So yesterday afternoon I was sitting in the car at my son's summer lacrosse practice catching up on the various pinball podcasts out there (it's too far away to go there then home then back again, so I just chill). As soon as I saw the title of the latest episode of Don's Pinball Podcast, I said to myself "Rats." Why? LOL because I've been working on an article about how we may see a Black and White Anniversary Godzilla pin from Stern at the upcoming San Diego Comic-Con but I was waiting for a few more pieces of information before putting anything up on the site. As the saying goes, you snooze, you lose so kudos to Don for getting it out there first :).
Why do I think that Stern is bringing something new to SD Comic-Con? Well, pinball sales are extremely sloooooow right now. So much so that Stern is making a bigger than normal end-of-quarter push to get distributors to buy games, delaying invoice payment from 30 to 90 days and making its early payment discount more widely available.
John Wick sales, particularly of Limited Edition machines have been much slower than LE sales have been over the past several years. Distributors took tons of Venom LEs when that game came out around Comic-Con last year because they were afraid of losing LE allocation for JAWS, but this time around many distros did not take even close to their full Limited Edition allotment for John Wick.
Several industry people who I have spoken with believe that there is a good chance that Stern and other manufacturers will move up games that were originally planned for later this year in order to keep their production lines moving.
I'm going to keep my ear to the ground and publish an update on this story as soon as I hear anything else. Kudos to Don for talking about it first. Below is a link to the episode.
UPDATE: Put it in the books, a special Black and White 70th Anniversary Godzilla Premium is definitely going to be revealed at Comic-Con!
Late yesterday American Pinball announced that its first title, the 2017 release Houdini: Master of Mystery, is back on the production line at its Palatine, Illinois factory for the next few weeks.
In addition to the production info, AP stated that it is holding a 4th of July sale, providing a $500 discount on all of its games except for Barry O's Barbeque Challenge from today, 6/27 through 7/12.
In its weekly Bug's Scream N Stream Twitch broadcast tonight, Spooky Pinball is going to show off the new Wizard Mode for Scooby-Doo, "The Gang's All Here."
A few minutes ago, Stern Pinball launched new code for JAWS. The code update, Version 0.91, contains a new "Search Multiball" Mini-Wizard mode, a new "4th of July Challenge mode" just in time for the upcoming holiday and more topper integration.
Lastly, I leave you with more pictures of Rudy faces from Pedretti Gaming's FunHouse Remake :)
So there's been some kind of actual confirmation of B&W Godzilla? I skimmed Don's episode and it sounds entirely speculative, which is all I've seen from anyone (speculation purely based on the anniversary and "it'd make sense", no proof/leaks/insider info at all). Normally don't care about rumors much but a B&W package is the only thing that'd make me consider paying up for a NIB right now...