I'm fine with emulated dmd with colorized dots if they go the CGC route and do an XL DMD, but an emulated dmd on an almost square lcd so there's a slim band in the middle and huge black bars would be a fail, IMO. And, I don't see Stern doing the CGC XL DMD screen thing. Nice thing is, with the Metallica release, we should know pretty soon what the direction is...

But will we get new art packages on the games from the photos shop era? LotR and Tron would benefit from this and possibly bring licensing costs down even further

These were their best ones...

images (19) (resized).jpeg

My dream version of the rereleases would be if they added color dots but also added IC and achievements. I doubt they would go this route, but if they could also do the rereleases at even a slightly cheaper price point than a Pro release it would be amazing.

I feel like IC would be relatively easy to add. But the question is how do you do the GUI for it if they’re not doing a serious overhaul of the graphics. Maybe they could toss a mini LCD into the apron? It could display game rules, game pricing, ads, and then do Stern IC stuff.

I don’t think they spent all that time and money to not put IC into everything they do at this point.

I kinda doubt they’d redo everything with LCD clips. Maybe for some like Metallica who seem to want to work together. But LOTR? No way

I’d love to see a video game theme pin…but I’d personally prefer Zelda. But any of these would be great: Zelda, Mario, Sonic, or Mortal Kombat.

stern Side blades for Metallica would be nice.

Guessing the new Metallica Topper will Not Work with SAM versions of the game

This would be a buy for me. I’d also be interested in a new South Park…the Panderverse would be awesome.

Obviously if they go the full LCD remake route backporting their video game engine (Unity?) code from SPIKE 3 to Whitestar is too much to ask. I don't think they'll do a full LCD remake though, that would cost money and as we all know Stern never met a penny they couldn't pinch. As others have pointed out licensing would also drastically limit their ability to remake the games people would actually want to buy at 2023 prices. That leaves a basic rerelease of possibly-fixed Whitestar/SAM code running on "it's not PinMAME, we swear" and if you're going to be running the original architecture and code anyway, the only reason not to offer the bugfixed/rebalanced code as ROM images (for a nominal fee, as PPS did with Soren code) is greed.

1. Futurama
2. Batman Animated Series
3. Tom & Jerry
4 the Advemtures of TinTin
5. X-Men ‘97
6 Pink Floyd
7 King of the Hill
8 Frasier

And of course BTTF

Make them happen Stern. Please

Assuming they don't want to re-do all the graphics, I'd replace the DMD with an LCD doing dot emulation, and would reformat the IC screens to fit the DMD height.

LED matrix panels are cheap. ColorDMD and XPin are expensive because they only need to be cheaper than the cost of a refurbished plasma DMD to sell, plus the expense of developing the ColorDMD software and translating the plasma drive signal into something the matrix controller will understand. I can buy the parts to make pinball-sized DMDs for less than $150 from Adafruit, and that's at retail prices. Stern used LEDs for the DMD on Spider-Man The Pin already. Dot emulation would be a cop-out at best and a prelude to upsell people to "real" dots at worst.

It's not about cost, I imagine they would want to add IC to games if they are going to re-release them. If so, they have three options, either go with a LED matrix panel and find somewhere to stick a small LCD, convert the whole IC interface to dot-matrix, or use their standard LCD with dot emulation.

Finding a place to stick a small LCD isn't obvious...the right side of the apron already has the IC reader, and they're not going to get rid of the price card on the left...sticking it in the playfield is a non-starter.

Converting the whole IC interface would likely be too painful if possible at all...how do you show a player's icon for example? How would you overlay all the text required for achievements?

Either they use an LCD with the existing dot emulation code they have for the service menus, or they ship these new vault versions with no Insider Connect at all...

I think were overthinking this- not like these potential re-makes are selling where they are because of their DMD animations. However they want to do this going forward it's the gameplay of these older sterns that will sell them.

Mad Max
Top Gun

I think it would take Spooky to do South Park which would be great. Too “offensive” for today’s Stern

It depends how many units these things sell. I'd guess the gameplay, playfield would always be the same, recent rereleases have come with significant code updates, but nothing too crazy, actually trying to convert current DMD screens to LCD content seems like crazy town since there is a decent percentage chance they screw it up and turn people off. More likely ColorDMD, some code change, some new DMD elements, and upgrading the system to allow for Insider Connected.

Stern shall not rest until they are getting the money, not people selling used.

The dream is to do the CGC thing and redo the dots in “HD” on a LCD screen with a DMD filter. That would make the new ones really stand out against the old ones.

A very adult version of Motley Crue would be a badass pin.

Yes, I'd assume they'd use a LCD screen to allow for all the "fun" things that pop up for Insider Connected. Like those ads!

One can dream!

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Probably right.
Elvira is about as risqué as you get now.

Would love a Batman the Animated Series although don’t see it happening with the recent passing of Kevin Conroy. Getting Mark Hammil for some Joker audio would be sweet though.

I’d love the Harley Quinn cartoon, but it’s probably too adult for what Stern has done lately.

DMD "remasters" would also allow them to create a new price point. Those older Pros typically had more going on than today's stripped versions

You didn't think you were getting a remaster for $6999 did you

Beetlejuice
Mars Attacks
Saving Private Ryan (Where are the war pins?)
Pinocchio ( Pun intended )
Tombstone
Ren and Stimpy
Animaniacs
D̶a̶t̶e̶l̶i̶n̶e̶ Cops ( bad boys, bad boys... )

I'll be here all week

These re-makes will be 10k by Christmas.

D-Day would be a pretty wild way for a pinball game to start, just immediate final wizard mode.

It's still crazy to me that Sega never made a Sonic pinball machine. It's a no-brainer.

From what I understand Sega wasn't in the business very long, bought data East then after not much time at all Stern bought them. Probably just a random purchase by the company, with no real serious pinball plans. The separate divisions likely didn't have a friendly working relationship.

For sure, I’d be all in for an LE. Same with Judas Priest, Megadeth, Pantera, Sabbath and other music pins if done right. A Tommy Lee spinning drum cage toy would be cool and don’t forget the dancing girls ha ha

Stern make a mistake? #Never

Speaking of cgc. They are the biggest joke. Almost a year and no one has a Pulp fiction yet.

This both makes me happy and distresses me at the same time. I have a METLE and not worried about paper $$$ lost. Just more that it would be a phone in, knowing a new Met will sell on name alone. Im probably in on some version at any rate.

No one can say it was unexpected

INDISC got a brand spanking new one, so I think general shipments are close.

Also, INDISC's machine has not broken down to my knowledge and has been played non-stop for 3 days, so that's a good indicator of the quality.

Pulp will be part of THE OPEN finals, so it should be streamed pretty extensively tomorrow. Dalton Ely currently has the top score on the machine at INDISC, ~30% higher than the #2 spot on Pulp.

https://www.neverdrains.com/2024/playerIndex.php?disp=game&sel=The%20Open&game=125

Yeah, I would absolutely buy a Red Dawn pin from Stern. I love that movie, grew up watching it and have seen it dozens if times. I'm not sure how widespread the appeal would be though, but I'm in...

WOLVERINES!!!

Karl confirmed it's a prototype.

When I reserved my LE on day one, I was told that production would start late fall. So at this point they're two or three months behind.

It will be a year soon enough

Maybe, but people at that point will be saying two years.

The dream for me is LCD screen the size of current stern games.

There's 26 seasons of South Park, if Stern wanted to do the game with full assets, modes, etc. There's plenty of content to pull from that's not offensive or politically controversial.

I'm not buying a southpark machine unless it IS offensive and controversial.

It's almost like you're trying to suck the fun out of a funnel cake.

Fair point then put a chick in it and make her gay

Miss Chokesonchick?

There we go

I've been suggesting a Tedgridy Farms SLE for a while.

Exactly. South Park is offensive and politically controversial.

Don’t want some watered down BS

Is there really a huge demand for another metallica if it's same game but with updated lcd with HD dots? They made a ton of them over a 5+ year period . I think there are better options like tron and lotr. So many new games available and many more coming out this year . At some point the buying will drastically slow..... you can allready see a huge decline.

You have to remember that Stern sells pins worldwide, and Metallica is huge all over the world. I can see them doing well with a refreshed Spike3 Metallica re-release. Ditto TRON, LotR and all the other Whitestar/SAM games people have been pining for. Since the R&D and most of the development (except the refreshed, colorized, parts and maybe sound) are DONE, a huge part of the costs are already paid for. Plus the RISK of a new title is minimized since they know those were hits and have a waiting buyer base. All of that is a big advantage over from-scratch pin development.