons why there won't be anytime soon, but yeah, maybe we'll hit that up next time too. If we don't hit that up though, Jared, what other things will we talk about? definitely stuff and things our favorite all right folks thanks again catch you next time see you later