My article from May 16th, 2022 discussed the rumor that another company besides American Pinball, who had just hired the designer of the award-winning homebrew pinball machine Sonic Spinball Ryan McQuaid, had secured the license to produce a Sonic the Hedgehog pinball machine. At the time I speculated that Stern Pinball may have nabbed the license. I’m now almost positive that Jersey Jack Pinball has it instead. Here’s what I had to say at the time:
Article from 5/16/2022
"A few weeks ago I shared the news here that Ryan McQuaid, designer of the one of the most popular homebrew pinball machines of all-time, Sonic Spinball, had officially been hired by American Pinball.
The hiring naturally sparked speculation that American may try to build Ryan’s Sonic pinball machine. Zach Meny reported on a recent episode of The Pinball Show podcast that there is a rumor out there that another pinball company other than American had obtained the Sonic license.
This morning another source, Christopher Franchi, confirmed this rumor on a brand new episode of The Super Awesome Pinball Show podcast. Franchi stated that American Pinball had actually spoken and reached a tentative agreement with Sega about the Sonic license, but the company decided to think about it for a week. By the time they came back, another pinball company had already swooped in and taken the license. Despite American Pinball offering more money than had originally been agreed to the license was already gone.
So if this is true, who might this mysterious other pinball manufacturer be? If we remember back, when Spooky Pinball was interested in securing the Godzilla license, Stern swooped in and grabbed that license up out from under them. So one would have to assume that Stern did so again.
Stern actually built a Godzilla pinball machine after securing the rights. And by most accounts it’s the most well-received pin in modern history. So a Sonic the Hedgehog game May now be in the queue at Stern. There’s a lot of speculation in this post, but I believe that it’s very possible that we will see a Stern Sonic pinball machine. Time will tell…
Make sure to check out the latest episode of the awesome (is saying that redundant? lol) Super Awesome Pinball Show here:
https://superawesomepinballshow.libsyn.com"
I followed that article up with one in late January of this year confirming that Spooky Pinball does not have the Sonic license:
Article from 1/31/2025
"Despite the recent rumor based upon seeing a drawing of Sonic the Hedgehog on a whiteboard in the background of a Spooky Pinball factory picture, they are NOT doing a Sonic the Hedgehog pinball machine"
It is starting to look like the rumor that a pinball manufacturer has secured the license to Sonic was indeed right, but it wasn't Stern. Based on conversations with several people I now personally believe that Jersey Jack's next pinball machine after Harry Potter will be based on Sonic the Hedgehog. I have heard that JJP is going to produce two versions of Sonic, one based on the video game franchise and one based on the movies. I assume that the layout will be basically the same on both and that the code and art will be different, but that's pure speculation on my part. I'm still calling this a rumor at this point for obvious reasons, but I feel pretty good about the fact that this is most likely Jersey Jack's 2026 game. We'll see.
What do you think about a Sonic the Hedgehog pinball machine? Would you buy one? Which version would you rather have, one based on the video game or one on the movies?
