This is great news. I was hoping we'd see the technology you were showing off in the P^3 prototype get to the market. It really is light years ahead of what everybody else seems to be doing.

FYI, here's a video of Gerry showing off the P^3 at TPF:

I was personally amazed at how well the system could track ball trajectory and velocity with a relatively small array of optos. There is a lot of potential with that technology.

Have you thought about any ways to create physical barriers in the game without obstructing the playfield/LCD or making them permanent? I guess that would be the holy grail of this type of design?

As others have said, the problem with the LCD screen in the middle is that you can't obscure it with anything, so you have this very wide open area that on one hand, is great because you can project any kind of imagery you want on it.. very cool.

But on the other hand, for example, while you can display an asteroid or some kind of interactive target on the LCD and have the virtual image interact with the ball (i.e. make the asteroid explode), you are (as of yet) unable to have the ball interact with the image (make the ball deflect as if it actually hit something physical). This is something the folks at P2K were able to do by using a holographic-type projection onto a physical playfield. That doesn't seem to fit in your design.

To me, if you can cross that hurdle.. if there was some way of having some kind of disruptive force acting on balls over the LCD, then you'd have it all. It sounds pretty far fetched, but I don't think it's impossible. For example, it might be possible to have magnets underneath the LCD panel that can represent obstacles that block or deflect the ball. Know what I mean? If you could do that, then the sky would be the limit!

I think it is innovative and different not having a backbox but it seems like a waste of potential real estate. Maybe you could do something like have a jack to hook up to a monitor hanging on the wall that emulates the screen in the game for others to watch?