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Spinning Copper

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·53m 39s·held·Feb 29, 2020
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

BlahCade covers slow news cycle, Arcuda cabinet relaunch, and Zachariah multiplayer tech feedback.

Summary

Chris Friebus and Jared Morgan discuss the slow news cycle in pinball, highlighted by Arcuda's announcement of two new cabinet designs (Dynasty upright and Mercury arcade) and ongoing technical issues with Zachariah's multiplayer interface and graphics performance. The hosts also explore Zen Pinball's content drought and the comparison between Zachariah's head-to-head multiplayer and Zen's match-up mode, with broader discussion of digital pinball engagement and platform differences.

Key Claims

  • Zen Pinball has not released new content since December, which is an unusually large gap compared to the previous year's release schedule

    high confidence · Chris and Jared discussing content drought from Zen; attributed to CES announcements followed by long gaps before actual releases

  • Zachariah's two-player multiplayer mode works well in-game but has significant interface/menu navigation issues, including problems with controller support and tab order

    high confidence · Jared's detailed account of attempting to use cabinet mode with Zachariah, encountering black screens during table flyovers and multiplayer load failures

  • Zachariah's animated backglass feature in cabinet mode causes significant GPU strain, particularly on mid-range cards like Nvidia 1060, requiring resolution/feature reduction to maintain stable gameplay

    high confidence · Jared's direct experience testing with rotating monitor and animated backglass; video card hitting specs limits

  • Arcuda announced Dynasty and Mercury cabinet designs in February 2025 as a 'reboot' (Arcuda 2.0), pivoting from their previous Ultra cabinet design

    high confidence · Chris and Jared referencing Arcuda's Twitter announcements on February 3rd and February 19th with cabinet specifications and videos

  • The Dynasty cabinet features a vertical touchscreen oriented for pinball and shoot-em-ups, with a smaller 16-17 inch secondary monitor for backglass display

    medium confidence · Visual analysis of Arcuda's social media posts showing cabinet design; hosts estimating monitor sizes based on appearance

  • VP Cab's Vertigo cabinet was priced between $2,000-$2,900 USD

    medium confidence · Jared recalling price from memory while discussing competitive pricing for Arcuda Dynasty

  • Modded Arcade1Up pinball cabinets typically reach around $1,200 in total cost after aftermarket upgrades

    medium confidence · Chris speculating on total cost-of-ownership for modded budget cabinets as comparison point for Arcuda pricing

Notable Quotes

  • “It's almost like there's a period where, I think it's in other industries, where they shut down and they just don't really do anything. It feels like this now.”

    Jared Morgan @ early in episode — Captures the current slow news cycle in pinball industry, tying it to broader post-CES/post-holiday pattern

  • “Spin gold out of copper. Yeah, not much.”

    Jared Morgan @ early in episode — Episode title explanation; reflects content scarcity in current news cycle

  • “Playing head-to-head with somebody, being able to watch their game, man, I wish Zen had it too. I mean, hats off to you, Zachariah. You just figured it out.”

    Jared Morgan @ mid-episode — Direct comparison of Zachariah's multiplayer functionality to Zen's match-up mode, positioning Zachariah as superior for social play

  • “The B button needs to be the back button. I should be able to just rapidly hit that over and over, and it should just take me out of one menu, out of one menu, out of one menu, and just go all the way back.”

    Jared Morgan @ mid-episode — Specific UX feedback on Zachariah interface design; identifies poor menu navigation pattern

  • “It's essentially the same as tab order when you're using a program on your computer... it wouldn't be hard to fix”

    Chris Friebus @ mid-episode — Technical diagnosis of Zachariah's interface problem as standard UI/UX implementation issue

  • “It's really like a glorified... It's like one of those AV receivers you used to have. An AV receiver with a screen and controls.”

    Chris Friebus @ discussing Arcuda — Characterizes Arcuda's strategy as hardware appliance/pass-through device rather than integrated game platform

  • “If I'm looking for a dedicated pinball cab, then obviously you're looking more at the Dynasty version. If I'm plugging in my PlayStation or Xbox, I'm going to go Mercury over the Dynasty.”

    Chris Friebus @ late episode — Clear market segmentation between the two Arcuda cabinet designs based on use case

Entities

Chris FriebuspersonJared MorganpersonArcudacompanyZen Pinballproduct/platformZaccariaproductDynastyproductMercuryproductVP Cab VertigoproductMartinperson

Signals

  • $

    market_signal: Post-CES/post-holiday slowdown pattern observed in pinball industry; announcements cluster in January but releases lag by weeks/months, creating extended dry periods

    high · Chris and Jared discuss typical cycle: CES announcements followed by months with no new content or release updates

  • ?

    product_concern: Zachariah's animated backglass feature in cabinet mode demands excessive GPU resources; mid-range cards (Nvidia 1060) unable to handle full settings with dual-monitor setup at high resolutions

    high · Jared's direct testing: video card 'whining,' black screens during flyovers, multiplayer load failures; required resolution/feature reduction to achieve stability

  • ?

    product_concern: Zachariah's multiplayer menu system has poor controller navigation, inconsistent tab order, and requires keyboard fallback; interface lacks intuitive back button functionality and quick table selection

    high · Jared detailed account of navigation failures: stuck sections, inability to back out, joystick not highlighting exit buttons, accidental lobby wipes

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Zachariah's head-to-head multiplayer praised as significantly more engaging than Zen's match-up mode; sequential turn-based play with spectator view mimics physical arcade social experience better than competitive tournament scoring

    high · Jared: 'I wish Zen had it too... it's what Farsight was hoping to do... you take your turn, you play your ball, and the other person can watch. It's just like standing beside the game'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Zen Pinball exhibits measurable physics differences between mobile and Steam versions despite using same physics model; mobile flippers behave differently (slower return, 'muddy' feel); auto-launch distance differs between platforms

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.161

0:00
blockade pinball podcast this is the blockade pinball podcast i'm your host chris frebus aka shut your trap joining me as always halfway across the world jared morgan hello everybody We are doing a Friday edition, Saturday morning for Jared, but as opposed to our usual Saturday slash Sunday edition for those of you across the timelines.
0:39
It's like a Saturday morning cartoons edition in here in Australia, you know. You realize how much in the future you are when it's basically mid-afternoon for me and then it's just morning for you. Morning, yeah. Yeah. Very much in the future.
0:58
It's so far so good. I'm looking out there. I'd recommend it. But, yeah, I think it's okay for now. The future hasn't collapsed yet. Got it. It's okay. I'm like the canary in the mine for everyone else who's listening to the Black Cape Pinball Podcast. So we had a little gap, master gap week. I didn't, it was one of those things where it was like, Jared texted me and goes, hey, are we recording this? And this was last week. And I kind of went, wait, didn't we just do one? He's like, no. I'm like, okay. Last one was February 4th. Yeah, or something like that. It was a while ago. Yeah, time gets a little slippery now and then, but what are you going to do? Eh, you know, time is time. That's right.
1:45
So, what we are going to try and attempt to do here is spin gold out of very, very, very... Copper. Yeah, not much.
2:01
Yeah, spin gold out of some dirt. Because there's not a whole lot going on. I don't know what it is about this time of year, Chris, but it's like... It's almost like there's a period where, I think it's in other industries, where they shut down and they just don't really do anything. It feels like this now. Well, you have all your big announcements that come out at, you know, end of January basically because of CES in terms of electronic stuff. Yes. Then there's that whole, okay, we announced it. We just don't have anything to release. Yeah. I think that's definitely what we're in at the moment. And then we've got the issue with, well, there's no new pinball from Zen, and we haven't had new pinball since December. so that's an unusually large gap um from what we were used to uh yeah past year and again that comes down to again cs and christmas and all that sort of stuff as well so it's fair enough to expect that um i have noticed that zen hasn't been totally quiet though because they're actually at a another game show at the moment or gaming convention demoing um uh operencia oh right on other platforms. Yeah, it's an indie gaming event. So yeah, Desiree's over there doing the thing, which is kind of cool. In Anaheim, so... Anaheim, that'll be nice. Which is right... I mean, that's where Disneyland is. She's probably at the convention center across the street. Oh, right, yeah. Cool. Well, I hope it goes well. Yeah, but so... You know, we haven't heard anything from them, and it's that whole mystery of, well, what is coming next? Because we've got those last three DMDs DMDs, are they... Are they going to be slated? Well, those were all questionable, you know, in terms of what we said. Look, Cactus Canyon, ridiculously hard to find in Europe. Yeah. Anyway, really. Jackbot, lots of gambling, and that was previously an issue. And then whodunit.

Arcuda has secured licenses with Namco and Taito for their cabinet offerings

medium confidence · Reference to previous conversation with Arcuda representatives about IP licensing deals

  • “They're just marching on with the one that they announced with Pinball OK... we didn't know that it had stopped.”

    Chris Friebus @ discussing Arcuda history — Reveals community awareness gap about Arcuda's pivot from Ultra cabinet to new designs

    • Farsight Studioscompany
    Namcocompany
    Taitocompany
    Arcade1Upcompany
    [name withheld pending review]event
    CESevent

    medium · Jared comparing Zen mobile vs Steam: 'flippers behave differently... almost like the flippers are motorized, not solenoid driven'; Chris confirming different auto-launch behavior in challenges

  • ?

    product_strategy: Arcuda rebranded product line as 'Arcuda 2.0' with two distinct cabinet form factors (Dynasty vertical, Mercury horizontal) rather than single pinball-focused model; positioning as multi-platform appliance/receiver rather than integrated game device

    high · Arcuda Twitter announcements Feb 3 and Feb 19; hosts note cabinet is 'AV receiver with a screen and controls' supporting multiple input devices and game libraries

  • ?

    design_innovation: Dynasty cabinet features integrated touchscreen display as primary interface; represents differentiation from competitor VP Cab Vertigo and enables alternative control method beyond traditional pinball flipper buttons

    medium · Hosts discussing Dynasty touchscreen feature as 'big difference' compared to Mercury and noting Arcuda's historical emphasis on touch interfaces

  • $

    market_signal: Arcuda Dynasty expected to target $1,800 USD price point to compete with modded Arcade1Up cabinets ($1,200) and VP Cab Vertigo ($2,000-$2,900); market segmentation between budget mods and premium purpose-built hardware

    medium · Chris and Jared speculation on competitive pricing: 'if Arcuda wants to be competitive... they're going to have to be in the $1,800 range... five or six times' the Arcade1Up baseline

  • ?

    community_signal: Jared reports significant disengagement from Zen Pinball despite liking the games; lacks motivation to replay released titles on Steam; mobile version feels inferior, driving him away from platform entirely

    medium · Jared: 'I don't have the motivation to go back in there and pick the game up again... I've just lost the engagement with the platform'

  • ?

    content_signal: BlahCade Pinball Podcast experiencing longer gaps between episodes; hosts discuss gap week and difficulty maintaining regular Saturday/Sunday schedule due to content scarcity

    medium · Chris noting last episode was February 4th, making this episode roughly 2-3 weeks later; hosts joking about 'spinning gold out of copper' due to limited news

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Arcuda removed Kinect depth-sensing camera from Dynasty cabinet design; decision reflects Farsight's legacy licensing limitations (depth-sensing only available for titles with explicit Kinect support) making feature impractical for modern multi-platform deployment

    medium · Hosts noting Dynasty lacks camera 'because it's in a vertical orientation... no depth of field' and because modern platforms (Zen, Zachariah) don't support it without explicit coding

  • ?

    operational_signal: Arcuda Dynasty and Mercury designed as modulars pass-through hardware supporting external devices (Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, PC); allow customers to either purchase pre-configured with PC or supply their own hardware; caters to both pre-built and enthusiast DIY markets

    medium · Hosts discussing Arcuda's flexibility: 'you could probably just opt not to have a box put in it' and plug in own Steam box or console; positioning as 'receiver' for multiple game sources

    • 3:58
    Which was fine, but no one really wants it, right? Right. Exactly. You don't hear a lot of clamoring for, God, I just wish they would release whodunit. Nah, it doesn't. Not so much. so yeah we're waiting on anything from Zen in that regards and beyond that you've got Zacharia which we haven't heard anything new from them recently this is not without trying either we've been trying to prod them a bit but they're I wonder if it's like a holiday over there in Budapest I don't know because both Jared and I have used different methods to prod our friend of the show Martin but he's not responding, that's okay we can wait but it means that we don't really have anything to tell you not news wise so that's why we're saying you get to watch us spin gold out of copper as Jared just said spin gold out of copper That should be the name of these shows, these episodes that we do. It's spinning gold. Twiddling thumbs. That's right. I did try out Zacharia in cabinet mode. Oh, yeah? Just because I've got that monitor that rotates now, and it was like, oh, yeah. Hey, I forgot. I could do that. Let's try it.
    5:31
    Interestingly enough, so their back glass, you can activate, turn on and off the back glass. it automatically pops up on the other monitor. Scores will display on that monitor. But mercy does it just make the video card chug. Oh, does it? Because it's fully animated. It was, my card was just whining, just going high speed. The hyperdrive was activated well and truly. Yeah, and it doesn't, I mean, it doesn't help that, you know, this monitor, the bigger monitor, the rotates is a was it 2440 by 1400 or whatever it is um it's not it's a grunty resolution to start with and then you're like yeah it's it's not 1920 by 1080 1080 and it's not 4k it's kind of in between um it's free k free k but it does but it does you know because if i kick the resolution up for it. It does make the video card definitely work harder than previously. But yeah, so I was having games and then I'd go to select a new table and I'd see all the menus. That's no problem. But then when it would go do the flyover of the table, nothing. Just black screen or a tear. And that would be it. And I'm like, what in the world is going on? So I thought I had it kind of figured out.
    6:56
    And then somebody challenged me to two-player, which I was like, oh, hey, you know what? I have not experienced the two-player mode yet from Zachariah.
    7:08
    He got to load up the game, and nothing, just black screen. Couldn't play it at all. I was like, what is going on? This sucks. And so I wound up having to turn off the back glass, turn down something else, and then it worked. And I gotta say... So you were literally exceeding your video card specs for the game. Yeah, I believe so. Right. I believe so. Is it true, though, that most cabinet owners or people who have gone to the trouble of setting up a multi-screen setup for pinball, they typically run two video cards, don't they? Like one for the back glass and one for the main screen, don't they? Don't know. Oh. I'm pretty sure they do. You've got to remember, I'm new to this whole cabinet business because I... I've got a feeling they do. and I've got a feeling that there's a reason for that because it does take a fair bit of grunt to do it. That or they just have an even stronger video card than I have. I mean, mine's not a slouch by any means, but it's not top of the line.
    8:05
    You're an NVIDIA 1080, aren't you, in your box? No, I believe I'm a 1060i. 1060i, okay. So that's basically a little bit less than a 1080. Yeah. So I've got one of the newer RTX ones in my laptop.
    8:23
    So it's a little bit better than the top-spec 1080 series video card from NVIDIA. And it plays things pretty well. It does most definitely screen when you're actually playing games, but it's in a laptop. And so, yeah, it'll do that. because it doesn't have any insulation from the case. It's pretty much like your video card's right under there, and it's pumping out... Burning a hole in your lap. Oh, you don't play it on your lap. No, you'll end up with a very hot lap.
    9:01
    But from a capability perspective, it's good. The RTX series of cards are very good. Because when I play Xen, the video card definitely fires up. I mean, I can definitely hear it going, but it's not screaming.
    9:20
    So anyway, but I do want to say playing head-to-head with somebody, being able to watch their game, man, I wish Xan had it too. I mean, hats off to you, Zachary. You just figured it out. It's very cool. it's what Farsight was hoping to do, I think, and ultimately wasn't able to. Although Farsight, it seemed like they were, they wanted both players playing at the exact same time. Yeah, they wanted it to be real time. Yeah, but you weren't watching the other person play. Here it's, you take your turn, you play your ball, and the other person can watch.
    9:58
    So it's just like standing beside the game, but you're a thousand kilometers away from each other. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, it's so good. Yeah, it's awesome. essentially it's like a switchable twitch stream of your game just for you two yeah that's a good way of putting it yeah and I had a lot of fun it was a lot of fun and it was cool just watching especially since the Zack games I just I don't know them I don't know what you want to be going for and when you're playing it's hard to kind of figure that out but when you're watching somebody else play, all of a sudden you're like, oh, what's that technique they're doing? What's that pattern that they're going for? And oh, hey, now I see that thing lit up and I'm reading the DMD and being able to know what's... What's going on. What they're asking, yeah.
    10:49
    That being said, the Zachariah interface, not cool. Right. Still a little bit of room for improvement there, you think? I had to have, because I was playing with my cabinet there. Yeah, yeah. And I had to also have my controller hooked up, and I had to have access to my keyboard.
    11:19
    Oh, right. Okay. So it wasn't controller-supported navigation at all. There's sections that it just gets stuck. Oh, really? have the ability to necessarily back out of it.
    11:33
    Have you made notes of those sections? Because it would probably be a good thing to tell them about. Well, what do you think I was trying to message about?
    11:40
    Uh-huh. Yeah, right. Because sometimes there's hidden things that we're not necessarily privy to that when Martin goes around playing it, he makes it look easy.
    11:51
    So, but one of the key things that I did that was bothersome was it was just like the B button needs to be the back button. I should be able to just rapidly hit that over and over, and it should just take me out of one menu, out of one menu, out of one menu, and just go all the way back. There shouldn't be this whole business of, are you sure? Or, you know, any of that clunkiness that all of a sudden, then I have to use a joystick to navigate to, which is why I had to then have my controller, because for some reason my joystick wasn't quite navigating.
    12:23
    On one of the screens, it would navigate through all the bar things but it would not go and highlight the exit oh that's just and that's really just like when you're developing an interface like that it's essentially the same as tab order when you're using a program on your computer it's it's no different to that you you control at what order your your tab focuses the button first normally it's on the button that will get you out of the game so it's just like they've got the the it wouldn't be helpful to fix it's just like the tab order that they just need to relay yeah no it wouldn't be it shouldn't be hard to fix um no that being said team of four team of four yeah look fair fair call there um it's it's hard to prioritize work like that when you know it's essentially you can still use it it's just not great and that that the thing like what other fish do they have to fry at the moment there is more important than that probably a fair bit of stuff because they released that new you know pro version of the table But that's the only one we've seen so far. And that was back in November, I think. They have two tables available, from what I saw. Oh, really? Because I only saw one on Twitter. I could only see one promoted on Twitter. Oh, no, in the game, there's two. There's two. Oh, that's okay. So they've done the second one now, which is good. Yeah. That's good.
    13:52
    So, I mean, like I said, I had fun playing it. Oh, the other problem was that... So, whoever started the multiplayer, you send out an invite, basically. People can join in on the multiplayer. Oh, cool. But then you have to set up...
    14:11
    You're setting up all of the parameters. All right. And setting up which game you're going to play. well once you get done with that playing that game you you have to go back in and select from all the games again it's not it's basically what i'm trying to say is it's not quick to select which game which table you want to to play it's not a really quick easy just oh you know there's no drop down menu there's no easy way in it's almost like you're on the verge of exiting out it completely and stopping your connection picking the next game and then logging. And then one time, indeed, I did. I went, pushed one wrong thing and, burp, wiped out the lobby. Had to create the lobby all over again, invite the person back in again. So that was kind of... See, that's when they need an are you sure you want to exit button. Right. Right? That's the right place to put that, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So, um, but at least it works. That's, that's the main thing. At least it works. And it's cool. and when you're in the game and you're playing the in-game experience with two play it sounds like it's really awesome yeah that's where i and i really wish that zen instead of this stupid match-up mode that i don't know i haven't touched it since the first month it came out when fx3 came out i haven't touched it since it seems completely a waste of my time when i can score you know 25 million on a table and all i really needed was 1 million in order to advance it's just silly. The mashups aren't good. So I would rather Zen went and put in a multiplayer just like this.
    15:50
    It would be a lot of fun. I'd love to be able to do it. Yeah, I'd probably play more than I am at the moment, and I must admit it seems that I don't really pick up the games like Zen at the moment at all, really, because after the games are released, and I've had a playtest of them before we talk about them on the show, there's nothing new in the collection. And I'm sort of going, well, I've played these before. Sure, they're really nice, but I don't have, on Steam at least, I don't have the motivation to go back in there and pick the game up again. Well, this is where tournaments become a factor. And so there's a Reddit tournament currently.
    16:27
    I forget who's hosting it, but basically we're in week five right now of them. And it's kind of like when we were doing the Table of the Month tournament. it's a lot of fun. It gets you back into playing, feeling competitive, and sometimes makes you go, hey, I should probably practice this one before I actually play it.
    16:51
    Yeah, I think I just need to get re-engaged again. I've just lost the engagement with the platform. I play it a bit on mobile when I'm just bored on the train home, but it's not the same. The more I play it on mobile, the more when you're not playing with advanced physics, for which I have not unlocked yet on mobile, like the the flippers almost feel they just don't feel right on mobile compared to steam like they feel muddy um when you flip them they don't well you're also playing with your thumbs yeah it's not that though like it's the way they animate on the screen and it's the way the ball feels when you hit the the the the actual flippers and when you hit the ball with the flippers it's got this weird well are you playing um so when you play on steam you're playing with regular physics not zen physics right you're playing arcade physics uh the no i'm normally often play this with zen physics so i'm sort of matching matching what i'm getting on um on mobile and it's different like the flippers behave differently on mobile like it's almost It's like if you've ever played a game that has slow flippers that don't return back to their home position fast enough, it has the effect, for me at least, it's almost like the flippers are motorized, not solenoid driven. And the fact that they go, and you won't be able to see this if you're listening on the podcast afterwards, but it's like rather than snapping up, they're sort of like, and they don't have that really fast travel that you expect when you're flipping. and I don't know whether it's like some sort of optical illusion that's making me feel that way, but when I'm playing the game on mobile, it's a very different feeling to playing it on Steam and I'm using the same physics model. Well, and there is definitely porting difference. I mean, just there were certain behaviors that were happening on mobile that were not happening in Steam. In Steam, yeah. With like the auto ball launch, how far up the ball was going was different on mobile than it was in Steam when playing the challenges. So, I mean, there's definitely platform differences that they would need to tweak and fine-tune. It's kind of why we were like, hey, you know, maybe you should have us beta test the mobile also.
    19:13
    Yeah. It sort of would be a good idea, I think. Yeah. But, yeah, so it's like I would love to see head-to-head of that nature. make it into Zen and then of course the interface would just be so much slicker yeah it would for sure yeah I'd like to see that sort of play as well like essentially like a mini twitch stream between the two players or can you have up to four players in a matchup or is it just two oh with Zacharia I don't know I think you can invite more people then you probably go up to four i imagine oh that's that's pretty cool you know what would be really good is that you know there's there's something to be said about having being able to talk to people that you're playing with um around the table so it would be nice as well perhaps to actually have the ability to um like use headsets you know like um right team speak kind of yeah like team speak discord that sort of thing um in there as well maybe again nice to have but You know what actually ideally I would like if them were to take this? Basically, go back to what it was like selecting songs in Rock Band.
    20:34
    Oh, yeah. Where both people could put suggestions up for what they wanted, or it's you pick one table, or you pick one song, I pick one song, you pick one song, I pick one song.
    20:46
    Oh, yeah. He kind of makes that engagement happen so there's not one person purely in control. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. And then that way you didn't necessarily even have to have headphones on to talk to the person. You could indicate what you wanted just by selecting it and showing it. That's a good idea. I was thinking more of the fun of heckling someone when they were playing.
    21:11
    Oh, well, yeah, there's that for sure. Which is a lot of fun. the breakup party that we had for Brisbane Pinball Club last year, it was a casual tournament and I do love to heckle people when it's not like because you can't do it when it's in tournament mode but I was heckling some of the best players and beating them because of my heckling, it was fantastic fun I would do it again every single time it's great and they were having a ball too, they didn't care they weren't playing for sheep stations as the expression goes here. They were just flipping around. A lot of them were very drunk as well, so that also helped. Yeah, there you go. That's very funny.
    21:53
    So one other thing that... Hold on, I'm just adjusting the camera there. Jared was looking very tall, and it was making me feel very short. Yeah, I sort of sat up a little bit because I looked like I was getting sweaty back. Gross.
    22:09
    So what kind of bit of news we might say, and this is where the title of our show comes from, guess who started popping up on Twitter again? Yeah, we've had action. Action from Arcuda again. Yeah, and the thing was is Arcuda was kind of launching it as Arcuda 2.0. Yeah, the reboot. Which we didn't know that it had stopped.
    22:36
    Yeah, we just thought they were still marching on with the one that they announced with Pinball OK. That was the Ultra cab, I believe, was what they called it back then. That's right. The one was all blue. Yeah. But it's changed color and changed shape. Well, yeah. So what they're advertising is an upright. They call it the Dynasty cab. And if you've ever seen VP Cab's Vertigo cabinet, it's essentially what it looks like. So big screen, vertical, right in front of you. uh dmd below the screen and there is no second monitor i believe is there well the thing at the top looks like a second one is there a second monitor well i don't know maybe i think there is you know i think there's a little one at the top but um i don't think you can because with the old um the old with the ultra that they were originally releasing within the pinball form factor the traditional pinball form fact you could use that back glass as like a second display but i've got a feeling oh i see what you're talking about no no i think you're right there is yeah it's a small 16 by 9 monitor uh for showing the back glass but it's much smaller than the one that was in the ultra like pinball form factor cabinet it's probably by the looks of the screen or 17 inch maybe yeah thereabouts it's a small monitor so it sounded like they announced this back in February the 3rd using the Arcuda Twitter timeline for these dates because that's kind of a good one to use for when they announce it in terms of official stuff yeah you just go to the yeah Arcuda's Twitter account and ta-da, there's things. But we're saving you from having to do that by just telling you things. And then you can maybe go and look for them yourself. Because they do have quick videos up of what some of the stuff looks like.
    24:43
    But yeah, so they got this upright pin there that also it's got looks like interface buttons on the front panel or ports I should say. And then there are a series of arcade buttons and a joystick on the panel on top so it looks like they are sticking with what they were doing way back when which is it's not just for pinball it's for all types of games it's almost like um when i was looking at this i got the impression that it's just it's really like a it's an appliance that you can connect anything to and display images on it as well as if you want to dump a pc in there and and connect up your steam box etc to it as well um yeah so it's it's um yeah it's sort of like a it's a i don't i don't want to cheapen it by saying this, but it sounds like it's a glorified... It's like one of those, you know, AV things you used to have. You probably still do have if you're rich, where you can plug in... A receiver? Yeah, a receiver. That's the word I'm looking for. If you're rich. Yeah, I still have one, yes. It's an AV receiver with a screen and controls. So, yeah, it's an interesting product. So what it is is, though, obviously, with pinball related, it's got a you know the screen is vertical so it's long um yeah which makes it great for pinball but it also makes it great for uh schmups i believe is that what the term you use there jared oh yes yeah schmups it's it's fantastic for vertical shooting mumps yeah um oh yes but it wouldn't be so hot for any of your standard orientation screens no it's definitely you're right there Chris, it's definitely got the... Its purpose is very clear You a particular type of gamer who likes pinball and shoot which you know really it me Right Now if you want to go the other route they also have their Mercury machine, which looks more like your standard arcade setup. So monitor is oriented the... In landscape, basically. In landscape, yep. And again, their picture shows arcade sticks on top. looks like they've got Street Fighter on display there it's very much a sort of traditional style cabinet you would have seen back in the 80s early 90s in the arcades it's even got the marquee that looks pretty much the same and in fact the marquee in the tweet that they sent out on February 19 and indeed in the video they got that looks very similar to the Sega font in the marquee. Very similar, and I really dig it. I think that's great. Now, to be noted on that cabinet, it's also got buttons on the side, so presumably you'd be able to play pinball also on it. You'd just be playing in landscape, not in portrait mode. And that particular post, it says that play your favorite games from Steam, Origin, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, Android, PC libraries on the Mercury Arcade cabinet. plug and play is the simplest plugging the USB and HDMI cable from the cabinet into your console or PC. So, like you said, it's a receiver.
    28:19
    Yeah, it really is. It is just a big, very nicely made receiver. And you know, I think for a lot of people, I think it might actually be the more attractive option. Because I think it's more versatile. I've got some games on Steam that are shoot-'em-ups that would not work well on the Dynasty at all. Like, they're a horizontal gameplay. Well, I mean, certainly, to be sure, if I'm plugging in my PlayStation or Xbox, I'm going to go Mercury over the Dynasty. Uh-huh. Yeah, for sure. Consoles are not meant... Well, you can't flick the... You can't, like, change the orientation of the screen. No, there is no screen rotate. No, like, you've got to play it in landscape. Yeah. So, yeah, that would be for sure if I was hooking up those. If I'm looking for a dedicated pinball cab, then obviously you're looking more at the Dynasty version.
    29:19
    The interesting thing with the Dynasty is that the big difference with that is that it is also a touchscreen as well. So the main screen is a touchscreen. And that's the big difference, right? yeah there's no mention of if the mercury is a touch screen it doesn't look like it is it looks like the funny thing is arcuda is very hot on touch screen so it wouldn't surprise me if it actually is because arcuda used to have bar top machines and it would like um the touch whiz was touch with yes yeah yeah so it wouldn't surprise me if they just kind of you whatever interfaces that they're using for any of these things, because obviously they're going to have probably the ability to also buy these with built-in software.
    30:06
    Oh, I think so, yeah. I would imagine they probably ship with, so you just plug it in. Because I'd imagine there'd be some customers out there that would want to tinker and want to plug their own stuff in and do their own thing, and maybe they've already got a Steam box, for example, that they like to play with. Well, when we last talked to Arcuda, they were hot about having secured licenses with Namco and I think Taito.
    30:33
    So I'm guessing that that might be one of those things that winds up being able to be an option of purchasing it. Same thing with the Dynasty.
    30:43
    I know that Arcuda still, they bought a bunch of those Arcuda pinball arcade packages. So they can still sell. if you really want to play the Farsight versions of pinball, they can still sell that whole thing because it's attached to the camera. Yeah, totally. I noticed that the interesting thing about the Dynasty cabinets is they don't have any kinetic, not kinetic, connect camera in them. So probably the reason for that is because it's in a vertical orientation and you don't have that depth of field. Right, you don't have that depth of field, so there's no reason for it. Also, good luck finding one. And are you going to make this a big selling point for a game that only has those titles that are doing it? Anything that you hook up with your PlayStation, Xbox, Steam,
    31:42
    if you're playing Zen, Zachariah. It's got to be coded in. Yeah, it's got to be coded in. It's not going to be there. There's a special feature and it says it's not going to be there. Yeah. Yeah, so I mean it's not even a selling point anymore. Yeah, really, it's a good move. Get rid of it.
    31:56
    And we also haven't heard anything about price. No, they haven't said anything about price yet, which is interesting.
    32:09
    I've got some ideas. I do too. So let's run ideas here, because I'm going to base this based off of VP Cab's Vertigo. How much was that selling for there?
    32:22
    Off the top of my head, I wanted to say it was like... Was it 2,000 or 2,900? It was below 3,000. Somewhere above 2,000, below 3,000, right in that area.
    32:36
    I would think that if Arcuda wants to be competitive, they're going to have to be... And when I say competitive, Now you've got to keep in mind that you have all this one-up arcade cabinet business coming in. Yeah, these essentially budget pinballs that are in the market now. Right, because, I mean, this is two different markets, but you're kind of appealing to the same sensibilities. Yeah, you are. Like, you want people who like pinball, but then you can essentially have the Walmart type, which is arcade one-up and toy shock, or you can go a little bit more, And when I say a little bit, I mean about probably five or six times more. Well, but here's what I'm thinking, too. There's going to be plenty of people that are going to mod the 1UP cabinets, just as they've already modded the arcade cabinets. They're going to mod the pinball cabinets. Right, they already have. And you figure out how much money they're spending to mod them. By the time all is said and done, they're probably at a price tag of about $1,200.
    33:35
    Probably. Yeah. so if Arcuda wants to be really competitive with those customers, because those are the customers you're going to be after because they're already modding things, so here you're going to be in a complete package presumably, again I don't know if they're shipping with a PC or you're putting in your own PC I really don't know I've got a feeling that it's going to be either or honestly, I think that two different price points one with and one without I mean, it looks to me that the cabinet is so customizable anyhow that you could probably just opt not to have a box put in it. Really?
    34:14
    True. So here's what I would ideally hope. To be competitive, I'm going to say they need to come in at $1,800 US. So that's probably around the three and a half mark here in Australia.
    34:31
    So three and a half grand here in Australia. Or maybe three. Yeah. I don't know. That's going to be a tall order. It's going to be a tall order. The thing is that with the Vertigo cabinet, it wasn't touchscreen, and this one is. And that's a very big touch panel that they've got there. Yeah, but we're also talking economy of scale.
    34:55
    You know, just in terms of when you're mass producing these things, you can't go off of the single price of what a touchscreen is. It becomes you buy in bulk, and the cost difference between a touchscreen and a non-touchscreen versus having to now have two different kinds of software running it.
    35:13
    Are we talking about like $500 for the bill of materials, or are we talking about $300? I'm talking about the difference between a non-touchscreen and a touchscreen is probably going to be, on their end, a $50 difference. you reckon i think it's going to be more than that because that's a very big panel glass that you need to use for your digitizer which is the thing that like senses your touches that's a big area to have a digitizer on i think that's probably more like four or five hundred but that's just me um i think there's also a lot of other stuff going on in this cabinet compared with the vertigo and the fact that it's got a full in out capability on it so you can plug get anything into it oh there's definitely that there's definitely that the the that's that's got to have its own sort of interface system that's custom built and custom coded for it to support that because it's got to it's got to be like when you plug in your like your xbox into it for example it's got to then recognize the akuta control set as a controller it's then going to let you probably remap it in your console so you can actually you know remap buttons to what you want it to be there's a lot of engineering that goes into that i don't know all you really have to do and i mean they sell these things on amazon uh the you know when i plug in the the controller there it's recognized as a 360 controller there's no need to remap it's automatically recognized as a 360 controller the only issues is i don't have as many buttons as 360 i don't have any shoulder buttons um yeah for instance um you can do the same they've got like the they've essentially got the eight buttons on the top so you can have two buttons either side for left and right um triggers and then the four buttons in the middle for the uh the ones in the middle so i think they've got the button support there they're probably just not analog and then And it would be a case of if you plug in a PS4, the Arcuda machine itself recognizes PS4, and all the controls on top then convert... Then map to that. Or map automatically to what a PS4 controller is. And that's why I'm saying there's a thing on Amazon you can buy that... Because I was looking at how can I get the microcab to be able to be playable with a PS4. And it was, oh, you buy this little adapter, and you put it on the USB, and then you put the other USB in and you flick the switch and say PS4 and ta-da! It just makes it to PS4, right. Right, cool. That's cool. So, again, sure, that seems rather trivial to do, but again, tie you into everything that a cabinet has, you know, that's a little bit extra. Okay, so what price do you think it's going to come in? I'm saying that I think it needs to come in at about $1,800.
    38:05
    What do you think it's going to come in at? I'm talking Australian dollars here $4,000 that's what I think it's going to be $4,000 which I guess we're saying would probably be about $2,500 US take about 40% off that for the US dollar at the moment because the Australian dollar is so terrible or $35,000 so that's what I think it's going to be up there about $4,000 because that, remember when they were doing the first Generation 1 Ultra cabinets when they announced it. They were around the 4000 mark.
    38:43
    Yeah, but those weren't vertical. That was a full machine. It was a full machine, but it had similar controls. Similar controls, but it also had a much, much larger screen. It was a 40-inch screen, I believe. Yeah, true. This is probably looking like a 28-inch, would you think?
    39:03
    Yeah, probably. Probably 32. 32, 28 or 32? I reckon 32, yeah. Again, we don't really know. There's not a lot of specs out on this product at this stage.
    39:15
    I'm just... Okay, so let me give you a what-if situation. We've already looked at... Just looking at the Mercury and the Dynasty. Sorry, I can... I'm just actually doing my research and looking at their website. Yes, it is 32 HD. Okay.
    39:30
    Both of us have kind of determined And we'd probably go Mercury just from the standpoint of if we were planning on using it as a receiver for home console stuff. Yes? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Okay. For sure. So if you were going for just wanting it for pinball purposes, okay? You'd go for the Dynasty 100%. No, that's not what the question is going to be, though. All right. The question is going to be, do you go for the Dynasty where it's in your face? You're pretty close to it, which I'm questioning how that's going to be playing that close to the screen on a vertical. Because now you're really moving your head up and down. It not following the ball is going to take neck movement It not going to be just eye movement per se Again I guessing because I don know how that is how close you standing with your arms reach how that plays out
    40:26
    But, okay, so would you rather have the Dynasty or would you rather be playing on a modified one-up minicab, you know, like they're showing at CES?
    40:43
    Oh, look, I... If I was purely... Purely pinball. So we're not talking about having the ability to plug in any other console. You're purely wanting this for pinball. Yeah, I definitely want an actual traditional form factor pinball machine. I would want that traditional style. I wouldn't want an upright one. Okay. That's kind of where I'm leaning to, where it's like, obviously, if I'm not modifying, and I don't know the first thing about what it would take to even modify one of those.
    41:18
    So if you said, hey, you can have the option of having this Dynasty machine that can have unlimited amount of tables on it, you can play, again, Zachariah, or Zen, or old TPA, whatever. or you can buy three of these one-up cabs and have a total of 30 games. There's where I'm going, well, I'm going to go with the Dynasty. But if you're talking about, hey, here's the ability to modify, yeah, I agree, I want the traditional pinball form factor. Yeah, exactly. Now, as we're speaking, I'm going and having a look at the dedicated page on arcudapinball.com for the Dynasty Vertical Pinball. Now, I'm looking at the features, and we can confirm that it is a 19-inch horizontal monitor up in the top there. So it's not – well, close. It was not 16 or 17. It was 19. So it's a reasonable-sized monitor up there. And also, if you're tall, you can probably suggest that that's going to be pretty much up at head height for you as well. So you might be looking slightly up, but it's going to be sort of up there. So definitely for the taller people, it'll be a good fit. But here's something really interesting, right? I'm reading down the features of what this thing includes, and I'll list them out for you here so you don't have to read them yourself and go to the web page. So you get illuminated LED lighting, which is what you see on all the surfaces and the panel. A 32-inch touchscreen play field, a back glass and a DMD. You also have good quality Japanese sandwich joysticks and buttons. So they're actually arcade-grade buttons, which is what you expect from Arcuda. They did that with the Ultra.
    43:03
    But then we get to this bit, which is interesting, and that is interchangeable control panels. Interchangeable control panels. They were talking about that with the Ultra, being able to have either a traditional front apron, you might say, on the pinball, and being able to swap that whole panel out to get arcade joysticks on there. so i wonder if this is a maybe similar like they're carrying that idea forward on this well if you have a look at the way that the the i love how you call it dynasty because i just think of the tv show well you will believe me to us americans you think dynasty is like oh well let me might i have some crumpets too yeah so i do like the dynasty vertical pinball um So yeah, with the Dynasty, I think it seems more than a replaceable apron. Because you have a look at the way that the control panel sits in the Dynasty. It almost looks like it wedges in to the cabinet, like it's inset into the cabinet somehow. Like it slots in. so i wonder if it's like you just literally just pull the whole thing out and put something different in like like what would you what would you put on there like what would you replace it with trackball a trackball yeah well i mean hey again you know you could be then you could play centipede and uh marble madness and um missile command golf game and that golf game oh golden Golden Tee, right? Yeah, Golden Tee, yeah. You can do Golden Tee. And what about if you're a real... See, this probably wouldn't work so well with the Dynasty form factor, but, you know, gun shooting games, you could put, like, a gun control panel in there. Oh, that's... Well, depending on how long the court is. Yeah, true. You know. Although most of the gun shooters are landscape. Yeah, they're horizontal, which is the thing I'm thinking of. But, you know, the other thing I'd love to see is what about things like garage band not garage band rock band you know guitar heroes right yeah you know that thing scrolls down the screen in in like a that would suit that very well and i'm thinking 100 it would be really fun to play um drum mania on something like that oh right yeah you could actually put like drum pads and like a drum pad um dick on it i don't know how you'd go sitting down at that thing to play. But, you know, if it's that sort of interchangeable control panel, then that's very interesting. All of a sudden there's a driver's wheel you can slot in and a pedal down at the bottom, and you can do driving games that way. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's the interesting thing, right? Like, what would that actually give you from a versatility perspective for that cabinet? I would kind of unlock it big time if they did that sort of interchangeable panel. Yeah. We're going to have to stay tuned because they haven't done any... I mean, they're kind of eking out the information right now. So we've kind of been looking at it, trying to suss out what's what. One other bit of information that popped out, though, and that is, so as you all know, Arcuda is also HomePin.
    46:33
    Or I should say they're... Yes, not HomePin, Highway Games. Highway Games, yes. Yeah. And Highway Games just put out a notice that they've moved their facilities to South Korea. So out of China into South Korea. Now I wonder why that is.
    46:49
    Because you've got to believe that that means all of our Cuda stuff is now coming out of South Korea also. Yeah. which is probably good because you know the uh coronavirus uh is probably not going to make getting things out of china very easy i know right that's true for a while actually unfortunately so yeah might have dodged a bullet there yeah anyway we're we'll we're gonna keep our eyes on this um obviously because we haven't heard anything from our cuda in a while all of a sudden this stuff just like start popping up. So it looks like they're getting ready for a relaunch of sorts, and we'll keep you up to date on what's going on with that, let you know any information that we can share.
    47:36
    Yeah, absolutely. Because all this is, like a lot of it is just what we're going off from the website at the moment. So it's blockade TM speculation.
    47:47
    It's exactly what you get when you listen to our show when there's no actual concrete news. Yeah, yeah. Which, I mean, we like doing it. There's no doubt about it. That's great. Yeah, we love a good bit of speculation. It's awesome. It is fun, though, when we actually have real information to pass along, too. Yeah, that would be nice. So, yeah.
    48:07
    Anyway, I think beyond that, that's the news we have. We're going to – hopefully we'll get a hold of Mart with Zacharia, and hopefully Zen has some things that they can share. I was having a private chat with a member of the Zen team, and there's stuff that I wish I could share, but I can't.
    48:30
    So the good news is that stuff's happening. Stuff's happening. For sure. Can't tell you what, but stuff is happening. Not quite ready for broadcast yet. Yeah. Zen is definitely busy, and a question was posed to me, does any of this Operantia stuff that's going on with Zen right now affect the pinball? And again, no. Two different teams. yeah so don't don't be like then quit working on these other games no this is their they've got their bread and butter or their fingers dipped in many tubs um whatever you want to say uh but this not affecting one's not affecting the other no they're very much separated concerns and you know then they're a pretty large studio now so they're they've got the resources to do parallel projects like they are at the moment so and if you're not work continues on and that being said they've been knocking it out on the mobile platform in terms of offering uh doing these limited time events they're making it super easy to get parts on tables jeez i'm upgrading tables from entry level to like two stars or like once yeah well i've got two of the five tables that were remaining, so basically the two monster tables and then the last batch that got released.
    49:54
    So Creature and not Creature, Tales of the Arabian Nights, No Good Gophers, and Circus Voltaire! That's what we were looking for. CV, that's right. Yeah. So I've now maxed out No Good Gophers and Tales of the Arabian Nights. I'm very close to maxing out a creature. Circus Volterra is right there behind it, and Monster Bash is the one that's lagging behind. I think I still need... I'll say how many parts I need. I need... 45 more parts still for Monster Bash. But that'll go by really quickly once I max out the other tables, because then all I have to do is just play regular daily challenges, and all the table parts will be Monster Bash. Yeah, that'll just keep dropping for you. I kind of got to... I've really got to kind of bust ass on this, though, and get these cleared out because I've got 363 coins. Each upgrade is going to cost 100 coins, so that's going to leave me with 63 coins.
    50:55
    That's not going to be nearly enough when the next batch comes, so I need to hurry up, get these maxed out, then go back to collecting coins before the next batch of tables actually gets released. So in that respect, I'm not sad that Zen is taking their time. But, yeah, if you haven't touched the mobile game in a while, do so, because they are definitely quickly giving you plenty of opportunities to earn parts. And then for you iOS users, hop on over PlaySkills, the multiplayer, because they've been changing up the tables. Currently it's Circus Voltaire. So they used to have Medieval Madness, and then they had Attack from Mars. now they got I think they had Monster Bash for a little while and now it's Circus Voltaire so it's nice that they're also rotating games through there and let you earn coin that way well that being all said I don't know did we create any gold there Jared?
    51:55
    oh yeah I think we spun a bit of gold from copper there we got a show out of it we didn't get a brick out of it but maybe we got a very thin bracelet we got maybe some little specks of gold in the pan.
    52:09
    Right, there you go. Yeah, that's what we did. So, yeah, we'll pop on again soon once we figure out the rest. Next weekend is my birthday, so that's not going to be happening next weekend. Sorry, folks, too bad. It's a leave year, and I only get those every four years. So they're big deals. Well, they're not big deals. I just, you know, like to actually have them as something that I get to celebrate. Yeah, that's right. Actually, on the day. On the day. Not like your pseudo-birthday day. No.
    52:41
    And then hopefully by the next podcast, maybe Arcuda will have even more information that we can share with you guys. Hopefully. Yeah. Hopefully. So, you know, as is usual, we're not quite sure what's the what going to be, but there you are. we definitely thank you guys for watching or listening, supporting us in any way that you can we love hearing comments from you guys so please hit us up on the Twitters hit us up the email at blahblahblockade at gmail.com leave us messages on Twitter we'll respond, drop messages on YouTube if you're watching that way I try to get to those and leave comments too so all sorts of ways that you can interact with us.
    53:29
    Yeah. And stay tuned next week for some more stuff and things. There you go. Alright, folks. Until then, buh-bye! See you later!