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Is Virtual Reality the Pinnacle of Pinball?

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·50m 26s·analyzed·Mar 14, 2016
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Blockade Podcast analyzes Stern Ghostbusters innovations and Zen Pinball VR announcement.

Summary

Chris Frebus and Jared Morgan discuss two major pinball announcements: Stern's upcoming Ghostbusters table featuring innovative magnetic "Ghost Slings" and hologram-projecting "Ecto Goggles," plus Zen Studios' new Pinball FX VR release for Oculus Rift. They analyze design differences between Pro and Premium/LE editions, express frustration with Stern's cost-cutting on Pro models, and debate the viability of VR pinball gameplay.

Key Claims

  • Ghostbusters Pro version lacks the physical ball lock mechanism and Ecto Goggles ramp feature, with the 14th Street ramp using plastic instead of metal

    high confidence · Chris and Jared examine official pictures and discuss specific playfield differences between Pro and LE versions

  • Ghostbusters features solenoid-free magnetic slingshots ('Ghost Slings') that can juggle the ball in midair between slingshots without contact

    high confidence · Jared references Nate's interview with Jody Dankberg from Stern explaining the technical implementation

  • The magnetic slingshot feature would not have been possible on White Star or SAM systems due to timing and orchestration requirements only available in Spike architecture

    medium confidence · Jared's technical analysis of system capabilities

  • Zen's Pinball FX VR is a complete rewrite featuring dynamic lighting and 3D environments not in current Zen offerings

    high confidence · Chris and Jared discuss the scope of development work required for VR version

  • Pinball FX VR is a repurchase rather than an upgrade from previous Zen titles

    high confidence · Chris mentions 'unlike previously what Zen has done this is a repurchase'

Notable Quotes

  • “That wouldn't cost you that much more to actually make everything ruggedized on the Pro which is the thing that's going to be out in the arcades...Don't cheap out on the plastic. That's shit, Stern. What are you doing?”

    Chris Frebus @ mid-episode — Core criticism of Stern's cost-cutting strategy on Pro versions despite arcade durability needs

  • “I hate it. I hate it. Dick move. That's okay. They don't listen to our podcast anyway. No, they won't. It doesn't stop me from getting cranky about it.”

    Jared Morgan @ mid-episode — Community frustration with feature removal on lower-tier machines

  • “They've got Spike and the fact that it's a very high data transfer speed on all of the the bus network inside of the Spike architecture – they've been able to orchestrate some pretty crazy features with the magnets.”

    Jared Morgan @ mid-episode — Technical explanation of why Ghost Slings innovation is only possible with current Stern hardware

  • “This is a completely... They've rewritten. They've rewritten all sorts. They've rewritten everything. Because we're talking, like I should say, dynamic lighting, and that is not part of the current Zen offering at all.”

    Chris Frebus @ late episode — Confirms scope of VR development and justification for repurchase model

  • “I'm still not convinced about playing pinball with Oculus doing VR. I don't know. I get the 3D aspect of it will be really cool and being able to lean over the table will be really cool but I don't know how much of this walking all the way around the table stuff is needed or necessary.”

    Jared Morgan @ late episode — Skepticism about VR pinball gameplay necessity and user experience

Entities

Stern PinballcompanyGhostbustersgameZen StudioscompanyPinball FX VRproductChris FrebuspersonJared MorganpersonJack DangerpersonJody DankbergpersonSpikeproduct

Signals

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Frustration with Stern's pattern of removing mechanical features from lower-tier machines, particularly ball locks and complex shot layouts that reduce Pro model depth

    high · Jared: 'I hate it. I hate it. Dick move' regarding feature removal; Chris calls it Stern's 'penchant for taking key features out of the game'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Stern criticized for cost-cutting on Pro version (arcade model) with plastic parts that should be metal for durability, contradicting 'Pro' positioning for commercial operators

    high · Chris: 'Don't cheap out on the plastic. That's shit, Stern.' and 'Pro which is the one that's going to be out in the arcades...should be less likely to have mechanical failure'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Ghostbusters incorporates video game mechanics (dynamic effects, ball physics manipulation, environmental storytelling) into physical pinball, influenced by Zen's digital innovations

    medium · Hosts note Ghost Slings and Ecto Goggles are 'very Zen of them' and 'starting to see those video game qualities creep into the tables themselves'

  • $

    market_signal: VR pinball gameplay viability debated: technical sophistication (3D environments, dynamic lighting, hologram projection) vs. practical concerns about unnecessary table circumnavigation and immersion necessity

    medium · Jared expresses VR skepticism: 'I don't know how much of this walking all the way around the table stuff is needed or necessary' despite acknowledging 3D and leaning benefits

  • ?

    event_signal: IGN published feature coverage of Ghostbusters pinball with pictures, indicating major mainstream gaming media attention to pinball hardware release

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.151

0:00
This is a Blockade Podcast with your hosts, Chris and Jared. the site to visit for custom pinball shooter rods. Easy to install, totally unique. Mention Blockade Podcast for 10% off your order. Wizardamusement.com. Sales, restoration, customization.
0:46
You are listening to the Blockade Podcast. I am your host, Chris Frebus, a.k.a. Shut Your Trap. Joining me as always, Jared Morgan. G'day, Chris. How you going, mate? I am doing fantastic. How about you? Oh, yeah, pretty good. No problems. No one's sick or dying or stacking their bikes this week. So it's a look up, isn't it? The things do tend to look up that way. Yes. That's right. Yes, absolutely. We just had our time shift. So it was the wake up earlier than normal day. Actually, it was not the wake up earlier. I should have gone to bed earlier, but because the clock still was saying it was 11 o'clock or 12 o'clock. Because it switches over at like ridiculous o'clock in the morning, doesn't it? 2 a.m. I don't know why they do it because that's what they do here. See, I was just telling – I was talking before, wasn't I, mate, about the fact that Australia has horizontal and vertical time zones during summer. Queensland, which is where I live in Brisbane, is the only state who doesn't do daylight savings. So states like New South Wales, Victoria, and the ACT, they do. So we have horizontal and vertical time zones because we love to complicate things here in Queensland.
2:12
Right before I go to bed, I like to change over at least my alarm clock. I'll usually change over a couple of clocks right before I go to bed so that when I wake up in the morning at least the time is correct and I'm not having to do that mental math in the morning you don't want to be doing any math in the morning but before I go to sleep I'm still doing my normal things watch a movie, playing a game, whatever so that's when it was just like oh yeah I guess it's time to go to bed and then I go and I change the clock and I'm like ooh it's late and I gotta get up early i'm not on daylight savings of course at the moment um but i did get to bed early last night because the last two weeks in a row i've barely scraped in for this session trying to make it in so i thought yeah i think that's my body telling me you really need to get a bit early on sunday nights so you can make it into work early on monday yeah do you um jared does all of our our he puts together the podcast after it's recorded for those that aren't aware of that um puts in all the sound drops that kind of stuff i want to call the post-production engineer yes i'm the post-production engineer um do you actually listen back to it like as a listener or are you just kind of uh you know feeding through it um i to get the timings that we put into each episode, I do need to listen to the whole thing again. And so I can cut out things and stuff like that. But after I put the drops in and stuff like that, I don't listen to it when it's up on the podcasting networks. So I try and listen back to the show before we do the next show.
Oculus Rift
product
Muscle Modsorganization
Addams Familygame
Spider-Mangame
Secrets of the Deepgame
WizardAmusement.comcompany

high · Chris mentions 'You know it's real when IGN pick it up' and references 'Heaps of pics' in coverage

  • $

    market_signal: Pinball FX VR is a repurchase rather than upgrade from previous Zen titles, generating community pushback despite requiring complete rewrite with dynamic lighting features

    high · Chris: 'this is a repurchase, which I guess a lot of people are kind of up in arms about' and acknowledges significant development investment justifies new purchase

  • ?

    announcement: Zen Studios announces Pinball FX VR for Oculus Rift releasing day-and-date end of March with three tables (Secrets of the Deep, Epic Quest, Mars) featuring dynamic lighting and 3D thematic environments

    high · Chris and Jared discuss official announcement with specific table names and March release window

  • ?

    product_strategy: Ghostbusters deliberately designed with three tiers: Pro features plastic ramps and no ball lock; Premium/LE feature metal ramps, physical lock mechanism, and Ecto Goggles hologram ramp routing difference

    high · Direct playfield comparison analysis showing Pro lacks Ecto Goggles shot, uses plastic 14th Street ramp vs metal on LE, and missing underground ball lock assembly

  • ?

    product_concern: Ghostbusters Pro version lacks key features (ball lock mechanism, Ecto Goggles ramp path) and uses plastic instead of metal for durability-critical components despite arcade placement

    high · Detailed playfield comparison showing Pro missing underground lock assembly, plastic ramp vs metal, and simplified shot paths

  • ?

    technology_signal: Ghostbusters features industry-first solenoid-free magnetic slingshots ('Ghost Slings') capable of ball juggling, only possible with Spike architecture's high data transfer speed and orchestration capability

    high · Jared's technical analysis referencing Stern interview about magnets positioned near flippers enabling mid-air ball juggling impossible with traditional slingshot geometry

    • 3:53
    And so I was listening to the last weeks. And I remember while we were recording it, we were talking about Uncharted and the transitioning to game movies, versus games and all that. Games and whatever. Right. So I remember while we were recording it, there was a moment where I had just a total brain fart, could not remember what my through line thought was. I had like two points or whatever. And so there was a particular moment where I was like, and I'm like stalling for time, right? Trying to... Trying to just let your brain catch up. So I'm listening back to it, and it gets to that point, and I'm like, oh, I wonder if I'm going to remember what I wanted to talk about then. Yeah. And sure enough, it clicked it. I was like, oh, that was what the moment was.
    4:39
    I want to just come back in and circle one aspect that I was kind of laughing about. And this is not so much about the movies, but it is these games. And that is, whenever anybody is spelunking into caverns and ancient temples and everything, and of course the ancient temples had these booby traps. A la Tomb Raider. and all these booby traps seem to like make ceilings collapse and just like bury the entire thing right and my question is well how did they get out to begin with and why are they making it so hard to get to their precious treasures i understand trying to prevent it from people stealing it but the way these things are put together it's a one-way trip in there ain't no coming out typically you know because at the end of each episode or each sort of chapter of tomb raider it's like hey you finished the game right and that's it it's so like let's go out to like this big tunnel of light and you're outside again it's like but i'm always thinking about the architects of this you know and this even extends to your indiana jones movies or you know your you know any of these adventure-y kind of movies where i'm like hey yeah this is really great for preventing people from getting in but when you built this weren't you just weren't you just putting a padlock on the door should you be able to unlock this and then everything not collapse on top of you maybe there's like a master key that there's like a big sort of a obelisk thing they just shove in at the beginning of the at the thing so that all the booby taps are disabled or something like that i mean think about think about temple alarm you know right but think about raiders of the lost ark just that opening scene with the fertility idol that indy is stealing right what was the purpose of them putting this where they put it when it was so insanely difficult to get to it how would the tribesmen actually come and visit us to you know i'm assuming they'd go to the fertility idol for you know blessing of their fertility um but seemingly it's impossible to get in and out of this without everything collapsing and giant boulder coming down and killing you. Right? It might have been one of those things where, you know, they got to the point where everyone was trying to nick it and they went, you know what, we need to put a security system around this thing because, you know, people are just running off with it and it takes us ages to get it back. So let's just put it somewhere. And it's essentially putting it in a safe. And when we need it, we'll just go and grab it and everyone can touch the fertility idol and it's all, you know, great and stuff and things. And when we're done with it, it's back in the vault. See, here's my question. In reality, has there ever been any kind of tomb or passageway deep in the jungle that is booby-trapped in this fashion? I don't know. I'm exploring. See, I can't tell you.
    7:38
    No. I'm telling you right now. It's complete movie fabrication. Yeah, it would be a pretty boring movie, a pretty boring indie movie. if he just walked through this corridors and then picked up the fertility idol and then just waltzed out again, you know, well, that's what it says about archeology in general. It's, you know, yeah. You know, in reality, he'd be there with little brush going, right. And just for two months, yeah. For two months, that'd be a pretty boring movie. That'd be like a, on beyond. Remember that? Oh yeah.
    8:10
    The 72 day movie. Yeah. That's right. or whatever that time frame was. Before I forget, next weekend, which is March the 18th thereabouts,
    8:26
    I'm going to bring up my calendar here. I think it's the 18th and 19th. 7-11, bring your own cup day. Or bring your own bathtub day. Well, they are adjusting for the bathtubs that got brought in. they now have a cardboard cutout in the store that is a 10 inch diameter hole and so your cup has to be able to fit through the 10 inch diameter hole so those people that were bringing in the kiddie wading pools yeah they don't get to do that anymore because you know it's ridiculous so hang on did you say 10 inch 10 inch and you can fill it up for a buck fifty so if you're a 50 meter tube it's 9.9 inches in diameter with an end cap on it could fit through that hole you're golden yeah you see where you know the people will do it they will find a way to get around that because they're people yeah so if you if you wind up uh filling up in obscenely large cup at 7-eleven next weekend please please please please please please post a picture of it to uh to twitter and uh yeah make sure you put at blockade there so that we can witness the glory i will be sure to do that myself or whatever i bring in i won't be able to because we don't do it at that time of year right yeah that's right in fact i don't even think we do it our free slurpy day here they give you a pre-measured little cup and that's it this isn't free slurpy day oh sorry bring your own cup this is bring your own cup day so you pay x amount you pay a dollar fifty and you fill it up yes for something of a 10 inch diameter yes god okay sorry no we don't we don't do bring your own vessel day we we just have a free sleepy day i think yours would be in november yeah yours would be november 7th because the way you european well i should say the rest of the world other than america lift their date because we have we have dates that are sort of the right way around day month year whereas ours is month day year yeah yeah that's right yeah um i'm trying to think our I don't know what the capacity is like on the machines you've got over there in the US, but if people were bringing their own vessel here, the machines would just be liquid. Pretty much. They wouldn't be anything like ice at all. Yeah. On the subject of Slurpees and frozen beverages, we have Hungry Jacks over here, which is Burger King.
    11:10
    Strangely enough, it's called Hungry Jacks in Queensland. Everywhere else in Australia, it's called Burger King. What's up with Queensland? Because we're special, all right? We're special.
    11:20
    Now, they've got peak periods, of course. And one of those peak periods is straight up to school finishes about 3 o'clock. You never go to Hungry Jack's at that time because Hungry Jack's have $1 large frozen Cokes. Okay.
    11:38
    And they have a lot of the stores that are close to schools. instead of just having one two barrel machine, they have three or four of them going all at once. And for the prime purpose, just to keep up with demand and peak periods, because all the kids come along and go, yep, I'm going to clean you out of the Slurpee basically.
    11:58
    And it's, yeah, you don't go there if you want a frozen Coke at that time, because it just, there's none. It's first in best dress. You see the kids like running to the store to get in line. Slurpee happy hour. Yeah, It is Sleppy Happy Hour, totally. It's so strange.
    12:15
    Hey, let's pivot over into something that's pinball related, huh? We've got two topics, actually, that broke this week that are of the isn't that awesome pinball variety. Let start with Stern Pinball and their Ghostbusters table We knew that it was coming but pictures arrived Real pictures from the source Yes So you know it real when IGN pick it up So yeah IGN really did pick it up and they did a really good feature on it Heaps of pics.
    12:47
    It looks very cool. There's some stuff on there that makes me pretty excited to hopefully see a premium or an LE on location. Yeah. Yeah, the art style is of the hand-drawn variety, which I was very excited to see. Stoked for that. Yes. It looks nice and colorful.
    13:06
    And I mean, it looks like a pinball machine, like a pinball machine should. It looks like the pinball machines of the 80s and 90s. My thought was that it would sit just perfect right next to an Addams Family.
    13:23
    Yep, it would. I agree. Some people didn't like what the back glass looked like. but knowing Stern, there'll be probably three or four varieties of that for you to pick from anyway, so I wouldn't be too concerned about what the back glass looks like. The LE version comes with green rails.
    13:43
    Slimer rails. Slimer rails, yeah. Yeah. Which is kind of like, you know, fun touch, but whatever. It's very much like the Spider-Man remake. It seems to be that rails are the new sort of feature du jour of Stern tables when they either re-release them or make them limited to laser-cut rails. I think they're laser-cut. I think so too, yeah. Yeah. Have you ever had a problem with, you know, where you rest your hands on certain machines when you're flipping the flippers, that how the metal touches the palm of your hand, that it kind of almost hurts a little bit? I don't know. Is something about Stern machines on the pro versions that it's never a comfortable feel for me as opposed to on the Premium or Williams machine. I haven't figured out what it is about the rails that is different, but there's something that is just the palms of my hands aren't as happy. This is the powder coating because most of them were just straight chrome, like the Bellion Williams machines are mostly just straight chrome.
    14:45
    But I think a lot of the stones are powder coated. Yeah. Maybe that's it. I don't know. I haven't even found it. Not a problem. No. Back to Ghostbusters. Um, so the thing that got me excited was on the, uh, the premium and Ellie, they have this thing called the Ecto goggles. Yeah, me too.
    15:05
    It's, it's this little disc that hovers over the lane that you'll, uh, shoot up or the ramp that you'll shoot up and it can project a hologram. And it's, so it'd be holograms of, I think there's a Slimer, the, uh, librarian ghost and the brothers and the brothers. Yeah. Uh, which I can't remember. Larry brothers or something like that. I think that's it. Yeah. And I thought that's way cool, especially if you're playing in dark mode. Oh, man, that would be good. Welcome back, Pinball 2000. Yeah.
    15:35
    And that's where they got the idea from. I'm sure it is. I listened to an interview that Nate did with Jody Dankberg from Stern, and he was saying that, yeah, totally, they couldn't do exactly the same thing as they did with Pinball 2000 because of patents and stuff. Right. But they did the next best thing they could do because I thought, But what a great thing that like ghosts and ghost theme lends itself so perfectly to like projected images. So they said we had to do it. We had to. And the other thing, the projected images thing is cool. But the other thing, which would be, I think, industry first, is the solenoid free slingshots that are actually magnets. Yeah. What do you know about that? Because I didn't research it, but I read it and got my wheels turning. The only reason I know about this is, again, because of Nate's interview with Jody.
    16:26
    Jody went into it and said what they wanted to do. One of the first things on the drawing board when they were doing this game was to do this thing with the slings that essentially all they are is they're passive bumpers rather than having a slingshot armature in there to kick the ball. So it still has the rubber. It still has the rubber. So it looks like a slingshot, but there's actually no kicker arm in there. So the thing that kicks the rubber out and propels the ball is not there because it's replaced by two magnets either side. So what they can do, and I think I tweeted to Stern and Coast to Coast, but I didn't get a response, which I wasn't really expecting. But from a geeky tech perspective, what they've done is they've positioned the magnets probably as close to the flippers as we've ever seen in a pinball to date um because the highest we've ever seen um advertised play field magnets would be on the adams family in that area up there where the power is so these ones are right down near the flippers and i can just hear all the the novices now going oh it's got magnets in it man they're gonna drain the ball well you may find that it does with this particular arrangement because what happens is they've with the i think again because they've got spike and the fact that it's a very high data transfer speed on all of the the bus network inside of the spike architecture they've been able to orchestrate some pretty crazy features with the magnets so they can actually juggle the ball in midair like between between the slingshots without even touching the slingshots. They can capture the ball and fling it back up the play field again.
    18:16
    And all sorts of cool little tricks that are just not possible with the physics of the normal geometry of the slings. So this is going to introduce some crazy moves from the table. They call it ghost slings because it's like the ball's possessed and it like flings around everywhere. And that's going to be really cool to see how they do that. And from a maintenance perspective, much better because you're not going to have the wear and tear on the slingshot assemblies either. Yeah, but you do now have to worry about magnets failing. Yeah. And if you've ever played NASCAR with no magnets, it makes it virtually impossible to play. Yes, that's right. But magnets, you know, the only thing that's going to fail on a magnet is the MOSFET that powers them. And they last for a fairly long time. Whereas, you know, the action of the slingshot on the rubber is the thing that usually makes them wear out. Right. So as long as you rotate those rubbers from an operator's perspective, just rotate the rubbers every time you service the machine, they're going to last forever on there. That's what she said. And you're going to find the ball wear in that area is a lot less as well because you're not going to have the impact of, this is not going to really translate very well for anyone outside of the player, but when the kicker arm kicks the ball out, it actually pushes the ball down into the play field when, by the action of the sling, the little thing. So when the ball contacts it, it will actually force it down to the play field a bit. So that area always cops a caning because of that. Now, that's going to actually prolong the play field life in that area as well, which is a really good advantage too.
    19:52
    So I don't think this would have been possible with White Star or SAM systems because of just the timing and the orchestration of what they're going to have to do with that. So I think Spike is the reason why they can do this. i'd love to see gameplay of the machine um i haven't seen that yet mainly because of the differences between the le and the pro version um i think they've got a pro already according to um the the podcast and i'm i saw on twitter that musel mods um who incidentally if you don't follow musel mods on twitter they're actually a pretty good source of just general pinball information. They've got a site called Pinball Supernova, and they just basically retweet everything they put up on there, and they often have some really good info. They were saying that Jack Danger playing the pro version, so we'll get to see what it looks like. I'm particularly interested in the subway feature of that game, where the ball actually goes below the playfield from a ramp, and then gets trapped down there, and then it'll actually get locked underneath the playfield. Is that the rear ramp kind of center? It's a really big tall ramp. It's what? It's the really big tall ramp. Right, the back of the playfield. Yeah. What it does is when you shoot that, it goes up the ramp and then around a habit rail and then down a really steep incline. And it actually goes underneath the playfield and pops back up just where the in lanes are again. So it's got this little, you'll note that if you have a look at the pictures in that lower right-hand quadrant, you'll notice there's a little sort of a tongue, a little black metal tongue that sticks out. And I was going, what is that there for? It looks like this ramp goes nowhere. Well, actually, it leads from the lower play field. So, again, it'll go and then just drop down. Now, is that a, does the pro mode have that also? I think that's a standard feature. That's actually a standard. That's how you lock balls in the game. So it'll basically prevent the ball from going up the other side of the ramp and lock them into a little sort of physical lock, which we don't often see in pinball anymore. So there actually will be keeping a lock of the balls in there. Because apart from some, you know, 3D plastic toys that the premium version has, the Pro and the LE are fairly, or the premium, whatever you want to call it. I don't know. Yeah. Anyway, you know what I'm talking about. The two of them are fairly similar except for one key instance. Slimer. No, not what I'm thinking about. I'm thinking about the ramp or the habit rail that on the premium edition goes from the right side of the table over to the left, drops into your left flipper.
    22:41
    That's if you shot basically the ecto goggles. Okay. Whereas on the pro version, if you hit that ramp where there is no ecto goggles now, but obviously the ramp is still there, It just feeds into the right-hand side flipper. So obviously that changes what your combo patterns would be. And I found that really interesting that they would do that, completely change up what your patterns would be. And it makes me wonder what that does for your shot selection, what that does for the programming between the two tables.
    23:19
    And in my mind, it makes the pro seem like it's going to be a very right-side heavy flipper action as opposed to the LE and Premium, where it seems like it's going to be a little more balanced between the two flippers. Yeah, you've got a shot from... Did you just say a shot from the left ramp? There's a little... Left flipper over to the... Right ramp? Over to the right ramp, which would be where the Ectogalgos would be. That kicks you up and feeds on the Premium version. It feeds back all the way across on the habitrail back to the left flipper. The other thing that I found interesting about this table is the whole time, every single time, I kept on reading about the features, that they were talking about like the ghost uh bumpers or or the ecto goggles was how very zen of them yeah it is very they're pushing the boundaries of what they can do in a pinball um starting to see those video game qualities creep into uh the tables themselves i mean last week we talked about having balls that uh do different functions on the tables like what zen does and i wouldn't be surprised if somebody didn't try that on an actual physical table yeah that's right encoding balls with a chip inside uh you know somehow i don't know how they would do that but um yeah it's interesting what they're doing they they're branching out i think again because of the spike system and the advances in that on what they can do with it And the fact that they can just add on modularity to any part of the play field that they want. They can do cool things like that. And I think the thing I like about the Ghostbusters design, it looks a lot more ruggedized than a lot of the other pinballs I've seen from Stern. Like the big ramp that I talking about the left ramp which is I think they gonna call the 14th street the 14th street ramp because that what it says up the top of the ramp It all metal It not plastic with metal guides on the side It's just metal. And that's what they need to move towards for ruggedization of play fields.
    25:25
    Because, you know, these are still being operated. Is this metal for both editions, though? Because the one of them has a sticker, you might say, that looks like train tracks going up. The other one just looks like it's all metal. Yeah, there is a – well, on the one I'm looking at here, this is the LE play field. That's the one that looks like metal. Look at the Pro. Yeah. Let me just go down here to Pro play field, see what it looks like.
    25:50
    Oh, yes. They've got a – oh, yeah. They have that ramp on the Pro. I see what you mean about the ecto goggles shot. It's – wow, it's completely different. Right? Yeah. it's and even the yeah it's the ramp that would normally be a curvy ramp just goes straight up and then hits a metal guard on the back and then goes down oh yeah that's shit it wouldn't cost you that much more to actually make everything ruggedized on the pro which is the thing that's going to be out in the arcades that's the one that needs to have right that's the one that needs the metal everything on it because it's going to get beaten to hell like don't cheap out on the plastic that's shit stan what are you doing that's that is the part that's always confused me about the calling something pro mode to me means beat the living crap yeah and obviously like they said they lower the price knowing full-on that that's the one that's going to be in the arcades and it should be less likely to have mechanical failure and yet you put on these parts that are going to have mechanical failure and yep it looks like that whole assembly that goes underneath the play field to lock the balls is gone okay so that is okay that's what i figured that it i was like i don't think that's uh that is super shit i'm sorry stern but your penchance for taking key features out of the game is ah frustrates the shit out of I hate it.
    27:24
    Dick move. That's okay. They don't listen to our podcast anyway. No, they won't. It doesn't stop me from getting cranky about it. Cranky.
    27:36
    So like I said, though, it was interesting that some of these Zen-like features are finding their way into physical pinball, which makes me talk about Zen pinball. That's our other thing that we wanted to mention. they have announced that they're coming out with pinball effects to vr for the oculus rift it's going to be released uh i believe they say dead day and date with uh when oculus releases at the end of march and they're going to have uh three tables which is uh secrets of the deep epic quest and mars all three of those i find curious as to those why would they release those That's very curious to me. Yeah. But the photos that they showed of this, it's gotten me excited. And I really hope that they bring the look of these tables into, I'm assuming if they did Pinball FX3, basically.
    28:40
    Because they've now got dynamic lighting showing up on these. Okay. you they've got some very tony stark-esque looking um loft that they've got these three pinball machines in and by the looks of it cool doesn't it i i don't quite understand the look that they were going for i mean none of the homes i've been in that have pinball machines are laid out in the least like that but okay um remember this is fantasy pinball fantasy pinball And this is where the fantasy comes in. Because if you look carefully at the pictures, like when you're playing Secrets of the Deep, well, suddenly it looks like you're playing pinball underwater and there's sharks floating about and bubbles. If you're playing Mars... They've actually themed the tables well, I think. So there's going to be zones for the underwater tables and zones for this. Yeah. Well, and if you're playing Mars, all of a sudden there's a little bit of meteors are flying around your house. so they've taken that fantasy element kind of put it in and around you obviously because I'm still not convinced about playing pinball with Oculus doing VR I don't know I get the 3D aspect of it will be really cool and being able to lean over the table will be really cool but I don't know how much of this walking all the way around the table stuff is needed or necessary but clearly Zen's been working on this for some time if they're ready to release day and date the bad news is unlike previously what Zen has done this is a repurchase which I guess a lot of people are kind of up in arms about but hey well a lot of people have been spoiled on Zen because they have been able to upgrade and cross grade and do all sorts of crazy stuff that no the developer would allow.
    30:35
    So it's time to pony up for a little bit more. Well, if you're already ponying up, what is it, $600 for an Oculus? Yeah. If you want content for it, you've got to pay. Like, this would not be a trivial update to the way they have to do things. No, this is a completely... They've rewritten. They've rewritten all sorts. They've rewritten everything. Because we're talking, like I should say, dynamic lighting, and that is not part of the current Zen offering at all. There's lighting effects, but there's not dynamic lighting. And then there's all the 3D environments, hooking in the Oculus navigation tech. This is a brand new version. I hope for their sake that because they've teamed up with Oculus, that they'll be able to do the Samsung... Gear VR. Right, Gear VR. I had a go at that the other day with the S7. One of the guys here got one and put it on and had a look at the Gear VR. no games on it as yet we're just watching the national geographic like flyovers volcanoes and stuff like that um it looks pretty good um i've tried cardboard vr as well yeah and um i don't know i with that particular app maybe it's just because i hadn't focused the glasses because the via the gear vr thing has like an optical like distance focus as well so you can for your eyes um it just looked it looked kind of pixelated and it looked like really like you can really see the pixels they're really big uh maybe maybe with a game that has the frame rates up and it's not actual footage like right recorded footage might be different but yeah i i would need to see a game playing on to really be sold because obviously since they're advertising the new uh Galaxy 7. I think that's what's going on. Yeah. I've already noticed a couple of advertisements on TV where it's, you know, buy the Galaxy 7 and you'll also get the Gear VR for free. Yeah, the Gear VR is not that expensive. Here, it's $150.
    32:35
    Well, I mean, that's still a pricey add-on to your phone that you're not going to be using much. It's not $600. Well, no, it's not $600. You get the actual PC version of the Oculus. Interestingly, interestingly enough, Six Flags Magic Mountain here in Southern California.
    32:53
    They're redoing their roller coaster revolution, which was the first looping roller coaster in North America. It came out back in 1976. It should be while it was the revolution.
    33:07
    They're doing a big overhaul on it. I've seen this. The main thing being their train cars that they're putting on this, which we've been screaming about for years because they ruined the ride by putting over-the-shoulder harnesses on it. But that's beside the point. With these new cars, it's also going to become the, I think it's the first VR roller coaster. So you can put on the Samsung VR while riding the roller coaster. So you're going to get all the G-Force and the wind and everything, but you're going to get completely different visuals, obviously, than what everybody else has. I thought, well, that's kind of interesting. I don't know. I'd try it out. It's not something that'd make me be like, I got to ride that ride because I don't want my roller coaster to be a video game. But you remember that like there's been, I've been in those like 40 simulators that try and emulate G-Force by having like a sort of like a catapult system in them. Yeah. Throw you forward and then slowly ease back so you don't feel it. And they're pretty cool. Particularly if like the visual part of it was great. but the thing that let it down was the actual physicality of the g-force and the impact it had on your body it didn't like the illusion wasn't there no actually having that wired in to an actual roller coaster which is subjecting you to g-force properly could be an amazing experience to actually have a go at so i think it's a it's a logical idea to do it but the thing that we were all talking about in the office here about is like well they're gonna really have to like put extra safety stuff on the vr headsets it's got a chin strap it would have to have a chin strap gonna have a chin strap and as well as the head strap the thing that i was wondering is well what is that going to do to ride loading times and from what i saw that if you're going to do the vr headset you wind up angling off right when you're at the end of the line angling off to go into the vr room where you'll get fitted and by the once you get back and then once you're fitted you get put into a separate queue line to then pop into the ride itself i was like okay good you know yeah they're not going to slow things down there's no way they sit you in the seat and then do it because the vr the gear vr has what they call a pass-through mode so you can actually have that the goggles on and be walking around and seeing exactly what you're oh seeing through the camera okay so what they do is they would actually the app would probably detect when you're actually in the roller coaster and automatically switch that off um well they'd have like a trigger so the app would actually go right into game mode now and it would actually flick over and they'd only show the vision not the pass-through well each each train car has a sensor on it uh that codes into the headset that you're with so that no matter where you are on the train it's going to make it visually look like you're in the front car and it's timed according to where you are on the on the so you'll feel the drop when when you're supposed to feel the drop exactly no matter where you are on the train so it will make you feel like you're in the front car but it will delete the vision yes so like a couple of seconds milliseconds or whatever yeah whatever it needs to be that's really cool i like the idea of that a lot this is taking this is the logical progression for vr for me applying it to real world scenarios to enhance the real world um version of it yeah um the the interesting thing and circling back into Zen, I think it would be a great idea for them to do this on more than one Oculus branded platform. I think Gear VR is something very achievable for them for mobile to open up the mobile market for them.
    36:49
    Not sure how transportable the code is, but it would make sense at least that if it's on the Oculus platform, it should at least be portable to an extent, maybe a down sampled version of it or something.
    37:05
    But I think the interesting thing is, number one, Zen being first to market, because I think Farsight rumored that they were looking at Gear VR as well at some point as well in their 12 Days of Christmas. So it will be interesting to see what their offering looks like when it comes out. I don't know they've gotten their development kit even in yet.
    37:29
    Yeah, I'm not sure. For Oculus, yeah, I don't know. Because when I talked to them back in January, there was no hard concrete ideas of what they were even going to be doing with it other than they were going to look into developing for it. But in terms of you know I asked them about environment and are you going to be able to walk around the table or what None of that had been even spec out
    37:55
    No. It sounds like Zen had been working on this for a long time. Yeah. So I think we mentioned what we'd like to see in Pimble Arcade. We didn't really want to walk around the room, but now Zen's done it. I wonder if that will actually change people's expectation. Yeah, I don't know. To me, it falls into that whole thing of when Sony did the PlayStation Home and everybody was like, oh, that's so cool because then I can walk into a room and there's all the games that I have on my PS3. And so it'll be like me looking through the light. And then you would listen to everybody and they're like, nobody uses that feature. Nobody. So my thought was the reason why I would be dealing with Oculus Obviously, Oculus is going to have the most name recognition at the moment. Use that as your testbed. See what the feedback is. See what people want out of it before you really go whole hog into developing every other table that they have. And then also, that'll give them an opportunity to wait and see what happens with Sony's VR. Yeah. because Sony has this bad habit of coming out with peripherals like the Move that they do nothing with later. So rather than dumping all your dollars into this and then having it just sit there like a lump, obviously Oculus is not going to sit there like a lump. They're treating this very much as a longstanding platform to do stuff with. So, yeah, my thought would be we might just sit back, wait a little bit, see what the Sony thing is before dumping development dollars into that, but go with the sure thing of Oculus.
    39:43
    Yeah. I think Oculus and all the other emerging VR tickets, very much like the beta max and VHS of the video landscape. And I think it's whoever gets to market first and gets penetration and gets buying from all the night game manufacturers will be the winner. Just exactly as VHS and beta max did.
    40:03
    So it's a race to the top pretty much. I still say it's a very... Yeah, it's still a very limited race, though, because I just don't see that many people that want to strap on one of these things.
    40:15
    Yeah. I mean, there's a novelty factor, but... Yeah. The interesting thing I learned about Cardboard is in the Cardboard V2 spec for Google handsets, they recommend that you don't create your fancy Google Cardboard thing, like the Viewmaster thing we were talking about. Yeah. yeah that you don't create it with head straps because the um the reason why you hold it up to your face manually is because it will actually reduce the chances of motion sickness because it's not a true vr experience and the fact that you have like i think it's a frame rate issue of cardboard so i think these newer implementations like gear vr and oculus they actually have rather than sort of the sort of, yeah, not really experimental.
    41:06
    I'm trying to look for the right word because Cardboard VR is a bit of an experiment by Google. It's by no means ready for gaming because the frame rate just isn't there.
    41:16
    But yeah. Theoretical applications? The theoretical applications, yeah, I think. I think that Gear VR can do it because it can plug into the Oculus ecosystem and it can do the frame rate clip that's required.
    41:34
    But, yeah, I'd like to try it with a game. I think it would be really interesting to see what it looks like with a game running at 60 frames per second at full clip. And you can get, with the Gear VR, you can actually get a controller with it as well.
    41:52
    So it can become like you use your Galaxy S7 as the brains of the VR, essentially. Because the headset itself is interesting. It plugs into the phone inside, sort of like clips in. And on one side, there's a micro USB plug, which would connect to all the interface buttons because there's buttons on the left-hand side, the right-hand side of the Gear VR.
    42:18
    And that would just, by the looks of things, that just does the buttons. I think all the processing and compute power is actually done by the phone. There's nothing in the headset that is substituting any processing power for the Oculus. So it's interesting to see how they've done. They've managed to Dragon Force Oculus inside a phone, really. So interesting stuff.
    42:48
    Yep, it sure is. So, yeah, like I said, I'm happy to see Zen going out on this limb. I'm more happy to see that they tweaked their lighting, especially if you look at the Mars table. The other thing that I really like is they made them all within a cabinet. Yeah, they look like real tables. It really whets my appetite. And if you look at Mars, they practically turned it into Tron with the lighting. It looks pretty sweet. So, like I said, I'm more enthused over the idea that they are actively working on dynamic lighting, and we might see that in pinball effects. Effects, too. Yeah. Yeah, it depends how much is actually Oculus-specific or not, whether they've actually been able to do lighting in their regular... I don't think the lighting has anything to do with Oculus. I think it's just more of, you know, this is their new engine that they're running.
    43:43
    Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how much extra plug-in stuff there is that they've had to put in for Oculus and how much is actually the core engine still. Yeah. Yeah, it will be interesting to see what evolves this year as to the Pinball FX 2 offering. We shall stay tuned, I'm sure.
    44:02
    Interesting times for pinball. See, this 2016, it's the year for pinball, I think. It's going to be a big year, both digital and real life.
    44:13
    Quite possibly, because, I mean, yeah, we're going to be probably seeing a new table from Highway, whatever else Stern has got planned, plus the Stern digital app, if that rears its head sometime this year.
    44:27
    yeah it's funny that uh in the thread that's happening on the forum at the moment you know they actually announced uh on the facebook thread that uh this is farsight and i said oh yes we'll have something exciting to share the texas pinball festival festival was it i think i can't remember which which one it's an upcoming it's an upcoming fest i think it's texas i thought it was california extreme oh yeah that's right california yeah cali extreme that's it which is in june yes so my original prediction in the uh in last year was june 2016 would be the first time we'd see anything from them and even i i honestly think even i'm out with that i don't think we're going to see anything for stern pimple app as far as in the stores until at least after christmas this year well i was gonna say this is gonna be just the announcement we thought we were gonna have game by this point.
    45:23
    The soft announcement, like the fact that they had engaged with Stern, was the first announcement. This is the, we are close to a release now. We can start talking about release dates announced. I'm pretty sure. But on the flip side, hey, we pretty much know that we'll be getting Game of Thrones and Ghostbusters as tables. You can pretty much guarantee, and I'll tell you what, I'll be more than happy to pay LE or premium prices for those tables. Yeah. Because we just don't see them down here. So even if they're like $30 for a table, sign me up because that's 30 plays. In fact, that's not even 30 plays down here because we get charged $2 a play for brand new stern tables down here. That's a bargain. Sign me up. Yeah. I was going to say I am a little bit bummed. Last week was a league night. I wasn't able to make it because with the Whitey Nuggets sick, it was just better for me to stay at home. Good move. But I did find out that they had a Hobbit at League. I was like, I wanted to play that.
    46:28
    Oh, well, I'm sure I'll get my chance at some point. But we have a subjective league play. The next Prison People Club tournament is next week for me. So it's Monday today, but next Monday.
    46:44
    And I'm going to be going there early to caress the machines and make them all shiny and bright and working well again because that was really worthwhile doing last week. Put a special scarf on them. Yes, yes.
    46:59
    And hopefully I will sacrifice a sufficient amount of karma to the pinball gods and get in the top three again like I did last time. I've got money waiting for me to collect at the next pinball thing, which is kind of cool. I've never had a prize before from a pinball tournament. So I've kind of done pretty well. So happy with that. And then we've actually found out that we've got another host location for the tail end of the Brisbane Pinball Club 2015 final as well with one of our generous club members who's opening up his house for us all to go and abuse his pinball machines. So I think he's got a pretty nice collection. I think he might be the owner of that really amazing Indiana Jones pinball machine that I was like, like celebrating over last time when I was talking about that event, that's going to be pretty fun to play. Those who follow me on Twitter will notice that I'm dominating the Indy Jones over the road from me in the pub. I've cracked a billion the other day on it. I'm now the highest score on there. So pretty happy about that.
    48:05
    And that is why you should follow us on Twitter. Cause you can get your, news on what we're following and what we tend to like do during the week. You can follow Jared at JaredMorgz. Follow myself at ShutYourTraps. Or more importantly, you can follow the Blockade podcast itself at Blockade. Then if you do that, you'll be kept up to date on things like when we go live with our sessions. Also what the table of the week will be, which I guess I should get on that and post. what is it going to be? I don't know I haven't looked yet I've been too busy playing Tomb Raider, I'm at 77% completion right now wow, that's pretty good like I said, once again pinball has fallen by the wayside to the harsh mistress that is Lara Croft which, you know what, I'm fine with that yeah, totally so we'll be back next week. We'll see. Who knows? Maybe there'll be some big pinball news that drops and we can fill the time with that too. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you again, Jared, for popping in as usual and thanks most importantly to our listeners for downloading and listening to this little dog and pony show that we love to do on a weekly basis. I have been Shut Your Traps, a.k.a. Chris Freed. We'll see you again next time.
    49:34
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