Quoted from jimjim66:Here are the options-
1. You can buy the season for windows by June 30th. You can do this through Steam. The Pro options gives you the settings/menus of a regular pinball machine. The regular option just gives you the straight game. It gives you their view which is not 100% a cabinet view, but is vertical.
2. The Arcooda update for 150 bucks give you a better cabinet view, but it is only on sale to June 30th. This is for people that already own the seasons.
3. The Arcooda pack gives you the pro seasons + their $150 update. You have 2 options on this. 1. Get one for your own personal cabinet, or purchased commercial cab (VP Cab, Virtual Cab) etc.... it is not optimized for those. Example Bumper and plunger support may or may not work. You basically just get the better view. I've included a video showing the differences between the views.
4. Buy the 500 Arcooda pack that is optimized for their own commercial cab. The 500 bucks is subtracted from the cost of their machine + you get the Timeshock game and shipping to the US.
5. Lastly, there are VPX games that you can download on the internet. Good News - They are good and free. Bad News - Free means that they are illegal. They also take tweaking to get to work right, but they look nice and have the newest tables.
Farsight's software is the only legal software to play the old Bally/Williams games. I also recommend Zen Pinball games, they are really fun.
I actually put a deposit down on the arcooda pack/pinball cabinet. I would have waited, but the June 30th expiration moved up my plans.
Video Pinball is not real pinball, but it is still fun.
Thanks for your detailed reply.
Why would you want a vertical view ? That sounds like the up-to-down display you see on flat panel monitors, above the machines at some tournaments. And that winds up looking more like Pachinko to me.
Re #5, any hints on where these are to be found ? (The legal / illegal distinction does not trouble me much. I'm accustomed to hunting down rare films, those withheld due to murky rights issues, or ones that could not secure a domestic distribution deal. Foreign film distribution in this country basically croaked around 20-some years ago. So, a lot of that stuff never gets here at all. If Netflix or Amazon don't pick it up, you are pretty much forced to resort to "other methods.")
Are the older B/W games fairly well represented there, or just those of the last 20 years, primarily Stern ? That bank transfer thing mentioned above is a non-starter for me also, so I think Arcooda will be out. And that payment method is required for any / all of the Arcooda options you mentioned ? If VP-Cabs or competitors cannot themselves offer those B/W games (after 6/30/18), then it looks like I'm rather unlikely to become a customer of theirs.
Regarding those 61 to-be-deleted titles, my impression is that they are not gathered together, but spread out over several packs. Just for consideration, exactly WHAT would you order, to obtain these games for Option #1, or for the IPAD, and what would that cost ?