Zoyous

Manufacturer Model Form Factor Price Licenses Built-In Tables Table Screen Size Backglass Artwork Launch Nudge/Tilt Haptic Feedback Notes Well Played Arcade Tabletop Virtual Pinball Machine Bartop $299.99 Zaccaria 27 19" Zaccaria Illustration only, no scores Zaccaria Button Button No Sharpin Mini Bartop ~$118.00 99,00 € None None Insert 10" Android tablet None Sharpin Button Button No This is a 3D-printed shell with pre-built kit (buttons, connectors) for an Android tablet. Sharpin Lite Bartop ~$475.00 399,00 € None None 22" Optional - mount Android tablet Sharpin Button Button No Can either be used as a self-contained unit, or as a controller/second screen connected to your PC, or used with a Switch, or as a controller for VR Sharpin Ultra Bartop ~$710.00 599,00 € None None 22" Optional - mount Android tablet Sharpin Button Button No Can either be used as a self-contained unit, or as a controller/second screen connected to your PC, or used with a Switch, or as a controller for VR. The case is the same as the Lite, but with a stronger CPU, more RAM, more memory. Toyshock/21C Digital Mini Digital Pinball Bartop $249.99 Gottlieb 12 18.5" LED Alphanumeric Scores + Illustration 4 Gottlieb skins - Haunted House, Bone Busters, Black Hole, or Class of 1812 Plunger Button No Well Played Arcade Virtual Pinball Machine 3/4 Scale Table $499.99 Zaccaria 27, possibly plus future purchases 24" Illustration only Zaccaria Plunger Button No Has wi-fi capability, possibly for future purchases, leaderboards Toyshock/21C Digital 3D Digital Pinball 3/4 Scale Table $399.99 Gottlieb 12 24" LED Alphanumeric Scores + Illustration 4 Gottlieb skins - Haunted House, Bone Busters, Black Hole, or Class of 1812 Plunger Button No Version 1.2 coming this year, doesn't look like version 2.0 will be out until next year Arcade 1up Attack from Mars Pinball 3/4 Scale Table $549.99 Williams 10 24" 8" LCD DMD + Attack from Mars backglass Attack from Mars Plunger Accelerometer Yes Arcade 1up Star Wars Pinball 3/4 Scale Table $549.99 Star Wars 10 24" 8" LCD DMD + Illustration Star Wars - collage style Plunger Accelerometer Yes Arcade 1up Marvel Pinball 3/4 Scale Table $549.99 Marvel 10 24" 8" LCD DMD + Illustration Marvel - collage style Plunger Accelerometer Yes AtGames Legends Pinball 9/10 Scale Table $599.99 Gottlieb 22, plus future purchases/BYOG 32" 14" LCD displays DMD + backglass illustration, otherwise black with product logo Gottlieb - collage style Plunger Accelerometer Yes Lots of connectivity options, leaderboards, streaming, use as a controller with your PC I've been compiling some information on the mass-market virtual pins that are currently out or coming soon for Holiday 2020. Obviously this is a burgeoning market, which is exciting, but it also still feels like really early days. There are a lot of options to consider. This isn't an exhaustive list of features, but just some of the major points that personally interest me. Hopefully it's helpful; if I've made any major errors let me know and I'll try to fix them. Looking at what's available or soon-to-be-available, I think the bartop market is definitely underserved with a lot of potential for the future, for people who don't have room for the larger tables. I think the Sharpin units seem cool, but I have the impression they're a smaller outfit and don't have the economies of scale that the other companies here have access to. Also the artwork on the Sharpins is unusually dreary for this market. Personally I think the AtGames Legends Pinball is probably the best value overall for now, essentially being unlimited in what it can play. But it is also the largest and heaviest by far, and since I'm hoping to buy a house in the next year, I will probably hold off on getting something that big until then. In the meantime I am looking at bartops to tide me over. I am considering the Sharpin Mini as it's the cheapest point of entry (tablet and app costs not included). It would be plug-and-play with an Android tablet as-is, and later on I could make my own wooden cabinet for it, just using the electronics. On the other hand, the Toyshock Mini Black Hole cabinet just looks so cool, and the old school alphanumeric score displays have their own kind of appeal, so that is tempting in spite of the fixed game selection.

I found this a bit hard to parse. But basically you're saying that it will be up to the developers to patch in support for all of the special features to work, right? Is this the last major pinball announcement from AtGames for 2020? I heard a rumor about a possible "mini" or bartop form factor table from AtGames several months ago.

Oh, okay. Do you ever use a mousewheel? Or do you need a giant wheel to scroll? 😄 I'm telling you man, the trackball is incredibly accurate. Anyway, I can't deny these are mostly to look at. But they are playable.

Counterpoint, my 8-year-old daughter learned to play Centipede on our Replicade, and then set the high score on Centipede on a full-size multicade cab at the pizza restaurant. (Admittedly the high scores on that thing get reset every day, but still). These are playable and they are the proper shape, unlike the superdeformed monstrosities other companies are putting out. 😄 Can't wait to see Asteroids Deluxe, hopefully next year!

I did too! Apparently they added some kind of post-processing to simulate the "glow" of a vector CRT and make the shots more easily visible. Hopefully they upload a video of it soon.

Looks pretty good! Wow, 150 lbs.?! I just got a 180 lb. treadmill so I have a good idea of how much this weighs. Although I think just by the form this would be much easier to move into position than the treadmill. Personally I think I would prefer one single art theme, but for a "collage" style this isn't bad. Looks like a real breakthrough in value for money in this field! I'll be interested in seeing how easy it is to get your Steam titles playing on this.

I won't admit they have a problem expanding their sales? I mean it's plainly obvious that the sales move up and down within a range. It's only a problem if they overspend on development. If they know their range then they can budget accordingly. It's not really something that's uniquely Sega's problem, though. If you think about a decades-old game IP like a legacy recording artist, choose any genre... Willie Nelson, Cypress Hill, AC/DC, Madonna... their new releases aren't continuing to outsell each previous release, and not nearly as much as they did at their peak. But they can still reliably move units. That's what can be expected of most successful game IPs as well. How can they improve sales and have some kind of breakout hit? How am I supposed to know? When I look at the games that are massive hits these days, I can't really say I'd want to see that sort of thing coming from Sega. Would I want Call of Duty, GTA, Assassins Creed from Sega? No, that's nothing like the style and aesthetic that resonates with me. The only major company these days that has big success with really creative games is Nintendo. Even that market has its limits. The only other "weird" game that I can think of that has been a huge success is the Metal Gear series. It's so badly written, though, with characters named "Big Boss," it's so corny. Personally I can't really understand why that kind of weirdness is a hit and Sega's kinds of weirdness are more modest successes. I'll say this, though... relating it back to music, you can't really say that the number of copies sold relates 1:1 with quality. Mylie Cyrus might outsell a lot of other artists but that doesn't make her material better art. One thing that I have heard when reading and listening to interviews with Sega's "star" game designers is that they have a kind of artist's attitude about their work. Rieko Kodama didn't want to continue the mainline Phantasy Star series because in her mind, the story she wanted to tell ended with IV. Ryuta Ueda considered Jet Set Radio to be an expression of the energy in Tokyo in his 20s, so although I wish for more JSR sequels, from his perspective his life has moved on. Maybe it's better if everything isn't franchised and annualized. Personally I love the original Star Wars trilogy but the newer ones aren't as special to me. I also feel the same way about companies like Irem, Taito, the list goes on... as far as my tastes are concerned, they were ultimately "beaten" by companies with less creativity and more money. No way is Midway a better company than Atari Games or Williams, but Midway "won" and owns them now. At least Sega is still in the mix, maybe they'll have another breakout hit yet. Well, I appreciate your candor and your feelings about the ad campaign are understandable. To me, from the "rival" perspective, there was Nintendo who was (it was later ruled) illegally preventing 3rd party companies like Konami, Capcom, etc. from developing and publishing titles on rival consoles in the 8-bit era. That to me is dishonorable, and had much longer lasting consequences. But they got away with it in the sense of establishing a huge, loyal consumer base. Ultimately I think it was good for the industry that Sega was able to break Nintendo's near-monopoly... imagine if they hadn't. I don't like exclusives, and it's still a problem in the industry to this day. Could Sega have had the same success without the confrontational ad campaigns? Take a look at the kinds of TV shows mainstream people like these days and decide for yourself. But anyway, kind of like you, I eventually got a 3DS (second-hand for the same reasons) as well, purely to play the Sega 3D Classics series. It's kind of funny but those strong perceptions about these companies can last a long time.

Oh yeah, ever since the gambling psychologists managed to slither out of their antechamber of hell and infiltrate the games and toys industries, you have more and more of these packaged toys where you can't tell what you're buying, and they probably make one or two super scarce so you waste a bunch of money trying to get them.

I've followed Sega Sammy Holdings stock for quite a long time, they've been up and down from quarter to quarter in the software/entertainment side, sometimes posting losses and other times posting profits. Now as for me, Sega probably would go bankrupt if I was calling the shots... there would be a blaze of fan-service glory and then it would be lights out. Their actual moves, like acquiring Atlus, Sports Interactive and Creative Assembly have been very savvy. But the reason why I ask you what your beef is, is that you seem to have several threads throughout the forums basically trying to say isn't Atari actually more successful and doesn't this or that Atari system have better games than Sega? And this thread is the topper... "If Sega didn't make this successful move, would they have been less successful?" 😄 So what's the fixation? I love Atari, too, but in the year 2020 it's nothing but a logo getting put on Raspberry Pi cases and such, controlled by a holding company. That's a fate that Sega has avoided. If this is some kind of fanboy battle, then that's checkmate. You can keep the Sega deathwatch going another 20 years. But I don't want to fanboy battle... I happen to love Atari and Atari Games. Now Nintendo on the other hand, if they hadn't gotten away with their illegal activities in the 80s would not be nearly as successful these days. Over to you, Tanooki.

Yeah, in the business world, that would about sum up success. Are you one of these guys who has been saying Sega is about to go out of business for the past 20 years?

Looking at the Gauntlet cabinet - it does have a more appealing profile, but at the expense of players 1 and 4 literally having to stand on the sides. The top-down design of Gauntlet would have made it ideal to have a horizontal screen with controls on all four sides, like Sprint 8. As for the games not being good based on era, well obviously it's all a matter of taste. But I'm surprised that you wouldn't reserve judgement until actually playing the games. I would counter that Gauntlet is all looks, and the actual gameplay is pretty unfair. Maybe if you have a crew of four well-coordinated players, you can strategize. It's not a fun game for one player. Golden Axe is a lot better balanced and playable for any number of players.

I reached out to their new support email address this past week, but haven't had any response so far. I also got the survey this evening and let them know I'm pretty dissatisfied at this point.

Oh yeah, now I can see what a big problem that is! Listen, I'm not trying to distort the facts, I wrote 1-3 million meaning 'between 1 and 3 million.' Which is true for most entries in the series, as I said. Sure, there have been some that have sold less. On the other hand, the first few Mario & Sonic Olympics spinoffs sold way more. Series heat up, series cool off. But to say that as a whole the series selling 140 million means nothing? In what way? It means it's one of the 20 best selling video game series of all time. A one trick pony developer? Sega must have one of the most diverse range of IPs of any developer. Obviously the Yakuza series has been steadily building up steam with something like 8 main entries, 3 spinoffs that take place in alternate realities, remakes and remasters, expanding from PS exclusive to multiplatform along the way. Puyo Puyo continuing through the years with the Tetris crossovers most recently. Hatsune Miku, I don't even understand what it is exactly and it's rolling on. Valkyria Chronicles is onto its fourth game, with a couple of spinoffs. Beyond those series, Sega Europe has really expanded into multiple ongoing strategy series (don't even start with weird imaginary rules about what's "real" Sega and what's not... if it's got a Sega logo on it, it's a Sega game). If anything, they let their older IP go dormant too much. Anyway, as you can tell, I am a Sega fan ...but ironically I'm not that into Sonic. I just periodically see these types of topics come up where it's like, let's try and prove that this incredibly successful thing isn't really that successful or doesn't actually deserve its status. So I have to ask you guys, where did the axe to grind originate? Did Sega personally humiliate you with their funny Genesis advertisements, or burn your dad's retail store with the early Saturn launch?

How would you redesign these 4-player cabinets? The only way to make them proportionate and have the control panel flush with the sides of the cabinet is to go with an even bigger screen. I could only find info on TMNT, and that was already 320 lbs. A big enough CRT to fill out the width of the control panel would have added a hundred pounds or more... not to mention the increase in price.

Well, it seems they've succeeded in getting in new blood because each entry continues to sell in the 1-3 million range, and as of 2016 the series as a whole had sold 140 million (with over 50 million of that total after 2009). That's selling "almost uniformly like crap" only in the alternate reality of 'angry' Youtubers and disenchanted bloggers. Mania was critically well-received (among the middle-aged contingent) and sold over a million, but its sales weren't notably higher than any of the 21st century 3D entries. Ultimately the series continues to be successful because it continues to appeal to kids, while the older fans sort of divide into various camps who prefer this or that depending on when they got into it, but each camp is served by various entries. What I think will be interesting to see is if the series sees any significant uptick in sales following the success of the recent movie.