Welcome everybody to Canada's Pinball Podcast. We're going to go around the horn today. We're going to talk about what's happening in the pinball world. Let's start with Stern Pinball. So Stern Pinball has Foo Fighters LE on the line. Now, if you ordered this game, there is a very good chance you're going to get this game in April. And this is where Stern clobbers everybody. It's their manufacturing, right? They get these games on the line. And when they move into their larger factory and Stern is able to make 1,000 games a week, I mean, just think about it. They could sell a thousand brand new LEs at $13,000. And you'll be happy because you'll have the game within like a month or two of ordering the machine. And look, I have to say this. Foo Fighters is a beautiful machine. I played the game. I had a lot of fun on the machine. It is going to sell like hotcakes. It's just a really good feel-good game. It's not the greatest game Stern's ever made. But here's the thing about Foo Fighters. And I think when you play it, you'll feel the same way. there's very little in this game to get upset about and that's a good thing i mean they surprised us by making the game the way they did i think they made it the right way and now the game's got beautiful artwork it's got beautiful shots it's got beautiful animations everything about the game is easy to like now look would i like there to be more toys in this machine absolutely would i like there to be more of a physical world under glass in this machine absolutely would i like more of the physical items in the game to actually interact with the ball, right? But this has been Stern's model for a while. It's like, you're no longer going to bash an actual toy anymore. You're going to bash the thing in front of the toy or the magnet's going to be in front of the toy. You're not actually going to bash a genie. You're not actually going to bash a Balrog. You're not going to bash Sparky anymore. Do you actually hit Sparky or like the Well Walker in The Walking Dead? You actually bashed him. I think Stern has realized when you actually bash something, it can break so let's not have them bash the actual toy bash a post or bash a target in front of the toy but look i think it's going to be a great time for everyone who has a foo fighter le i think this game is going to hold value nicely and i think the reason why people are going to keep this game in their collections a few reasons i think it's jack danger's inaugural game and i think jack really impressed people with this machine itself i think it's one of zombie yeti's most beautiful art packages to date. And I think the game just puts a smile on people's faces. And that's really what we want from pinball. And look, the prices are what they are, right? There's no point in complaining about these prices every day. It just is what it is. And the other thing about these prices now is all the old Stern LEs are going way up in price now. If you have a Stern LE that is a AAA theme where they only made 500 of them, get ready to open up your wallet because you're no longer going to see any of those in-demand LEs sell for anything south of $13,000 ever again. Now, speaking of way north of $13,000, did you see this? A guy's got a Jurassic Park LE new in box and he wants $35,000 for the machine. Now, how much is a Jurassic Park LE if it's opened like 15 to $17,000 nowadays. And so that's almost a $20,000 cardboard box. I put up a post on my Facebook. I asked people, what were the best Stern LEs that were really LEs? Where you got a great bang for the buck, where they actually went an extra mile to make the LE different. A lot of people said Star Trek. You got the lighted armor in that game. A lot of people said Tron pinball. You got the Daft Punk multiball. Remember Tron LE, there was no premium. So you got the lighted rails, you got the Daft Punk multiball. Tron LE is probably still the LE that has truly a limited gameplay experience that only the LE owners get. We saw some Batman 66 LE mentions. We saw some Metallica mentions. But for the most part, for the most part, when I look at a lot of these Stern LEs, there's very few of them where the LE takes it to a whole nother level that the premium does not deliver on. And I just think Jurassic Park LE, like the green arm is fine, but the Johnny Crap artwork is not really nice on any model. And so I would argue that Jurassic Park LE maybe is not necessary, but it's never about that, right? If you love the game and you want the highest trim level of the game, you're going to want the LE and Stern knows that. So speaking of the highest trim levels of the game. Let's go on to James Bond because I'm in the James Bond thread. And I think what's happening with Bond, right, is this game is not going to go away. There are a lot of James Bond owners out there. There are a lot of James Bond owners out there that are hoping that the code on this game gets to a much better level. Now, I've been in the thread and I've been seeing some issues with the bond on a wand. And I'm a little bit worried. Here's what I'm worried about. Stern Pinball, think about it. They made these mechanisms and they do not have the code completed on the game. And now they're making this game and they've got to implement all of these different mechanisms into the code and into the gameplay experience in a way that works and is satisfying for owners of the machine. And I'm watching owners post clips of how the bond on a wand is kind of finicky. It's having issues. It's trapping multiple balls or it's not working properly. And I be a little bit nervous if I was a James Bond premium or LE owner And here why Because Stern hasn really put these mechanisms through the ringer based on the code because the code was never done. So what happens now if their ideas on what they want to do with the game, what happens if the actual engineering of these mechs lets down their dreams and ambitions for the code itself? And everyone who owns this game is now going to be a guinea pig. And I hope they get it right. But stuff like magnets and Bond on a wand. And remember that like Stranger Things 11, like freezing the ball on the back of the game like that didn't really work well all the time. And so Stern does have a track record of sometimes engineering stuff that doesn't work very well. I hope you guys end up with the game you really want. James Bond is not there yet. I hope it gets there one day. I just would not have bought this game until the code was further along. And I think having faith that Stern will always make it great. I think this might be an exception to that rule simply because the license holder is such a nightmare. I don't think they're having a good time making this game. And I hope it pans out for everyone who has one. Now, speaking of James Bond and panning out. So if you've read the thread on James Bond's 60th anniversary edition, it's a tale of two responses. The owners of the game have been celebrating this game and ranking it as one of the best games of all time. Other people who jump on the machine and have an okay experience but think it might be overpriced, here's what's happening. When you leave a review for this game on Pinside, if you leave a negative review because you think the game is a cash grab overpriced nightmare, that review is getting flagged by Pinside. So people are complaining that people are complaining about their expensive game. It's kind of silly. It's kind of silly. Here's how I look at James Bond 60th. If you bought one, you have a lot of money. If you bought one, you're a very wealthy man. If you bought one, you probably don't care what other people think. You probably don't. You probably just want to buy what you want to buy and you're going to tune out the haters. But I also do think there are some James Bond 60th owners that are behaving like prima donnas and complaining when people complain about their game. The consensus I can read on this game is that it's a fast game. The ball stays down. It stays on the wood. And it's got great shots. It's super difficult. But it keeps you coming back for more. I love that feedback. It's just one more game, right? For $20,000, of course it should make you want to play one more game. And trust me, people, if you spent $20,000 on a James Bond 60th, you got to play it 20,000 times to get your money's worth. So yes, absolutely play it one more time. All right, so now that we've got Foo Fighters out in the world and people are happy about it, now that we've got James Bond trying to figure its code out, now that rich James Bond owners have the rich game that Stern designed for them, what's next from Stern Pinball? I still think it's going to be Venom. Venom was a game they've been working on. I think we're going to get Venom sometime in August or September. It does beg the question, if Stern moves into its new factory, if the next Cornerstone is sometime in like August, September, will Stern vault something between now and then? Do they need to even vault something? See, the thing is, I don't even think they need to vault anything. I think they've still got enough orders with all of these Godzillas and Elviras and all these other games. And I think they want to get completely ahead of their backlog so that in 2024, they can get back to their normal schedule of three cornerstones and maybe a vault. And look, when you just say the word vault, people go nuts. Like, is it going to be Tron? Is it going to be Ghostbusters? Is it going to be Lord of the Rings? Stern Pinball could vault one of 10 different themes and make so much money in a single move and nobody else in the pinball world could do this, right? Could spooky pinball vault something now? Probably just Rick and Morty is the only one they could vault. Could Jersey Jack vault something that people really want? Probably just Pirates of the Caribbean. Nobody would really want any more of their other titles. Could American pinball vault anything? Nope, nope. And here's what they're doing idiotically. They're going to vault games people don't even want. And don't get me started on people trying to claim that Oktoberfest is this amazing game now. Okay, sure it is. All CGC has done is vaulted games. And look, and absolutely, CGC could vault every version of their older games. They can make more Attack from Mars, more Medieval Madnesses. They can make more Monster Bashes, and they would sell them immediately. I have no idea what's happening over at Chicago Gaming Company, though. So look, I think we're going to get Venom next, and then I think we're going to get Indiana Jones. I think Indiana Jones is going to be a game that is made by John Borg. Remember, John Borg made the old Indiana Jones at Stern Pinball that everybody hated. And with the new movie coming out, I think we're going to see Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny by John Borg. And then I think we are also going to get Jaws by Keith Elwin next year. And I think we're going to get some other big surprise. Is it going to be Back to the Future? What will it be? Now look, if it's Venom, Indiana Jones, and Jaws, if I were a betting man, I think Stern is going to have another musical pin in play sometime next year, right? They always have a music pin every year, it feels like. You know, so then it begs the question, which one is it going to be? We've heard stuff like Motley Crue and Van Halen, maybe Beastie Boys. I would love it if they would do like Eminem or something hip I bet that what we going to see We going to see a music pin we going to see like Indiana Jones and we going to see Jaws in 2024 You like Kaneda why are you talking about 2024 There still so much going on this year Okay so let go on to Jersey Jack Pinball. I just want to hit like the three companies that have real movement happening right now. So Jersey Jack Pinball is getting Godfather LEs out to people. Look, it's going to be a slow burn with Godfather, but something good is happening for this title because most people, if you were to pull them, they didn't really want the Godfather pinball machine. It is a very questionable pinball machine to make. We just saw a picture of Eric Minier and Slash from Guns N' Roses playing it, so that helps. But I think what's going to happen with Godfather is this. I think it's going to be a slow burn. The early reviews of the game have been very positive. What? Kaneda's saying something nice? Yes, they've been very good reviews about the game. People are saying this is Jersey Jack Pinball's best shooting game to date. But I still think deep down in our pinball souls, people wish that Jersey Jack Pinball could just check all of the boxes. Wouldn't you want the best shooting game to also be a theme you really want to love and keep for a very long time? In an ideal world, all of us just wanted Toy Story 1 to be an amazing shooting game that was loaded with toys and it always still feels like a compromise over at jersey jack but and this is a big but but if you're willing to make that compromise i think this game is delivering a lot of pinball fun for people you can't escape the price of the machine though i talked to so many of you personally and you all want to give this game a go you just don't want to give it a go for $12,000 for the LE. That is the one thing holding everybody back because it's not just $12,000. It's more like $13,500 to buy an LE of this game in which they idiotically said they're going to make 5,000 LEs. And here's what I would be nervous about is look at how cheap Guns N' Roses LEs are going for right now. And there was much more desire to own Guns N' Roses than there ever will be to own Godfather simply because of the demand on the theme. And here's what's scary, right? And I'm gonna give you some real facts right now. Guns N' Roses, when it first came out, what was like 8,500 for an LE, maybe $9,000. Now it's $11,000 to get a Guns N' Roses LE new in box. I spoke to a major distributor. They have, are you sitting down? They have 100 Guns N' Roses LEs new in box that they now have to sell the people for $11,000. Guess who's buying those games right now? Nobody. And if you're watching the way Godfather is going to go, an LE is now 12 grand, and they said they're going to make 5,000 of them. So why would you buy the game right now? And I think that's where a lot of people are at. Even if you're seeing good reviews, you're most likely going to wait for the LEs to dip in price. And yes, I had some people private message me that like Carl played the game and it crashed a bunch of times. Look, I'm not worried about game bugs. They're going to fix that. Some of the feedback I've heard on the game is simply this. It's the best shooting game that Jersey Jack has ever made. Okay, check that box. I also heard that it's a little bit difficult because they don't have a screen below the glass on this version of the game. Remember, every Jersey Jack game before this usually had an LCD screen somewhere below the glass that told the player what to shoot at in each mode. Guns N' Roses has it. Toy Story has it. Pirates of the Caribbean has it. All of them utilized an LCD screen to tell the player what to shoot at. Godfather does not. Can you say cost-cutting? Because they also don't have to program that screen. I've been hearing from some players that it's a little hard to know exactly what to do in the game because when you're caught up in the fast gameplay, it's really difficult to look up to the screen and know what you have to do because your focus is on the gameplay. And someone was saying they had to have their daughter like call out what to do so they understood how to play the game. Now look, over time, people will learn the rules. They'll learn what to do with each mode. I still think it's gonna be an incredibly slow burn on this game. And then the other question is, are the collector's editions of this machine sold out? Well, look, I really don't know yet. It's always hard to know. Here's why it's hard to know if it's sold out. I think it has sold through. I think distributors have all been allocated how many they're going to get. I heard rumors that Jersey Jack held back a lot of them internally because they make more money when they sell each one directly. Do you think they made a thousand Toy Story CEs? I'm not sure. I doubt it. Here's the real question. Are they going to make a thousand Godfather CEs consecutively when they put this game on the line? So let's say they start making this game in May. That means two and a half months where the only games being made are Godfather Collector's Edition. So we shall see if during that like two and a half month period, we are seeing nothing but unboxings of Godfather Collector's Edition. It's a lot of cheddar, people. It's a lot of cheddar. There's no way around it. I think if you really want a CE, if you just wait, you will get one. Here's why you will get one. Because a lot of people get gung-ho and jump in on a deposit. It's one thing to put a deposit down. It's another thing to write a check for $16,500 because there will be some people that fall on harder financial times. Things are happening in this world for a lot of us personally where we might be waking up one day and saying uh maybe it not the best use of my finances to buy a pinball machine that based on a theme I really don love Okay, and that's just the way it's gonna go. You will always see games open up for sale when games actually become available. The same thing's gonna happen for Pulp Fiction LE. I keep telling everybody, just wait. Everyone right now just has $1,000 deposit down, right? They know they can get their money out of it if they wanted to. But when CGC starts asking people for like $10,000, $11,000 in payment, there will be a handful of people that might change their mind on the game. So just wait. And the good news for people who want a Pulp Fiction LE, you've got like eight months. And we know how fickle this pinball community is. We fall in and out of love with stuff. Like when the hype dies down, the hype does die down. And it will die down on a game when you make people wait eight months to get it. And look, I'll say this right now. I just want to play a Godfather. I just want to play one in New York City where the Godfather movie takes place. There are zero games in New York City. John does not have one at Jack Bar. And there is also not one at Sunshine. I don't even think Sunshine's open. So then it's up to one of these barcades to put it into one of their barcades. But New York City, I'm going to say this right now, is a crappy place to play new pinball right now. There's no Scooby-Doo anywhere. There's no Weird Al. There's no James Bond Premium. It's just a pro. I mean, there's nowhere to play the new stuff. There's no Godfather, nothing. I think we're going to see more and more people slowly order Godfather simply because they're available. Like if you want one tomorrow, you could have one tomorrow. If you want a Galactic Tank Force tomorrow, you have no idea when you're getting your game. Let's end this show with Galactic Tank Force. And here's the thing with this game. I think out of all the games, all the new games that have come out, I think this game is going to be the one that falls the fastest and falls the hardest. I can just feel it. You can see it. Like there's just a handful of people trying to hype this machine. I mean, this story is just wonky and weird. American Pinball needs to get this game out now. That is my main thing with Galactic Tank Force. They need to be shipping these tank editions right now. Do you have any idea when the tank editions will be shipping. You don't. Do you have any idea when deluxes will be shipping? They also need to sell the tank editions first. The more time that passes and all of these tank LEs are sitting for sale, I just think the hype on this game is going to die so quickly. The novelty is going to wear out so fast. And I think people are going to come to the simple conclusion that Dennis Nordman's sense of humor isn't working. It's not that funny. Seeing Steven Bowden in a game doesn't make us laugh. It makes us cringe. I think this game has more cringe than it does comedy. And I think the jokes are going to wear really thin. And so then that begs the question, what's next from American Pinball? Is Mukesh going to be happy if this game doesn't sell very well. And I mean it when I say it, people. If this game doesn't sell very well, I'm not sure Mukesh is going to keep this thing going, or he might want to replace the team he has over there. I'm hearing Berrio's game is supposed to be next, which is a colossal mistake. They should just skip that. But here's the interesting rumor, that Ryan McQuaid is working on a licensed video game pinball machine. It is not going to be Sonic the Hedgehog, but it is going to be another iconic memorable classic so let the rumor mill start up now what's it going to be is it going to be something cool like dragon's lair maybe it's a fighting game like mortal combat i don't know right there's so much in the classic arcade world that if you made it into a neat pinball machine i guarantee you people would line up to buy it like something like donkey Kong or Super Mario Brothers, right? So we shall see what it is. Look, Ryan McQuaid needs to deliver. He's been pretty smug lately in all the videos I've seen of him. And I think he needs to be a little bit more humble until he actually delivers something that blows people away. And I hope he does. I really do. Now, look, final thing I'll say on this show is this. I was talking to Barry at Dutch Pinball. He is so excited about the next game they have coming out. I've been rumoring it to be Batman 89. Of course, Barry cannot confirm that. He has signed NDAs, but the level of excitement he has over Dutch Pinball's follow-up license game to the Big Lebowski is palpable, and I can't wait to see what Barry does. I really, really believe that the only company that recreated the Bally Williams magic in modern times has really been Dutch Pinball. They got it all right. They got the theme. They got the toys. They got the art. They got the mechs. They got the magical moments into the machine. And so if Barry at Dutch can deliver a licensed game that we all want and it's loaded with magic, get ready, people. This is a dark horse waiting to wake up. And it's been long enough for this dark horse. It's been like 10 years of Lebowski and we're all ready for the next chapter in Dutch pinball's history. They just need to get all those EAs their games get those people whole and then we're on to something else that's going to be super exciting everybody thank you so much for being a member of the canada club the world's most popular patreon pinball podcast everybody we'll talk to you soon finish way so long it feels like something's off when i'm not depressed i got some issues that i won't address i got some baggage i ain't open yet i got some demons i should put the rest i got some traumas that i can't forget i got some phone I've been avoiding some family members. I don't really connect with some things. I said, I wish I would have not let slip some hurtful words