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PNP 633- Top 10 Video Games+ FINALLY Releasing The Epic Stern RANT+ Retro Ralph Rocks!

Poor Man's Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 8m·analyzed·Aug 15, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Orbital Albert returns with a top 10 video game pinball wishlist and promises to release his delayed Stern rant.

Summary

Orbital Albert returns from a 2.5-week break and discusses his upcoming 'Stern rant' release, thanks Retro Ralph for a new Shure MV6 microphone, previews P3 Multimorphic's upcoming machine launch, and counts down his top 10 video game IPs he believes should be made into pinball machines before Halo, including Fallout, Gran Turismo, Sonic, Mortal Kombat, and Pokemon.

Key Claims

  • Retro Ralph gifted Orbital Albert a brand new Shure MV6 microphone

    high confidence · Albert explicitly thanks Retro Ralph multiple times and describes receiving the new mic, noting it appeared brand new despite Ralph potentially having older equipment

  • John Wick pinball is missing guns due to licensing issues, not Stern being 'too woke'

    high confidence · Albert references recent Loser Kid Pinball Podcast episode with George Gomez discussing John Wick licensing constraints on Spike 3

  • John Wick pinball code isn't finished, which is the worst part of the game

    high confidence · Albert cites George Gomez explaining code status on recent Loser Kid episode

  • P3 Multimorphic is launching a new in-house game tonight on Buffalo Pinball livestream

    high confidence · Albert announces Ian Jacobs posted about a new P3 Multimorphic game playing at 7 PM ET on Buffalo Pinball

  • Pokemon is the largest IP in the world, larger than Star Wars, Super Mario, and others combined

    medium confidence · Albert makes this claim but acknowledges he's unsure and could check ChatGPT to verify

  • American Pinball's designer created Cuphead and previously made a Sonic homebrew

    medium confidence · Albert discusses Cuphead as 'their best shooter' but admits uncertainty about game details and rumors about American Pinball's licensing status

  • American Pinball may have let their licensing fall or be defunct

    low confidence · Albert speculates about American Pinball's status: 'I did hear that they basically let their licensing copyright fall or something like that. So who knows? Is it possible that AP's done forever?'

  • McDonald's Japan sold 20 million Pikachu cards in Happy Meals that sold out in 20 minutes

    medium confidence · Albert describes the event with specific details about timing, quantities, and secondary market values, but also makes casual corrections to his own statements

Notable Quotes

  • “I don't want to be on record with Retro Ralph getting you this great microphone and then I crash out again or you know say or do something stupid lose my temper go a bit bipolar”

    Orbital Albert @ ~3:00 — Albert expressing concern about his neurodivergency potentially reflecting poorly on Retro Ralph who gifted him the microphone

  • “Stern, are you listening? So I'm going to be counting down the top 10 video game themes that I think need to be made long, long before we even consider or talk or even have a little fart in the frickin' wind about doing Halo Pinball.”

    Orbital Albert @ ~8:30 — Albert setting up his top 10 list and dismissing Halo as premature compared to better licensing opportunities

  • “American Pinball, at least wet our whistle. Show us a video of this and say, hey guys, once we sell these X, 12 more of this machine and nine more of this machine and four of these more, then we can release these.”

    Orbital Albert @ ~18:45 — Albert critiquing American Pinball's communication about unreleased games like Cuphead and Sonic

  • “Pokemon is the largest IP in the world. It's not like slightly bigger than Super Mario Brothers or slightly bigger than Star Wars. You can add all of them up and they don't equal to that.”

    Orbital Albert @ ~41:30 — Albert making a bold claim about Pokemon's dominance in the IP licensing space

  • “I call it the Happy Meal Zeitgeist Test. If it hasn't had a Happy Meal in 10 years, it probably isn't relevant anymore.”

    Orbital Albert @ ~25:15 — Albert introducing his framework for judging IP relevance to pinball audiences

  • “The worst thing that happens this summer, I mean, they won 200 bucks because we both tossed in 100, but I only lost 100. And the good news is I might be related to the person. So the money may have stayed in the home or may not have if they're of gambling age.”

    Orbital Albert @ ~36:00 — Albert's tangent about losing at poker, demonstrating his characteristic digression pattern

Entities

Orbital AlbertpersonRetro RalphpersonDrop Target DaniellepersonGeorge GomezpersonCarrie HardypersonJosh RooppersonScott Larsonperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: American Pinball potentially defunct or licensing lapsed, unreleased games (Cuphead, Sonic) unknown status

    low · Albert speculates: 'I did hear that they basically let their licensing copyright fall or something like that. So who knows? Is it possible that AP's done forever?' acknowledges uncertainty

  • ?

    event_signal: Buffalo Pinball livestream hosting P3 Multimorphic game reveal expected to draw 30-100 viewers vs 300-500 for typical Stern launches

    medium · Albert predicts launch audience: 'a Stern launch, you're going to get 400 or 500 people watching...Whereas this, you know, there might be 30 to 50, maybe 80, I don't know, 100'

  • ?

    community_signal: Retro Ralph gifted Orbital Albert Shure MV6 microphone as show of support

    high · Albert extensively thanks Ralph for the brand new mic, notes it appeared unused despite potentially being old equipment, discusses significance of the gift

  • ?

    content_signal: Orbital Albert planning to release delayed 'Stern rant' episode after 2.5-week break

    high · Albert announces 'today is the day that I announce the details for how each and every person can get to hear my epic rant' and describes listening to cringe-worthy original recording

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Pinball licensing IPs selected based on mainstream relevance test: 'Happy Meal Zeitgeist Test' (must appear in Happy Meals within past 10 years)

    medium · Albert introduces framework: 'If it hasn't had a Happy Meal in 10 years, it probably isn't relevant anymore' and applies to candidate IPs like Sonic, Pokemon, Mario

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.205

0:00
I hear the drums echoing tonight, but she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation. She's coming in 1230 flights, her moonlit wings reflect the stars and batons for salvation. I stopped an old man along the way Hoping to find some old forgotten words Or ancient melodies He turned to me as if to say Hurry boy, it's waiting there for you Gonna take a lot to take me away from you Welcome back, Pinball Nerds, to episode 633 of your fifth favorite pinball podcast. My name is Orbital Albert, and if it sounds like I'm a little bit more relaxed than usual, that's because I am. That's right. I'm coming off two and a half week break. No podcasting for this guy. Lots of vacationing. I went down to the island. That's right. The island of Prince. No, not the musician. Prince Edward Island. who is Prince Edward I'm not really sure but what I do know is he was probably a ginger he had bright red hair and he must have been related to Anne of Green Gables I had a wonderful time with Drop Target Danielle we just celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary even though we're not going to be we're going to be going on a trip in a few weeks for that down to the southern shore of Nova Scotia further down the shore further past Peggy's Cove than we've ever been so we're kind of excited about that I'm going to get to visit two or three new craft breweries. My wife's going to get to try cupcakes as well as like lobster. I don't know. What do they do? Lobster rolls? Is it rolls? Buns? Whatever. Pizzas? They do lobster everything here, but she's going to get to try a whole bunch of new seafood places she hasn't been to before and like bakeries. I'm going to get to try burgers and craft beer.
2:14
As many of you know and some of you don't care, I'm deathly allergic to shellfish, so I don't know what lobster tastes like. I've smelt it. I don't like the smell. Sometimes you don't like the smell and the taste is great, right? Like blue cheese if you're having chicken wings. Blue cheese doesn't smell that good. When you get it on the wings, though, chef's kiss. So good. Guys, it took me one minute and 46 seconds to go off topic. I humbly apologize. Oh, wait. It took me a little longer because you heard that beautiful, these beautiful pipes of mine singing there. Now, I didn't get to sing into this brand new beautiful microphone, this Shure MV6. Thank you so much. The cat is out of the bag. For the second time this year, a pinball content creator.
Jack Danger
person
Keith Elwinperson
Kale Hernandezperson
Jamie Burchillperson
Rachelperson
Steve Ritchieperson
David Fixperson
Ian Jacobsperson
Buffalo Pinballorganization
P3 Multimorphiccompany
American Pinballcompany
Stern Pinballcompany
Spooky Pinballcompany
Loser Kid Pinball Podcastmedia
Pinball Nerds Podcastmedia
JBS Showmedia
Electric Bat Arcadeorganization
  • ?

    licensing_signal: John Wick pinball missing guns due to licensing constraints, not creative/political decisions

    high · George Gomez explained on recent Loser Kid podcast that licensing limitations caused missing guns feature, contrasting with community speculation about Stern censorship

  • $

    market_signal: Pokemon trading cards remain hyperactive collectible market with tens of millions of active participants, contrasting with declining Funkos, sports cards, and comics

    high · Albert details McDonald's Japan Pikachu card sold out in 20 minutes at 6:20 AM with lines of resellers, notes Pokemon maintains massive secondary market while other collectibles crashed 60-80%

  • ?

    personnel_signal: American Pinball hired designer who created Sonic homebrew and Cuphead, partially based on Sonic quality

    medium · Albert notes 'the gentleman who got hired got hired, I think, partially by David Fix and American Pinball because of how good he did with Sonic'

  • ?

    announcement: P3 Multimorphic launching new in-house game on Buffalo Pinball livestream at 7 PM ET, playable on multiple platforms

    high · Albert announces 'a brand new game...made by p3 multimorphic it is basically this game can be played on every other platform' streaming tonight on Buffalo Pinball

  • ?

    product_concern: John Wick pinball code incomplete, noted as worse problem than missing guns

    high · Albert cites George Gomez statement on Loser Kid: 'the code isn't finished, which we just recently heard'

    • 3:02
    Kind of, I wouldn't say spoiled the surprise because it's not a big surprise. The real surprise was getting the mic. But I sort of was excited to like have a big announcement and do like a, I'm going to do this big grand gesture for Retro Ralph who got me this awesome mic. And I hadn't thought of anything really cool to do yet. And out of nowhere, just two or three days ago on Jeremy Burchill's JBS show, of course, he was on there with Cale Hernandez doing the roundtable with also Retro Ralph and Jamie. And they brought up and mentioned my podcast. And after they did that, fairly enough, it's been like two months now. I don't fall Retro Ralph at all for it but he did let the cat out of the bag that he got me this awesome mic and my thought was geez I don't want to be on record with Retro Ralph getting you this great microphone and then I crash out again or you know say or do something stupid lose my temper go a bit bipolar I don't know I don't want to discredit anyone with like you know that's been clinically diagnosed but I certainly have at the very least ADHD and yeah it you know my neurodivergency, if you will, makes it more challenging for me to stay on topic. Said, I've already forgot what I was talking about. But I wanted to thank Retro Ralph from the bottom of my heart for this awesome microphone. I think what I was saying before is I want to make sure that just because Retro Ralph gifted me this mic, nothing that I say or do on this mic reflects poorly on Retro Ralph in any way, shape, or form. And I wanted to make sure to make that abundantly clear because there is people even within the industry who have donated to me or supported to me. And recently, someone just a few weeks ago from the industry donated some money, $65. Thank you so much. I think it was like 50 US, but it worked out to 65 Canadian to get myself a new microphone. And at the same time, I had just found out or was about to find out that Retro Ralph himself got me this awesome mic, even though I hadn't got it yet. Now, when he said he had an old mic he had just been sitting on too for a while, I thought I was going to get some old rusty, like, you know, an upgrade to the Snowball, my $50 mic I recorded 620-some-odd episodes on. But I did not know I'd be getting, man, Retro Ralph, if you took this out of the box, you take care of things nice. Because I'm not 100% sure, but it looked pretty frickin' brand spankin' new to me. I know that Retro Ralph has, like, some videos that have 80,000, 100,000 or more videos or views, sorry. so like my thought was wow what if he's giving me his old like youtube mic and this has got like a million like hardcore video game nerds and like arcade nerds because you know he comes from the arcade side which arcade and pinball they are the same world but he makes arguably a lot more pinball content now and a little bit less arcade content even though he still does a few of those um i think that one of the top videos on the retro ralph channel is actually about like shooter games, you know, like Big Buck Hunter, but not that. There's zombie games, there's Walking Dead, there's all these shoot-em-up games that you can play in arcades that I've heard actually Rachel and Cale say on the Electric Bat Arcade that those shoot-em-up games do pretty darn tootin' good, especially in a large arcade environment where you've got lots of other pinball machines in arcades. But I digress. Thank you Retro Ralph for the mic. I really appreciate it. And nicely enough, to wrap this up in a little bow Kale himself gave me the secret key to thanking Ralph and he said let the man hear the stern rant, the upper decker rant so today is the day that I announce the details for how each and every person can get to hear my epic rant now first of all perhaps the hardest part is me having to go back and listen to that and make sure there's nothing like, I'm hoping there's nothing too, I've never listened to it. I listened to the first 30 seconds, it was so cringe I had to stop. Then I listened to the first two minutes, and then I almost was in tears and I had to stop. And I guess I'll tell you all now the same thing I'll probably say in the new intro I'm going to do to the show. I was trying to be funny. That was the same week that Jenga's got really, really upset and lost his temper and said a whole bunch of wild, weird, wonky stuff about no one on earth should have guns yada yada yada not even armies or police it was like what and then it was the same week that you might remember that carrie hardy got really upset because he he admitted later he hadn't had his chipotle and because he hadn't as chipotle he was a bit hangry and i'll tell you what i've had chipotle it is pretty good i could see why as an american you might get upset if you hadn't had your chipotle yet but basically uh when john wick came out it was missing guns so that same week he went on a big rant and he actually brought out a real gun that was loaded and he took that gun and he actually shot the topper the cgc cactus canyon topper because he was so mad in that live video that got taken down you guys remember that okay no he didn't shoot a topper he didn't actually shoot the gun but he had like a live real like gun so and he brought it out it was on the thing and he was really pissed that he thought it was basically Stern being super woke and not, and then we found out later it was more licensing stuff. It wasn't Stern being like too far left, which I mean, to be honest, if it's John Wick and it doesn't have guns, it seems like if you couldn't get guns in the game, probably going to be really tricky to like do an ode to a game that celebrates guns, basically, or a movie that primarily celebrates violence and guns. However, you know, it's not even that the worst part about John Wick is not the missing guns, it's of course that the code isn't finished, which we just recently heard on George Gomez. Sorry, we heard with Josh and Scott on the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. The most recent episode, they were speaking with George Gomez about Spike 3, and he was kind enough to basically explain all that. Let's get back into it. We're seven minutes in. What are we doing on today's show? On today's show, we're going to be counting down the top 10 video games that absolutely have to be made long, long before they ever make Halo. I'm sorry, Halo's a decent game. One of my buddies was really good at it and could get like, whenever I tried to play with him, he would get like six, seven, eight times my kills.
    9:31
    I haven't played any of the newer games at all. I don't think the movie or the TV show or whatever did very good whatsoever. But today I want to count down the top 10 video games themes. They're not mine because if not, it would be all like Tony Hawk and there would be like Don't Starve and there'd be all these games personally that I play that that would be on here. This is what I actually think commercially would do well. So like as you know, our old fearless leader Drew would say, Stern, are you listening? So I'm going to be counting down the top 10 video game themes that I think need to be made long, long before we even consider or talk or even have a little fart in the frickin' wind about doing Halo Pinball. Because Halo would maybe be okay for a tiny, tiny, like a very, like smaller than spooky size. Like even spooky I don't think should do Halo. I think even for them, they've grown out of a size that big. There's just better licenses that probably cost less, that are easier to obtain, that really would get more people excited and really have more of the people outside of the pinball world stoked about it. So let's get into that list right now. But first, I'm going to start by saying I missed each and every one of you. Shout out to Lucas Jay, who's like, dude, where's your episode? Dude, where's your episode? he did send me a really kind comment after the last show and i did tell him it got me pumped up and i wanted to start recording soon but uh as i explained even to jamie this morning on facebook when i was talking to him once you haven't done episodes for a couple weeks you keep thinking well geez i gotta have a banger episode when i come back and i was waiting for there to be like some big news to drop or like a new pinball machine and none of that happened and of course as soon as i decide to record an episode i see that ian here we're just posted that a game called not elements from pinball adventures thank god because i would not be tuning in to watch that live stream or maybe i would just for the lols okay but tonight on buffalo pinball at 7 p.m eastern standard time or no i don't i forget seven go look at buffalo pinball on facebook or one of their other social medias and see what's on but they're going to be playing a brand new game in this in-house made it's not a third party game it is uh made by p3 multimorphic it is basically this game can be played on every other platform and it sounds really neat i don't know like again i think it's a neat add-on to have if you already have the game i don't think anyone's i could be wrong i will watch tonight with open eyes and open ears and open heart and open mind and try to be like a good constructive criticism person while still being kind without being too rude and a negative nancy or a debbie downer okay i'm gonna try my best but from watching the video It didn't get me too, too, too hyped up, but I think it's still going to be interesting. It's going to be great. As pinball media, as I put those in like the ugliest little brackets ever, as pinball media, it'll be interesting to ask some questions. A launch like this is actually, there'll be so few people in chat. I don't mean that rudely, but like a Stern launch, you're going to get 400 or 500 people watching, at least 300, right? Whereas this, you know, there might be 30 to 50, maybe 80, I don't know, 100 if they do a really good job advertising it. I'm not sure. but no matter what it'll be much easier to have a question asked in chat i know uh kevin does a really good job kind of like fielding out the decent questions in chat um buffalo pinball has been live streaming for so long it just makes sense for p3 to use their platform i think outside of jack danger they have the most number of like subs followers all that kind of stuff so it does really make sense to be using them. Of course, it would be great if P3 Multimorphic, and I don't know how it works with Jack. I don't know, because he said he's going to be playing in the sandbox, so we should see other pinball machines getting, you know, I remember seeing a couple small in-house made spooky machines. I believe Jack Danger did like the first live stream of Domino's perhaps, Jetson's maybe. I believe he did a Jetson's live stream. I don't know if he did the world premiere of it but you know he did a couple of those back in the day i don't know if it makes sense while he's working for stern to do like the world premieres so it probably does make sense for buffalo to keep doing this but if i were p3 multimorphic i would maybe be asking jack like hey by the way you know if we got you a machine could you get it into the rotation from time to time and i think possibly with what jack said there you know he's again you know the week of a brand new Stern release or his, you know, Pokemon or whatever Jack was working on with maybe, hopefully, possibly Keith Elwin. Can you imagine if Jack Danger and Keith Elwin were on a machine? I would just have to buy it. It doesn't matter if it's Pokemon. It could be Little House on the Prairie, okay? It could be Family Ties. What was that show with the adopted daughters and the really mean mom who lived there, but she had a kind heart? And the girl Trudy was my favorite. Oh, the Facts of Life, do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do, the facts of life, the facts of life. Yeah, I would, yeah, it doesn't matter what it is. I would totally be there for it. Let's beep, beep, beep, beep, back up the truck, okay? Live sound effect for you on this beautiful new microphone. And I'm just going to say that I want the top 10 pinball machines that need to be made into themes, that need to be made into pinball machines, to be not a list that is the end all and be all of it, but is a list that when you look back and you think, hey, he tried his best. So I don't know what the hell he's saying. Let's get into it. All right, number 10 is Fallout. That's right. There's been some rumors that Fallout's coming. Is that from CGC? I don't know. I don't follow the rumors that much. Man, there's been like 20 podcasts about rumors in the past month, and to me they're snooze fest. Some people say it's boring to listen to tournament pinball. I am. Don't worry, Franchi. I'll save it to the end, but I am going to be talking about some tournament pinball a little bit later on in the show. At the very end, don't worry, I'll save it to the very end, but I'm going to keep it quick. I'm going to keep it short. I'm going to keep it sweet, and I'm not going to spend too much time about it. So number 10 on the video game list. Sorry, guys. I've got to plug in the laptop here. There we go.
    16:03
    Number 10 on the list is going to be Fallout. Now, I don't think they should do Fallout Shelter. I think they should do Fallout New Vegas, like Fallout 76 or Fallout New Vegas. They're basically the same. I think one is like an upgrade to the other one. It's kind of like the difference between Grand Theft Auto, Sandreas, and like whatever the expansion pack was for that, right? So it's kind of the expanded version of it.
    16:26
    Fallout has been around long enough for at least people like me, you know, between probably mid-30s to mid-40s to be somewhat nostalgic for it. Yet at the same time, it's got a very nice aesthetic. It converts to like a fun theme. I think that we haven't – I mean, if you think back of all the years, and I'm sure I'm wrong and someone can prove me wrong, but I can only think of video game themes are Roller Coaster Tycoon, which I had, which is a very strange and not – it doesn't really – It not Any type of idle game like that and simulation game isn really very suitable You know like airplane simulation game wouldn be very suitable for a pinball machine theme but that why also i don think follow shelter would work great even though i played far more follow shelter and i love it awesome mobile game if you have no clue about fallout upload follow up shelter i i'm pretty sure it's free there's probably microtransactions play it for like 20 minutes you'll get it if not just borrow follow uh ideally you'd play fallout 76 or fallout new vegas or one of the other fallouts the first one i think isn't like as good but it's still decent what i'm saying is it's been around enough that there would be a good chunk of people who would be nostalgic for it i would say the average player that got into it might have been like 20 to 35 then when it kind of started up and they're probably the average player now is somewhere around like of the players who even still play, they're probably between 30 to 45 or even 50, right? Like my best friend, Eric, who's two years older than me, or one of my best friends, I don't want any of the other friends to be, you know, hey, I'm your best friend, you're wrong, Orby. But one of my best buds, Eric Norwood, who tonight, because it's Thursday, I will be playing on my Thursday night Fortnite group with, and I will be talking about this, so there's a little hint for later, y'all.
    18:17
    That was the one game that when we went to his house, he played all the time, and still to this day, I don't, okay, not to this day, but the last time I asked him about it, maybe six or seven months ago, he still went on to New Vegas every once in a while and saw what sales he had and restocked his vending machines at his house. I don't fully understand how it works, but it's really fun. You're out there, you're basically like, it kind of looks like you're in Vegas, obviously, or Texas or the Mojave Desert or, you know, don't mess with Texas, that kind of thing. And it's really cool. It's really fun. There's like, you have to be able to ride a horse while shooting a gun, which makes it even more interesting. There is a storyline, but you don't have to follow the storyline, if that makes sense. I think in the very first one you kind of needed to to unlock certain things. But there you go, number 10 on my list that I think that is still in the zeitgeist of society that even young people know. My kids even know what it is. They've seen it. They probably played, I think my oldest son, who's now 20, played the first Fallout or maybe the first and second Fallout, like, again, 10, 15 years ago, right? So, you know, how long ago? Not even that long ago. Probably eight to nine years ago if we were buying it used, right? A lot of times we just buy games used on the secondary market. So anyways, that's number 10. Number nine on the list, this one's a little bit older, but it's still played to this day, and I still do play this, and that is Gran Turismo. Now, I'm not going to pick a number. It's not the type of game that changes that much that you need to say, oh, it's Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec or it's Gran Turismo 5. Aren't they all like Gran Turismo 76 by now? No, I think it's like Gran Turismo 10 or 11. But Gran Turismo was not only in the top, I believe it was a top 10 or top 15 sellers of the 1990s. It continued to do very well because PlayStation included it as a free disc that you got in a lot of their, you know, like the Christmas gift pack that you would get or something like that. So I think Gran Turismo is still actually played by a lot of people. It by far is the top racing game for like modding your race car. My son Hayden does that with some of the stuff, and I don't fully understand. I don't like specializing any of the modifications. I just run the stock cars. I'll buy a really good car, but I like to run them stock. I love doing the licensing. As a former driving instructor, many of you guys know I taught almost half a thousand kids how to drive. I was their very first, of many of them, the very first person they ever sat in a car with in a parking lot long before we got onto the road. And some of them, it did take a couple lessons to get out of that parking lot. Let's just say that. But that's a job I will not be doing when I semi-retire. Now, would I go back to being a security guard again? Absolutely. Love that job. I kind of miss it. You just sit on your butt. You have lots of power. You tell people what to do. It's great. It's wonderful. Who wouldn't love it? Okay, number eight on the list is Sonic. I didn't do that well at all. I didn't practice it though. But Sonic the Hedgehog. First of all, we have a built-in audience that loves Sonic. Sonic Spinball is Sonic Pinball built in. So would it have to be Sonic Spinball or could it just be Sonic Pinball? Would it be like my favorite Sonic, Sonic 2? Come on, everybody likes Sonic 2. Once you add Tails in there, it's incredible. Am I right or am I right? Or am I right? All right.
    21:34
    oh boy sonic i think would be great we already know uh who did the homebrew for it oh no it was the gentleman that went over to ap correct yes i think so oh my god it was just his girlfriend's birthday i'm so sorry i forget your name but the gentleman at american pinball the designer who made cuphead which still to this day uh i think i've heard multiple people say now who have seen Cuphead that it looks excellent, it looks fun, it looks to be their best shooter. Who knows about the code? Who knows about the call-outs? Who knows about the video? But like, geez, American Pinball, at least wet our whistle. Show us a video of this and say, hey guys, once we sell these X, 12 more of this machine and nine more of this machine and four of these more, then we can release these. Like, that would be cool, right? Now, I did hear that they basically let their licensing copyright fall or something like that. So who knows? Is it possible that AP's done forever? Were they taken behind the barn and shot? Possibly. I hope not. I hope they come back. I'm very hopeful for that. But will they? I don't know. But that gentleman who got hired got hired, I think, partially by David Fix and American Pinball because of how good he did with Sonic. So, of course, all the way through the 90s and even, you know, it started in the 80s with Super Mario Brothers, but in the 90s there was either Sega guys or Nintendo guys. And if you were a Sega guy, you thought that Sonic the Hedgehog was cooler and more fun than It's-a-Me, Mario, and Luigi, right? So I really, really, really do think Sonic would do well. You've got a wide range of people who know about Sonic. Sonic is still identical to – my children can still identify it. I call it the Happy Meal Zeitgeist Test. If it hasn't had a Happy Meal in 10 years, it probably isn't relevant anymore. That's not true for all parties because not all parties will work with McDonald's. But just recently, there was a Sonic movie. Now, of course, the thing about that Sonic movie, geez, did you see the picture of the Sonic with the teeth, the human teeth? It was weird. It was really weird. I'm glad we did. I hope we don't get that pinball. Can we not get the Sonic with the teeth? I don't want that translate. but Sonic is still like revered Sonic is you still see people from time to time wearing Sonic shirts I mean not as often as you would in the the aughts or the 90s but it's still there and that's why I put it number eight it was what the third best-selling game in the 90s so let's let's Sonic on all right number seven Mortal Kombat Fatality all right I am no Steve Ritchie but you know what, Steve Ritchie is still alive and kicking. That's right. Don't forget about it. Just because it's been a while since he designed some say the best shooter, definitely the most glitter, Elton John. Okay? So he is due for a new one. And since he did the call-outs for Mortal Kombat, I would assume that there's a possibility he might still have it in with whoever the heck owns the licensing for it. I don't know if he gets any type of royalties from doing all those callouts on one of the best-selling video games of all time. Mortal Kombat! Okay, sorry. That one just sounds like I have to go poop. It sounded like I had a turtle head poking. Am I turtle enough for the turtle club? All right. So Mortal Kombat would be incredible. Mortal Kombat had that movie a while ago that was kind of weird. And then there was that Black Mirror that was kind of about Mortal Kombat-esque that was really, really weird. If you guys want to be the most freaked out you've ever been, okay, go look up the Black Mirror about the two gentlemen who are good buddies who start playing that because you will be freaked out for life. All right. Mortal Kombat. All right. I can't do it. Number six is, and I know you all thought this would be number one on Orb's list, but it's not, Pokemon. That's right. So, yes, I love playing Pokemon Go. Yes, I buy, sell, and trade Pokemon cards. No, I don't play the Pokemon card game. Yes, I have played a couple rounds on TGC Pocket, so I understand the mechanics of how the game works, but I'm just not really into playing those types of card games. If I'm going to sit down and play cards, I want to be playing poker, and I want to play for $200 like I did the last time I sat down and played poker. And after three hours, I lost because someone called what they thought was a semi-bluff, by me. I lost a six to one, guys. A six to one. Come on. That's not even like a half coin flip. That's not even a quarter flip. All right. Doesn't matter. Let's get back into it. My summer's been going actually very excellent, very rad. So I can't complain. The worst thing that happens this summer, I mean, they won 200 bucks because we both tossed in 100, but I only lost 100. And the good news is I might be related to the person. So the money may have stayed in the home or may not have if they're of gambling age. I'm not sure. But yeah. So Pokemon is the largest IP in the world. It's not like slightly bigger than Super Mario Brothers or slightly bigger than Star Wars. You can add all of them up and they don't equal to that. Okay, that could be a lie. I could ask ChatGDP about that. But when I remember looking at this last time, I remember adding up like G.I. Joe, Star Wars.
    27:07
    Like honestly, like I added up all the big IPs together and they didn't even equal. I think when you added like the second and the third one with it, yes, it probably got close to Pokemon. But the thing is you cannot go to any mall in North America, Japan, China, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France, Holland, the UK. Like where is not – it's easier to say where is not Pokemon crazy. So just two days ago, McDonald's in Japan released an exclusive like – it's not even a freaking holographic card. It's not even a holo. It's not even an art rare. It's not even numbered. It's not even limited. There was like 20 million of them printed in these packs. And all – one in four packs or one in five packs had a little tiny Pikachu. Pikachu is like the second most expensive Pokemon. So all you need to know, it's just like a little yellow weird – I don't know. I don't know what he's supposed to be, like a little monkey or something. He's a cute little dude. And he's just sitting there eating some McDonald's. He's just eating some grubby, greasy McPukes. That's all it is, is just a freaking Pikachu just gurgling down.
    28:15
    And that card might only be worth like, well, the packs are worth like $8. So let's say the card's worth like four times that probably, maybe slightly more. So the card's worth like $20 or $30. People got up at the break of dawn at 5.30. They started selling the Happy Meals at 6 a.m. They sold out most stores by 6, 20 a.m. It was 99% grown men because no child is getting up at 4, 30 a.m. to go stand in line for these packs. And 90% of these dudes were resellers.
    28:43
    So if you like Star Wars, do you know how many men on planet Earth can make money buying and selling and trading Star Wars collectibles? There's probably 100 on planet Earth. Do you know how many dudes can buy, sell, and trade and make money on just one single other collectible? Like, it's very challenging. It's hard to even make money from Funkos now. Funkos are down like 80%. There's a couple high-end ones with signatures and such which are holding ground. But, like, Funko Pops basically decimated. Sports cards dropped by some. Most modern cards are down 60%, 70%, 80% from four or five years ago. Comic books. Most comic books are down 60%, 70%, 80%. Some of the older Golden Age classics and Silver Age classics are doing just fine, as you might expect. But it's a very, very tough environment. However, Pokemon has, hear me now, tens of millions of people like myself that can make a living off of it. I have never been the person who stood in line. Well, I have stood in line to get Pokemon, but I've only bought enough for myself to rip. and I don't live close enough to a Costco or even McDonald's to be doing what a lot of other people do what happened in Japan was people, grown men were standing in line and they were getting in fights and beating people up and the police were having to be called because some of them stood in line for an hour, hour and a half, two hours and they didn't even get one pack because the first hundred dudes in line were just there to buy the five packs and then the sickest, most disgusting part of this whole thing is even though there's millions of people there that are most likely hungry or low income or unhoused that could have eaten those happy meals they were just left all over the place like garbage all outside the mcdonald's no one wanted any of the food like maybe one of the dudes grabbed a coke or something to drink or a diet coke shout out jamie right but then they left these boxes just everywhere so if you guys look it up it's just crazy um still to this day even at both costco's to the north and south of me down there in Halifax and even Bears Lake and up there in Moncton, they're still selling out within minutes of opening up. It doesn't matter what Pokemon product was out there because they're still selling. So because there's dudes like me, again, I'm not that type of flipper. I'm not a rip and shipper. I'm not a flipper. There's like 30 different ways to make money in Pokemon. I like to do pre-grading and grading. I like to do trades. I like to do level up card challenges. I like to enjoy kind of like walking around and doing a tour and kind of being the funny, weird, wild guy who has unique, you know, Pokemon cards from all over the world. I buy lots all the way from everywhere from Shanghai to Hong Kong. Japan, it's getting harder to buy lots. I buy a lot of lots from China. And then I break them all up and any that are worth grading where I can get a pop one, hopefully, or a pop two, pop three, pop five. That just means population count. If I can be the first person ever to have that card graded a pristine, perfect PSA 10, that card goes up from being maybe a $10 or $15 or $20 card to $500, $600 or $700 card because it becomes that rare, i.e. a pop one means it's the only one on earth. And if you have the only one of earth of a super rare card that's hard to get that you can't find on eBay, but it's also beautiful, you now have an item that you can sell on eBay for, again, $300, $400, $500, $600.
    32:07
    I can't do that because eBay fees would kill me on something that big. But it's been a fun, interesting, enjoyable journey. And quite often, by the time my cards come back in six or seven months, the prices of them have gone up so much that I make even more than I thought possible. I will say this. It's a tough grind. I can be honest, even though there's no tax man listening, in no one single year, I don't think I've made enough that I would have had to have paid taxes. Like, I don't think I've made over 6K, maybe, profit any one year. So it's more of a side hustle, where I get to go with my son, he gets to make money for the day, and I just love the artwork. To me, they are just miniature Picassos. The easiest way to think about Pokemon for any man, woman, even child, if they have to, Yes, it's a board game, but it's a board game. It's a card type style board game that also has beautiful playing cards. And the playing cards themselves are so pretty, rare and unique, printed in so many languages and so many different sets. And, you know, there's so many people that are into the game, men, women, children, all different ages. I have kids buying cards for me as young as four or five years old. I even have eight, nine, ten-year-olds come do their very first trade with me. I always make sure I give them a free $5 card at the end. So even if they trade me a $12 card for like three, $4 cards or vice versa, usually kids are coming to me to do trade up. So I just love Pokemon. I played the new Wii, not Wii, Nintendo Switch game, the Pokemon with the ball. You actually had the ball and you got to throw it and you had to catch it and stuff. It was really cool. You had to put the wrist strap on because a lot of people were actually throwing the ball and wrecking their televisions. But Pokemon is incredible. It is probably getting Pokemon Go for free and playing that for three or four days is the second easiest way to get into the Pokemon world. The easiest way is if you have Netflix, go watch, like, literally go watch the first three 15-minute episodes of the first season, the OG first season You know everything you need to know It just basically about a kid that lives in a world that if they trap these Pokemon and make them fight whoever think about them as being pets I mean, they were called pocket monsters, basically pets at the very start anyways. So if you say your dog versus my dog, and there is a lot of dogs. I think Rialu is one of them. There's a whole bunch of dogs in Pokemon as well. If your dog fights my dog, whoever's dog is stronger or more trained or has more powers or whatever, whoever wins going against this type against this type, and you have to understand all those things. I've lost – I can hear it right now. Jamie is sleeping. Okay, back on track. Beep, beep, beep. Here we go. All right, so next on the list is Mario Kart. Now, you'll notice I didn't put Pokemon in the top five because I don't think it's relatable to a large number of people who do, who buy pinball machines often. I would say the average age of someone buying a pinball machine is probably 50. Sure, is there the odd 20-year-old or 25-year-old? Like, shout out to my boy Nick Green in there who bought tons of pinball machines just from working at, like, a local – I think he worked at, like, just a local grocery store and just saved his money up and bought them on the low end, fixed them up and sold some and took that money and turned it into more. Can you do it that way? Yes. But, like, the average person buying a pinball machine is probably 50 to 55 years old. Most 50 to 55-year-olds only have a memory of Pokemon as, like, their kids playing it or as, like, their kids might have had the Game Boy game or as, like, their kids might have read the magazine. or their kids might have watched the show or their kids might have loved the movies or maybe they played Pokemon Go themselves, right? And the Pokemon, when you look up the top, I have it right here actually. I want to make sure that I'm not lying when I'm quoting something. So here I have a list of the top ten best-selling video games of all time. And Pokemon is number seven on that list. But let's – I don't want to jump around the list too much. But when I scroll down and I look at the 1990s, though, okay, the top-selling game in the 1990s, most people would think it would be Super Mario World. No, that was number three at 20.61 million units. But the number two-selling game was Pokemon Gold at 23.1 units sold. And Pokemon Red was by far – so this includes the different versions, which were red, green, blue, and yellow. So one of those Pokemon games, they're all the same game with just like a different disc, right, or a different color thing, and you got a different starter Pokemon. But essentially, they were all just different versions of the exact same game. They sold 46.02 million units in the 1990s. And that was by far more than Sonic the Hedgehog, which only sold 15 million. So the two top-selling games combined were both Pokemon, sold 69 million units, and Sonic only sold 15 million. Super Mario World only sold 20 million. So let me repeat that. Pokemon sold more than three times as many units in the 1990s as Super Mario World sold in the 1990s. Street Fighter, 14 million. Mario 64, 11.9 million. Mario Land 2, 11.8 million. and finally to round it out, Final Fantasy VII at $11.02 million. But no more of those that I mentioned are on my list, so let's move onward and upward here. All right, number five on the list is Mario Kart. That's right. No, no, no, not Super Mario Brothers, not Super Mario World, not Mario 64, not Mario Party. It's not Time to Party, not yet. It's Mario Kart. But why would Mario Kart be so far up on the list? Well, number one, I did notice that Mario Kart itself was very high up on the list at 8.5 million units sold in the 1990s. But that's not it. Mario Kart's gone on to sell. That was Mario Kart 64. Never mind the original Mario Kart, which I'm sure was very close to being up there with it. The original Mario Kart, which I loved, which was Rainbow Road, that's not even the version that I necessarily think they should make. This would be much like Gran Turismo, where I think they should just make the world of Mario Kart. Obviously, you don't want to rely too heavily on the regular Nintendo, or sorry, the Super Nintendo one, the first one. You don't want it to be maybe too much 64, but honestly, probably closer to what it is today or what it's been the last three times. And even still to this day, Mario Kart is like one of the most played on the brand new Nintendo Switch. Is it the Switch 2? I don't know. whatever the new game is, whatever the new honey.
    38:39
    Can I have that drink there maybe? You'd be the bestie from the lefty. Oh, I got a really nice email as well from someone who donated, and they were talking about how much they enjoy when Drop Target Danielle comes on the episode. So can you just thank that person very quickly for that nice email that they enjoyed seeing you in the show? Thank you very much. They are an industry person, so I think they are. I'd have to double check. So I don't remember who they are. I don't have my email open. And don't send me emails. I don't read them. No, I do read them. And once in a while, I will write back from time to time. Drop Target Danielle is in there working hard, making us some dinner, some type of rice and chicken and beans, beans from our homestead garden. That's right. Let me have a little sip-sip here of my angry alpaca tea, iced tea.
    39:27
    Okay. Sorry, guys. It's very, very hot here. I am going to just do a little pause break to say shout-out to all the hard-working firefighters, not just here in Nova Scotia, outside of Halifax and Bears Lake, where there was a big fire this week. Listener of the show, Doug Parsons, just on a serious note, I'm glad you're okay. I saw the fire was getting really, really close. Actually, the parking lot, someone was filming from the parking lot of Costco across to Kent, which is equivalent to like a Home Depot or some type of home hardware store, some type of home renovation store. And they have a big, giant, like one of those 100-foot tall propane tanks. and the fire was getting like closer and closer and closer and people were freaking out like that thing shoots up in the air that thing probably weighs i don't know two three tons who knows where it lands who knows how long it goes up in the air who knows like if that god forbid came down and landed in downtown halifax and came down on like some big penthouse like that thing would probably shoot through 100 stories in an apartment building so thankfully that didn't happen and you know i know that there is there there honestly is bad fires and people are dealing with the smoke from the Canadian wildfires on a daily basis all the way across Canada. This is my first time. I've had like the brown from the smoke, but I couldn't actually smell the smoke strong. There was a very severe wildfire about 45 minutes south of here. Thankfully, that's been contained. It's not put out yet, but it's contained. And then there's a much more severe one about an hour north of me in Miramichi, but that one has been contained. I kind of feel like I'm getting closed in. It doesn't matter which direction the wind goes. We've got fires coming from all directions. We do have an absolute fire ban here right now, and also we're not allowed to go hiking. We're not allowed to go into the forest. You're not allowed to go on ATVs. You can't go fishing if it means you have to walk through forested areas to get there, or you're in a forested area while you're fishing. A lot of people will say this is government overreach. I'm not going to get political on today's show. What we know here is where in the province I live of Nova Scotia that way more than half of the fires that start in forests are started by humans, So the best way to not start fires in the forest when we don't have any firefighters left and we're already fighting the maximum number of fires. I think just in my county, there was four. It's so hot and it's so dry and we have so little like fresh water around us. And there's not very many. There's not very many roads here. There's not very many towns. There's not very many farmers fields. So when a forest fire starts going in Nova Scotia, it will do the same. it is doing in Newfoundland right now. Sorry to all those in Newfoundland who've lost 20,000 hectares or something. It's massive. I think it's the second or third largest one in all of Canada right now.
    42:10
    It's hard to keep up on them. British Columbia has a big, giant, massive one. Manitoba has the biggest one. It's been the biggest one for forever. All of Manitoba is on fire. Thankfully, not too many people live in the north part of Manitoba. I digress. Let's get back into it. Mario Kart would be incredible. Mario Kart is, they still have those Mario Kart video games to this day. Both of my sons recognize Mario Kart. We played it after we got the Pokemon Switch quite a bit when we had that Mario Monthly whatever. You know, it's still out there. It's still popular. They have that arcade game, like I was saying, that, you know, is it the six-player or, like, four-player, six-player, eight-player Mario Kart? Everybody knows Mario Kart. Everybody loves Mario Kart. Mario Kart would be a fire. and we haven't had a good racing pinball machine. Okay, I know there is like Cosmic Kart Racing for P3 Multimorbic. I have not played it. What I love most is that you can play that with someone else online. But Mario Kart would be incredible. I want Mario Kart to happen. I can't wait for Mario Kart to happen. I think it will happen. But something that would sell better than Mario Kart that I don't personally want as much because I'm not as engaged with it and I don't understand it as well, but it sells even better, is Zelda. So, wow, as much as you might think that Mario Kart is still out there and you're seeing it in social media and you're seeing it, you know, when you're going out places, a game that needs to be done is Zelda. That's correct. That's right. Zelda. Now, there has been many more. There was the Orcana of Time or whatever it was. Yeah, that came out. That sold $7.6 million in the 90s. And then since then there's been, and I don't know them. I have played it with two of my best buds there, Eric and Melvis.
    44:03
    But you can, like, there's so many just creative features that's kind of more like Minecraft where you can take different parts of the earth and, like, you can creatively, like, combine them and you can mix them together to make new things. I even found myself going down the rabbit hole on YouTube of watching just custom-built things that make different sounds.
    44:25
    It's very strange. But the new Link and Zelda games are really cool. And I do have a Link or a Zelda shirt that I got on sale years ago. It was like on the $5 T-shirt bargain rack or something. And it fit me at the time. And I just love the look of the Zelda girl on it. I forget her name. It's probably Zelda. but what okay thank you drop target daniela lets me know the cute funny girl and there is zelda I always thought zelda was linked for years I thought zelda was the green dude with the sword anyways so thank you thank you there you go f up of the show but I didn't even swear I'm trying not to swear guys so far so good maybe swearing doesn't sound good on a good mic I hear like it sounds unprofessional and I want to be measured and professional no oh there can only be one chef teolis the golden voice of pinball jeff shout out to a well-run beast by the way uh shout out to fox cities pinball for doing an awesome job i don't remember have i came and talked to you guys since pinberg i think i did one show since pinberg it's too late for that it's not time for tournament talk i've got to tell all you nerds how you can listen to my stern rant my upper decker extraordinaire if you will i was it was so funny to hear kayla hernandez say that they they passed around that podcast and everybody listened to it and the stern guys got a ride out of it that was kind of the point i think i was talking about this earlier when like uh jengas and carrie hardy and canada that was the week that canada said well okay uh carrie hardy and jengas both lost their their chat and they got like the most views ever so So he did this thing where he said more F-words than non-F-words in a three-minute time period. I think someone counted and it was like 119 F-words in like four minutes or five minutes or something. Don't quote me on it. I believe that that was deleted very quickly, but maybe it's still up. But that same week he went on that rant, I thought, well, I didn't get invited to Stern. I'm not going to rant about there not being guns on John Wick because I don't care about that. I'm not going to be ranting about how the whole world needs no guns because as a homesteader, a farmer, and a proud Canadian who lives in the country, I certainly at the very least respect gun ownership, especially in people who are mentally healthy and, you know, in an ideal world, you know. In an ideal world, we would want to keep guns out of some people's hands. That's what I will say. But we don't want to take them away from everybody. How does this turn into a political podcast? So that same week, I thought I can up these guys. Guys, I lose my temper all the time. I lose my temper just stubbing my toe, I could swear, a hundred times, okay? So I thought, hmm, I am actually kind of genuinely disappointed that I didn't get invited to Stern. So how can I just go over the top? And one of my favorite comedians of all time is Chris Farley. In a van down by the river. Okay, that was horrible. That was my worst one ever. But if I hear it, I can kind of do it. But Chris Farley, rest in peace. God love you. One of my favorite dudes. When he passed away, I felt like I lost a silly cousin. because I religiously watched SNL. All my friend group, we all watched SNL. Like SNL was the one time that some dude started talking. You could just turn around and punch him. Like not in the head or anything, but you could like nail him in the gut or give him a charley horse above the leg or like a good shot to the arm. Like shut up, bro. It's SNL. Like, you know, we didn't have TiVo back then or we didn't have streaming. You couldn't rewind it. You couldn't even watch SNL until like two years later, three years later when the VHS film came out, right? So it's like, come on, man, I'm old. All right. Okay, so number five on the list is Mario Kart. Number four on the list is Zelda. Number three on the list is Minecraft. That's right. Now, this one has the least nostalgia for dudes over 40. I get it. Even myself, I have rarely played Minecraft, even though I've watched both of my sons, primarily Hayden, play hundreds of hours of Minecraft, and he absolutely, without a doubt, loves Minecraft. but it is still to this day the most downloaded game of all time. Let me scroll down here.
    48:34
    Sorry, it is the most sold game of all time. Okay, yeah, summary overview. In all honesty, I did ask chat, what are the top ten best-selling video games of all time? So if any of these numbers are off, it's on them. It's not on me. Oh, my God, I can smell bacon being made, and it smells delicious. So let's take a look right here. So, yes, number one game of all time is Minecraft at 350 million sales. So remember those games we were talking about with, like, 20 million, 30 million, 40 million sales in the 1990s? Nah, nah, nah, nah. Hold my frickin' beer, says Minecraft. and then the Jack Black movie oh my god that poured gasoline on it even people like my youngest son Owen who hardly ever played Minecraft before all he played was Minecraft after Jack Black did peaches peaches peaches no that's the wrong one we'll talk about that one later wow Jack Black is in a lot of these video game movies oh thank you Drop Target Daniel chicken jockey ok everyone throw your popcorn anyways yeah so when they said chicken jockey everyone freaked out. I don't know what's so cool about a chicken jockey. I did watch the movie. I did watch the movie in an altered state. Let's just say I wasn't eating any chicken jockeys during it, but I had a wonderful time watching that particular movie. You know, maybe not so much sober, but let's say something legal or at least on the verge of being quasi legal right here in the good old Canadian soil. All right, next on the list is going to be Number two, Grand Theft Auto. You heard me talk about it before. My love for Grand Theft Auto is never-ending, and you better believe it, Stern. If you get Grand Theft Auto, you're going to need a gun. Benny's got a gun.
    50:34
    Seriously, you need to have guns in Grand Theft Auto. And I'm not saying there should be vigils of you shooting women of the night, per se. I don't know how to say that nicely. woman working for the weekend. Wait, no, I don't think that's what that's about. But I will say this. Wow. Grand Theft Auto is so deserving. And it needs a pinball machine so bad. If you could get in bed with Rockstar Games and start going, okay, you don't go all the way back and make like Bully. But if you could go back and make like their top five biggest hits oh my God And if you really wanted to milk it I hope they don do this but if they really wanted to milk it they could start at Vice City and they could do Vice City and then two years later they could do what San Andreas or whatever, number four, and then of course number five, right? So now where is this on the most sold video games list? I want you to go out there. It doesn't matter if you're in the car, you're in the shower, you're taking a poop. I don't care where you are, driving the kids to soccer, going to judo out on the front porch lying down in your bed playing pinball hanging out at your favorite arcade rushing to your pinball league i don't care where you are or what you're doing say right now in the top 10 most sold video games of all time where would you put grand theft auto 5 i'm not talking about one and two and three in them all combined no just grand theft auto 5 and in three two alright time's up it is number two at 215 million now I don't want you to just think I'm just going up and down the list so number three on the list wasn't even in my top ten I bet you no one here will get number three right number three is Wii Sports at 82.9 million number four Ark Survival never even heard of it maybe it's a religious game I don't know. Number five, Mario Kart 8. Number six, Red Dead Redemption. Number seven, Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow. Number eight, Super Mario Brothers. Wait, which one haven't we mentioned yet? Number one is, you guessed it, it's a me, Mario, Super Luigi Brothers. That's right. But wait, I know what you're thinking, Orby. Is it number one? Is it number two? Is it number three. Is it Mario 3, the iconic number three? Is it Super Mario World? Is it Mario 64? Or is that new hot garbage that they have called Mario, where you go in the bubble and just keep going in the bubble and they save you and you go in the bubble and they save you? No, it's not. Or is it? Because time for Orby's top five of the show. That's right. I couldn't just give you number one, but I'm going to give you a second little mini micro-dosed episode of Orby at the end here because number five on my list it can't just be Mario but it would be Mario 64 I think Mario is too big and diverse to just do a Super Mario Brothers game like they did before I think you need to choose and pick you need to choose and pick because you need to choose what's going to be on the LCD screen you need to choose and make that fit the cab and make that fit the play field and if you think about Mario 1 and Mario 64 they're too different even think about Mario 2 Those characters look nothing like any of the other ones because Lost Worlds was really number two from Japan and whatever. All right. So number four on this list is Super Mario Brothers. Yes, the original, the OG. Now imagine the OG had a mini game or like, you know, the game with the shark. We have to shoot the sharks and jaws where you wear the 3D glasses and it pauses to give you time to do that. Imagine a mini game or a video mode inside of Super Mario Brothers 1, the OG, the classic that came out in 1980, just like me, okay? Or was it 1984?
    54:30
    Yeah, I forget. I think it was 1980. But it should have a minigame where you go into Duck Hunt and there's a gun. Can you imagine a gun just like a shooter? This is a mixed pinball, mixed shooter. It's got a gun on the side and you take the gun out and you get to use the infrared shooter gun to shoot the Duck Hunt in the minigame. That would blow my mind. When I thought of that earlier today, okay I thought this is probably the coolest idea I've ever had for a show and then I realized wait it's you know this is going to be buried at the end of the show maybe she'll do reverse order and then I thought no that's dumb Orby let's just go all right number three on the list would be Mario Party I do think Mario Party has been around and been long enough that it would be probably the third best theme they could do if they were going to do a Mario theme that wasn't going to be Mario Kart I gave Mario Kart its own thing because it's had it's been its own thing and had so many Mario Karts for so many years, right? But number two on the list would be Super Mario World. Nostalgic-wise for me, that's my second favorite. Super Mario World is probably the most iconic. It has, I think, the second most sales of all of them.
    55:38
    It probably should be made, and I hope it will be made at some point. Maybe not quite yet, because the one that I need made first, that's right, Super Mario 3 the best game of all time still to this day in world 1-2 I can do that thing with the little Koopas or Oompas or whatever they are those little dudes where you gotta keep landing on them until you get 10,000 and I go to the end and I absolutely love it wow it's so fun it's great it is I still think maybe it's the best video game ever made just from like you can go back and play it and play it both my sons like playing that game better than playing one or two. They both disdain two. I don't mind two, but, like, I get sick of it quickly, and it's very hard, and I'm not that great at playing two. I'm really good at one. I won a tournament, a very small tournament, at the London Brewers Co-op, and good to shout out the Forest City. Shout out to all my pinball nerd friends over there. I know Julie Dorsers, my favorite tournament.
    56:37
    I was going to say tournament leader, but I think we have a different name for that. Tournament director. There you go. So she had a birthday recently, so Lanzanzaleva, Julie. All right, that was a little bit of Dutch for you. We're close to it. But, yeah, Super Mario 3 would by far be my favorite game of all the Marios. So that is the number one of the number one of the number one. Now, in case you've been waiting and wondering how it is that you're going to get to hear my Stern Freako, well, let me tell you, just like Kale recommended, just like Jamie recommended when I was on his show with the Wormhole years ago, or years ago. I think it was like six or seven months ago. I think he did convert it over to the JBS show. Is that just bullshit? No, I'm just kidding. Oh, the funny part was Jamie called me the rambling man. He goes, but it's okay. He knows he rambles. I know I ramble. It's very hard to have a one-person show with no editing and not write the show and be able to talk for an hour straight. That's very challenging. Even my voice right now, if you go back and listen to the first minute to now, my voice is hoarse. Now, mind you, all the wildfire smoke around and all that kind of stuff has already got me a little tweaked out like that, so it wasn't far off, but I can hear right now, I'm going to have to shut up for a while for me to even be able to get my voice back fully, even from this one hour. I won't call it a rant, because I don't think it was that ranty, but you know, spiel. We were talking, we were chatting, and hopefully you guys enjoyed it. I wanted to give a big shout-out as well to Anthony Verdesco. This guy messaged me, sent me a $100 Canadian, a dono. I didn't even ask for any donos. Out of nowhere, out of the blue, to angryalpacatee at gmail.com. And I purposely didn't come back during my birthday. I didn't want to ask for birthday gifts this year. You guys were so kind to me in the spring when I did my pledge drive. I have not asked for a freaking thing since then, other than maybe I did mention this Shure microphone I'm talking on, and I sure am excited that Retro Ralph sent it to me. But good old Anthony Verdesco said, Albert, I just finished listening to Jamie and Kale and Retro Ralph all say how bad they wanted to hear the Orby freakout, so it will be available just like they recommended behind my Patreon. But I have not set up the Patreon yet. I will be doing that soon, and I'm very, very, very excited to do that. I think what I'm going to do is like I'll just when I start the Patreon I'll have that unreleased right away and then what I'll do is honestly once per month I have probably 20 shows over the years I've taken down I'm going to do at least one show per month that I release like an old deleted one I had a super duper hot recording with Cliff Albert where we may or may not have talked about some adult stuff that if I were say crossing the border to go to the United States I wouldn't want to be listenable or like if my mom in heaven was listening, my best friend, or like even God forbid my dad or my sisters. We went to some very, very adult topics. And there's also some negative stuff I said about some content creators. So I did want to make sure that maybe that was at least paywalled if I was going to put it back up. And then there's a couple other times. A couple other. There's quite a few other times I've crashed out. I went on my America rant, which I took off, and I was really mad at the Cheeto himself for kind of being a dork. But anyways, last weekend Hayden and I went to Fredericton to go to Freddy Flipoff 6. Thank you to Dylan for throwing that. We had a great time. Many of you guys saw the live stream where I walked around. And if you don't have Albert Agar, if you're listening to this right now and you do have Facebook but you don't have Albert Agar and you want to see me do these, I'd say they're probably a lot more mellow and calm and chill, probably closer to my real personality. I kind of leave Orby at the mic. I leave it right here at the sure mic, and I walk out the door, and I become Albert. And in the live streams, I'm not going to be like, hey, everybody, welcome to the arcade. Check out this machine, because that would be weird in person. But I do, you know, I take you for a really cool, you know, quick walk around of downtown Fredericton, if you never checked it out. And then we look around Flippin's Arcade. Now, that day, Hayden and I started out, just like the weather in Fredericton. He was in first, like, after, like, round five or round six. I think we were both tied after three rounds in first or second, and then after like five or six rounds of the ten rounds, he was still in first, and I had dropped down to like fourth. And then after like seven rounds, I was down to like eighth, and he was like in third, I believe. This is just to the best of my knowledge. You could look this all up on Matchplay if you wanted and see how right or wrong I was. Yes, Hayden was the DD for part of my birthday gift. I said, all I want is for you to be the DD and me to be able to drink some craft beers, go get some wonderful, awesome food and have some craft beer and play some pinball and for me not to have to worry about driving there or driving home. So Hayden was kind enough to be the DD, which was awesome. And unfortunately, we both went to finals, which was nice. In finals, and this has always kind of been my beef, this isn't against any particular tournament directors or anything, but when you play 10 rounds to get to the finals and then you only do a one-game playoff and the highest player gets to choose the game and the player who chose the game is like a regular there and they pick a solid state that I've played one game of ever before in my life. Oh, that's not true. About seven or eight years ago, I played another game of roller games, I believe. But no, I would say like two out of the last three times that I played like a big tournament like that where I did 10 to 12 rounds and then I had to play a best of one of one and I didn't quite qualify high enough and I had to play someone that was a local that knew like, I guess I'm horrible at solid states. That's where I think this conversation is going. I'm really good at EMs. I'm pretty good at modern sterns and most modern pins. I'm not good at, like, 90s, which is funny because, like, as you know from listening to the show today, I am a baby of the 90s. But I have talked way, way, way too long. I did want to give a big shout-out to Jaden, who won. Jaden is – I said this straight up to Hayden when I was talking. I was like, wow, I watched Jaden play two or three times today, and he is by far the best player that I've seen playing in New Brunswick in a long time. Patrick was also very, very good. Pat doesn't play too much anymore. I'm sure if he wanted to, he could still come do very well and win, if not get second or third in all these journeys. But Jaden is a younger dude who's very passionate about it. Kind of quiet, but, like, a really good player. Really nice guy. It doesn't hurt when your best friend is Dylan, who owns, like, probably the coolest pinball arcade. And I'm not going to say in all Canada, for God's sake, We can't forget about North Star there in Montreal and Cabin Fever in Toronto, even though there's some great places out there in Vancouver. But, geez, for the East Coast, Dylan, for this being your first time, you're opening a bar. I mean, Propeller Arcade's also incredible, don't get me wrong. Even Seven's Pinball-O-Rama, especially if it could get some craft beer, would be incredible. But, Dylan, you're killing it. They have a very young crowd that plays there for like a hot day in the middle of August to get 22 players to come out there. That's great. I went out the first round of finals so I ended up being like tying for 9th I guess with everyone else who was like went out first round of finals because wait shouldn't I have got 8th I don't know how that works anyways I ended up oh no then I had to go play a playoff for all those people and I got first out of that playoff or I could be confusing my last two pinball tournaments but I ended up getting 9th I think Hayden ended up getting like 6th or something like that Hayden got through maybe the first round of finals but not the second round or something but no Hayden lost first round of finals also. We were both out of there pretty early. Anyways, congratulations to Jaden. It was a fun tournament. For those of you who hate tournament talk, did I keep it short? I think I kept it pretty, pretty, pretty short. Have yourselves a wonderful day, and I'll be back in, I don't know, I'm not going to say a couple weeks, but the news is slower than molasses falls off my ass. I wasn't going to swear today. Okay, I had to pre-record. Retro Ralph, don't be upset. I had to pre-record my intro and my outro because when I tried to sing along using the Shure microphone, which makes my voice sound great. It's a non-omni-directional something, something. For some reason, you can't sing with it because the mic tries to listen to either my voice or the song, but I can't sing with it. It sounded a little bit wonky, so I brought out the old Snowball. So today's episode, I hope you all enjoyed it. I did an intro that took me like seven or eight tries, an outro that took me four or five, and no, I didn't hit the high note on the intro, I'm sorry, but I tried, and I tried many times, and believe me, I have the copy where I tried to hit the high note, you do not want to hear that, if you thought me singing The Reason was bad, this is way worse, but at the end of the show, i.e. seconds from now, you're going to hear me sing just for my boy Jamie who gave me that the cool probably the coolest shout out I've ever got between him and Cale Hernandez talking about all the stern dudes listening to my upper decker uh temper loss uh extraordinaire whatever you want to call it and and retro Ralph being so kind about it those guys I really think when you add in Colin oh by the way Colin happy birthday of the kineticist when you add in Colin and you add in Ian Jay there I call him Ian Jay because something he likes to do in his part-time, you know what I'm saying? A little fresh A, my boy. But Ian Jay of Nudge Magazine, I think those five guys, they are the new pinball brat pack. And I've been waiting to see who's going to come up from the Phoenix's ashes and be like the new brat pack of pinball. And I actually think, like, I would like to separately interview all five of those dudes this year as I start to get back into doing interviews. Wets my whistle a little, as you would. And I don't know how to do it with this new microphone, but I'm going to learn. I'm going to figure it out. It'll be fine. Everybody, I hope you had a good time with me here on the Video Game Show. If you disagree, too bad. Start your own podcast. Go to Stern Pinball's Facebook page or Pinball Enthusiasts and make a post about how I'm all wrong. It will give me more publicity and more people will listen. And if you're listening to this podcast for the very first time because you heard about me from the JBS show, not only thank you to Jamie and those nerds over there, but thank you for listening. And I'll be honest, from time to time, you know, I go off topic on this show. I'm a rambling man, and as soon as I heard Jamie say that, I thought that's the nicest way you could say that because other content creators have negatively, you know, called me out for going off topic a lot and called me a lot of really not cool names. And instead, Jamie said I was kind but a bit of a rambler. And, yeah, I am a rambling man. And just as a shout out and an ode to that, I'm going to be singing Ramblin' Man.
    67:28
    And I forget the band it's by, but I will say it next time. But it's a country band I had heard of. And of course, I knew this song, but I've never sang country before. So here it is. Until next time, pinball nerds, remember to eat, sleep and breathe. Video games turn into pinball themes.
    67:51
    I was born a ramblin' man Tryin' to make a living doin' the best I can When I'm bleedin' of your sin I was born a ramblin' man My father was a gambler down in Georgia He wound up on the wrong end of the gun Oh, God.