2 more weeks...
A faceless organization... with no names, no history, no specifics on their plan. Fits right into the groove...
(Topic ID: 190495)
Linked Games
Alien (Heighway Pinball)
Heighway Pinball, 2017-
Full Throttle
Heighway Pinball, 2015
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Quoted from Manimal:So if that is the case, where was this "plan" as the company was failing, and where were these investors over the past several months? Why did it have to get to this point before anyone became interested?
This may very well all be legit, and I am not trying to sway anyone or start any crap. This is just my opinion and mine alone, but it appears to me like a group of people who realized too late they are going to lose their investment, so they are trying to calm the waters and keep money from bleeding out. I don't see any new money anywhere.
More than likely these guys were minority equity owners who heighway had enlisted as backers of the venture as part of his funding of the company. I suspect the story is something like...Years go on, Andrew keeps thinning the ship because new revenue isn't coming in and they push to get alien done with that being the savior. Heighway keeps the backers from forcing the company to call it quits by showing the end is sooo close.... they make the push for expo... and they are so close.
Fast forward... and I guess the money just isn't there to see production through. I guess they only ordered sample runs of parts?? Now they can't move forward.. and someone... Andrew or the investors forces a come to Jesus point. The investors see they have assets... and the potential to get a return is there... so they put more in to make it happen. sounds like they are doubling down and taking the reins of the company in doing so to make it happen.
Since at least some of the guys have been said to be original backers, it's likely this is about saving their investment and making another round of funding... either from the same guys or by bringing in more.
Sounds like a swap for equity in an attempt to make the company viable. The question going forward is it will Andrew be reined in fully or pushed to the side entirely?
Quoted from jonesjb:I wonder if this means that if you've preordered you'll likely be getting your pin, but they might not be producing supply beyond filling order of those already pre-ordered?
That would make zero sense. They would only invest more if there was an opportunity for new revenue down the road.
Quoted from Ballypinball:Its not about ego, sold the license to do what was best for pinball, could of held the assets and done nothing.
I literally LOL'd on this one... 'what was best for pinball...'
You cashed out after years of higher aspirations failed... and probably were burned out too.
Quoted from Whysnow:I was just thinking those are examples to keep it. In both cases arent jack and gary figured heads and no longer controlling interests
I'm questioning this internet line of thinking... If that were true, why do they still introduce Gary as President and CEO?
http://www.cbs.com/shows/cbs-sunday-morning/video/dyxN01VPzb_IF_QSB77zjZvoEiCsUuFO/pinball-in-back-and-running-full-tilt/
Gary may no longer be in sole control - but I don't think there is anything to say he no longer doesn't have a controlling interest or say in things. I think the 'gary isn't meddling in the game design' type of comments have been extrapolated to say he isn't involved at all anymore.. and that would be contrary with the idea of giving him those titles.
Quoted from DerGoetz:Well, it is not.
I am the guy you are referring to. I cannot even do any of the tests suggested if I wanted to. My Utilite physically broke.
At first it seeming to be a software issue. Memory leak or something like that, I am no expert in the matter. The game would randomly start spitting out all the balls at once.
A rewrite of the SSD card (Heighway were kind enough to send me their image file, not just the update code which you would write to that USB stick) would allow me to get a few good games in, then the Utilite/code would go belly up again.
And then, one day, I woke up to
"ncq stag pm led clo only pmp pio slum part"
My SSD card is firmly in place, it seems that the slot broke. And this happened after a few good games. Not after I removed the card, wrote to it, and placed it back in the Utilite. It happened at random.
If you google "ncq stag pm led clo only pmp pio slum part" you realize that this is a typical problem with this cheap Utilite.
So, at this point I am not even interested in replacing the unit with another one of the same kind. I would like to get the new style unit that is in Alien, the Full Throttle files preloaded, so that I can swap and hopefully play again. Heighway, please PM me if you could.
That text has little to do with it... simply the machine can't read the file system. As you said, if the sd slot is broken, that's pretty much a hw failure requiring replacement. A hacker may want to try to remap the device references with another disk location... but this kind of failure isn't about unreliable PCs as some would like to make it. A simple board swap is feasible- but like u said... wait for alien gear 
Quoted from clg:FWIW there are some posts in the JJP forum about using a different motherboard. Keith says in theory it should be fine and at least one person tried it and had no issues with it. A TH/DI motherboard is higher speced then WOZ but still works in WOZ.
Having said that I totally get your point and all of these un fixable boards really worry me. Nice to be able to pull out a 25 year old board and have confidence it can be repaired pretty easily.
Alex tried to make the distribution be as agnostic as possible for future proofing. Eventually driver support will phase out and be a problem... but as long as the chipsets in use are similar... swaps are feasible
Quoted from Marv:It's either cheap mobo or these things aren't powering down properly on shutdown.
These kinds of systems have to be built assuming no shutdown. You fix that by not having the disk in r/w mode... load things to ram or very specific write/verify tasks etc.
Quoted from Marv:Correct it will be mounted +ro and cramfs loaded into ram. But something is corrupting the mbr, and I can only think of the shutting down.
well the owners seem to think it's a HW fault with the SD slot. Shouldn't be that hard to load a LiveOS type of bootable image to a SD card and see if it's possible to boot the system. Then you would know if it's HW or simply the disk image... which could be reloaded.
Quoted from TomGWI:Heighway on google
Already been covered - that is their old location.
Quoted from Toads:Your first sentence contradicts the second sentence.
The xeno mech is the main interactive toy on the game.
If it's not working in a commercial environment where people are paying to play a game, it should be turned off with an out of order sign.
The kings of pinball disagreed with you and that's why the games are written to compensate and have major assemblies be disabled. Demo claw... wcs ball... bsd mist track... taf magnets... and the list goes on and on. Alien plays fine without the xeno and still is viable in the home and route with it disabled
10 months later
Quoted from RobT:https://www.pinballnews.com/site/2018/05/10/heighway-pinball-by-the-numbers/
A net loss of nearly 2 million pounds?!
yup - TL:DR - there is nothing really recoverable from the business... it's basically 2million in the hole with tons of preferred creditors... pre-sales people ain't getting dick
Some interesting numbers there... and of course more data supporting the idea that it was Andrew's business making decisions that ultimately made the company unsustainable no matter what.
Quoted from rubberducks:They may have some spares, but it's unlikely they'd be able to order new batches large enough to make it affordable for consumers.
Or if the china company is slick in the first place... and will sell you PinBro boards that are functionality equivalent
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