Late yesterday, Zach and Greg from the YouTube pinball show Straight Down the Middle published their 2024 Preview episode. You all know that I love a good pinball rumor, so as soon as that popped up on my radar I was like "Ooh Ooh" and flipped it on.
The duo kicked off the show with some speculation about what the industry behemoth Stern Pinball has in store for us next year. The first potential machine they talked about was a possible 70th Anniversary Limited Edition of arguably Stern's most popular pinball machine ever, the Keith Elwin-designed Godzilla. They also discussed whether such a machine might have some sort of special Black and White art package, along the lines of Stern's recent Blood Red Kiss art package for its Elvira's House of Horrors game. I don't have any personal knowledge that a pin like this will happen, but a Godzilla LE Black and White Zombie Yeti art that has pops of reflective green makes sense and sounds pretty awesome to me. Bring it on Stern.
Below is the "Sneak Peek" episode of Straight Down the Middle for anyone who's interested in checking it out and of course, I've included a still from the original 1954 Toho movie "Godzilla."
A mockup of what a B&W Godzilla might look like from the SDTM video:
Interesting that out of nowhere Zach and Greg mention He-Man as a potential theme. The rumors have ebbed and flowed about this one. But having Castle Greyskull and Snake Mountain toys battling each other over the middle play field is a PERFECT pinball theme.
I'm a fan of the Pokemon too. So many kids are interested in pinball but there aren't a lot of themes that entice them. Pokemon works across the generations. And the speculation around Spike3 enabling remote multiplayer is interesting, as is the idea of Pokemon DLC (downloadable content, i.e., expansion packs). It would be SUPER COOL if Stern brought back an optional card dispenser attachment that spit out Pokemon cards if you hit certain scoring thresholds.…
The answer is yes.
For me, colors are an extremely important factor thats adds fun, interest, and cosmetic attraction to a game. Godzilla is beautiful in color. A black and white Godzilla pinball machine would be boring, ugly, and kill the attraction… completely.
Change colors, raise the price, flood the market, next....
I really hope not. Are Stern that hard up for good new IP's. They are the largest pinball company in the world by a huge margin, certainly they can be more creative than they've been with all these re releases.