I can't believe the era of Pokemon is on us. Have you seen this game? Who am I kidding, man? It's Stern's Return to Form. Let's talk all about that and the craziness of trying to catch them all, including the LE. What? Oh, you're not listening to the Don. This was crazy. Were you expecting this? Were you on the hunt? Did you throw your Pokeball when it should have been a Master Ball and capture this LE pre-order deposit, which was the hottest sought-after target? i'm gonna go through my whole experience with it and i'm sure it relates to a lot of other people what the heck just happened all right we had the rumors that this game was coming out for quite a while pokemon's coming out yeah le you'll probably be sought after there'll probably be a thousand of them you know looking at the the past at least that have come out from x-men and john wick venom like they're all available walking dead walk down to the store and grab yourself a couple of them they're probably buy one get one half off at this point so like i didn't need to be on a list for an le and in fact for the longest time i wasn't i've got to sell a house i just moved you know i'm not really in the market i don't need a new game let alone let alone an le you know 1399 13 000 12 999 is the msrp for this game in the u.s more overseas more in canada geez so like i I didn't have my name on a list for that. I was entertaining the thought that maybe I'll pick myself up a premium, but I'm still, I'm still behind in making my makeover for fall of the empire, whatever. That's the preamble. Okay. I'm at pinball at the beach and, you know, hype is building. We finally got confirmation that this was the next game. Those coming out. Thank you very much. And then I'm hearing people, you know, talk this game up. Like it's some kind of pump and dump scheme. Like I'm not getting suckered into this NFT, bro. I'm not getting into this meme coin and throwing all my money in it just to see it pump and evaporate just like my stock in GameStop did so I wasn't all in on this thing by any chance but dang it I wanted to hedge my bets and I was down there hanging out at Pinball at the Beach great show I might have had a banana daiquiri or two and I said to the mad crew put my name on there and at the time the allotment was forecasted to be plenty like we'll get you there at the end of the list and i'm like cool cool man let me just hedge my bets if this game is cool at least i've got a list but like i'm 95 not gonna buy one of these right you know we'll pass it on to somebody else uh and then like we were imminent into the release and i was like dang it man i think you know what if what if what if what they're saying is true and i blame morbidly albert for a lot of this he was telling me don get yourself 10 spots for this le box them up and then sell one every three months and i'm like you're crazy dude that's crazy where's my voice changer let me see if i can find it that's crazy man pokemon ping pong no way dude and i was you know that was basically uh was my stance and then kaneda's chiming in like this thing's gonna go bonkers bonanza you have guys have no idea this is so on brand you know how he hypes things up So I'm still trying to be staunchly realistic, pragmatic, as it were, regarding this release. And then, you know, the thing comes out and I'm like, oh, oh, would you look at that? You know, first we get the Betson leak. Thanks. Shout out to them. Has anybody watched the Twippies? Did they did Betson win a Twippy for helping out the pinball market by giving us some early details so we can get sauced up on this? You know, the original Betson leak showed us a layout I had called, you know, somewhat just uh just being a facetious that this game would be two ramps and a bash toy you know my idea was that i would lower my expectations so i could be pleasantly surprised when more was delivered and in fact more has been delivered more than that later um you know but we started to get images and i'm like this looks kind of cool and then we saw the le and i was like you know what that art it i know it's not foil it's foil on the inside not foil on the outside but but dang it that does look pretty sweet and then i went ahead and added up all of the components that are coming on this spike 3 machine for the le i'm talking about exterior lights interior lights speaker lights speakers themselves uh invisiglass shaker motors already in their foil art blades first party from stern those are gonna be 229 you know i'm adding up the armor what it would cost me to have custom armor built and all this stuff and then if i want to get a mirrored back glass with a different image what you know all that added up together to be about $2,000 and given that it's about 3,000, 3,500 more, at least that is more baked in value. And then I saw there's only 750 of these. I'm thinking 500 for the US, 200 for EU, and then 50 for Australia. Australia only got 30. I think more went overseas. There might only be a 300 in the US. Like, holy crap, man, maybe I'll actually go on this. Am I crazy? Yeah, yeah. Well, it turns out the allotment that ended up going to Mad Pinball was just shy of what would include me and uh you know i'm no pinball celebrity or anything and the last thing i want to do is muscle in and say hey that guy that's had his name on a list for nine months hoping for this game give me his game he doesn't deserve it i'm not going to do that to somebody let him have it and you know mad has the principles where like you know even though the podcast is sponsored by mad we have a good working relationship um you know if my name is not not first on the list i'm not first dibs and that's just how it works even back at jaws premium i had to i had to venture out to a different old town pinball location to go ahead and get myself one. So I found myself in the position that I try to tell everybody else not to be in, and that is without my name on a list on launch day, and I didn't have my name on six lists. But then I can't really blame myself because I didn't want this game weeks and weeks ago. I was like, I don't need another LE right now. Let it come out. Let people enjoy it. But now it's like I had hyped myself up. I thought I was getting one. I was told launch day that like, no, it was sorry. We just don't have them. And I don't know what was going on with me, but I felt like my dog had died. I was just like super down and depressed. Like I got myself hyped up. This is probably all FOMO. I'm drinking the FOMO and I was hyped up and then knocked down. And I was like, just like, this is, this is the worst thing that's happened to me. First world problems, you know? You know, so I'm coping, I'm coping. I'm commiserating with everybody else that tried to get on the LEA. It was their dream theme. They always wanted to be on it. They were on six lists and they just came up short and I was like gosh darn it And then I resolved myself I like you know what I still have friends at my distributor There going to be early premiums made I can probably get in and get myself one of them Those are unlimited People will have them. And then I started thinking of alternate art I could have made. I could have the real foil cabinet decals that I wanted. I know where I can get those made. I could get a mirrored back glass made with my own art design. You know, it would be personalized for me. Like all this stuff. Like really great ideas. And then just when I was resigned to all that, I got an email. I got an email that said, respond in 30 minutes to secure a deposit for a Pokemon LE from my friends down in southern Indiana. What had happened? What had happened was a listener took my advice, or at least has a good brain of his own, and threw his name on multiple distributor lists because he wanted this game the entire time. And while not every secure deposit site space that he had came through, it turns out two of them did one of them for himself. And then he graciously let me in on on his other one. And so fantastic, man. Thank you. And I had to see. All right. Here's how I knew that the hype was real. I listened to a pinball nerds podcast. I listened to Canada talking it up. And I'm thinking still not convinced, not convinced. i had people thank you to those of you by the way who reached out to me directly don i have to get this game you have to give me one multiple people were contacting me i'm not a distributor i know a lot of distributors you know and i could put good words in and you know i have got games for people before uh but when people are coming to me directly to come get it then that told me that the hype was real and boy was it man these things sold out so quickly um people were angry like like uh like people trying to get ps5s back in the day where they go online you put the ps5 in your shopping cart from target because they just restocked the web store you check out in 0.2 seconds and only to find out the sale didn't go through stock is zero sorry you missed out i saw somebody posting that had one of these le's from stern's direct sales in his cart got to check out and then found out it was gone and it's like yeah that's absolutely something that happens with web stores with an incredible amount of traffic, like incredible amount. So man, it's a, it's a return to form for Stern here. So I'm, I'm just, I'm boggled over the whole day. It was such a mix of emotions. You know, I'm trying to get through my work day and it's like, I have highs, I have lows, I have super like, I don't know what's going on, man. I don't know what's going on. I know that I have my own list. Now, if I want to move on from this Pokemon LE or something happens and I need to make a mortgage payment, I've got a list of people that myself I'm going to go through. Does that make me a sub, sub, sub distributor now? Craziness, craziness. All for this game. All for this game. Let's talk about the game. Let's talk about the game. First of all, you guys are going to be fine with the premium. The premium is going to have everything in it. The accessories are going to come fairly quickly from what I'm hearing. So you'll be able to recreate that experience. I know it's not the LE. I'm sorry. I want you to have it too. I didn't even think I was getting one, and I was going to be fine with that. I'm trying not to like gloat like I got one. You didn't. You suck. Absolutely. I didn't have one until like the grace of somebody else came down and touched me. So I don't know. I owe the universe a solid. I own the universe a solid. But holy crap, garbage and a half. All right, this game. So this game, when I saw the first bets in league, it was that overhead shot of the premium. I'm like, son of a crap. Is this two ramps and a bash toy in the middle? That is more than that. It is more than that. There's the pop bumpers up in the upper left area. There's the sneak inside. I'm so glad Psyduck is represented on here, man. That's my friend Brian's favorite stinking character is that stinking duck with a headache all the time. And he's got his little sneak in right there. So this was probably a Jack Danger concept with some wacky wire forms or something. And then it looks like George Gomez came in and put Bond down right on top of it. And, ladies and gentlemen, I am here for it. I know I've ridiculed the James Bond Cornerstone game before. like i like the theme i like the bond movies the layout just wasn't quite doing it for me i like extensive wire forms you know this one the physical ball lock is just around that rocket the rocket looks like a marital aid which i actually really like you know but the whole area on the left with the scoop that ejects and doesn't really do much unless it gets into the pop bumpers and then both pop bumpers are on one coil what are we doing you know but the part of james bond i really like my favorite shot in that game is ripping that left orbit through the diamond spinner having it come around to that wire form and then back to the flipper i love that shot so much and i was so glad as i'm looking through and reviewing all the like final images that got released i think it was on nap arcade and uh i saw that the bond shot was in there thank you and then the little side duck sneak out scoop the one that the the subway connects into i think that's probably a similar place as it was on james bond um but at least this one just kicks out into the play field i think that's fun i like everybody else wish there were drop targets right there you know that's the one thing i would i would have asked for i put a little uh rubber right behind it so when the targets are down it could bounce off or even a paddle target like foo fighters i think the foo fighter drop target paddle situation would have worked well right there but we got a game that looks like these shots are fairly wide open fun to rip meow with is there and then the assets all right so this was it i like the art on the game the art came from the pokemon company it was arranged by zombie yeti and friends apparently um but i don't hate it i think it looks fine i do love that little uh scene in the back of the side of the cabinets where it shows like the pastoral scene of the pokemon romping around i think that works really good i think nobody is going to walk by this game and not just see pokemon instantly recognize it so i love that i dig the little ev and the pikachu on the side of the le man that looks good i love what they did with the armor and the lights perfect so uh all the shots and everything within the game look feasible and serviceable i like the pikachu does something he's not just back there like grogu all static i love the shaking pokeball the subway is cool i want to shoot this game the part that really grabbed me though was especially during the live streams that i saw shout out to vic vp shout out to cool toy he's got a great live stream on youtube uh looking at the full screen assets like from the anime series like that's what i want to see man i don't want to see dot matrix displays redone like on the walking dead i think that was the big failure of walking dead for me is not seeing full screen clips from the show and things but this is like the show front and center the music front and center the pikachu call outs imagine if you will probably not a stretch let's say you're not the biggest fan of Pokemon. Let's say you actively hate it and find it grating. Can you imagine playing this game with those Pikachu call outs over and over again? People are going to rage and like refuse to play this game because of that Some people are very angry at this Pokemon theme I get it I get it There themes that are popular in social culture that I don really gravitate to But, dude, if you don't like Pokemon, trying to put up, like, imagine being in a tournament, like, God, I hate this game. And it's just like Pika Pika, just Pikachu's, just all the straight anime ripped right out of there and put front and center. Oh, man. Oh, man. This game is like the opposite of Bond for me. I think all the people of a certain age really into Bond that just love that game are probably the same people that are like, get Pokemon all the way away from me. I don't get it. You know, you guys can have at it. You guys can have at it. So I was trying to do some research leading up to this based on the hype. Like, is the hype real? And I know we are in an insular community. It's pretty niche. You know, we have our YouTube people that we watch, the Retro Ralphs, the Blunt Gonzo's Pinball Flipperama, all the podcast folks and everything. You know, we have our own little microcosm here. But there's tons of other hobbies online. You know, there's travel people. There's people that are into military tactics. There's people that are preppers, people into unboxing toys from Target, like everything. And Pokemon is huge online, like huge. Just the card game alone has influencers. There's probably there's a Pokemon Kaneda out there that everybody is like getting angry at. And he's like trashing the company for doing crap art and all kinds of stuff. I'm sure he exists out there, too. So I went through YouTube. I went through internet forums, specifically Pokemon fanthel forums, and I'm like, okay, surely if this game is going to go bonkers and be in super high demand, there should be some words out there. And I saw some mentions of the forthcoming pinball machine. I even saw somebody did a YouTube video about it. But I wasn't like capturing like this is going to be the next Logan Paul $16 million score. Go ahead and get yourself one. So I wasn't quite led to believe that. And part of that may be because the only people that really, really knew that this was coming was us, right? People in pinball, people listen to pinball podcasts and have heard this this rumored game forecasted like a year ahead of time. And who was working on it and all this business? I mean, we've been talking about it for a while. So this game sold out incredibly well to us, really. You know, maybe there was a couple of really high end traders that were kind of in the know about this and maybe got themselves on there. But I think by and large, it was pinball folks that bought this. And so I think there is a chance that once the Pokemon card people or whoever, you know, wake up to really like what this awesome new toy is. This may do something with people that have more money than sense and just an inhuman desire to own everything Pokemon. So I don't know. Like, is this the ultimate lunchbox toy, you know, to put behind you when you're doing your influencer videos or, you know, when you have people over to your fortified island somewhere in the South Pacific? I don't know. We'll find out. What I do know is I got one coming somehow. I don't know how it worked out, but, like, I was on the hunt. Like, seriously. I emailed Betson. I emailed Betson, and I'm like, can you get me one of these games? And they said, this game's going to be – this is what they told me. I never heard of this company before they started leaking stuff. They told me this game is going to be in very limited demand. If you want to try to secure yourself one, you need to send us all of the money right now, wire it to us, and then we'll go ahead and try to get you one. If it turns out that we can't, we will then refund you. And I said no distributor that I know outside of a scammer runs something like that. Can you imagine? Can you imagine sending $13,000 just to a website you found that you only know through leaking content? And this lady reached out to me from Colorado or from a Colorado phone number and just wants 13 grand and says, you know, give me it and then we'll see if we can order you one. But there's absolutely nothing is guaranteed. What do you mean? What do you mean? You should have an allotment, right? You should have a list. Like I'll send you a $500 deposit. Let me know what the list is. Sorry, we can't do that. Best we can do is give us all the money right now and maybe you'll be lucky. So I said, maybe I won't be doing that. And I don't think I was the only one. Betson, man. what the heck you know uh so i didn't do any business with them but man i was calling everybody uh i was calling melissa coin taker left her a message she called me right back like sorry don't we don't have any but like that was some pretty cool service first real interaction with them um a kingpin great american pinball uh every everybody i could imagine you know and i know i was gonna call and it's like listen i know there's not any but here i am anyway right you know so i put it out there and then you know i got to the end of the day and i was like you know what i didn't get one but that's fine that means i'm keeping the money i'm sure something else will come out at some point i can always grab a premium and if you're getting a premium there's no real urgency unless you feel like you really have to have it now this game has the potential to have some legs of being built for the next 10 years man like another godzilla so that's my pokemon experience i don't even know how to feel about it just yet i mean this is this was this was every emotion all day for a game that like a week ago like no way i would have had my name on an le list you know even if it hit fine i mean i was thinking like what so best it may go for like 14 000 or something and so i'm risking 13 to make a thousand bucks i'll pick it up an extra shift to make a thousand bucks i don't want to risk 13 on it whatever i'm sitting here right now looking at some pokemon cards that i bought i have no idea what i'm looking at but i had fun opening them up and looking at all the foil cards so get ready for some mods they're going to be coming from everywhere if you've got a location get one of these games on it absolutely soon they're continuing the tradition of making a pro that's just about as loaded as the premium le layout so yeah if i had a location operating right now i would have a pro or two ordered just to go in there i think this is a game that may earn money like even a card shop comic book shops at the mall even in a place where there's not like like typically you need a critical mass of like five or eight pinball machines to really operate a location i think you just drop this somewhere and let kids throw tokens at it man um yeah this is this will probably be another godzilla not because of its complexity or gameplay but because they're probably going to build a billion of them speaking of godzilla transition away from pokemon for a moment i had a random person email me don have you heard about any new editions of godzilla which seems kind of off the wall until you think about it because I replied, you know what? Actually, I kind of have. I kind of have. And who did I hear it from? I believe it was Stern Pinball directly. What I mean by that is back during the days of the NDA for Fall of the Empire, that was the debut of the Spike 3 system for the most part. And, you know, one of the questions was, is everything coming out of the factory going to be Spike 3 at this time? You know, can you just drag and drop? And it turns out the code has to all be kind of redone into, you know, the, the spike three architecture, you know, you can't just take a spike two system and drop it in or like the wiring needs to be redone or it something like that You know it not just like we can throw you know any spike to deadpool right into a spike three cabinet and have it fire up and go i mean the the the i guess the wiring or some some sort of the architecture uh is different right so there would be some work that would have to go into a spike two game in order to make the transition to spike three i don't know upscaling the graphics and all that business so they said you'll probably see this Oh, no, they said you will see this for those games. So Spike 2 games that are likely to still be in production for a while going forward. Right. So not Iron Maiden, not Rush, probably not Venom. You know, maybe not James Bond, but Godzilla. Oh, yeah. Jaws. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. What else have they released recently? Walking Dead was before that. We had Fall of the Empire. I don't think they would do a conversion there. Fall of the Empire is probably kind of how it is at that little hybrid stage. But, you know, obviously Iron Maiden, no. But Godzilla is probably going to get a Spike 3 version. And I think that's fine. I think that's fine. Now, I don't think it will be a limited edition. Although Godzilla deserves like another LE. Okay. Godzilla deserves a game to come out of the factory with all the Spike 3 flourishes. Well, at least, you know, if they don't go back on their promise to not release more limited editions after they've already come out due to the blowback they were receiving. The last time they did that was with Elvira Blood Red Kiss, which, again, looks fantastic. It made me incredibly happy. I can see a Godzilla Premium Edition coming out in the Spike 3 cabinet. Maybe it doesn't have the speakers and all the lights and everything. But maybe it comes out with accessory kit like armor that you can put on and then all the lights that you can bolt on and really kind of hodgepodge and make yourself an LE at home. But yeah, I think they would do it. Would, here's a question, would it have a new art package? Now, I think Godzilla, given that it's about to be like the best-selling pinball machine of all time, is screaming for like a gold edition, like Adam's family had in the day, where they did that run of the gold ones, which, oh my God, can you imagine getting one of those now? But I think it's screaming for a King of the Monsters version. you know redo the art a bit just a little different graphics or something full color spike three cabinet the ability to put all those expression lights in there get the expression lights all coated with that game and i think you could have another just extended life for this monster which is looking to become the best-selling pinball machine of all time and what better game what better game than godzilla man i've owned one and i think that would probably get even me to go and get another one for the Spike 3 version, you know, with the brackets and everything. Man, remember when we were complaining about the butt joints? So crazy. And we all happily bought Pokemon LEs if we could get them. Jeez, man, what a crazy freaking week of pinball. I don't even know what else is going on. Did anything happen with Dutch pinball? I mean, I heard something. I heard Kineticist was talking about that they're for sure working with Stern Pinball's building back to the future. Like, that should be the story of the week. and like hardly anybody really noticed it and that printed a retraction and then that kind of went away um did something else get announced is there a new multi-morphic game i have no idea i've had pokemon blinders on all freaking week i'm freezing my butt off here in northern maine i can't wait to get back home this was crazy man let me know what what your thoughts are there's so much more to this too about you know le allotments and leaks and all this business uh if you ever like get me a banana daiquiri and catch me at a show and you want a story i've got some stories of some stuff that happened the last week that they're just wild wild so uh we'll get into that i guess probably next time i don't even have much of a show planned pokemon is melting my brain i gotta track down jengas i haven't talked to that guy in forever i've got i get four more days this weekend i'm going back home and we're gonna rage for a while we're gonna have fun we're gonna have beetlejuice production updates i'm gonna go and finish my beetlejuice poor thing sitting over there waiting on coils i need to go over there coil it wire it mechanistic it put the cabinet together another guy's gonna make me do that throw this game in there qc it and then i'm gonna drag this thing home on a dolly a hand truck straight from the factory i'm just walk it home that's gonna be my delivery i can't wait freaking beetlejuice dawn when are our midnight madness editions coming i would say soon i mean uh you know production i haven't even been there in a week uh but production is underway right now the next place that a bunch of games have to drop is at the Texas Pinball Festival, which I can't believe is only like two, three weeks away, something like that. That'll be here before we know it. Word is there's going to be double-digit Beetlejuices there. I'm supposed to have a booth there as well. We're trying to put together something very special to play Beetlejuice at a booth. I need to get started planning. I need to buy plane tickets. Who am I even bringing with me? All of you, that's who I'm going to bring. So if you're going to be at the Texas Pinball Festival, let's party, hang out, and be cool and have fun with each other and hopefully get some good food. If not, I'm going to take you virtually by covering everything that's happening at this expo, how Pokemon is feeling. That'll probably be my first place to go play it. How Beetlejuice is holding up on location. What other new games are we going to see at Texas Pinball Festival? Is Play Mechanics going to have Halo for us? Is Chris Turner bringing some new new? I've heard some really interesting rumors that have me very excited for the state of them. When are we seeing something from American Pinball? I mean, they've been hinting that something was coming pretty quickly, and then they've been a little radio silent. So I want to see what they're bringing. Multimorphic has to have Game of the Show their portal again. And that's just the stuff that, like, I know about. What surprises are going to pop up there? What's Jack Winnery going to say on stage? You know, not one ring out of your pocket until John Youssi Sonic. Like, I want to be there for all that and report it to you. Barrels of Fun, what are they doing? They're making Winchesters. They're making Dunes. Are they going to have a surprise? They're a company that surprises us. I'm very excited. I'm going to get back home. I'm going to start making pumpkin buckets, and we're all going to go crazy. My brain is fried. I'll talk to you guys when I talk to you. I don't even know where my outro music is. Let's try this one right here. Can you tell I'm excited? Man, Pokemon LE, that's crazy. I feel so bad, though. Like, I got one, but so many good friends of mine, like, came up short. I feel for them, man. Jeez. We're all going to navigate this together. Don't worry. just because you didn't get one now doesn't mean you'll never have one keep the faith brother don's pinball podcast at gmail.com email me patreon.com backslash don's pinball podcast shout out to all the new members appreciate you coming by i'll drop some content there maybe i'll maybe i'll get some liquid libations in me later this week and we'll cut loose with some story time i'm don i like pinball i do pinball podcast you know where to find me be cool see you in texas Psyduck, man.