If (big if) it's real, it's obviously going to be a rethemed Magic Girl with elements of his various other past designs.

IIRC Houdini name (even if "Harry Houdini") would require no licensing even if he still has an active estate, even in the US.

90 years since his death, so definitely no copyright for anything, and I suspect any trademarks aren't hugely active and pinball I'm pretty sure is a new sector so probably wouldn't require licensing due to no trademark activity in recent times (can't imagine there have been any arcade / gaming machines themed on him in 15-25 years either).

Potentially wrong though.

The reviews can and will be deleted. The company has not released a product or a service for anyone to review.

I'm pretty sure they don't have the ability to do it, but can appeal to cs to have it done.

IMO it's legit.

Dhaval is the son of the founder of Aimtron Electronics, who definitely have the expertise to engineer (electronic and mechanical) and build these machines, and more importantly manage the project(s).

The photos look like they may have been taken inside of Aimtron's Palatine facility (North side of Chicago).

Should be very interesting ... given what they do, they won't have been going in green from a technological and developmental perspective, unlike other new entrants - DP, JJP, HW, HP, SC, SP.

Not really.

Large multinational car companies don't take pre-orders for production models when they're years from production in a prototype stage (when they haven't even been shown, save for spy shots at a test track).

Your analogy does not work.

If you pre-order something still being heavily prototyped and never shown in a near final form, how can you then dictate the terms of its completion and features, engineering and appearance therein?

If you or others want to pursue something like this, if they do deliver, good luck to you .. you'll be pouring far more money down the drain than any original losses.

Because, if they're serious about entering the industry in a significant way, it's a gigantic amount of publicity.

The idea that JPop 'customers' would ever see a machine, after Pintasia fell through, was preposterous.

Yet, it could now happen.

They get to be the knight in shining armour.

No doubt the machine will be available to purchase, too.

How else could they get so much buzz and chatter? Everyone's talking about this now, instead of JJP #3, AFMr, Alien(s) and BM '66.

Your example isn't remotely relevant, for the reasons specified. Further, if you pre-order something expensive from a large company, you ALWAYS sign a detailed contract, laying out the terms. Do you have one of those to point to with Zidware? Thought not.

Start a new thread. This is just a circlejerk of social (network) disfunction.

90 years since his death. No image rights anywhere, even the US.

That would surely go for any game. Aimtron haven't ripped anyone off.

Doubtful, and it'd be an incredibly stupid move on Aimtron / AP's part.

They're doing him a massive favour re: MG etc, and no doubt partly en lieu of higher pay / commission for him. Even a year ago, I'm guessing JPop barely had a cent left, and needs money .... hence probably why you're seeing two games at once from Aimtron. MG for good PR for the company, and for JPop to redeem himself. Houdini for both parties to get paid.

If they fall out with JPop or there are issues with him, granting him capital would make it very difficult. Why bother to risk it? If they're developing these machines, and quickly, they clearly have the resources to pay him.

The venue has security. Presumably anyone misbehaving will be thrown out unceremoniously, as they should be.

As far as I'm concerned, what has emerged is very positive.

JPop is just a consultant on Houdini.

Zidware is totally separate.

They are simply the contractor for MG.

Balcer has been taken on and absolutely will fix the game.

May not be great news re: original JPop backers, but it's great news regarding AP being a serious entity and Houdini.

But yeah, I strongly suspect that they only recently realised they needed to get Joe in.

Don't know what people were expecting given that it became obvious that JPop had sold them something which didn't work, the tone of their seminar, and Joe Balcer's employment and his comments on the readiness of the game.

It obviously doesn't look that great, but on the other hand Joe was responsible for WOZ, so I think there is some reason to be optimistic, if he's given sufficient time and budget to finish the game.

I'm sure they'll show something if and when they have it.

If they leave, I'd expect them to publicly state why (JPop).

It looks like there was a change even in the few days between the two New Year posts. I suspect they reached a final impasse with JPop on the former, and the fallout was that they parted ways entirely as alluded to in the latter.

Now that they've essentially all but said JPop is gone and his unworkable original design is a thing of the past, I'm fairly optimistic.

Joe can definitely work some 'magic'. The company behind AP can definitely design and manufacture electronics, and do assembly. I'd say it's mainly now a question of will, and how much money they're prepared to invest in the project, now that Popadiuk and his design are history. That's still of course a major question, but they clearly had an opportunity to jump ship after they realised they'd been taken for a ride by JPop. They didn't take that opportunity.

For people wondering if the whole thing is a scam and whether any of the staff or contractors are getting paid ...

.... you have to imagine that at least two people are getting paid a salary, rather than vague allusions to some kind of compensation. It would be extraordinary for someone of Balcer's experience, talent and the sorry background of the whole endeavour for him to accept anything less. Also, one of their other staff members has been burned in the past, not getting paid for their work in the pinball industry. So you'd imagine they'd insist on a decent salary too, and be extremely shy of anything but cash in hand.

I'd say it looks more like a browser / facebook integrated game from 2 or 3 years ago ... one of the poorer ones. Unfortunately.

Contrary to what he might like to have people believe, JPop is not the artist on any of his games (including BW days), AFAIK.

As far as P3 commissioning the same calibre of work ... well that would probably rely on them deceiving potential contractors about remuneration, which I suspect they're very much unwilling to do. Good work costs good money, generally.

You'd think they might have withdrawn those endorsements ....

They shouldn't, but many people place a lot of stock in linked.in endorsements ... maybe Aimtron did too ...

If you mean Pintasia / Bill Brandes, I suspect he's the last thing holding back MG from being produced. Just look at how Houdini was delivered, as a supposedly working or workable design, and the subsequent fallout.

Probably not wise to prejudge it, but:

• The $7k no preorder model has now become a limited time introductory offer (preorders), with presumably signifacant price increases thereafter.

• Art. Even if JPop's direction and production of the previous game's art was less than perfect, the artist had clear talent and craft, and was working along the right lines. Judging by the art revealed, he's been dispensed with and we now have a mid-2000s-Stern-esque clip art fest with some very basic photoshop layers. New artist may well be an old master, but he or she has clearly produced this very specific look under instruction.

• The press release is full of typos and semantic errors and is very poorly written and clearly not proof read at all.

Hmm. Doesn't bode well.

I'm not making a definitive conclusion. Hence the pre-amble.

But given what they have shown, it does bode less than well. Do you know what "bode" means?

They still haven't proof read it

Indeed. The value of looking at something more than once ...

Amazed at how far they've gotten in so little time, having literally just started up. It appears they have a more advanced machine after 4-5 months of work than some companies have managed in 3-6 years.

Less than convinced by the art and backbox, but the mechs look good and it's absolutely rammed with features.

Very glad they got rid of the ridiculous half obscured JPop screen position as well as his game design.

JPop's design was purely the latter. The Balcer design appears to be the former.

There's so little on the Jetsons that it can't require much explanation.

As for Houdini and other games. It would be nice.

But I think most manufacturers are very keen to avoid too much scrutiny early, or indeed at all in some cases. Lone exception being JJP, who conduct the testing and development of their machines very much in the open, once revealed.

That's an insanely quick turnaround, particularly for a new company.

If they can produce reliable machines with decent supply in that kind of time frame, I think some of the other new entrants will be getting nervous, or a lot more nervous than they already are. Probably Stern too, if they produce in volume.

It would completely torpedo the notion that there must be practically half a decade of development time for both individual games and platforms, and year after year of missed deadlines and empty promises. Or, if they ship with fairly complete code, that you need to wait 18 months to 2 years (if at all) for a game that's fun or challenging.

Indeed, the people behind AP are not small at all, in pinball terms. Much larger than Stern, seemingly.

It would appear that their background with electronics and engineering have paid immediate dividends.

There's no way they're anywhere near 92% now, anyway. Not for the last year, with JJP spitting out Hobbits and still large numbers of WOZ.

JJP are definitely over 2500 per year. Probably nearer 3500. They couldn't possibly operate at 1000 units p.a. still. The losses given their staffing levels and size of production line would be catastrophic. Given that they'll have 3 machines on the line this year, I'd imagine the plan is for well over 4000 units shipped in 2017.

Stern definitely didn't build 15,000 in 2016 ... they had a complete halt at one point due to pf issues, and numerous other slowdowns. I think 10,000 would be pushing it. The reason their order book is so huge and Gary was crowing about their highest production month ever since the Sega days was precisely because they had such a bottleneck.

Weren't they doing 4 week runs of 200 WOZs at a time, on the newly established much smaller second line, all to order, just as Hobbit started production? People continue to order plenty of WOZ ... that should give you an idea. Haven't heard that any old Hobbit orders are still outstanding, and Jack claimed he had 1900 orders just as production began.

The investors would have to be absolutely mad if they were keeping the doors open with only 1000 games being sold at this stage.

They may already be running at 4k cadence ... I'd be shocked if it was significantly less than 3k.

If the factory was as slow as you guys seem to think, there's absolutely no way they'd be taking their time in refining and revising Dialed In for an extended period of play testing and protoyping.

Multiple other games in the industry are going out far more shonky than the prototype we saw at Expo.

Yeah. Definitely less chrome and more brass, gunmetal and raw iron type finishes would look better.

I like it too, but I think it'd look much better if they removed the fairly large logo from the left hand corner (entirely) and put a placque in the bottom centre of the speaker panel (like the Stern LE placques) with their logo. Few cents extra, but the backglass would benefit and they could embellish their brand a bit.