So, I know P3 has a seminar coming up at TPF this weekend, and Dennis Nordman will be revealing more details about his theme. These games are a totally new concept with new technology, but there doesn't seem to be any buzz about them. The only recent excitement I saw was the opportunity for an attendee to win a free game, while not so much about the game and theme announcement.

At $10K they are expensive, but that gets you 2 upper playfield layouts, which they describe as 2 separate games. Future add-on games seem cheap too. Why isn't anyone excited?

I ask this mainly because I seem to be trying to talk myself into being excited. I'm really on the fence about getting on the pre-order, but I'm just not as excited as I should be for $10K. For example, I'm stoked about the likely Star Trek.

So, are you excited? If not, why not? Is it because you don't trust in the technology yet? Is it because you need to know the theme(s) to get excited?

I totally agree with the comment about the early demos (Farmyard, etc) doing as much good as harm in the minds of people's perception. These were amazing in showing the ball tracking abilities, but also were just proof-of-concepts and made people associate this to virtual pinball.

I'm somewhere between Alex and Markmon about the impact that changing the upper playfield will have on making the games feel different. I hope Mark is right about things connected to the top that potentially hang lower on the playfield. This would help to keep every game from having nothing but long, full-playfield shots.

The ball tracking is super cool, and supplementing play with the virtual targets on the playfield screen can be a nice addition, but if too much relies on that, it will lose the feel of real pinball. Anything that could add some physical interruption on the lower playfield would really complete the full circle on this.

That said, the individually controlled barrier/scoops at the top of the LCD have tons of potential as well.

Oh, and the variable flipper power, that could be super cool. Imagine something like the Borg battle in STTNG, where you need to hit the spinner to re-power the shields. What if this concept impacted the flipper power as you lose strength for a certain mode.

As many have said, there appears to be all the potential in the world, it will really come down to creative uses of this technology and how well they can implement the strategies.