The Great British Pinball Podcast Episode 28

Pinfest recap, Spike 3 details, and urgent Disney licensing crisis threatens European pinball access to major IPs.

Highlights

• Disney has refused to license Star Wars and other Disney for European pinball, citing the market as too small
• Star Wars is the second best-selling Stern game after Godzilla; Data East USA Inc.. 1990s Star Wars (Shoot the Death Star) is third best-selling
• Spike 3 features improved amplifier, on-board Wi-Fi, two HDMI outputs, Raspberry Pi 4 CPU, DisplayPort support, and silent power supply
• Spike 3 2 games dominate UK location pinball (pubs, venues) with nearly 100% market share; JJP, Spooky, and American Pinball games don't survive commercially in those venues
• Juno code has been significantly improved since Pinburgh (5-6 weeks prior) and plays much better now
• Evil Dead and Kong (Premium) were the two busiest games at Pinfest 2024; Evil Dead was rammed all weekend
• Pinfest Best in Show voting results were controversial: SS Classic Addams Family won best EM despite being low quality; Godzilla won best modern game despite having a non-functional node board
• John Borg designed Star Wars: Fall of the Empire; Ray Day is rumored to be handling code
• Star Wars: Fall of the Empire is based on Episodes 4 and 6 and was announced on The Great British Pinball Podcast four months prior
• UK Open 2024 will host approximately 180 international players; event is completely sold out