In addition to its booth, Stern will host its annual Pop-Up arcade at the hotel near the show. It is bringing its new JAWS 50th Anniversary Premium pinball machine to show off to the public.
I don't think that there will be any other pinball manufacturers officially at the Comic-Con show, however there is one other thing to keep an eye on. A panel discussion about Netflix's "The Cuphead Show" is taking place on Saturday from 5:30 to 6:30 PM. If I was American Pinball, I would try my darnedest to make sure that my upcoming pinball machine based upon Cuphead was mentioned during that presentation. What better way to get diehard fans of the IP interested in the game? I have been told by American Pinball that Cuphead is definitely still coming this year. Will we get a glimpse or a mention of the game at Comic-Con? Probably not, but I absolutely would have tried to make that happen if I was at AP.
Getting back to Stern Pinball, Michael Mattsson aka DRI374 aka Racoon City Pinball on YouTube shared several great videos on the company from last weekend's California Extreme (CAX) "Classic Arcade Game Show." The first is one of the first streams of the brand new JAWS 50th Anniversary pinball machine that I have seen from the floor of the event. The second video is a great interview with Stern Pinball's Mike Vinikour about the changes that have happened and that are coming to the code in Stern's John Wick pinball machine. Last, but certainly not least, he shared a great walkthrough video of the CAX floor. It's am amazing show so that's worth a watch too.
Next up is two news items from the iconic video game company Atari. Atari has teamed up with Namco, the owner of iconic classic arcade IP including Pac-Man, to bring a number of Pac-related items out.
The first item is a new DLC expansion of its amazing Atari 50 historical game compilation:
Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration is being expanded with THE NAMCO LEGENDARY PACK, featuring an all-new interactive timeline and set of games exploring the history of Bandai Namco titles on Atari hardware. Includes multiple versions of Atari PAC-MAN, GALAGA, GALAXIAN, DIG DUG, and XEVIOUS, along with video interviews, archival materials, documents, and photos from the era.
I definitely will be buying that. Even though the Pac-Man port for the Atari 2600 from back in the day has been heavily criticized I have so many memories of playing that chunky version of the game. I can literally hear the sounds in my head as I'm writing this.
In addition to the new Atari 50 DLC, Atari is introducing a special yellow Pac-Man themed version of the Atari 2600 along with several Pac-Man cartridges for it later this year:
Might we introduce you to the Atari 2600+ PAC-MAN Collection?
Coming later this year with the new console:
🥳 ALL-NEW PAC-MAN Game for the 7800
🕹️ Collect BLINKY, INKY, PINKY, and CLYDE wireless joysticks
💥 Atari 7800 versions of arcade hits GALAGA, DIG DUG, and XEVIOUS
Pre-orders for the special Pac-Man 2600 start tomorrow.
Now for competitive pinball talk. The Wizards and Warriors podcast had a super in-depth conversation with the current IFPA pinball World Champion, Jason Zahler. The talk all about Jason's win at the IFPA World Pinball Championship in Austria in June and the strategies that he uses to absolutely blow up games. If you want to improve your scores, this is the way to do it.
It's sad that I've relegated news to Chicago Gaming Company's long-awaited Cactus Canyon Expansion to a footnote at the end of an article, but I have completely given up trying to guess when the super cool hardware / software expansion for CGC's 2021 game will be released. According to developer Josh Sharpe's current estimate, his current estimate for the kit's release is October 2025.
https://www.chicago-gaming.com/coinop/cactus-canyon/upgrade
