Overnight, the Taiwanese pinball manufacturer Homepin announced that it has begun production of its next title, based on the 1980 Dan Akroyd and John Belushi comedy film The Blues Brothers.
It also revealed the game will be priced at $6,950 AUD (approx $4,692 USD) including shipping to “Melb/Bris/Newcastle & GST.” Shipping to other areas is available via FedEx for $1,000 AUD. Special pricing below this will be available to buyers who attend the game’s official public debut at the upcoming Newcastle Pinfest in Australia, which takes place on September 14th and 15th.
We also were given additional information on the game’s development team. Blues Brothers’ open source code was created by the U.S. based programmer Dick Hamill. Previously he has created modern code updates for Bally Williams games and developed an Arduino pinball operating system. The game’s art was done by Neil Fraser Graphics. The game’s layout was done by Homepin’s founder, Mike Kalinowski.
Despite the fact that we haven’t yet really seen significant production or delivery of Homepin’s previous title Spinal Tap, the company stated that it will begin to ship Blues Brothers “in a few weeks.”
The European distributor RS-Pinball recently showed off the limited Voyage Edition (limited to 300 units) of Pinball Brothers’ newest game ABBA on the floor at a show. The machine had just rolled off the line at Euro Pinball Corp.’s factory in Italy.
American pinball also stated this week that its 2020 title Hot Wheels is currently on the line at its factory. Recently it has been promoting the game to auto dealers for use in their customer waiting rooms.
Pedretti Gaming continues to produce its newest game, a remake of the 1990 Williams classic FunHouse. It showed off a bunch of pictures of machines on the line and shipping.
Yesterday Atari revealed a new retro console, the 7800+. Priced at $129.99, the console is a scaled-down replica of the company’s 1980s console the 7800. It ships with a new wireless CX78+ controller and a Bentley Bear’s Crystal Quest cartridge, the new sequel to Atari’s 1983 game Crystal Castles.
I'm intrigued by the open source code on the Homepin game. I'd like to see this done for a working, full-featured generic game that could be made into any theme you choose. At a decent price (<$5k), this would be a great way to get your dream theme (with some effort) that will never be made by a commercial pinball company.