Last night, Stern Pinball rolled out the latest episode of its Insider Pinball Podcast series, hosted by the pinball podcasting legend Nate Shivers. The new episode featured an interview with the new President of Stern Pinball, the former Disney executive Seth Davis. The main topic of discussion was the company's Insider Connected system, including what's new and what's coming. I was able to glean a few interesting pieces of information from the episode, including that Stern currently has 43,000 registered Insider Connected accounts.
The other noteworthy thing that I came away with was that Stern is actively working on an app for Insider Connected. There was no word on when the app will be ready, but an app certainly would be easier than logging into Stern's website when you need to look at your Connected account.
Beyond the Insider Connected talk, it was cool to get a sense of what Stern's relatively new President is like. To me, Seth Davis came across as being very likeable and competent. His ties with Disney were obvious, so definitely look for more Stern Pinball machines featuring Disney properties in the future. There was even hints that a future Stern game may include a Disney theme that isn't Marvel or Star Wars.
The theme discussion also delved into music pins for a little while. From what I could gather from the conversation, Stern seems to know that it's running out of famous acts from the 70s and 80s that it can create pinball machines around so the company has started looking at bands from the 1990s and possibly newer.
Speaking of Insider Connected, I updated all four of my connected machines with the company's new code last night. I personally thought that the process couldn't have gone smoother. The wireless updates are so much more convenient than having to break out a computer and memory stick. I have heard some reports of people having issues with wireless updates, but at my house they were flawless on two games that came from the factory with Connected kits and two that I installed myself in different parts of my house nowhere near my wireless router. I did update all of the machines one at a time though. I wonder if the people who are having issues are trying to update all of their connected games at the exact same time?
Anyone who is interested in hearing the interview can do so by logging into their account on the Stern Pinball website:
