Jersey Jack Pinball's Elton John CE Production "Nearing the End," When Will We See Its Next Game?

If you've visited this website enough, you'll know that I share pictures of pinball and arcade manufacturers' factories in action every chance I get. I love that stuff. So it goes without saying that I would share a picture of Jersey Jack Pinball's latest game Elton John on the line. As an added bonus, the text that JJP shared with the picture contained some interesting information. Specifically, it said that the Company's 1,000 unit production run of Elton John CE is "nearing the end."

Very interesting. Of course, Jersey Jack will still manufacture the less expensive Platinum Edition of Elton John for a while but if the CE run is close to done we need to start thinking about when we'll see something new from them. Well, at least I do :). Below is a list of every Jersey Jack pinball machine and when it was released.

Wizard of Oz: Initial Release 4/2013

The Hobbit: Initial Release 3/2016

Dialed In: 6/2017

Pirates of the Caribbean: 8/2018

Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory: Reveal 4/2019

<<< 18 MONTH GAP >>>

Guns N' Roses: Reveal 10/2020

<<< 20 MONTH GAP >>>

Toy Story 4: Reveal 6/2022

<<< 9 MONTH GAP >>>

The Godfather: Reveal 3/7/2023

<<< 7 MONTH GAP >>>

Elton John: Reveal 10/19/2023

So what can we tell by looking at the distance between the recent Jersey Jack releases?

First off, JJP made Guns N' Roses for a long time. Whether that was because Jersey Jack sold so many of them - it's arguably the Company's best selling game to date, or as has been rumored that Pat Lawlor's Toy Story layout was converted to Willy Wonka so they needed time to create the new Toy Story layout, is hard to say.

A twenty month gap between games is definitely not indicative of where Jersey Jack Pinball wants to be. They have said in the past that they would like to come out with two games per year, meaning 12 calendar months. They have successfully accomplished that with their last two titles, Godfather and Elton John. If we average the gap between those two games, JJP is averaging 8 months between releases.

June is already eight months after the launch of Elton John. Now no one thinks that we are going to see a new JJP game revealed in June. So when will we see it?

I suspect that the VERY latest we will get to see JJP's next game is at the IAAPA Amusement Industry Trade Show in November. The November issue of RePlay Magazine's story on JJP said the following:

"Guarnieri also teased that Jersey Jack Pinball fans can expect a new game later this year with a likely IAAPA Expo release."

That seems pretty late to me. It would be almost 13 months after the release of Elton John.

Chicago Pinball Expo takes place a month earlier, so a reveal there would be a 12 month gap. That is a little more reasonable.

Given JJP's recent release cadence, I personally think that we are going to see its new game revealed in August or September, but that's just conjecture on my part. I have no specific knowledge that is the case, it just makes sense to me.

As to what JJP's next game will be, I'm stumped at this point. I have had super plugged-in people who have been right about things in the past all tell me all sorts of different things recently. Jersey Jack certainly is playing its cards very close to the vest, which is cool. As much fun as it is to speculate about this hobby, being completely surprised is fun too.

At this point, I'm leaning towards next game being either a complete surprise multi-film movie franchise theme designed by Mark Seiden or Harry Potter designed by Eric Meunier. The Muppets and The Matrix JJP rumors have been around forever, and where there's smoke there's usually fire, but I personally don't see them happening, at least not next.

We'll see. In the meantime, it's fun to speculate about :)

Jersey Jack's Facebook Post:

The Collector's Edition production run (1000 games) of Elton John pinball is nearing the end! If you are considering the CE, contact an authorized Jersey Jack Pinball distributor and reserve yours today.