According to Sharpe, he could have had that license in the 90s at Williams.

I was told the same about an updated KISS machine. "Gene Simmons wants too much money. Will never happen."

I now have a KISS Pro in my games room. Dreams do come true. Harry Potter pinball will happen, just like an updated Back to the Future pin will happy. Money talks.

I think the answer is simple. Clearly you must be the manliest man and the alphaest alpha here.

I've read the books multiple times. I've even read the entire series of books aloud to my kids before they could read on their own (they are in grade 2 and 4 now). The first, let's say 3 books, are more for children but as you read deeper the subject matter becomes darker. Much darker. Back stories are revealed, characters die, characters are tortured. Then there's the entire comparison to a 'dark power' taking over the world. Sound familiar? The entire series has some deep, dark undertones and you can't help but make comparison's with Earth's history. Yes, there are corny bits. The first book/movie should not be a reference for your entire opinion. I would say everything really picks up at book 5, with the movies picking up at 3. Deathly Hallows is the culmination of everything. The movies for this book really capture everything right. The foreboding, the hopelessness, the weight on the oppressed.

My point being, HP is not for everyone. However, if you do want to form a solid, valid opinion, read the entire series, or watch all of the movies. Yes there are some stinker moments, but every series has these. Does no one remember Star Wars Episode I? Imagine this was the first Star Wars movie you ever watched. Would you form an opinion on the entire Star Wars saga because you thought pod racing was stupid? No.

The short of it is I would buy a HP pinball machine because I enjoyed the books. I enjoyed the movies. My kids enjoyed them both. My wife enjoyed them both. Our family is all in and it would be a pin I could honestly buy with near minimal arguments from my spouse. This is coming from someone who's into pinball while his wife frown's on every pin I bring into the house.

I hope JKR changes her opinion.

If Stern's making it, then I "EXPECTO DISAPPOINTUM"

If Stern is making it, I expect they will go into it thinking it could be 1/2 a box of lights and still sell.

Stern bashing. So original. How do you guys come up with this stuff?

Uh, past performance and similar quotes from Gary regarding SW?

Well it’s really pretty hard. Stern employs like hundreds of people that keep making garbage and work really hard doing so, and a bunch of marks lap up whatever milk they squeeze out, and then I play them and be honest.

I'm on noones side here (truth lies in between as so often) but that last sentence is epic!

Stern can make excellent games. Stern can take risks. Stern can built new mechs.
But to do this I prefer to have an 'old & forgotten' franchise, that won't cost them a lot to license (because that takes money out of the BOM) and they have more freedom with.
Stern getting an expensive & restrictive license like Harry Potter and have to built a 'Pro' within Budget... I'd rather pass. (Didn't warm up with Star Wars theme integration.)

I have no interest in the theme but pretty much the same for most games lately. If it's a good player I'll enjoy it on route and league.

My wife would want it but she never plays

I also shit on Harry Potter for years. I was living with a couple that had two kids at the time and I read literally everything on their bookshelf other than her guides to scrapbooking and his MOPAR repair manuals. Finally I grabbed their 9 year old's Harry Potter book. It was fucking fantastic. Excellent word play, pacing, character development, it's everything you could hope for in a novel. It starts off fairly light but by the end they've killed off roughly as many main characters as Game Of Thrones. She's in the top ten best selling writers of all time for a reason and I've never met a person who finished the first book and didn't enjoy it. That being said, I didn't like the movies at all. If they do release a pinball machine based on Potter I hope they stick to the books.

Wwe rule #1. Never break kayfabe

Well I can't argue with that, but in pinball thats still only puts me in the Lambda's no one near the Alpha Beta's Now theres a great theme for pinball machine. Revenge of the Nerds.

Revenge-of-the-Nerds-1984-revenge-of-the-nerds-11732616-950-534 (resized).jpgmaxresdefault (resized).jpg

I was told that the Beatles would never happen as well.

Yep, Stern will pursue these licenses for years and as they start running out of old blockbuster themes, they will then re-visit license holders and possibly wave more money around in the hope of making a deal.

OMEGA-MU MULTIBALL!

Source?

(Edit: Ah, it's you... Ok, no source needed then. )

If true btw, they really should have spent SOME $$$ on art.

(LE Cab & Backglass is handdrawn btw. looks great in person. I'd stick that over my pro if I ever have one.)

I don’t know how anyone can say Hobbit is a great pin. beautiful yes but one of the most boring pins I’ve owned and no matter how much code they add you can’t overcome a crappy playfield with almost nothing challenging to shoot. JJP has made a few amazing pins but Hobbit ain’t one of them

Yes. GOT LE cabinet and backglass hand drawn art is fantastic. The artist is Bob Stevlik. The dragon and backglass characters are amazing and he would do a great job capturing HP. You need to look close to see the detail.

Uh, Pinsiders love to quote this, but never produce a link.

Almost undoubtedly taken out of context.

I love when people are stern bashing on just the very idea of a theme. At least go stern bash on an existing turd like the Beetles.

That's Beatles!

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I heard there were some bad reviews of the new fantastic beasts movie coming out.....I’ll stick to my Nastilgic memories of the original series

Bah! I'm seeing it on Sunday and I'll form my own opinions of it. I haven't always agreed with reviews.

I agree, but I didn’t like the first so, I’ll wait until it’s streamable to watch...

It’s too soon for a Harry Potter pinball....need to wait about another 25 years until the kid who grew up watching Harry Potter are in their 50s and 60s. Then Stern will make only about 2000 of them and sell them at $50,000 a pop for SLE level games. That’s their business model. See recent games (Beatles, Munsters?, and BM66) as reference. It’s in their long range growth plan.

Ahhh. I see. Wait until the license isn’t as popular as it is now. Then The license will be cheaper.

Will Harry Potter be a rethemed Seawitch? Hey!

maybe Stars

Same here

Harry Potter is rumored to be a retheme of Nine Ball with additional zazzles

Sure and rumour is another rumour ...
Keep going !
S.P

LOL JJP is on game 4 yet they are going back to WOZ and putting out a new edition they are grasping at straws they still don't get it the games have weak sales because of price not because people don't like the games

Right! Just like the Beatles license.

So Gary should wait until he's close to 100 years of age before attempting to make money from a HP license, that may or may not be poplar in 2043, when he could make guaranteed money now?

Stern shouldn't come within 100 feet of Harry Potter. Although I'm not a huge Harry Potter fan I know people would look for that pinball to be more collector than anything else. I doubt very seriously the owner of Harry Potter who has over 1 billion dollars cares about a check from Stern for a million. I think she would care more about how it turned out... which is why she'll go with JJ IF and ONLY IF she decides to approve the game.

Warner has a track record now with JJ... WOZ, HOBBIT and now WILLY WONKA. Jersey Jack will get that pinball if it ever gets approved.

Warner hasn't really worked with Stern in a decade back to Batman Dark Knight. I don't think Batman 66 is actually warners it was FOX.

So no recent track record what so ever and JJ has three games already. I'm going with JJ on this one.

Anyone that thinks that the current Stern games can even come close to the quality and feel of the JJP machines is just being delusional. Try playing a JJP machine for about 10 minutes; just pick any game that they make, and then play a recent stern machine, and it feels like you are playing a toy rather than a $6000 pinball machine. At some point Stern needs to stop worrying about increasing profit margins and start focusing on making machines that feel like $6,000 - $10,000 machines. Its not even close.

This would be a hard pass for me no matter who makes it.

LOL go to the JJP POTC club thread most of what they talk about is how to fix all the issues the game has

PanzerFreak is so awesome. "CSCMTP" is a Pinsider who bought the Hobbit on early code, proclaimed his love for the game and then sold it before the updates made it whole. Now cscmpt trolls Pinside to let everyone know he NOW hates the game and infects every Hobbit thread. Total hypocrite douchebag but PanzerFreak called him out. Thanks PF.

This horse has been beaten many, many times. There are those that would agree with you like myself and those that would very much disagree. I have played the latest Sterns and while I think they are cool games when it comes to looks and theme and rules their quality is lacking, in my opinion,. The JJP POTC however is a kick ass game and feels like a tank whereas the Sterns feel like a Barbie Jeep from Wallmart. If JJP were to make HP I would try like hell to buy one where if Stern did it I wouldn't bother.

Early production my god man the unveiling was 14 months ago

Yeah, JJP machines definitely feel more "solid", and have lots of stuff going on. I balance that with JJP makes machines that cost from 8k to 12.5k. Stern makes machines that cost from 5.6k to 8.5k. That's going to come out somewhere.

I haven't found a JJP yet that where I really enjoy the theme and the game play enough to make me lay out the extra cash for one. Maybe Toy Story will change my mind, definitely the best theme for me personally out of what they have done so far. In general though, I find Stern machines to be more fun, which I will take over "quality and feel" every day.

PS -> Unless you are an operator, Pinball machines are toys. They are just really expensive toys.

I always hear how great it is that Jack has these looooong test periods so as to smooth things out Jack has had more than enough time

Maybe theyre having trouble with the JJPOTC single spinning disk (sorry couldn’t resist).