This is what should have happened:

JPP: hi, we want to do a toy story 1/2 pin with Woody, Buzz and all the memorable characters everyone loves.
Disney: No. But you can have the ts4 licence with lots of boring characters noone remembers.. and for a huge cost ofc.
JJP: Can we have Buzz, Woody and the gang somewhere on the actual playfield please?
Disney: No. Well, ok, but only as tiny cake decoration figurines.
JJP: Can we at least have some cool mech dominating the upper part of the playfield?
Disney: No, but you can have another huge ass screen there, as if the original huge backbox display wasn't enough.
JJP: *fuck this* Thanks but no thank you; bye!
Disney: But, but.. it's ts4 .. please love it *cries*
JJP: Goes and acquires another licence, for less money, elsewhere.
Pat lawlor: Yay, I've got more artistic freedom to actually design a masterpiece how I want it.
Everyone else: Horayyy!!

Me personally I have 0 interest in this TS4 pin.

So true (about JP being a masterpiece). Tim Stiles heroic work to add the JP movie/audio assets is also a masterpiece. Like having 2 games in one. The difficulty of the game is also perfect for my play level...

How can anyone hate the Family Guy license? Didn't even consider that

We'll have to disagree on how well it shoots...does nothing for me.

You're in a creative field...you've never produced content that makes you cringe? Or at least be critical of? I know I'm pretty critical of the work I've done over the years. Not all uniformly great, unfortunately. Can't imagine SR thinks LZ is his best work. So yeah, I thought Pat might have been critical of some of his Stern work. Shit, the guy retired soon after Family Guy IIRC.

The Toy Story rumor has been around for so many years, is it possible it was always for the "new" movie coming, and the game was released all these years later?

Time hasn't been kind to TS4, and the release now seems odd.

TS4 movie reminds me of Godfather 3

Except I’ll probably watch GF3 again.

Just when I thought I was out...I'm still out.

Already on its way…

Great upcoming JJP themes:

Godfather 3

Matrix Resurrections

Rocky V

Mighty Ducks 3

Police Academy 4

Speed 2 Cruise Control

Paul Blart - Mall Cop 2

Next Karate Kid

Jaws Revenge

Toy Story 7

$1k by Christmas.

Correction: I was referring to Black light prod, not Swainer. I was agreeing with Swainer. I reread and can see how it’s confusing.

Consider the time in pinball history. Gary & Pat were both interested in operators & location, but they both had a totally different view. Pat saw FGY as something limited to adult locations only. Bars, period. He knew they couldn’t sell any to family locations - or even family home collectors. Gary, knowing how well South Park sold & earned, saw it as a winner for bar/college locations & for home buyers who wanted a game with some comedy/edge. Gary called all the shots on themes, and often bumped heads with the designers. Ritchie had to beg & scream to do Spider-Man…Gary thought it was some baby kid theme like Barney & didn’t want to do it. Gary kept trying to do what he thought would be great “adult/bar” themes like WOF, 24 & CSI - and those themes dragged the company to its lowest point. Stern still does some adult-ish themes like GOT & Walking Dead, but they’re more “cool” pop culture themes that people are really passionate about.

I’m not sure if Pat hated FGY overall, but he hated it as a pinball theme. That being said, he was totally professional & watched every single episode. He had a ton of great ideas to translate the show into pinball. The initial pitch of the mini pinball was that it was a Stewie mind control invention. I don’t think that “plot” is really there in the final game, but it still works. We shot some ideas down, but gave him a ton of others & he rolled with them. He originally wanted the evil monkey to be moving around on a track, like the DI guy. We didn’t think the monkey should be out all the time…since he always hides in the closet. So, the monkey became the ramp flap target. I pitched that it would be funny for there to be a Meg shot that’s just there to beat on her, and that ended up in the game. We were trying to get Herbert in the game, but Stern said “no pedophiles in the game”….but then they hired Trudeau….oooph.

South park vault if released tomorrow would outsell TS4 4to1. Still ready to play TS4 and form my own opinion, we all know the theme wouldnt matter for me im out on all JJP games, i will still fix them in home for money no problem. Maybe some day i will share my experiences publicly with a WOZ on location VS a stern Spiderman home model at the same location. How much time, money and parts it cost me on each, WOZ is long gone from there, spiderman is still there.

We waited several years for Toy Story and we were expecting the equivalent of a first generation Ford Mustang with a high output V8. What we got was a Ford Mustang II that was built on the Ford Pinto platform with a low output 4 cylinder.

Yeah, it's a Mustang, but it's not the iconic Mustang that we all wanted, expected, and are passionate about.

I can admit this, but to me that’s the entire appeal of Jurassic Park…dinosaurs, and Stern made one of the coolest mechs ever prominently featuring that very thing. I have never once felt like I was missing something from that Pin because it didn’t have Jeff Goldblum’s face on it. The dinosaurs are the show stopper for me. Buzz and Woody and the original cast are what makes Toy Story for me, not Little Bo Peep, Gabby and Forky. Even with that being said, if JJP made some kind of crazy Forky mech I could probably get over the theme. At the end of the day I want fun gameplay and cool mechs more then anything else.

This is $12k - $15k?!

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Ok…

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WOW...that really looks pretty bare.

That’s weak sauce. At least nothing to break or adjust.

Out. They have (largely) priced operators out of the market. Yes some will be on location, and yes you can potentially in this market buy as a novelty and then move on after a few months. However if I have $12K and think about buying a given machine or machines to enhance my arcade from a value perspective I can do way better. I would have bought at $8K and was planning to do so even before reveal, and even then to be honest it was making less and less financial sense. But much like an auction you have to have a price limit. At this price level I’ll go play it somewhere else. It can be the next coming of pinball and I’m still out. Not making any commentary on those who bought. We each have our reasons, and I’m glad they found it worth paying for. I fully accept that if this is the new entry price point, Pinball as a feature point for my arcade will be on the downslope unfortunately.

Yeah when they showed the early reveal picture, I was hoping that the 4 coils top of the playfield would be for an interesting mech but they ended up being four bumpers
And I was hoping the bare corners were for a mini playfield where it was for an ipad

Darn I was wrong and wrong

Holy smokes! Not that coil count really matters at the end of the day, but has anyone done one on TS yet?

I’m sure this will be a fun game, but it’s not going to win any bang for the buck votes. All kidding aside, I do wonder if they have Godfather 3 to fill that rumor. I love my two JJP games that I have (WOZ and GnR)…but they could use some licensing help.

Yes. It's in one of these threads. Easy to count in the manual.

Why not just play virtual/digital pinball if the real games are going this route? Major disappointment.

Wow looks very underwhelming just hope code can make it fun but we will see.

Well technically not a dupe since he started this account 6 days after cancelling the OG one

Agreed.

Let's be honest: Jurassic Park is good despite the shit use of their license. For me, it was, and still is, a huge let down that they couldn't get proper licensing for this game. And, much like TWD, it is still amazing despite the lack of assets. Also like TWD, I've come to love what it is they've given us. Great games that are asset adjacent situations, not direct copies of the movies beat for beat.

He’s such a piece of work. Easily rattled. Fun for hours.

The Lightyear movie underperformed pretty significantly at the box office. Imagine how bad it would have been if this were a Lightyear pin. This isn't a bulletproof IP. It only resonates with people when done right, and neither the movie nor the pin seem to be living up to the expectations of the public.

Pins aren't released with movies so that wouldn't happen.

It used to happen all the time...

FACTS

I've really tried not to comment since the reveal.

I've also been waiting 3+ years for JJP to announce Toy Story. I've been boring my daughter with updates and rumors all that time because I really wanted to buy it to play with my grandson. (500 Woody editions! 500 Buzz Lightyears!) I got on an early CE list. I've owned pins since the 70's and have no issue paying JJP's price for a top notch Toy Story pinball machine.

The reveal left me underwhelmed, to say the least. The weakest film in the franchise. A huge tablet in place of a mech. Cake top characters that you can purchase for under $30 total. An NGGish layout. Annoying sound clips. A price tag of $12,000- $15,000.

Still, I promised my daughter I would get one. I notified my distro that I was out on the CE. I showed my daughter and grandson the JJP promo. My plan was to buy an LE if they liked it. After she stopped laughing at the actor's over the top reaction to the super jackpot, this was her comment. (I also showed her the Joe Katz gameplay footage)

"It seems like they got an empty cabinet, cut and pasted alot of Toy Story 4 art, already had a carnival theme and glued some figures on it".

I told her I'd still get one but she said "Spend half the money and get a new Stern".

Having a daughter that grew up with a pinball obsessed father is pretty cool .

*Speaking of which, Happy Father's Day to all the Pinball Pops out there.

So did sub 5K games.

Sounds like she’s pretty smart too!

Thank you, Sir.

Whelp I figured I now finally have a chance with TS4 out......I know not on your list, but... I would 100% be in for a Police Academy 5 Assignment Miami Beach...

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I wanna say that JPP build quality is amazing - but the play field issues are well documented and I personally have had to fix some issues with my WW. Their themes are offbeat, which I like and they have moved pinball forward with their larger scenes, goodbye DMDs thanks to JJP. GnR, for me (totally subjective), was a bust and sold fast (no where near as good as most of the rock pins) and I think that people holding on to LEs and SEs will be losing money.
Now, TS4. 4? Really, so this is marketing for a movie that has a very good chance of being forgettable? The first was good, 3 was good (some will say better), but whatever - this should have been just Toy Story, period. Is Woody the voice of the machine? I dont know, but if not, pleeeease. No, Im not in. But, Im sure it will sell out - hope all who buy it love it and have no play field issues.

If you've played any Pat game since like TZ, you'll notice that Pat is Pat's biggest fan.

As an example, I had some more time on TS4 last night, heard an "it's not plugged in yet!" callout for the scoop. Stuff writes itself at this point.

The $2200 shipped NIB WPT and WOF Starburst/Playdium closeout sale sure was a bad time for Stern. Looking back now it's crazy that I got 3 NIB WOF and a WPT for almost $4k less than a TS4 LE.

I still have my Family Guy that I pre-ordered from Jersey Jack in 2006. I think it's a great game with a unique Lawlor layout, deep rules and loads of custom callouts. It was a dream theme for me BITD I'm glad they built it.

Addams family, Lethal Weapon 3, Apollo 13, pretty much every big 90s movie got a pinball released at the same time

Yeah I remember. I have no idea why people still think it happens and every new movie released or upcoming release they hope a pin will be attached to it.

Toy Story was 27 years ago (1995)
Toy Story 2 was 23 years ago (1999)
Toy Story 3 was 12 years ago (2010)
Toy Story 4 was just 3 years ago (2019) making it the most relevant.

Your trying to polish this turd with some classic game name dropping thrown in your comment. Not gonna fall for it. Those games rule, this game for double the price sucks arse.

GNR LE was 9.5k and GNR CE was 12.5k new, just something to think about. I'm sure TS'4' isn't bad game and I was a buyer at 10 but not 12 and certainly not 15, there is a limit. It really doesn't go any deeper than that for me and I'm not sure we'll see the usual turn around acceptance like always from some of the haters simply due to the price.

$51 million dollars and it had a Thursday evening release. Light year is officially a bomb. I will not see it let alone pay money to see it. Huge disappointment like this pin.

Relevant definitely doesn’t mean good.

Relevant doesn't equal good or popular, just saying. The early movies are way more famous and widely known than the last one imo.

Heck, I got three kids age 8-14 and all of them have seen movie 1 and 2 but not 3 or 4.

Great anecdotal evidence! Check out the box office and reviews of all the movies. They are pretty close. Toy Story 4 is the consensus worst of the four in terms of reviews but some people seem to think it’s Ishtar. Toy Story 4 is still a very solid Pixar movie and Pixar pushes the envelope for storytelling and animation.

Watch 3. It is super good.

Can we all just agree nobody likes Stern Family Guy as much as Rarehero ?

Dunno... Glen likes it as much as Rarehero... Gigitty!

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