I'm adding a Full Throttle playfield to my Alien order. This is too awesome.

Yeah, it would suck to become the Apple of pinball...oh, wait...

Seriously though, I hate proprietary connectors and it baffles and sickens me that (some) companies are very successful at fleecing consumers with them. Apparently it's a smart business decision for some, but still...

Have they actually priced the Playfield packages?

Maybe attach some small wheels to the front end of the brackets? Roll that baby easily wherever you want.

Also on the topic of swapping, this would make sharing games with friends so easy. You could all buy different games and trade occasionally. It would be so easy to move and swap them out.

Too bad none of my friends are into pinball!

I don't think so. Since there is only one game at the moment, and very few cabinets out there, it's probably a little early.

It's going to be very interesting to see how swappable games drive sales for Heighway. As we see here, with this model popular themes can drive sales of titles which are less immediately popular because people have more incentives to buy games for the system.

Yeah, it's not quite to the scale of a video game console, but similar concept. There may be a "killer app" that triggers the initial big purchase then it's much easier to bite on smaller incremental purchases afterward (e.g. a game competitive with a Stern premium for less than $4k).

No one buys a new Playstation or Xbox for every game they buy. At least I hope not.

I guess most of the time you'd get a friend to help, then you wouldn't have to lower the playfield down to the floor like that, you could just slide it out most of the way and then the other person would grab the other end. That way you could then both lift it over to its storage box and it wouldn't need to touch the floor at all.

I don't mind proprietary connectors at all as long as they're different because they're *better* and make the products better. I'd much rather a better product experience, particularly something I'm interacting with every day like a smart phone, than make it worse to save a few dollars when buying spare cables.

I don't believe that there would be any benefit for Heighway to use proprietary connectors. Even if they were able to make one that combined all three plugs into a single plug, the benefit would be very minor for the myriad of tradeoffs necessary to make that happen.

Well, let's see. I have sent the mail to Oti. I have officially added the Full Throttle playfield to my AlienLE order. Both arrive together. There's one sale diverted from GoT to Heighway.

You must really want the Alien LE to not go ahead and order an FTL first (and Alien upgrade later) to have a new game to play a lot sooner!

that's what I would do, except I don't like the theme of FTH one bit.

Well, I bought the Alien/s playfield add-on package almost a year ago so I would guess you would have no problem getting a price quote for it if you ask them

I also don't like the theme of FTH but having now played it, it's actually more of a neutral theme rather than being offensive. It has a feel kind of like Indy 500, sort of retro in a way.

Alien is a must have. FTL not as much, but looks better the more I see. I am also full at the moment, so for them to come in next year is better timing. The swapping platform is just perfect for me with limited room, and the way I use my games sees some of them lie dormant for weeks at a time, so a 3.5 minute changeover...DONE DEAL.

That's cool. I need to play it for sure. Just think, that I like to buy games that I'm in love with. I mean, I could have bought Mustang and TFLE for fantastic prices (and AMH and TWD as well) but I just wasn't that into them. I mean I have 7 pins already so it's not like I need to buy something this instant. I can wait for the themes that I'm interested in, rather than just buy a neutral theme that doesn't suck but isn't really interesting to me.

Heck, I have Tspp and STLE that I *need* to play a lot more than I do. I love those games (all my games) so I need to give them more attention. When a nice theme comes out I will buy it, I just don't need to buy something as a placeholder.

Yeah, unless I was crazy impatient I'd just swap making my wife a cocktail in exchange for some playfield lifting.

I don't have a problem with the theme on FTH at all myself. But I'm a bit worried that the callouts from the main character could quickly become annoying/grating.

they keep throwing out 60% of full game price as their guess

I approve!

There are 3 main voices. Man announcer, woman announcer / narrator, and Valentino.

Valentino I would say overall is funny, but I'd like more variety added. He has good insults, but I think he could use more of them so they don't repeat.

I know I was one calling for a vid on the "exchange" so thanks for that Andrew and Aurich... man do I miss Benny Hill! This is incredible how seamless it is to go from one entire game to another, a truly interchangeable system! I too am waiting for Alien LE and then perhaps adding FT down the road since the LE art work on Alien will not be available for purchase for those who ordered the FTLE. Glad your working on some neutral colors for the LE's, think this is key so no matter what game you put in there, it will look great. I think I would lean towards metallic black! Amazing work Highway keep it up!

The great thing about that swap video is that it wasn't overly rehearsed. They could have easily practiced more and ironed out some of the little catches (like the 3 seconds lost forgetting to turn the game off before disconnecting etc.) but didn't need to. The honest truth is that it is quick, even with some catches here and there like in real life. No pretending or dressing up required. Awesome.

I couldn't disagree more. We already know how many insertions USB and HDMI ports can take so why spend money developing something untested? It's not like the game is going need something different down the road and these you can buy by the 40 foot container right now for pennies.

Obsolete? In this hobby? How about this: Fifty years from now you finally wear out that HDMI jack from all those years of swapping playfields. Rather than have to track down some one-off connector, you just grab anything out of the recycling bin and desolder the jack. Why would you want something else?

It makes as much sense as if somebody said they should use something other than a molex connector because they don't want to support the Koch brothers.

Yep, and don't forget, Andrew has 2 more major licensed titled themes they are currently working on to showcase after Alien.

If your one to collect the playfields for the sheer breadth of a diverse and perhaps an eclectic degree of play experiences, I would imagine those playfields would quickly grow in number considering Heighway's plans on producing multiple titles per year. ...And why not? ...it would be a fraction of the cost and space needed than buying and housing entire nib cabineted machines.

I can imagine hooks on the wall to hang the beautiful playfields.

Oh man, has he already publicly said that? I've been leaving that out of my pitches, I didn't know it was public.

That's EXACTLY what I plan on doing. Now if I could just get the lighting going while its hanging on the wall between playtimes....

A little add on driver box maybe, Andrew?

Predator would be nice, using both films. I really like the second one.

Yep....some time back.......that will be my chance for chrome or shiney black armor, and the play field swap thing....

Rooting for that one heavily, but then may want an LE to go next to Alien........ahhhhh

Too soon I think. Too much bad baggage there that Heighway shouldn't have to pick up. Not saying Alien and Predator wouldn't be an awesome combo, but for a new company to take it on would just bring up too much bad blood.

Well ofcourse, no other choice really. I can't think of a better side by side pair of pins. Well maybe Slayer and Motorhead.

I vote for Blade Runner as the next licenced theme. Tyrell multi ball .

Time to die
-Jeff

Running man or Total Recall

Die hard!

Downton Abbey and Are You Being Served

WWHHHAAAA?! There are other fans of this besides me?!

Falcon Crest...obvi

After learning of Aurich's involvement in the game(Alien) and the Black and Manta green colors I had to learn more. The UK is a long ways away and to be honest I thought it would be to complex of a transaction (no presence here, distance and currency) with too much risk.

I spoke with Andrew and I must say he really put me at ease. America is going to be a major market they focus on. All pins are bought direct and not through a distributor. They are not in need of paid in full deposits to fund the operation(although I'm sure they don't mind them). Pins shipping to the states will go to their hub(Illinois I believe, but not sure) and get trucked out from there or be picked up.

So what does it roughly cost to ship from the UK? My understanding is roughly $300-$500 to my house in Minnesota. The upper end is using air freight and lift gate service(yes air freight)and the price will obviously vary depending on location. Total of roughly $8500 shipped, airfreight, lift gate to my door.

Now one of the final parts of the equation(besides how does the game look and play) is how to pay. They accept World Pay, Pay Pal and Credit Card or Wire Transfer. If you plan on using a credit card I would recommend Visa Signature as they do not have an "Foreign transaction" fee. Bank of America American Express has a 1 % "Foreign Transaction" Fee and the standard "foreign transaction" fee is pretty much 3% for the rest of the cards from what I've been reading. This would be in addition to any credit card fee the merchant charges to use a credit card(2.75%) I believe for straight credit card. There is always paypal and world pay or wire transfer with no fee as well.

Andrew seems like a great guy, you've got a great product(full throttle) , screen in play field, ability to swap out play field and play other games in less than 5 minutes, and last but not least AURICH doing the artwork. There are many things I'm leaving out, Go to YouTube if you can't see one in person. Look at the detail of full throttle

I really want to see them succeed so I though I'd share my research if anyone is in the same boat I am. I have a couple hours into making calls to banks and credit card companies. Any way, doing an overseas transaction was really foreign to me, but it really doesn't seem that bad. I'm sure there are plenty of people that will know more than I do, but I want to share what I've learned so far. Again I'm no expert on them just sharing my 15 minute chat with them. Andrew would know more about his business that I would, but if you're considering a pin from them. I'm still new to all of this so don't take my post as the gospel. Pick up the phone and give them a call. Good people for sure!

By the way, yes 99.5 % ready to pull the trigger. Have the order from ready with numbers picked out.

I imagine buying, selling, trading, swapping, borrowing, and shipping playfields rather than the inconvenience of the same with full size pins can change what people are willing to involve themselves with and make pinball more accessible to more families. Hopefully Heighway can start churning out a multitude of playfield themes once they are really underway.

...and Heighway doesn't necessarily always have to develop a new playfield from the ground up. If they ever decide to "re-theme" an existing playfield platform it could easily be done ...but only if it didn't sell well, was never popular, and didn't wind up in too many collector's basements.

Not that it won't sell well but say years down the road they could re-theme the Full Throttle PF into one of several goofy fun themes just by changing all the art and software. Keeping to a racing or chasing theme, a few examples:

The Dukes of Hazard
Death Race 2000
Knight Rider (Kit)
Smokey and the Bandit
Starsky and Hutch
Cannonball Run
Gone in 60 Seconds
Speed Racer

Imagine having a stack of all these playfields forgotten in a closet. ...Heighway becomes so popular their playfields are a dime a dozen. ...They're making new and old themes left and right. Why not? Each consumer only needs space for one cabinet in their home. I bet some day Heighway has a sale for new customers: Buy 3 playfields get the cabinet free.

Right on. But it's funny, reading your nice breakdown really reminded me just how cool it is that there's a UK pinball manufacturer. Hopefully Dutch soon too. And they're different. We're not getting the same old thing. I dunno, just strikes me as cool that we can get new games from Wales now.

Innovative for sure! I had a RR75th and the screen on the backboard was cool to look at, but not functional if you're trying to play at the same time. I love how the how the screen is "in the play field" among other things on Full Throttle and with a little tweaking to blend in from "the master"(you) this will be awesome. There was a lot of other really neat and innovative items Andrew told me about and he said I could share, but honestly I got lost in excitement and i'd hate to lose anything in translation. I'll leave the news of the game and business plans for the USA to the people in the know. Buying a game from such a distance really isn't that difficult and getting parts won't be either.

Correct me if I am wrong, but Heighway will ship the game to the US at their own expenses, and you need to pay for domestic transport only.

We only had one rehearsal before I shot the vid. Without the mistakes, I think we couldn't got the time down to 3 min 20.

This vid also shows just how durable the playfields are. The one being taken out is an old prototype and has been in and out of that cabinet many times so it's had a knock or two. I'm sure most people will be more careful with the swap but these things are built to last.

So I assume that would be air right to your own local "International" airport? Say Vancouver

Total Recall, would be an awesome theme to work with.