Back at the beginning of 2022, I wrote here about a new Spanish manufacturer who entered the pinball business, Bitronic. The company's first foray into the world of pinball was the Quetzal-designed game Super Hoop. After coming out of nowhere with this big announcement, Bitronic seemed to be making rapid progress with production of Super Hoop. A number of pictures emerged of its factory floor full of machines being built.
Then all of a sudden news about Super Hoop completely dried up. Not only the public, but distributors who put money down with the company weren't really able to get any answers about why the game had been delayed. Many, including myself, had assumed that the typical supply chain issues that all manufacturers are facing these days was the problem, and that was partially to blame, but it wasn't the entire problem. In August, Bitronic Spain experienced a major fire at one of its production facilities. As you can see from the pictures below, a number of Super Hoop games were destroyed in the blaze. Additionally, as one might expect the fire severely hampered the company's pinball production.
While remaining silent about the fire initially, Bitronic has begun to communicate what happened to distributors. Bitronic has told distros that it has already resumed production and that new Super Hoops games will be ready in a month or so.
Despite this setback, Bitronic seems to be financially strong given its solid existing digital sign business. It says that it still has big plans to become a pinball manufacturer and that it hopes to eventually produce a number of different pins in the future. As far as I'm concerned, the more pinball manufacturers, the better. I wish Bitronic well and hope that it gets back to producing Super Hoops soon.
