Stern Pinball Teases “Magnaslings” In Ghostbusters Pinball; Auto-Start Feature Coming Soon

Isn’t competition great? For years, the pinball scene had no competition going on and it showed by there being no new innovations in the games. Now that the field is competitive, we’re seeing the fruits of new ideas taking place. Such is the case with a short video shown by Stern Pinball today where they are showing new “Magnasling” technology, which could potentially replace traditional solenoid & rubber based slingshots (the two triangular things found above the flippers) :

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It is still early code so it is likely that some adjustments will be made; this is also something that looks like it is being tested on a Premium or LE model and definitely not the Pro. My concern about it is the balls becoming magnetized and causing issues in the trough(which I’ve seen happen in other pinball machines that just use a single magnet)…perhaps there is a degaussing solution that can be put in place for when the ball drains to clear it of any magnetic leftovers. That’s a question for engineers though. It also will change how the game plays but it will depend on how the final setup works. Something to keep an eye on.

Auto-Start Feature Coming To Ghostbusters and Game Of Thrones Pinball

Thanks to some lobbying from Sean McDermott of All Castle Games (my podcasting partner) and a little video that I did, the programmer for Ghostbusters and Game of Thrones has stated that an auto-start option will be included in the next code update for those two games. As I’ve stated before, one of the oddest things I’ve come across in running an arcade is how many people think that the pinball table is broken because they don’t see the flashing START button to the left…it is far worse for locations that don’t have an attendant on staff. So this is very welcome news, hopefully that becomes standard as an option from here on out.