Retro Pinball/Gottlieb’s King of Diamonds Pinball shipping at the end of July

arcadehero July 7, 2011 5

Video arcade news has been slow this month but pinball sure has been busy. This product has been quite a while in the making – we first reported that Retro Pinball LLC was working on the King of Diamonds remake back in September of 2007; I got a chance to play the game at IAAPA 2009 but since then news has been sparse about the game. Honestly I thought that it had been dropped. It certainly had a way to go before reaching Duke Nukem Forever territory but anyone who was anticipating this release can now look forward to getting a modernized Gottlieb King of Diamonds pinball machine.  We received word through The Stinger Report that 19 units would be arriving at a warehouse in York, PA. USA for QA testing on July 22nd before they ship out to customers and that additional units are available. If you haven’t played a pinball machine from the olden days, then it’s a different experience. No ramps or toys, scoring is mechanical, the sounds are often produced with an electric xylophone for piercing acoustics. I don’t recall if this remake used a xylophone or not and the flyer doesn’t say so but either way they’ve gone to a bit of trouble at reproducing this machine while bringing certain parts of it up-to-date.  More information can be found on the flyer image below, including contact information for sales. Now that they have this out of the way, presumably having overcome any manufacturing difficulties, I’m interested in finding out what they plan on doing after this. If they keep it up, then that means we’ll have three pinball companies producing games this year.

5 Comments »

  1. igo July 7, 2011 at 8:36 pm - Reply

    Wow, Lots of pinball news over the past few days. Mechanical pinball has it’s charm and can still be just as fun as new tables.

  2. Brian Hanifin July 13, 2011 at 1:13 am - Reply

    That’s strange. Several San Diego Pinball Club members have reported playing this machine over the past 2 weeks locally.

    http://pinballmap.com/sandiego/?by_location_id=1278

    • arcadehero July 13, 2011 at 11:48 am - Reply

      Perhaps the company got a few models out there previously? I know it’s been a strange release so far, was never sure if it actually had shipped anywhere

  3. Hopewell February 25, 2023 at 11:37 pm - Reply

    My bf’s dad has a King of Diamonds pinball machine that is in pretty great shape for as old as it is. It does in fact work. It could use some minor cosmetic restorations to the cabinet.

  4. Hopewell February 25, 2023 at 11:38 pm - Reply

    I’d post the pics I have of it if I could

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