When I broke out my crystal ball in the last article to talk about Stern Pinball's rumored upcoming game themes this morning, I totally forgot about one other likely Stern theme...X-Men '97. I have no new information about this potential pinball theme beyond what I've written already, so here's excerpts from my previous articles on this subject for those who missed them or would like a refresher, but first a short digression...
Speaking of rumors and pinball. This morning someone gave me a hard time for writing articles about this sort of thing, saying that I'm not a real journalist because I like to have fun speculating about upcoming happenings in the hobbies that we all love - arcade and pinball.
Lighten up man. This is just fun conversation between people with a shared passion. It's supposed to be fun. I write about what I enjoy and I do so for free for all to read, without even a single advertisement like those that clog up so many other sites these days. Will 100% of my future game predictions come true? Of course not, but I think that I've established that I have a pretty good batting average by now.
An entire industry has sprung up around predicting what players teams will pick in the NFL draft (another one of my passions) and you don't see people telling NFL reporters that they're not journalists for speculating what teams that are valued at multiples of what any pinball company will do. I don't want to be a journalist. I just want to be a person who has fun talking to other like-minded people about the hobby that we love. Anyhow, I hate drama almost as much as I hate being provoked lol. On to the pinball talk.
If I had to make a guess as to which theme would be first in 2025, at this point I'd say that X-Men '97 is likely to come before Dungeons and Dragons (if they actually happen of course). It seems to me as though Stern would probably want to stick a Music aka Band pin somewhere in 2025 as well, but I haven't heard a peep about what band that might be or if that's even the case.
From 1/9/2024:
"Rumor About the Next Stern Disney Themed Pinball Machine
Stern Pinball has a very close relationship with Disney, having produced a number of Marvel and Star Wars pinball machines over the years. Stern representatives have said numerous times over the years that this relationship will continue. The question is, which Disney movie or series will the next Stern Pinball machine be based upon?
I was sitting here surfing the web and I came across a new rumor on Pinside that I found to be very believable...a future Keith Elwin pinball machine for Stern will be based upon the upcoming Disney+ animated series "X-Men '97."
Disney is making a big push with this new animated series based upon the X-Men franchise, there's tie-ins with actual physical Marvel comics, Lego kits, toys, etc... At some point in the thousands of pages of stuff that I've read about pinball over the past year I remember seeing another mention of Stern doing an X-Men pinball machine again in the future.
Stern did two Avengers pinball machines, so why not two X-Men? The X-Men '97 series is scheduled to debut on Disney+ in 2024, with some sources saying early in the year.
Note to the Pinside Peanut Gallery 🥜 - no all of my articles are not based on stuff from the site lol, admittedly this particular one is though. So thank you for it :). I have no idea if it's true but it's definitely one to add to our watch list. It seems very possible to me."
From 2/15/2024:
"More Smoke for the Stern Pinball is Making an X-Men '97 Pinball Machine Rumor
There has been rumblings on Pinside and elsewhere over the past several weeks that an upcoming Stern Pinball is based upon the Marvel cartoon series X-Men '97. Here's some more smoke to add to that fire...
Yesterday Arcade1Up accidentally leaked images of an upcoming arcade machine that it is making featuring special X-Men '97 art. The listing for the product, which showed a price of $499, only appeared on the Arcade1Up website for a short period of time before being taken down, but of course people captured the images of the new product (see below).
Clearly Disney is pushing the use of the X-Men '97 IP in new products. Stern Pinball has a very deep relationship with Disney. Stern recently made a game based on the Marvel IP Venom, so if we are getting new X-Men pinball machine I don't personally think that we are going to see it for a couple of games. Maybe X-Men '97 will be the third Stern Cornerstone of 2024? That's just speculation.
I would think that we will end up seeing what the second Stern cornerstone game of 2024 is (JAWS was the first) sometime around April. Rumors at this point include Pokemon, Dungeons & Dragons, John Wick and a remake of Metallica.
Speaking of X-Men '97, Marvel just dropped the official trailer for the upcoming Disney+ show this morning. The show is scheduled to debut on March 20th."
Agreed on all accounts, the naysayers are just dead inside and apparently would rather try to bring others down than have the guts to try to do what you do. Keep on keepin' on!
Hey Jason, I don't like to use foul language but I think it's necessary right now... Anyone who gives you and your daily efforts a hard time can go f*ck themselves. Keep doing your thing. Accept the praise and ignore the haters.
You.
Are. Appreciated.
George
Sadly the hobby like anything else is full of assholes with huge egos of self importance. Pinball is just a toy! Mind you a very expensive toy. Thank you for all you do for the hobby and for free!