I see that from your collection and history

He Man? #4. Didn’t mention it

It’s massive with the target demographic, judging by popular events like TPF.

I, for example, look totally stereotypical pinball old fart like the majority at TPF. 50 year old pasty dude (=me), bald, beard with enough disposable income to blow on a toy that costs >$10000.

And yes, BTTF, Jaws, James Bond is exactly the blockbusters that guys like me grew up with.

Next Star to Wars, Harry Potter, and Die Hard the BTTF movies are almost always on TV. If BTTF 3 is the only license they can get they would be better off doing a ZZ Top pin as it would sell more. That’s the worst of the 3 movies but it was still pretty good.

BTTF is absolutely huge…people will collect anything they can from those movies…..a hover board, futuristic Pepsi bottle, self tying Nike shoes etc. they were great movies at the time. A kick ass pin vs the shitty pin we have would sell to so many people. This has been discussed to death and plenty of people have already said they would be all in.

Jaws is a little dated and it sounds cool but I think it’s limited unless you create some cool mechs….problem is we have in our minds the size of Jaws from the toy from back in the day and I don’t think it will fit under the glass…so it would take some real creativity…..maybe “borrow” from MM and have an exploding shark…Smile you Son of a Bitch!

Bond has no interest for me as a theme.

He-Man only sounds cool if there is a Skeletor version. I doubt He-Man is unlikely to happen….I hope.

Hey everybody, Stern just announced Elwin’s new pin Jaws, check out these “flippers” going crazy !

Fail to see what my collection has to do with it. Unless that's just your way of swinging a dick?
In which case, I am comletely impressed with your ability to purchase every machine that Stern, JJP and others shit out. I spend my monies elsewhere.

I don't see the appeal of Toy Story and I certainly don't see the appeal of another BTTF pin. There's a ton of stuff out there that has way more upside than wasting money on nostalgia Licenses.

Like what? Because most of pinside is lined up to buy a BTTF pin if it happens (for whatever reason). What ton of stuff do you think would do better?

Exactly….when you have people lined up saying “Shut up and Take my Money” as a manufacturer that’s easy money so of course you make it and watch the cash roll in.

Small TS4 diversion, but this is a fun game of trivia. You missed a couple;

GOT
GB
Mando (probably will need to take to ask for a Wopner if this can be considered a Star Wars "remake". I argue no)
Supreme on a technicality haha

Also the term remake seems odd. Is it relevant that Sega made 500 Godzilla machines (that you probably will never get to play) such that you cannot get excited about arguably Stern's best game of all time? Not judging, I am genuinely curious.

Toy Story content....looks like both the Olympia and Seattle pinball museums have the game to play. Will be nice to give it a try one of these days.

Normally I’d agree - but after JP, I’m open to a new pinball narrative, especially if Elwin did it…and they got the real Doc & Biff for callouts, and the player was Marty or a new kid to go on new time travel adventures….it could work.

I think they should stop chasing high dollar licenses and start picking up licenses that would allow more money to go into the pin itself.

There's an almost completely unmined market in Sci Fi Fantasy. Warhammer 40k would sell itself and that is one example of dozens.

Pick a Game company and team up on a release. Imagine a Pin released concurrent with something like Elden Ring...would be huge and bring in a lot of interest from people outside the pin market.

These are obvious and easy examples of Themes where an entire world is pre-created and its adaptation to pinball would be simple and maybe even boost exposure for the Licensee.
Something like Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn or Brian Mclellan's Powder Mage Trilogy are tailor made for the physics of pinball. And Licenses wouldn't kill your BOM.

Could be a home run if Stern actually gets any assets, but thats probably wishful thinking? That being said I bagged on JP for a long time for not getting any assets, but that game is the real deal.

Damn.

I thought the bubble had burst.

Wrong. BTTF: The Musical opens on Broadway next year. If it's big enough for Broadway, it's still big enough for pinball. But back to JJP...

Holy false equivalence Batman, dropping $100 for an evening out is not the same as $12000 on a pin. I don't disagree that BTTF might be a good theme but your argument is not a good one.

I think what he was saying is that if BTTF is still popular enough to draw a crowd for Broadway, then its popular enough to sell as a pinball machine..

OMG NOOO. That would be a horrible show.
Does the poor prop guy have to pick up manure every night?

Well if you think Warhammer 40K is more popular for selling pinball machines that BTTF we'll just agree to disagree.
Don't know if pinball companies know how to work with companies for concurrent releases anymore; it would be great but has happened in a long time. Would your core Pin demo sign up sight unseen for an Elden Ring machine? No idea...worth a shot. Stern has had a flop or 2 so you know they can make survive.

That is exactly what he said, and its nonsense, what I said is getting butts in seats from tourist looking for a way to spend $100 on a night out is not at all the same as getting people to drop $12000 on a pin. How are these two demographics in any way connected? There are plenty of reasons BTTF would be good as a pin but a Broadway show is not one of them. What's next should they do Cats or Hamilton the pin, those can pull a crowd on Broadway. I am just kidding around a little but I do love these really weird comparison that seemed to have spawned from politicians talking nonsense.

Apparently you've been lucky enough to dodge the dozen threads were countless people are pledging first-born children to Stern for a BTTF game with "assets."

I dont think its nonsense. Maybe I am wrong but I wouldnt think people would spend $100 on something they have no clue about or dont like. I wouldnt at least.. And Broadway isnt going to put out something that has no interest.

BTTF has a huuuge following.

Lighten up Francis, you said you didn’t like those themes or most of what Stern pumps out so I wondered what you did like.

Based on your pins I see why. That’s it. Everybody has different likes and dislikes

LMFAO you think warhammer 40k would be a better seller than BTTF? BTTF would be the best selling machine in decades if its even halfway decent. Theres not a theme that is more wanted in the community than back to the future. "saving money" on the theme isn't going to put more in the machine either, it'll just put more money in sterns pockets (look at black knight for a recent example). Maybe YOU don't care for BTTF as a theme, and thats fine, but everything you've said is laughably wrong. You have to realize your tastes are quite outside what is mainstream popular (and thats OK). These theme ideas you've thrown out would be a joke, maybe you can convince AP to make them.

Pinheads?

5D37757D-459A-4422-BC6C-7ABA8BD5B5CD (resized).jpeg

When's the last time a Broadway show was 100 bucks?

Exactly what I meant.

Apples to oranges on the Cats and Hamilton example. They didn't start out as blockbuster movies in the 80s whose fans are now mostly middle aged guys with some cash to burn.

I'm willing to wait a year to see if I'm right, but I predict the Broadway show will crash pretty quickly and the BTTF pin will sell out in minutes.

I'd argue that carnival MB is a mini-wizard mode. You have to work a bit to get to it, and it has multiple stages.

So you've got Carnival MB, Meet me at the Carousel, and Fireworks. So that's 3 distinct wizard modes. Granted, Fireworks is essentially just a Victory Laps mode, but it still counts.

Can we all agree on one thing... that the price of TS4 is quite expensive?

I see about 8-10 people on this site repeating this relentlessly but I have yet to meet a pinhead who has once mentioned BTTF as a Theme they want to see. Not one.

Back to the Future for pinheads would destroy Toy Story in terms of sales and interest. At this point I hope Stern is making it with Elwin designing and Dwight on code. If you think Godzilla is selling well just wait for BTTF pinball assuming it’s done right.

Jaws is by far my number one, but BTTF would also be a must buy.
I don’t even know what Warhammer is.

Bro I don't know where you're hanging out but its not reality.

Like Hollywood who are running out of ideas for the big screen now Broadway too. Marty McFly running around on live stage. Ugh!

JJP has it locked up on BTTF 3.

Another role playing game. My nephew is into it these days. Building their models and such.
Didn’t know either till he told me.

Dwight on time travel. Can’t wait for that tutorial. Lol

You are certainly one of the chorus.

You need to get out more.

Say what...?!

Well you can go ahead add and me to your list, guess that makes 9-11 on this site

I played TS4 today around 20 games and overall it was fun but nothing I feel like I would ever buy, even it was only $9K like a Stern premium, it's just not for me. I think people who like it will like it but just not my cup of tea, I would rate it as one of the lesser JJP games kind of ok not worth $12K imo but some people will surely love it and that's all that matters.

As for the price, I understand it because it'll sell in this pinball market, I was thinking that the price is crazy to me but I am not buying it, someone who likes it will likely see fair value. I want a nice Tron myself and would pay a good deal, but if you look at the number of switches or coils and the the code or what you get in Tron, it's not really worth $8/9/10K but that's what a nice one would go for nowadays.

TLDR:

I got a chance to play TS4 today, there are 3 arcades within 5 miles of each other in Oviedo FL they have many nice pins LE versions of Elvira, JP, GB, TBL, CCR, AFM, Mando, etc.. they have quite a few pro versions and premiums but I think they buy to get the games as quick as possible. I mean they got GZ LE because that was the first out.

One arcade (Arcade Monsters) is an all day pass which was $24 (that's a bit pricy imo) but I support them for getting nice pins. Another (District Eat and Play) is $36 for the month which is much better deal and they have many more pins but they didn't have TS4 yet but they have every other JJP pin.

The third arcade has the most pins (The Pinball Lounge) but they are pay to play like $1/game or $2=3games.

That is just to set the table so to speak that ops can't buy these pins. There were two TS4 LEs within 3 miles of each other.

Here is what I found from playing like 20 games on TS4..

Pros:
TS4 looks nice and well built and solid feeling like every other JJP. The shots were nice the captive ball and ball lock felt nice and rewarding. The Kaboom ramp was very nice and probably the funnest shot on the game. The lights were nice especially the hot rails (or whatever they are called). The game is fun enough to play on location, I wouldn't regret putting $$ into it. I had been worried that the game or the code would be too easy but not to me, it seemed OK difficulty and enough code. I will play TS4 again to me this game is funner than GnR but I really don't click with GnR.

Cons:
The rules are just ok, the call outs are not my favorite ("hit the magenta and yellow shots" or "hit the cyan and green shots" or 'Hit Everything"). I guess they are instructuve tell me to hit the inner orbit or ramp but they don't make me laugh or have anything extra special for me. Maybe because I don't care for the theme being TS4. I am a huge fan of TS 1 and 2 and 3 was good too but TS4 is the weakest BY FAR and didn't use all the characters I really liked. The Theme is a minus as is they theme song played over and over and over. It also suffered form having every shot list up in different colors too much (to much for me) and I hated the digital pinball game. I think the iPad display is a waste everything in it could be on the big display and they virtual game is not for me. I don't like most video modes in pinball but this especially because it takes up a lot of real estate.

The game I played the inner loop feed to the small flipper was not feeding the flipper the ball was typically a quarter inch away from the flipper so it wasn't easy or consistent to make any shot with the small upper flipper. I am not holding that against the game but it didn't play 100% to me. Also don't know if this is typical but the slings seems to be oriented a bit off (to my eye the right sling was a bit more laid back) and the ball would volley back and forth a lot, not always but one time the ball volleyed back and forth like ten times, god I hope that's not normal because it's almost a game killer in my opinion of that's normal. I will again chalk that up to maybe the setup or this specific example.

Please add me. Now we are up to 10-12 on BTTF.

Yet they all clammer for Warhammer!

Believe me I'm not creaming my jeans over it at all, but over 10 years there's more than a couple people.
And even then its certainly at worst the same size as Iron Maiden beggers we had to listen to for 8 years; and that shit happened; and it was great!

Yep. But wtf is Warhammer? Comic book ?

Its a action figure painting/roll playing game originally. So videa games as well

I finally played TS4 at Pintastic early this morning. The game is super silky smooth. Those shots make the ball seem like its gliding around. Theme is still cool even though its the 4th movie. Everything was easy to understand and what to shoot for was lit up (it was before people arrived so I could hear the game).

What I didn't like about it (besides the price).... yes, the game is easy to shoot. While software can make progressing harder, it won't change that playfield and how easy the shots are to make. Taking into account the entire game features and play, as well as what they clearly stated was their target audience, JJP nailed it. For anyone that is a decent/good player, for anyone that runs tourneys or league (which I do at IIA), then the game is not for you. I would not have that game active in any competition as the ball times are massive.

I would have loved to play it more, but by the time I was back later to play again, the lines were long and I had a date with Oktoberfest and Heist

Is it any easier shootinthst something like NGG? That might be the easiest buttery smooth shooter ever.

Darn, if I ultimately like TS4, it is only because I am a beginner/intermediate player.

Well this is your game

And if anyone can’t like GNR and all it brings to the table for pinball then you are a total no hoper

The pricing has gone crazy.

But JJP still delivers a great experience

GNR and Wonka ain’t going anywhere

Toy Story looks like a lot of fun. The pricing has hit a wall. Feels like game over on that front.

SM, butter smooth too

I tried it today too and would agree with the easy shot assessment. Fun flow very controllable but almost lethargic slingshots. Felt like an old EM with big rubbers. The video pinball had a touch of lag as well. But if this game is a doorway for a new generation of players I welcome it. Hope someone routes a copy near me.I’ll play it…