I think this could exist. I think you could tie in posting to twitter or facebook too, shouldn't be too hard with a p-roc system, as it uses a computer as the host, and you can add your own routines to the pinball code.

i think this is possible with the pin2k games. the idea being you could have online tournaments`

They do it with all the Golden Tee machines nowadays, hell, you can get an internet connected garage door now and open it from your smartphone.. no reason they couldn't connect pinball machines.

Isn't WOZ supposed to have some form of internet connectivity?

Its been discussed a bunch of times, but to date no current pins use the technology - somewhere I posted about building a RPG pinball machine, with a bunch of cool ideas - but that was awhile ago.

There is no pinball that does this yet, but there are arcade games that do.
Here is a link to Technika 3, a 3rd generation rhythm game that connects to the internet and keeps scores, and has a user log in to keep track of your play.

Games like these are turning up everywhere, even in slot machines like LOTR, Time Machine and Star Trek by WMS. Here is a link to leader boards for the LOTR slot machine.

http://www.playerslife.com/games/leaderboard/31/miles?range=week

It would be a great way to launch pinball into the future with the added connectivity, and using social gaming to keep it going when you are away from the game.

Would be even better if the connectivity was disabled if the glass was off and there was advanced software to detect cheating. I'm sure there would always be ways of cheating it though. Closing off drain lanes... Etc. Would still be cool technology though.

It would be neat if the pin connected to a server and could check if a player has unlocked achievements. Stuff like "30 minute game!", "6 way combo!", "wizard mode completed!". Kinda like Xbox games do.

Just way too many ways to cheat.

My post from an old thread on this topic:

Sega experimented with this idea on Golden Cue http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=4383

They partnered with Incredible Technoligies who made Golden Tee. The idea was to have tournaments and prizes like the Golden Tee video games. And you could compete against people across the country for cash. According to Jon Norris the main reason they didn't go forward was concerns about cheating, since you could take the glass off, unlike video games.

I can almost guarantee that BHZA will not only be connected to the internet, but will utilize it in some very cool ways. John and Ben both strike me as the type of guys who aren't afraid to shake things up and truly think outside the box. I sat in on John's talk at Expo, and it was clear that he has a solid grasp of the social media oriented world we now live in.

I'm wondering if the links would enable two pinners playing the same game in different locations to compete, like the PSP? I've got number 35... so who's gonna play me? BTW, how many people bought in on ZA?

Yup, I know someone who had one of those prototypes, and he said that was exactly why it got killed.

Not just that, but if one op jacks up the back legs and the next one does not, you'd have two completely different playing games. When you have cash or prizes on the line, it makes having a physical game a huge risk to do this with. Just about any security measure could be defeated too because it is a physical game -- oh, you have an auto tilt sensor to detect what angle the game is at? Unscrew that part and fix it, while leaving the playfield darn near flat.

It's a great idea in concept, but in practice it doesn't work. Oh, and Pinball 2000 does have this technology built in with the final revision of RFM, and if you have either the right card in your game or NuCore, you can connect it and upload your scores online. But again, it depends on how you set up your game to really determine how well you do.