Wow this came completely out of left field. After teasing that a new product is coming for the past several days, the manufacturer of pinball playfields for Jersey Jack and the aftermarket, Mirco, minutes ago announced that they are going to manufacture and sell 2.0 upgrade kits for the super popular classic Williams pinball machine Tales of the Arabian Nights aka TOTAN. This kit continues the trend that was started by Dutch Pinball's Bride of Pinbot 2.0 kit and more recently Pedretti Gaming's FunHouse 2.0 kit.
Here's the Mirco's official statement on the project:
"At Texas Pinball Festival we will present the brand new TOTAN 2.0 Kit "The forgotten Tales" with new Software and great features. There will be two games in the game hall with our system installed to play. First kits will be available for pick up or order at TPF and same time only on my website mircoplayfield.com. The kit will not be available through any distributors. More details will be posted shortly before TPF.
Regards, Mirco"
If you're looking for Mirco's website, they misspelled the link to it in their initial post. The address is actually https://mircoplayfields.com/ . So far, there doesn't seem to be any mention of this product on the site. In the statement, they claim that kits will be available for purchase at the Texas Pinball Festival, likely in conjunction with Mirco's presentation at the event. Kits will also be available for order up on Mirco's site soon.
For the most part, the Bally / Williams 2.0 kits have been very well received by the public. It will be very interesting to see what the reception will be like for the TOTAN 2.0 kits though given the fact that Mirco has received quite a bit of negative publicity for quality issues with its playfields lately that the company has yet to address in public.
This news just broke. I will provide updates as more information starts to emerge, such as pictures and/or gameplay video. The more I think about this, the more I think that having multiple 2.0 kits for the same classic Bally / Williams game would be a confusing mess and a big mistake. Make one remake kit per game and make it right. Anything else seems like a money grab. I wish that Planetary Pinball was a little more discerning with who they allow to make 2.0 Kits. IMHO, they should only allow legit, proven companies like Chicago Gaming (Cactus Canyon) and Pedretti Gaming (FunHouse) make the 2.0s.
An astute Reddit user named Jakelshark pointed out that three years ago someone started a threat on Pinside.com about a code update for TOTAL also called "The forgotten tales." This product may be the commercialization of that effort. Here is a recent YouTube video that shows this code in action:
