Haven't read through this whole thread, but I'll vote for:

Mission impossible -- hopefully without an Angus style Tom Cruise face in the middle of the pro play field. Good intense music, can be about blowing stuff up (maybe modes to infiltrate a terrorist camp and then a wizard mode to blow some terroristy thing up).

Realistically -- a music pin or a superhero theme.

Yeah, the rumors are wrong a lot, so take everything with a grain of salt. That being said the next pin is 100% TMNT, you can take that to the bank! (well, that's my guess at least)

Well, apparently one false rumor is that the next pin is TMNT -- not sure who started that one . . .

According to mnpinball tmnt is not the next game. Has he ever been wrong?

Heavy Metal, ah that movie. I remember as a kid watching it on HBO shocked that something like that existed. It might have made a fun quirky pin if it had the full LCD treatment. Seems more like a spooky type pin though as it might sell 500 or so.

I do think it's a good sign for the industry that contract games like these are being made -- it means people are starting to think of pinball again.

Well, to dive into something I know little about* isn't there a huge salary discrepancy between Australia and the States in raw dollar amount? I think even your minimum wage is over $18 and hour, right? Makes sense that a distributor has to make more Australian dollars profit to make a living than one in the States does. Still seems really pricey though -- wish you guys got cheaper machines for sure.

*100% of all my Australian economic knowledge comes from this one article (which I skimmed for 30 seconds): https://www.afr.com/policy/tax-and-super/australia-s-average-wage-is-30-per-cent-above-world-average-20190411-p51d3e

Like it or not, Stern tries really hard to keep the next release secret. The more obviously the clue points in one direction, the less likely that will be the next pin.

The puzzles are cool looking -- they have talented artists at their disposal now. Maybe this is a creative way to try to get them more money in between pins?

Well, what we know is:
1. Stern has the rights to do a Godzilla theme pinball game of some kind.
2. Gomez has stated that they only do a theme if one of their team really has its heart and soul into working with that theme.
3. Dwight Sullivan stated on a podcast (I think) that multiple teams at Stern really wanted to do a Godzilla themed game.

This really seems to imply that a Godzilla game is coming sometime, but as far as I know everything else is up in the air. Now the puzzle pieces initially made me think that Godzilla was a ways off because it was too obvious with the scales and then the Japanese writing. Now I'm thinking there's a possibility this is a more elaborate troll. Get everyone thinking it's Godzilla, then throw them off the scent with the puzzle, then release Godzilla in two weeks. Sort of a big reach here though.

Honestly I don't blame Stern for keeping things close to the vest. Things get really out of hand when a theme is known before the reveal. We get everyone designing the ultimate pin based on the theme and there's no way the actual pinball machine will live up to this hype and everyone is disappointed at the reveal. I kind of like the secrecy as well as it's a lot of fun trying to guess what's next. After the reveal I'm either not interested or bummed that there's another cool game out there that I probably can't afford to buy.

Huge prediction here! Here's some awesome logic on why I am 3% convinced that this is actually happening:

1. Right before stranger things was released Brian Eddy kept dropping super obvious hints on a podcast that he was working on a Bill and Ted's most excellent Adventure pin. These clues were so obvious that I knew for sure we would not be seeing a Bill and Ted Pin.
2. But . . . Bill and Ted involves time travel and get this, so does Back to the Future!
3. Clearly, Brian Eddy has been working on a Back to the Future pin. Not sure of any other logical conclusion

The thing is that the movie doesn't really have to stand the test of time to be a good pinball theme. It just needs to inspire nostalgia and ideally a way to tie it to pinball somehow (the tough part). BTTF works in both regards as the time travel stuff can actually be utilized in pinball mores so than a lot of other themes. Not my ideal theme, but I can see why people want it.

Does Delt passing on a machine mean he will only buy and sell it twice?

As long as it has a lower playfield. As much as I want a Welk, a Welk without a lower playfield is worse than no Welk at all.

Why did people doubt it when MNpinball confirmed it? He's literally never been wrong about a new release and I'm just going to play it safe and assume he's never wrong about anything else in life either until it's proven otherwise. Kudos to Rarehero as well (I wonder if he was K's source?).

Okay, there are very few dream themes left for me as a lot of my favorite things would make horrible pinball machine (and maybe this idea would too), but there is one thing that would be an almost auto-buy for me, but will never happen for various reasons. A Star Trek pin based on the original show with lyman theme integration and Shatner doing the call outs. Now, I realize there's been too many Star Trek games already -- and the time for an original series game is probably past (even in the pinball world), but I think they could probably procure a lot of assets and nail theme integration.

Elwin Godzilla could be cool too, though!

The scary thing is it looks like MNpinball might finally be wrong or at least not 100% right with Sheats leaving Stern. Is this possible??

Well, I'll give you one point for an original idea and another point for . . . actually I think that's the only point I can give. (I'll give you an upvote though for a truly original pin idea).

Only a matter of time:
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I'm not sure these examples make sense. Movies and games are so cheap that few people don't purchase one just because they know another one they like better is coming out soon. Stern worries, though, that for example, that a lot of people would pass on Rush if they knew the next machine was their dream theme. Where if they didn't know and purchased Rush, they might reach for their dream theme anyway. It's not consumer friendly for sure, but they're probably right from a business sense.

**sorry, missed sorokyl's post which basically said the same thing.

It's venom and a cornerstone. We all knew it was being worked on, just didn't know the timing. Not sure it could be more obvious at this point. But anything is possible, I suppose.

That's why I don't have abs -- once you have abs you have to be the dude that is taking his shirt off all the time and I didn't want to be that dude. I also didn't go to Harvard because it was too expensive.

How about this: 2 years until the next Elwin that 99.9% of us will ever have a chance to play.