Something I'd like to see: a three-to-five-second ship crash landing in the swamp intro video when starting a new game a la TOTAN. Most of the context for the theme is displayed during attract, but it'd be nice.

I'm pretty sure there are already a couple of these, like the "ROCs" asteroids-esque game that's played with the crates up.

Whether or not fixed minigame-style pinball events make it into regular tournaments is yet to be seen, but it's an interesting idea for sure.

I think the P3 makes watching pinball a lot more accessible, particularly for someone that isn't familiar with the ruleset or even pinball in general. The on-screen instructions and dynamic graphics are pretty great.

The thing that struck me in the coast to coast podcast was the lines they drew between pinball and golf. Why do people watch golf again? The more I think about it, the more similar golf and pinball seem. Even down to the target audience.

Manufacturing prototype looked fantastic, played great and I even put my personal best high score on it! I swung by a couple times when I was around the convention center and there was always a line of three or more people. SXSW gaming isn't a pinball expo by any means, but there seemed to be a lot of very interested people. The gamer crowd gets it.

I mentioned that I felt one of the flippers was a bit sticky. I probably just flubbed my flip timing and blamed it on the flippers, but they took it seriously and voila! 30 seconds later brand-new pair of flippers. Awesome!

Actually, the p3 was probably the coolest thing at the expo, although I'm biased. There were a ton of VR companies all doing basically the same thing with varying levels of haptic integration, bunch of new board/card games, etc. Other than the panels (and maybe the cosplay) LLGG was the coolest thing around.