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Hastily Thrown Together Reaction to AtGames Legends 4K Pinball

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·48m 14s·analyzed·Sep 17, 2023
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

AtGames announces Legends 4K cabinet with Zen; hosts discuss specs, pricing, and PC connectivity concerns.

Summary

Chris Rebus and Jared Morgan react hastily to AtGames' announcement of the Legends 4K Pinball cabinet, a successor to their previous Arcade1Up partnership with Zen Studios. The cabinet features a 32-inch 4K playfield screen, 23.8-inch HD backglass, and 8-inch DMD, with pricing from $1,099.99 (pre-order Sept 22-25) to $1,500 MSRP. Key concerns include PC integration capabilities, haptics implementation, and a confusing licensing model where existing Legends table purchases don't transfer to 4K versions.

Key Claims

  • AtGames is moving away from Arcade1Up partnership and releasing Legends 4K cabinet

    high confidence · Official announcement; hosts obtained specs from Twitter and YouTube stills from AtGames/Zen

  • Arcade1Up Legends cabinets are being discontinued; existing tables don't transfer to 4K platform

    high confidence · Chris and Jared confirm no backwards compatibility; only new 4K-native tables available at launch

  • Pre-order pricing is $1,099.99 (Sept 22-25 only), then $1,299.99, final MSRP $1,500

    high confidence · Official pricing structure from AtGames announcement materials

  • Cabinet uses RockChip 3588 system-on-chip with concerns about GPU capacity for Addams Family table

    medium confidence · Jared consulted technical contacts and reviewed RockChip 3588 datasheet; expressed concerns about graphics fidelity

  • 160 tables total planned (Gottlieb, Taito, Dr. Seuss, Natural History, Zaxxon) but no Zen Studios original tables at launch

    high confidence · FAQ documentation quoted directly; hosts speculate Zen tables may be cabinet-exclusive

  • 15 Collector's Edition variants planned for 2023-2025 with 5,000 units each at different price tiers

    high confidence · Official announcement; 75,000 total LE units across all SKUs

  • PC interconnection supports individual HDMI connections to three screens but implementation details unclear

    medium confidence · Spec sheet referenced; Discord discussion about DisplayPort chaining as potential solution

  • Haptics support for PC mode may not be confirmed; hosts hope for USB-based haptic feedback

    low confidence · Speculation based on third-party mod examples; no official confirmation in announcement materials

Notable Quotes

  • “It would appear that Zen has said bye-bye to Arcade1Up and hello to AtGames Legends 4K.”

    Jared Morgan @ early in episode — Confirms major partnership shift in digital pinball market

  • “abandonware”

    Jared Morgan (in text message to Chris) @ mid-episode — Characterizes Arcade1Up Legends machines as discontinued products

  • “Well, they might use the RockChip 3588 package as like the orchestrator, so the thing that controls everything, and then throw off all the other sort of heavier load stuff to other daughter boards, a bit like Spike 2 on Stern Pinball.”

    Jared Morgan (quoting tech contact) @ hardware discussion — Proposes potential technical architecture to explain GPU limitations

  • “If Zen is building into their software the ability to interface with this, I would hope that it would work.”

    Chris Rebus @ cabinet mode discussion — Expresses hope for seamless PC integration but acknowledges uncertainty

  • “I reckon I'm going to be getting this one. Yeah, I think I'm gonna have to buy it, unfortunately.”

    Chris Rebus @ conclusion — Despite concerns, host commits to purchasing the cabinet

  • “I don't think Pinball Pass is going to cross over to this. It's a Legends thing.”

    Chris Rebus @ business model discussion — Predicts separate ecosystem and monetization for Legends vs. Zen Pinball FX

  • “The first thing I'd be doing is not booting the thing up and playing any of the included games on it, let me tell you. Like, I'd be connecting my computer to it and using it as a cabinet.”

    Chris Rebus @ usage intentions — Indicates primary value proposition for purchaser is PC gaming integration, not bundled tables

Entities

AtGamescompanyZen StudioscompanyChris RebuspersonJared MorganpersonArcade1UpcompanyLegends 4K PinballproductAddams FamilygameRockChip 3588productMagic PixelcompanyMel

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: No backward compatibility for existing Legends HD table purchases; players must repurchase 4K versions; separate ecosystem creates potential customer friction

    high · Hosts explicitly confirmed table non-transfer; FAQ clarified 4K format versions only available on new platform; separate storefront and subscription model

  • ?

    business_signal: Zen Studios partner transition from Arcade1Up to AtGames; discontinuation of Arcade1Up Legends line

    high · Chris observed Arcade1Up Star Wars at Costco still selling at $699 after four years; hosts characterize as 'abandonware'; no backward table compatibility confirmed

  • ?

    community_signal: AtGames conducted cabinet design survey on Twitter soliciting feedback on backbox panel placement; 'reference only' disclaimer suggests design may not be final

    medium · Hosts noted design variability in online images; design still subject to change per disclaimer

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Legends 4K positioned against PC-based pinball emulation (Pinball FX) with cabinet-exclusive tables and integrated tournament/leaderboard ecosystem; separate from Zen Pinball Pass

    medium · Chris predicted Zen's Pinball Pass will not cross over to Legends ecosystem; PinballNet tournaments separate from FX; described as 'Nintendo/Sony/Xbox' closed ecosystem model

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Hosts express skepticism about 4K rendering quality on RockChip 3588; promotional screenshots show 'muddy' insert graphics and low-res slingshot plastics

    medium · Jared reviewed promotional materials and questioned GPU adequacy; Chris noted blurriness in gameplay screenshots suggesting potential graphical compromises

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.145

0:00
blockade pinball podcast this is the blockade pinball podcast i'm your host chris rebus aka shut your trap joining me as always halfway across the world it's jared morgan hello everyone how you going we we weren't planning on recording today it's my only day off and i had things to do but then but then we got announcements yeah all the announcements so yeah well not all the announcements just a major announcement yeah that's right yeah so um we get on we've been wondering uh when this would come um hoping it would come soon we'd heard rumors from certain sources and um lo and behold here we go uh it would appear that zen has said bye-bye to arcade one up and hello to at games legends pinball 4k yeah which is like i don't know i think uh we'll go into the the nuts and bolts of it later on i think chris but i think oh yeah yeah this is going to be really rare for us we're going to try and keep this brief i don't know how i think we can still we have not spoken to anybody at zen we are not on the press release chain from at games at games so anything that we've seen has come from either twitter or me pausing and still framing uh a youtube video to get more information so we don't have a lot um it'd be pure speculation or not you know it's not speculation what would you call it jared if we're uh parsing the info that we can have available to us it's a hot take hot take there we go hot take it's a hot take hot take in this news yeah you know we're okay doing those i think right um so here let me uh let me real quick give the actual particulars um this is so at games had announced that they were coming out with a 4k cabinet so this would be the second generation of the legends pinball cabinet um that's right iteration two yeah version two which we've been saying we were waiting for a version two because we think improvements would be along the way um we covered those and what improvements we thought they needed to do in previous shows as well so go and check those out yeah and uh sure enough some of those improvements that I noticed right off the bat they well first off they actually put in a DMD yeah that's right way back when we were first reacting to AtGamesMachine and they had their AtGames logo on the back box where the DMD should be now there's an actual DMD there so hooray yeah it's correct this is the right way to put it Yes, as well as a... That brings the total screens up to, like, three, right? What's that? It brings the total screens up to three now. Yeah, because they do have a back box that's a, what, a 23-inch back box screen? HD screen, and then a 32-inch 4K screen for the play field. That's right.
person
Blockade Pinball Podcastorganization
Legends 4K Pinball Netproduct
Costcoorganization
  • ?

    licensing_signal: Addams Family promotional screenshots blurred character faces (Morticia/Gomez) likely to avoid paying celebrity likenesses for advertisement; T. and Charles Addams Foundation trademark stated

    medium · Chris observed blurring in promotional images and hypothesized licensing cost avoidance for actor estates

  • $

    market_signal: Legends 4K planned for US-only distribution initially; online purchases only; retail partners yet to be announced

    high · Official FAQ stated no retail partnerships announced yet; frequently asked questions addressed retail availability

  • $

    market_signal: Tiered pre-order strategy: $1,099.99 (Sept 22-25), $1,299.99 (extended pre-order), $1,500 MSRP; 15 Collector's Edition variants at 5,000 units each over 2023-2025

    high · Official pricing and limited edition structure from AtGames announcement materials

  • ?

    announcement: AtGames officially announces Legends 4K Pinball cabinet with pre-orders Sept 22-25 at $1,099.99

    high · Official announcement obtained from Twitter/YouTube; hosts reviewed spec sheets and FAQ documentation

  • ?

    product_strategy: Legends 4K adds DMD to backbox (previously missing), deeper cabinet design, HD/4K multi-screen setup vs. original Legends

    high · Hosts identify AtGames' response to prior complaints about thinness and missing DMD; direct comparison with Arcade1Up original

  • ?

    product_strategy: PC integration haptics support unclear; hosts hope for USB-based haptic feedback passthrough from PC but no official confirmation

    low · Chris discussed third-party mod example with hot-switch haptics toggle; noted very little official information about PC mode haptics implementation

  • ?

    technology_signal: Legends 4K uses RockChip 3588 SOC orchestrator with potential offload to daughter boards (Spike 2-like architecture)

    medium · Jared consulted tech contacts about GPU limitation concerns; speculated about DisplayPort chaining solution; datasheet reviewed for capabilities

    • 3:30
    Beyond that, the cabinet looks pretty much the same. Yeah, it does. Although it looks a little deeper. I mean, like the height from screen to bottom of the cabinet does look a little bit deeper, which was one of our complaints about the first one. It looked thin. It didn't look like an actual cabinet. That's right. I'm looking at it. I've got you up here and the fact sheet down there, so I'm not ignoring you. I'm actually looking at the thing right now off screen. But, yeah, it does seem a little bit more hefty. I still think being 32 inch 4K that was the same size as the AtGames, not AtGames the RK1UP cabinets wasn't it? RK1UP did not have a 32 inch screen it was small, it was like 25, 26 or something? I think it was a 24 inch it's been a while obviously well you should know because you actually just literally saw one right then didn't you at Costco? So, no sooner am I going, hmm, thinking about all this, when for the first time since release, I actually saw an arcade one-up Star Wars machine at my Costco. And I was like, what are the odds? I finally put hands on one, played it, felt the haptics, saw the graphics, heard the sound. I was just like, oh my gosh, what are the odds? It's already taken four years. and they still wanted 699 dollars for it i got to see it before you did right down here in australia land right which is like crazy um which i i'm really glad that i actually got to finally put hands on this um it actually plays well into this show i think because yeah because some of the thing as much as i love the look of the cabinet i was actually kind of surprised at how small it was. It's very small? I didn't... It took me aback. I legitimately just went like, wait, what? That's so small. What is this, a pinball for ants?
    5:40
    Once I stood in front of it and was playing it, the size didn't really factor. That is true. It doesn't... Once you're sort of there and you've got the dimensions in front of you, the size, it sort of feels okay. Yeah. But when you just look at it from afar, you go, wow, that's tiny. Yeah. the haptics weren't that strong the graphics were very aliased they're really aliased but the sound was good and the flipper lag was non-existent as far as I could tell no I was really impressed when I played it as well I was going that would be the biggest detractor for me if it had flipper lag and it's actually it didn't it was quite responsive so they obviously got the in out bus I can certainly see why people were modding the hell out of it well once you've done your whatever it is 12 tables in the um the standard you know star wars range there's not much else to do on it really yeah um and it's not networked so you can't do anything online with it it really is a standalone piece of furniture yes um and there was a lot of people walking by and going oh cool oh check that out and um as soon as i walked away yeah as soon as i walked away somebody else hopped on it so I mean, it was great, but I messaged Jared and... What did you type in, Jared?
    7:02
    That it was... I'll find out, because I've got the little message thing here. I don't have mine in front of me.
    7:10
    It's a blah. I said, abandonware. Abandonware, yeah. That's what I said. But the thing is... Basically, Arcade Wallet going, oh, crap, let's dump these fast.
    7:22
    Yep, pretty much, I think. it's, yeah. I mean, it's going to be interesting to see how this product can co-exist with the AtGames one, isn't it? I don't think it's going to co-exist.
    7:37
    I think once they've got rid of the ones they've got in the warehouse, that'll be the end of this product line-up. Yeah, so going back to what is being said, those are the major improvements that are on the AtGames 4K. AtK4K? AtGames4K. Which is... Let's actually go through the key features. We've been through some of them. Let's just flatten it out. Flatten it up. What's on it? What do you get? Go for it. Spit it out, Jerry. All right. So you're going to get a fair bit of stuff on here, and it does build upon what was originally in the games.
    8:19
    So from purely a hardware specification perspective, actually we'll do hardware um yeah i'll do software you do hardware yeah well off you go you do i'll do hardware now so in hardware you're getting so as chris mentioned it's 32 inch 4k resolution play field you get a 23.8 inch hd back glass display and an 8 inch hd dmd um the dmd is where you expect it to be which is good the back glass is also in a reasonable position it's still got Legends Plus all over it, which I don't think is necessary, but anyhow. Actually, it's not as bad as it was, because it only says 4K Legends pinball across the top. But it doesn't have Legends on the apron. It doesn't have Legends on the front of the machine. Because it was really everywhere on the old one. Yeah, and then on the side, it says Zen.
    9:12
    That is true. So, there's really only one branding on the top. Yeah, so I guess that's all right in it so this one does actually have built-in solenoids and speakers um for haptics so you've got the exciters and some solenoids flapping around in there i'd say sounds like the exciters are still going to be in that top panel right near your hands which seems to be where they like to put the exciters um it's got 3.5 inch audio speakers quote-unquote large um 3.5 inch large i don't know um all new user interface uh so that's that's good and then you get popular digital pinball uh game packs available for purchase and all built-in tables though in 4k and support surround sound feedback which is an optional accessory yeah which they have not so um i went to their website to see how much that's going to be the uh surround sound feedback kit they don't have it listed yet because it hasn't been announced I did find somebody else had a video of a base and full haptics add-on that could be done to their regular Legends pinball and that thing was going for $170 from a third party so I would hope that AtGames keeps it under $200 yep you know but because otherwise this other thing looks like it would integrate really well because they'd figured out all the things but anyway they had all the connectors and everything like that so pretty much just a drop in replacement for it yeah well this is going to be interesting it's going to be a battle of which is cheapest basically or which is not so much cheapest but which is better for the price you've got to pay for it right so there's optional accessories like you say there's that integrated uh sort of uh surround thing there's your arcade control panel which we've seen before iteration one of the cabinet um which everybody kind of says is a must because well yeah because if you're gonna play the single d-pad for navigation everybody says it's really crappy yeah right like it's a sticky button not good experience not good experience yeah i'm not surprised um and yeah so it's basically that and the strand sound feedback kit are the optional accessories you can get for it i left the potentially the the most intriguing hardware spec to last which is the fact that they're using the rock chip 3588 system on a chip okay i have no idea what that is okay so rock chips are like the the chips that you would normally find in things like low tech Okay. So things like set-top boxes and kiosks and things like that. Okay. so this I believe Rock Chip was the system on a chip or what they call SOC that they were using in the Legends, the first Legends with the dedicated board that was in the game now obviously it was Rock Chip something I don't think it would have been 3588 it would have been a previous iteration of it with lesser specs so I actually went and had a look at the data sheet for this thing and I won't go into too much detail about it but yes it does have an output that will do 4k at 60 frames a second um it has um outputs for two other screens so yes it will do that but i'm i'm not at all sure how they're going to manage to get adam's family on uh the current platform working on this level of chip like it's I just don't understand I was having a look at the spec sheet I was chatting with my tech mates about it going how would they do this and he goes well they might use the Rockchip 3588 package as like the orchestrator so the thing that controls everything and then throw off all the other sort of heavier load stuff to other daughter boards a bit like Spike 2 on Stern Pinball So they have like a main board in the back box that's the orchestrator, and then they offload all the work to all these sort of satellite boards. So maybe that's how they're getting around the problem of a rock chip system on a chip. But if it's just one chip powering the entire solution, I would think that there would have to be switch, like Nintendo switch level sacrifices on graphics for them to be able to do that. Because there is no GPU mentioned here. It's just the onboard Adreno CPU that's a GPU that's in the Rockchip package. So, yeah, that's like that is the biggest concern for me as far as the hardware goes. There's also no mention.
    14:25
    Currently, the Legends Pinball owners, they had to buy the Vibs board to be able to hook up their PC to this. No Vibs in this, apparently. It's all part of the solution now. So it's all OK. So it's already integrated in. That's right. So Vibs is now just part of it. And according to one good folk that I was talking to on the Discord, the Pinball FX Discord, at least the HDMI connections are on the back of the back box now. So they've sorted that out. But in all of the pictures that I've seen online, I still see that stupid control panel thing at the very top of the screen. Yeah. I saw that too, which me and Jared were adamantly against.
    15:14
    It is the most stupid place to put it. It must be the most cost effective. Here's the other thing. There's been a survey up on Twitter, I think it was Twitter, of two different models of the cabinet, of the 4K cabinet. One that was a shorter back box that eliminated the Legend Spinball 4K banner and then the other one with. and it was asking which do you prefer. So I'm not 100% sure that this is final design.
    15:48
    I think we might still be in placeholder mode. So this is content and images of a reference only and subject to change is what the disclaimer is at the bottom. So I'm hoping that's, I really hope that's the case. Like the panel, if you're using interconnects, they should just spend an extra three bucks and a bit more wire into the building materials and just put the thing down the front or put the connectors to the HDMI stuff at the back so you can neatly plug it into your PC and then put things like USB and switches and stuff like that down the front so you can access them.
    16:22
    So that will be good. And I really do hope that what we're seeing here is not final. Yeah. Now, another positive, the artwork. so they wrapped this thing in Adam's family artwork I wish that it was the solid black artwork that was on the actual cab this instead has kind of a green tinge background but at least it's not that god awful mess of godly mishmash copy pasta stuff that was horrible so I think we're good there pricing it's steep it's not cheap do the pricing what are we going to do here for this thing so okay full MSRP if you like wait a while and buy it is going to be $1500 however if you do pre-order and the pre-order is September 22nd through 25th, you can actually pick it up for $1,100.
    17:42
    Or as they say, $1099.99. $1,100. Which is $1,100. You can pick it up for $1,100. So for those four days or three days, you can do your pre-order.
    17:54
    And then after that, the pre-order goes up by $200. But then you've got like a month to actually do the pre-order. and then the final pre-order is the full price welcome to the extra money um yeah deal now 1 400 yeah yeah um here's where it gets a little before i get into the software gets a little confusing so it says that the adams family is the standard edition which means they're not limiting the number of these it'll still come with you can still get with a little placard on the front of that says what number it is, but it doesn't seem like it's limited. Because instead what's happening, Zen plans to release 15 other collector's editions.
    18:40
    So yeah, 15 other branded versions of the cabinet. Yes, they're all going to be limited to 5,000 units each. Now, I'm just, you know, quick math here, But 5,000 times 15 equal 75,000 units they're hoping to move. Well, 75,000 limited edition units. Yeah. So that's, if you think about it, a LE from Stern is 500 is the LE amount for these. so it's it's interesting they're calling these le's i think they're just well they're not calling it they're calling it ce collectors edition well that's the same as i know it's like so okay sure five five thousand collectors editions of these uh per sku so and this will come with a with a topper which a custom topper for each one yeah well i don't know if there's a custom topper for the adams family yeah i don't know what that custom topper is made out of but there's uh looks like plywood it's gonna be a sticker isn't it it's gonna be a plywood with sticker on it absolutely rather than a piece of lexan with a sticker on it yeah that's right well it looks it look i don't know if it's just a mock-up but the side view of the cabin has the wood stays behind it so so images are not final images are not final yeah that's right um But what I do find interesting, though, is that these other collector editions are going to be released between 2023 and 2025. So, Zen looks like they have a long-term plan.
    20:35
    Which I've already said they do. Which they do. These are only going to be released in the United States currently. Yeah. I know that Zen was hoping for a USA manufacturing partner, so maybe that's what exactly this is. I don't know. At least for the Wiz tools.
    20:54
    Maybe, yeah. Maybe. Because I'm sure the boards are coming from overseas. Oh, it's Shin-Shin. Yeah, for sure. That's where they're getting done.
    21:05
    But yeah, so if you didn't want an Addams Family cabinet, it's wait and hope that one of your other favorites is coming down the pike and i really hope that if you wait for the other ones they also have the tiered purchasing options right so if you want to get a pre-order like if you want to pre-order one you still get a discount on it yeah yeah i don't know um also at the moment uh not going to be sold in stores it's going to be only online purchases.
    21:36
    That's, again, subject to change, but frequently asked questions. People were asking if it was going to be a Sam's Club again. They were like, no retail partners have been announced yet.
    21:47
    Now, on to the actual games. Yeah, this is where it gets interesting. This does get a little bit interesting.
    21:57
    Do I actually have... Yeah, there we go. um so it's adam's family and 14 other titles yes of which most of them are zacharia deluxe yeah that's right so and your your zacharia tables are battle deluxe sinistar deluxe i'm not gonna say deluxe for all these they're deluxe all of them uh farfalla house of diamonds pool champions robot uh red show spooky strike and universe and then i have no idea what natural history pinball is i don't know who's the studio is behind it they're all they're all magic pixel these are the ones that magic yeah magic pixel did all of these up okay um for them so any any bespoke table that were done up for at games it was all magic pixel So then they have Amazonia, Dinosaur Dynasty, Exoplanets, and Last Ice Age.
    22:58
    Yeah, all natural history type tables, basically. Right. Yeah. So then you might be asking, well, what about the other tables? if you are an at games legends pinball owner currently and let's say you've bought all those tables guess what folks they don't transfer oh really nope only 4k legends pinball tables will be wow coming over to this so for all of you that scream bloody murder at zen and how dare they be so greedy and whatever and for all of you that have actually paid the prices that would be asked by at games for which they weren't cheap they weren't cheap guess what yeah i get to buy them again.
    24:00
    And I know recently they just announced all the Gottlieb tables in 4K So I very curious to know What I know I was really surprised to see that.
    24:16
    I couldn't find out any information if Farsight was behind this. I'm dying to know. Yeah. I don't even... Yeah, I have no idea what's going on there. So, yeah, that's a thing.
    24:38
    No mention. Basically what it says is, where did I see it? I didn't see it. Let's see if I can find this other frequently asked questions sheet. This is what happens when you don't have. We're referring it in, folks. Yeah. We're doing it live. Okay, so will all current Legends HD tables be ported to Legends 4K platform devices and play a spec of 4K play fields at 60 frames per second, HD back glass, and HD MDMD? And the answer is yes. The Legends 4K format version pinballs for Taito, Natural History, Dr. Seuss, Gottlieb, and Zacharia will be available for purchase on the Legends 4K machine as well as on the AtGames eStore.
    25:26
    They're saying 160 tables so far. What isn't mentioned? Any of Zen's. Yeah, well. So, I gotta believe. It might be cabinet exclusive. So, if you want no good gophers, you have to buy the no good gophers cabinet. I don't think Zen will do that. I hope not. No, I don't think that. But what I do think, this is going to be up to the various IP holders whether or not they want to jump on this or not.
    26:00
    And be in cabinet form. yeah so um at least if you want to buy it through this this uh store um yeah game store um obviously if you're able to hook up your pc then you can hook up your pc and go for that that way and deal with everything that way um yeah and this is the thing that i'm interested in right the whole hooking up your PC thing, we covered what we would expect minimum functionality to be in this. And they have ticked one of those things off the list, which is individual connections to each of the screens. Yeah. So that's great. But when I was having a chat to people in Discord about this, it's like, yeah, well, okay, but how are you going to do an individual HDMI cable for each video feed? Because there's, I mean, even some of the latest RTX cards only have one video out on them. So how is that going to work as far as getting the feed into the cabinet? And then I think it was Robo who was saying, RoboLoco was saying, well, you know, you can do like, there is a way of doing display port chaining. So they may have actually done it with the system on a chip package they've got. It might have the ability to take like somehow one input and then spread that over the three screens. But I don't know exactly how that would work in practice. I think the spec sheet says that that RockChip is capable of doing that. Okay. But it's going to be interesting to see how they handle that. But really for me, if it's connecting to the PC, like it's got to be what they didn't do in iteration one of this is have haptics so if you connected your pc up to it you got no haptics at all so this next iteration would be give us haptics through usb so connect your usb cable from your pc to the cabinet that gives you control interface surfaces like you know your buttons and plungers and stuff um and you've got to have yeah the haptic feedback um passing through from the pc to the cabinet so you can feel everything as well otherwise are you saying you're not sure if that's uh gonna be a thing on this or not oh yeah i'm not sure there's very little information about it yeah so this is like this is what they need to do i really hope they address at least some of those things because otherwise it's a one and a half thousand dollars worth of not much because again i do know that video that I watched of that third-party haptic system. Yeah. It has a hot switch that allows you, when you're playing the built-in tables, you can let the haptics work for that. And then if you switch to your PC, you push the button, and then haptics work for PC. Ah, that's potentially good news then. So if they basically go and look to, because that was the thing with Lips and Spinboard. They were saying, we want the thing to be modded. we are open to modding. We want to see what the community comes up with so we can basically steal their ideas and roll them into the products. Let's be serious. With the proper money changing hands, obviously. Yeah, so let's hope that that solution that they've worked at, that someone in the community has worked at, comes into the core part of the product because that's obviously, if I was to pay one and a half grand US for this thing at top dollar, the first thing I'd be doing is not booting the thing up and playing any of the included games on it let me tell you, like I'd be connecting my computer to it and using it as a cabinet and the other thing and you better do this is one click cabinet mode in Zen Pinball FX, like as long as you've connected the cables up correctly according to the instruction manual, you should be able to go into Zen Pinball FX and go cabinet mode or like Legends cabinet mode and it should literally pass through everything it needs to pass through correctly. Well, hopefully since Zen is partnering directly with them and Zen is actively looking at cabinet mode I'm hoping These two things should be reasonable things to assume, I would think. I would hope so. I would really hope so. If Zen is building into their software the ability to interface with this I would hope that it would work so that's one of those questions that obviously we're going to have to be asking our contacts at ZEN about and seeing if we can get an answer for I've already emailed Mel to try and get some information out of this wait you emailed Mel? I don't think Mel's going to have that information oh he'll probably have some information we'll have some information we need to talk to some of the more the nitty gritty guys yeah well you know we'll see how we go i'll just reach out to bell um yeah so what do y'all think um i'm i'm gonna tell you this much right now i do believe i'm going to be getting this one you reckon you're gonna buy it i reckon i'm going to be getting this one yeah i think i'm gonna have to buy it unfortunately um right um are you gonna get in uh early you're gonna go early pre-order i i mean i don't want to spend extra money yeah so i would well yeah early pre-order um and especially knowing that a i'm gonna have to buy that arcade stick at some point it's 200 bucks i know that sometimes they discount it down to 100 yeah there's like the you know during their founder or whatever it is yearly sale thing you know like i said that one seems like a no-brainer everybody says you pretty much got to do it um and then uh a haptic the you know whether it's the one they're coming out with or the third party one everybody says also you need the haptics to really boost get the most out of it yeah especially with the with the basically the rumble subwoofer because there's plenty of games that uh you know have that good rumble going for them um whether I should announce also that by doing this, I think they give you two months of their... I don't even know what the terminology is. It's Legends 4K Pinball Net. There you go. Access to the 160 of those 160 games. You'd be able to access them, play them, and then watch it go away. So it's basically Zen's Pinball Pass? basically yeah except it's 15 bucks a month yeah i us 15 dollars not be surprised if zen's pinball pass comes to this more i don't think it will you know because no because if this is a legends ecosystem it's like basically nintendo or sony or xbox so they've got their own storefront they got their own thing i don't think pinball pass is going to cross over to this it's a Legends thing, that's my prediction so you won't, nah that won't be doing it nah one thing that for sure is not going to be coming over tournaments that are within Zen Pinball FX are not going to be there they're going to be custom tournaments through AtGames, how they do it yeah, through PinballNet basically its own 4K leaderboard so that's going to be there and you purchase you purchase everything through the apps app store x platform yeah um so you can purchase the packs outright by those things if you want um so you don't have to actually subscribe but i think to get access to tournaments and stuff you have to pay you 15 bucks a month which just it leaves a sour taste in my mouth that does it's one of those things i still don't like um yeah i just i really don't like it at all i also if i get this thing seriously doubt that i'll be buying any of the zacharias stuff no at least at least you will be able to confirm how good the interconnect is um with the cabinet and a pc yeah so i've got a pc standing by it's what i was using for vr um yeah so i've got i've got the pc standing by i might have to upgrade the video card but yeah you will if you're gonna be playing evolve okay uh yeah if you want to play well yes there's i i actually play not in 4k but i play in like what they call it 2k okay um so it's like 25 60 by 40 and 40 or whatever the resolution is that's what i currently plan and that's that's fine honestly i i don't really think 4k with a lot there's a you can get into a whole debate with people on the internet about whether you actually need 4k games or not at the very least i need a card with ray tracing yes you really do need that yeah that's at the very least um yeah have you noticed that the screenshots that they have for the table um they like the 4k gaming screenshots they've got on the like page three of the flyer where it says let's play blah blah blah i'm looking at them going what what's going on there like i can see that there's the the thing golf club and i can see that there's the candles everywhere and stuff like that but everything looks muddy like the all the inserts and stuff are like really muddy and the slingshot plastics are like really low res. So I just threw it up here Yeah I don know That hard I see what you mean It almost like they put a fisheye lens and some of it went blurry Well I know what they did Look, they blurred out Morticia and Gomez. I think they're blurring out licensing.
    36:25
    You reckon? Yes. For this ad. You reckon? Although, elsewhere in the ad, it actually states that, I think down at the bottom of the screen here, I saw something. Well, why would they do that? Because there's more tissue in it. Addams Family is a trademark of T. and Charles Addams Foundation. So they can advertise Addams Family, but they don't want to have to pay Angelica Houston and the estate of Raul Julia just for this ad.
    36:58
    You reckon that's why they've done it? Yeah, I do. I literally do. But then you have a look at the return lanes, and they're also fuzzy as well, and there's no licensing on them. Well, and then actually now I'm looking at the side cabinet art, which is clearly... It's literally them. So, okay, I'm full of it. I don't know what's going on.
    37:18
    Yeah. So, yeah, that's what I'm looking at going, what's going on there? I'm wondering, I'm thinking to myself, have they got some sort of depth of field thing implemented here? Probably. for cabinet mode and that's what we're looking at I don't know if that's a screenshot from the game in cabinet mode looking down and maybe folks who actually have cabinet mode can confirm is that how it looks when you're playing cabinet mode have they got some sort of layers of depth in there or something like that is that just normal but it looks weird anyhow that's just what I saw so yeah there it is folks I'm excited for Zen to be able to move forward and get what they want, which is having online connectivity, being able to put these tables out into people's hands without people having to build their own cabinet.
    38:11
    I think the full retail price of $1,500 is steep. For what you get, yeah. For what you get. But I think that $1,100 mark is not out of the realm of, I think that was, me and you even predicted it would be somewhere in that neighborhood. I'm pretty sure, yeah. At some point in the distant past. Yeah. Now the question is, do you feel like waiting for it to go to retail, at a Sam's Club, and then all of a sudden get a steep discount? That's a gamble. It won't go to Sam's Club, I don't think. I think they've done with those partnerships altogether. I think they're just selling direct now. Yeah. Well, the only problem with that, you've got to pay shipping.
    38:57
    Yeah. Which sucks. That's right. It really does. But AtGames does have a store on Amazon. Oh, do they? Yep.
    39:06
    If you've got Amazon Prime, then you might be able to get... Hold on. Let me take a quick look and see if their products actually pop up as free shipping for what they're currently selling.
    39:22
    I bet they won't. Because they're really expensive. It's heck to ship. Really expensive. Here, I'm just going to go with the control stick.
    39:43
    And... No, I'm not seeing free shipping. I'm not surprised. so i'm gonna visit the actual at game store and see what it pops up i'm on the at game store now no i mean the at game store of oh the amazon of amazon yeah and see what comes up why is nothing coming up i hate it when my amazon does that sometimes you click on something and then it just gives you a blank page yep um Oh, wow. I'm having a look at Legends. No, I'm seeing free delivery. Oh, really? Okay. Free delivery is available.
    40:32
    Wow. I'm now having a look at, just for comparison and contrast, I'm looking at the Legends HD compared to Legends 4K. Yeah. Wow. It's a lot different. The cabbage? Yeah.
    40:47
    It's so much different. in a good way yeah and you definitely in a good way wow it's a clown vomit stuff going on with that legends hd unbelievable um interesting though 32 inch hd lcd playfield so the playfield size is the same yes um but it's been upscaled to 4k yeah so yeah yeah uh let me have a look at the anyhow yeah i just thought that was interesting to see um what a huge difference is it's definitely like thicker like a higher cabinet and um it looks yeah definitely high it looks much more like a pinball machine now good um so anyway that was our our like i said we weren't going to do an episode and then it was like me and jerks were texting and i was like you know what we just got throwing together we should we should get get ahead of this you really gotta get out there um with complete lack of true information there's so much more information that we want to have i know my number one question is how frequently are zen tables going to be coming to this are they going to be packs are they going to be priced like they are on steam um i want to know those things and then i want to know secondary how easy is it going to be to connect your pc to this and be able to play all your zen tables that way instead yeah because i mean obviously i don't want to rebuy all the zen tables i've got them all right now so i will be plugging in the pc no doubt yeah absolutely and honestly you'll have a better a much better experience if you're plugging your pc providing that they get the interface correct because that rock chip chip is i yeah i'm trying to be polite about it but i'm not very impressed with it as a spec i'm also not somebody that wants to jump through a whole series of hoops uh with different pinball loaders and installs and how to get it integrated and and all that I just want it to be easy.
    43:06
    Yeah, you want to plug in your PC, start up PinballFX, flick a switch, and everything disappears on the display is where they're supposed to appear. Yep, that will be my expectation. If Zen are running this as an integrated product, that's what they will need to be doing. And I think, potentially, with hindsight, if you look at what they haven't done with cabinet mode recently, that's the reason why. because they've been doing all of this, trying to get the retail version set up, and probably thinking about all these things that we're saying right now about integrating their core product into this cabinet because they'd be mad not to. Let's be serious.
    43:48
    They'd be mad not to. All right, so there it is. Our short episode is still long, as usual. I predicted it.
    43:58
    We could have reined it in, Jared. we really could have but then we can't shut our mouths um now we're we're impossible we're desperately going to try and seek out these answers like jared said he already is fired off emails um so uh we'll see what info we can grab and talk about this more as we learn more information um and then like i said hopefully i'll actually get one of these uh so that we for once can talk truly about what these experiences are like. But I do find it comical that literally as the day I'm thinking about this, I find the arcade one-up machine in Costco. Yeah, I think that's hilarious. Yeah. It's the universe speaking.
    44:41
    It really is, yeah. All right. It's very funny. Well, what do you all think? What's the proper course of action to do here? should do uh jump right in and go with an addams family cab do you think you're going to wait around for one of the other cabs like would you rather have an indiana jones themed cab or maybe a medieval madness or you know a creature something of that nature you know it's going to be a williams style cab that's what's going to be selling these uh zen original is not going to sell no collectors edition it just isn't nope um and then what mods if you get this are you going to be jumping on right off the bat yeah what's what are you going to be adding to your order basically yeah when you're going to check this thing out because you may as well add it up front let's be serious yeah um so yeah what's it going to be what's going to get um or even more importantly are you like, you know what, if I'm going to spend that much money, I'm just going to spend more money and get a true cabinet.
    45:53
    We hear rumors that Zen might be thinking of a high-end cabinet also. Well, I mean, they already have one with Skillshot. They've got that really funky looking one that's like $10,000.
    46:06
    But I'm assuming that there might be a different iteration coming. I think so. yeah that's right i i think this this one definitely is fitting that you know mom and dad retail yeah sport yeah this one i don't think it's the last cabinet we're going to see though no i i don't i think there's going to be other ones out there for all price tiers with yeah i mean but i mean it goes to show that if we're already going oh geez one and a half grand or then well perhaps any money above that would have to be like okay what is this cabin what are we getting in it would have to be a pretty good value proposition to buy it if we're humming and harring about one and a half grand US so I don't know we'll see time will tell but this is available this is announced this is available if you like it go buy it if you want it cheapest price is coming up just a couple of days A couple of days.
    47:11
    So Friday the 22nd, that's the first day of being able to do it. Yep. All righty. Well, that's all we have for you. We're not going to waste time with anything else because we didn't have anything else planned. Nope.
    47:24
    We'll happily be popping on in two more weeks and see what other information we might have or what other topic we want to discuss. if there's anything that you want us to focus on especially if it's regarding this please hop on the old Discord channel for Blockade and let Jared know he'll pass it along to me obviously share your comments on Twitter with us too those are the ones that I read and yeah next time as per usual Jared what is it going to be stuff and things sounds good to me alright until then folks bye bye see ya Thank you.