Pinball Gets Second Aussie Lease On Life
We at GSW haven't been covering pinball enough, besides a random post about PC pinball controllers or two, so it was a delight when RetroBlast spotted that "Pinball.com forum members have started receiving invitations to pre-order remakes of [1997's] Medieval Madness and [1998's] Cactus Canyon to be made under the Bally name."
The people behind this remake are Australian firm The Pinball Factory, who've licensed classic Bally IP for this neat hobbyist reissue, and RetroBlast mentions: "According to the pre-order forms, reserving a machine will set you back $2500 and the total cost will be $5000 plus another $500 in shipping from Australia."
In addition, The Pinball Factory is working on a brand new, original 'Crocodile Hunter' pinball machine using the Bally name, described as currently "in the development stages". Over at Bally's Wikipedia page, it notes that "The Pinball Factory also has bought the right to manufacture new games using his company's new hardware system under the Bally brand." It's a bit tricky to see the playfield in detail, but certainly looks like a 'little ripper', as the ads say, and it's great to see pinball machines not entirely dead and buried.
Comments
Pinball machines have not been totally dead. Stern is still selling them, and in fact they've gotten some of Bally/Williams big names designing for them, including Pat Lawlor and Steve Ritchie. Without them, it's possible that anything The Pinball Factory makes will be a pale shadow of Bally's original glory.
Further, it's been said that there's only room for one player in pinball at the moment. Stern manages to do well because they have all of a tiny market. With a competitor in there, there might not be enough sales to support *either* of them....
Posted by: John H. | March 4, 2006 12:15 PM