just a blip

I think it will become a standard sooner than later, most of us have limitations with space so its a logical progression. The ease of trading and selling PF kits I think is amazing for the hobby, I could drive and pick up a PF throw it the backseat and done, no delivery fee's, no more 300lbs moves, lets not forget the stairs, would be easy to offer both anyway so why not give the buyer an option. I'm looking forward to Stern adopting this style at some point.

If history repeats itself, just a blip. It never made financial sense to the operator in the past. But time will tell: I believe most of these "platforms" are probably heading to private collections and operators weren't paying upwards to $8K for a pinball game.

Stern classic VE's in a convertible cabinet running on spike? sounds like a winner to me.

There have been swapable pins since the late 70s and 80s, like:

Dark Rider
Fly High
Genesis
Space Hawks
Gamatron
Miss World
Sexy Girl

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pinball 2000?

It will never catch on. It's just not practical which is why so few pin2k systems were sold "convertible" vs complete.

The Heighway system is pretty damn easy, more so than Pin2K, so I'm not sure it's really impractical. Whether or not it will catch on I couldn't say. If they're making several appealing games it's cheaper and easier on space, that feels practical.

I just don't think history is really that relevant to showing the future. SWE1 sucked, maybe more people would have been swapping for Wizard Blocks.

Blip

Tough to use that as an example when there were only 2 made, practacality is through the roof for the consumer, space, money etc.

Being space-limited, I hope it catches on. This is the biggest reason why I'm really pulling for Heighway and Multimorphic.

Pin2k was killed before it really had a chance. One good title and one mediocre title based on a crap theme is not enough of a data set to make a determination.

I will say this:
I was huge into arcade games (talking 30+) before the pinball bug bit me. And I thought to myself, "Yeah, I could get a jamma cab and have the boards for all these games, or have a "X" system and put all boards for "X" in that cab." Ran into first world problems like, what if Jon wants to play Y and Jane wants to play Z at the same time? I cant have that! Also, turns out I wanted all my machines to each run a game by themselves without any swapping of boards and quickly ate up all my space.

I feel like I would go down the same road with pinball. I would want to be able to play both my Full Throttle and Aliens at the same time (If I were to get both games) without having the inability to play one or the other.

The pinball cab/system I'm designing for Haunted Cruise, King of the Arcade, et others will be swappable. I feel this is the way to go now. $8k+ for every game is a lot to ask. Wouldn't it be nice for one $8k+ purchase then $5k (or so) for LE quality kits? I think so.

Nope. It will never catch on.

End of the day, people want cool permanent cabinet art. And more than one game set up at a time. And even an easy swap is more work than many will want to do.

I think it has potential.

But--it has to be easy to swap. Playfield, code, and artwork and that's it. If you have to make changes back and forth in the cabinet, that defeats the purpose somewhat.

Or, I thought it would be an interesting idea if an SD slot was mounted on the playfield, so you could skip the step with needing to change the code to a new game.

Blip. But then again I thought Madonna was gonna be a flash in the pan...

Not only will it catch on, but it will become the industry standard. My generation is next in line to take over this hobby. We grew up trading things like baseball/GPK cards & NES cartridges so trading playfields will appeal to us & also provides incentive to make new friends in the hobby. We are also a generation of more practical lifestyles & tend to live in less palatial homes so this will solve the space issue.

And the main reason is the Millennial generation behind ours who will be even more frugal than us since they are the ones coming of age during this "Great Recession"

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This is extremely practical for me. I have room for four pins, and have to take them in and out of a basement. Heighway and Multimorphic P3 are at the top of my list for new pin purchases precisely because of the swappable playfields.

Great topic!

Pinball 2000 was made in a different era, there are many more home collectors now, which is the main market for these swappable systems. Moreover, the systems being developed are much easier to swap than Pinball 2000 (especially the Multimorphic P3).

I believe the P3 does this, the machine knows which playfield you have in the game and runs the corresponding software, pretty sure the updates will be done online.

We've already seen the Heighway playfield swap, it is impressive. Very quick and easy. The P3 swap will be shown at Texas in three weeks or so, it's going to be a very interesting show.

Imagine the range of games which will be available to you if you have a Heighway machine and a P3 in your house and all in the space of two normal cabinets.

Your generation is my generation. The last thing I want is playfields in boxes sitting around the house. Our generation wants instant gratification. If I want to play a quick game of X and Y is what's configured then I'm not going to spend the time to swap playfields and code just to play that quick game. It's inconvenient. Also for those of us that have pinball parties and leagues this model isn't going to work either. Imagine telling people you have 10 machines but only 1 can be played in parallel?

If I remember correct, Gary told Nate on on Coast 2 Coast, that 75% of Stern's US market is the home buyer. It's not the same in Europe, where the operator market is still king.

Home buyer's usually have issues with money/space and swappable playfields help mitigate both of those issues. I think the market is primed for swappable playfields to be successful.

I think these are good points. I don't think it's for everyone. I'm kind of excited about it and I'm going to give it a shot. I definitely wouldn't want a 1:10 ratio of cabinets to playfields. Maybe 1:3 or so.

In the case of the P3, there are a number of other benefits of the swappable system. The one which will have the most impact is the fact that new games can be developed and manufactured much more easily. The P3 is open source - anyone can develop new games for it. Those doing so only have to design and manufacture the upper playfield module and code, maybe some new cabinet art if they want. The rest of the platform is already done.

Multimorphic have just announced that they will show a new complete game (the second for the P3 system) at TPF. Imagine the possibilities as they release their development kit to the public, many more people working on many more games. And, with more games available for the system, the system becomes more desirable for the consumer.

Well you could just buy a couple more cabinets, say four cabinets and ten playfields. Have four playfields set up for a couple of hours, then swap them over.

If a completed wizard blocks rules and all was made, I would think 500-1k of those would sell as kits for $5k

Just a pipe dream will never happen. I like to think about it though

One of the fastest growing restaurant concepts is custom cereal. It's even easier to scoop ice cream into a bowl, but that has never impacted the existence of ice cream shops on every corner.

ok, so someone in your position could have 3 or so cabs with 7 more playfields neatly stacked in the corner of say a 2 car garage with plenty of room for both cars. Fun factor of 10 games using the footprint of 3.

Collectors who want long rows of pins won't be interested in this system so much, but a player short on space might prefer to just pound a couple at a time.

I've owned several new Stern's & a beautiful huo WOZecle over the last few years. Most of them were fun pins & I enjoyed them.
Enter in Full Throttle 2 weeks ago to the game room. Full Throttle is oozing with technology & is a blast to play! It makes my other pins (Stern premiums) look like dinosaurs! The modular system is just a plus, not necessary, just 1 of many great inovations by the Heighway pinball team. They're here to stay!

100% correct, I think the old school fella's will never quite grasp this idea but it will become the standard and I think help the hobby as its somewhat a deterent to deal with the space issues and all that which arise from lets say having 8 pins but how about 2 cabs with 8 swappable PF's?

The cost will have to drop. When operators can have a different game on location for $2000 instead of $5000 that will impact the market.

u know if u didn't give a crap about the cabinet art.. Hobbit play field would pop into the woz cabinet, add a translight and save a ton of money... Wouldn't that be nice

Blip. I don't have any interest in swapping games. I have space issues but I don't have room to store all these playfields in storage cases either. Also, once I have a clear favorite out of games, why would I put in a lesser game, even if it takes 3 min? And further still. If everyone who buys the system buys most of the kits (or at least the 'good' kits).. Especially at the pace of games comig out.. Resale market would be questionable.

Just don't get it?

I think this concept has potential too. I think it would expand market share...more of us could buy games. Helluva a lot easier to transport

Almost. Need a few additional wiring harnesses for the other drivers that are in use I think.

In theory most pins are swapable. I've witnessed a distributor and operator tell Heighway Pinball that they didn't want swapable games, but that didn't stop them.

With a system like P3 Roc available it just makes me wonder why no-one has come up with a generic cabinet that can house playfields of all brands from the '50s up to know. Add some interfaces to hook up all the different connectors and then you can program your own game, or the priginal game, on the playfield installed. Tons of playfields currently collecting dust in warehouses could be brought back to life with such a system.

Does it really matter if it catches on or not? Looking at Heighway Pinball, the capability is built in. So it's there if you want it and that in and of itself is the perk. You're not going to swap out for what you think is a lesser theme but when that grail theme comes along, you have options. Isn't that sort of the whole point as far as the home market is concerned?

Looking at a Heighway Pin vs a Stern pin that cost the same can you put a price on the future expansion capabilities one has over the other? You can't know what's to come yet, it's just an automatic bonus, not to mention the modularity, technology, and ease of the designed repairability one has over the other.

Heighway has started out with a very smart foundation indeed. On the used market a Heighway pin has a bit more going for it for the buyer, period. No one can argue that.

My opinion, getting onboard with a Heighway pin early will be a smooth move as we look towards the future.

Already working on it...

Play fields without cabinets seems to me very fragile things. All these things that stick out to everywhere. How do you protect them from damage during transport or storage?

I hope that all the vendors can settle on a standardized cabinet and standardized connections. Otherwise you end up with the Betamax vs VHS vs Video2000 disasters again. Otherwise that would zero any advances of a swapable playfield.

Also I don't want to store all these extra games that can't be played unless I spend time swapping them out.

Someone said 8k for the full game then 5k for the game kit? Seems crazy

I don't think it's going to be a big selling point or really catch on. A few people may do it but most are going to swap a game once or twice and not want to deal with it again. The playfields are going to be big and bulky, hard to deal with, and a risk to your house and game every time you swap one. When I think of purchasing a heighway game I do not even consider it being swappable. It's a cool feature but I'm not going to mess with that. If I want a heighway pin it will come with a cabinet so I can play it whenever I want.

I think Pinchroma is 100% right, most people are not going to want to mess with it. When I want to play pinball I want to play, not drag playfields around and have playfield boxes stacked around the house. Some people will like it and use it, but I think they will be the minority. It's a cool feature that I'm glad they are building in but I do not see myself using it.

A blowmolded case would be easy enough to produce.

A few could be stacked under any pin.

I don't really see much negative with Heighway's swappable games. It's not like it is priced more expensive than everything else, even if you just bought a standalone game every time.

Stern these days has a "generic" cabinet that they decal at the factory for whatever game they are putting into it. It's not like these things are super custom.

Heighway ends up giving you THE OPTION of collecting playfields, if that is something you wanted to do.

Heighway Pinball comes in their own case, & as you can see from the video it takes just a couple of minutes to swap out.

The P3 is more of a "pinball console", so that is kind of cool.

I don't imagine swapping the Heighway games more often than "once in a while". But if the option is having a second playfield in a back room and pulling it out and swapping it in for a league night or that same game being sold off because I ran out of room, I'm not sure how the game completely leaving is preferable.