We’ve had a lot of pinball news over this past week, mainly due to the Pinball Expo 2018 event that took place in Chicago this past weekend. Various Stern employees were on hand to talk about their work, but the event came and went without a new machine announcement.
We didn’t have to wait very long for the reveal however, as The Beatles Store posted a listing for The Beatles pinball machine. While this is hardly Stern’s first foray into music/band themed pinball tables, it is a change from hard rock/heavy metal that they’ve been occasionally focusing on over the past decade. Would it cross a line to call this the first Boy Band pinball machine? 😛 😛
As you can see from the video below, this game has been designed with a classic look and feel to it, following a similar pattern used in games before they had ramps, toys and other fancy things. Thanks to Sean M. for pointing out that this is a re-skin & update of Stern’s 1980 release Seawitch. It features four flippers, a playfield spining disc with a magnet, eleven drop targets, the full color LCD screen and a classic bell sound for a vertical spinner. Check it out:
According to The Beatles Store page, Stern is only making 1964 units, with them dropping the Pro/Premium/LE monikers in favor of more musical terminology. The Pro equivalent is Gold Edition, Premiums are Platinum (only 250 units) and the LE is called Diamond Edition (only 100 units). Details on what will be different between the editions and pricing is unknown at the moment. Pricing has not been revealed yet, but after posting this I received a couple of messages from different people “in the know” suggesting that the Diamond Edition could be the most expensive pinball machine of all time, with the Gold Edition falling into a pricing category similar to Batman ’66. We’ll see for certain once Stern unveils the prices.
As of this writing, the Stern Facebook page hsa not posted anything about this, but given that tends to be a portal for their game news, I’m sure that will change soon.
I have to imagine that given the consistent popularity of The Beatles, they’ll not have much trouble selling all 1964 units. What do you think about this?
I kind of think they blew it, but will sell all of the units to fans. Yes a simple table can be fun, but I’d guess they will still be asking the big bucks. Players today, even Beatles fans enjoy the newer tables with great ramp shots, fun toys and lighting effects. It’s hard to ask players for a $1.00 per play on such a basic table like this. -Pat Star Worlds Arcade.
I think Mr. Stern loves the 60’s 😀 . And he is the only one, who knows the market well enough, to produce a special interest item like this.
Pinball machine! one of my favourite