Rumors: Tales of the Arabian Nights is Next Remake From Pedretti?; Harry Potter Pinball Delayed?; Star Wars is the OG Trilogy?

What better way to start off the week with a good old pinball rumors article? I thought about splitting these up into three different articles, but here they are.

First up let's talk about Euro Pinball Corp., the Italian factory that produces games for Pedretti Gaming and Pinball Brothers. I mentioned recently that I have heard that Pinball Brothers' next game, Predator, was basically ready but they were waiting until after all of the big pinball launches this spring to unveil it.

Another game that will be on the line in the not so distant future is the next Pedretti Gaming remake of a Bally Williams title. I have heard confirmation that as many had suspected, the next Pedretti remake will be based on the 1996 Williams John Popadiuk-designed game Tales of the Arabian Nights (TOTAN).

Word is that much like Pedretti's first full remake of FunHouse, the TOTAN Remake will have both a Classic Edition and a Limited Edition version with new art.

I don't know at this point which game will come first, Predator or TOTAN. It's possible that both games will run at the factory at the same time. Euro Pinball Corp. has run different games at the same time in the past. So keep an eye out for those games this summer.

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On to Jersey Jack Pinball. Where is Harry Potter? Many people (not myself) thought that we might get a teaser for the game over a week ago on Harry Potter Day, May 2nd, but we did not.

A knowledgeable person recently told me that the game is being held up by licensing approvals. Not licensing approvals from Warner Brothers though, but from the series' author J. K. Rowling herself. Supposedly, she has insisted that a number of changes be made to the game before it can be released.

Is this true? It's hard for me to say for sure, but given the rumors of how far along the actual machine itself is at this point it does make sense that the only holdup delaying its reveal is licensing stuff. My guess is that the changes at this point mostly involve code because I've heard that cabinets for it already exist. Again, this is all through the grapevine, but we may have to wait another couple of weeks for the reveal of this highly-anticipated game. We'll see.

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Last up we have the never-ending saga of the upcoming Star Wars cornerstone pinball machine from Stern. If you're keeping score at home, first I heard that it was Skeleton Crew. While the Star Wars part was right, I highly doubt that it's that specific theme. Next I heard that it might be based on Star Wars' second trilogy, Episodes 1 through 3. I also mentioned the rumor that it might be a Darth Vader game last week.

Well, what if it was none of those themes? LOL. Some people are saying that Stern Pinball is going back to the well with a John Borg-designed pinball machine based upon the original Star Wars trilogy...again. To me, it seems very strange that Stern would redo its Steve Ritchie-designed original Star Wars pinball machine with another one by John Borg using the exact same theme, but that's what some people are saying. They say that the fact that Stern "Vaulted" the original Star Wars pin when distributors still had demand for it lends credence to this rumor.

At this point, I'm sure that you, like myself, are getting sick of trying to guess the exact Star Wars theme for Stern's next game. Haha. I promise to try to not talk about it any more until we get closer to the reveal.