Let's start the pinball talk for the week off with some news out of Stern Pinball.
Stern recently informed its distributors that it is using the remaining parts that it has sitting around the factory to do "extremely limited runs" of a number of older titles during the month of December. Specifically, the run includes Beatles Gold, Stranger Things Pro, Black Knight Pro and JAWS Pro and Premium.
The Beatles Gold run is pretty surprising, but it is within the rules that Stern laid out for the game back in 2018. At the time, Stern said that it would build 100 Diamond Edition, 250 Platinum Edition and 1,614 Gold Edition Beatles machines. Stern has under 100 Gold machines remaining out of that total. So there' won't be a ton New In Box Beatles out there, but there will be a few.
Stern previously told distros that it will produce the Godzilla 70th Anniversary and Star Wars Comic machines in early December. That Godzilla 70th run will supposedly be the last one ever for that version of the game.
Those combined with these new short runs will likely bring us close to the announcement of Stern's next cornerstone game, which I personally expect to be announced in very late December with production sometime in January 2025. All signs point to the next game being Dungeons and Dragons designed by Brian Eddy, which I am really looking forward to and hope is true.
Speaking of pinball production, the amusement industry has been very cyclical over the years, experiencing numerous ups and downs. Back in 1984 when the amusement industry had significantly slowed, Williams Manufacturing created a new subsidiary called Williams Innovative Technologies, Inc. (WIT). The idea behind this new subsidiary was to help keep the factory running by working with independent companies that didn't have the capacity or even a factory to produce a game that they had designed in mass quantities. Williams used this new division to "feed the manufacturing monster" that was its 200,000-square-foot facility by helping customers with everything from design to engineering to production.
Is this sort of contract manufacturing something that modern pinball companies would consider as the industry returns to normal after its COVID-fueled high? Besides the earlier historical precedent from Williams and a similar program by Bally back in the 1980s, Stern actually has contract manufactured games for other companies in the past. Back when Chicago Gaming Company started doing Bally remakes, Stern actually produced some of the early Medieval Madness machines. They also have done, white label games like Heavy Metal, Primus and Supreme to name a few.
The reason I bring this up is that some rumbling came out of the recent Chicago Pinball Expo that Stern may have had discussions with Dutch Pinball about possibly helping the Company produce its upcoming Back to the Future pinball machine. Given the speed that Dutch has been building Big Lebowskis, a super popular theme like Back to the Future could theoretically take them years to fulfill orders. Partnering with a big manufacturer like Stern, which has tremendous capacity seems to be a Win - Win for both companies if they decide that they can work together. This is just a rumor and I have no idea if it will actually happen, but I'd love to see it. The more games out there the better as far as I'm concerned.
