Did you know that pinball 2000 was assumed to take out 2 other titles?   Wizard Blocks,  Playboy...  

Watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZcqZwEi5P0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjUSNZ6Abtk

Yeah, they also registered for a game called "Wild Toys". Name registration numbers on the left.

75-618550        WILD TOYS              99/01/05
75-663180        WIZARD BLOCKS       99/06/24

I got to speak with Cameron Silver while @ Expo this year, and we got to talking about other titles the pinball department were brainstorming for P2K at the time WMS pulled the plug.  One of the titles that John, Duncan and Cameron were putting together was a Theatre of Magic 2, and listening to Cameron get excited while talking about some of the things P2K would have allowed them to do made for an excellent story.

(and Playboy P2K was originally slated to be a haunted house type of theme)

D

Theatre of Magic 2? Hmmm, that may have actually gotten me to buy a pin2k machine. Too bad the plug got pulled.

Quoted from Menace

(and Playboy P2K was originally slated to be a haunted house type of theme)

D

Am I the only one that thinks that a haunted house theme would sell big-time? GTB's HH is still popular today... the horror theme never goes out of style...

Quoted from Grauwulf

Theatre of Magic 2? Hmmm, that may have actually gotten me to buy a pin2k machine.

Never occurred to me before but now i can clearly see how they could improve upon the original.
p2k platform makes it possible to have more than one trunk (albeit virtual).
Multiple trunks  for game play would warm the cockles of even the deepest TOM haters.  

Quoted from Sparky

Am I the only one that thinks that a haunted house theme would sell big-time? GTB's HH is still popular today... the horror theme never goes out of style...

I would agree whole heartedly.

And who knows... with the development of NuCore and the release on the horizon (and the fact the original P2K team from WMS is absolutely blown away by it), we may just be lucky enough to see some new P2K kits released in the years to come.  (hey... I can dream right?)

D

Quoted from Menace

And who knows... with the development of NuCore and the release on the horizon (and the fact the original P2K team from WMS is absolutely blown away by it), we may just be lucky enough to see some new P2K kits released in the years to come.  (hey... I can dream right?)

I see an interesting business opportunity for a pin enthusiast with guts (...and money...)


With Stern sacking quality Designers, and legends like Lawlor and Ritchie
already working as freelance contractors,   it might not be too much of a stretch
to get some of those original P2K designers to work on  a new P2K pin.

Perhaps even let Stern in on the take in exchange for borrowing the manufacturing facilities...

...aaaahhhh, to dream....



Steph

Quoted from Steph

I see an interesting business opportunity for a pin enthusiast with guts (...and money...)


With Stern sacking quality Designers, and legends like Lawlor and Ritchie
already working as freelance contractors,   it might not be too much of a stretch
to get some of those original P2K designers to work on  a new P2K pin.

Perhaps even let Stern in on the take in exchange for borrowing the manufacturing facilities...

...aaaahhhh, to dream....



Steph

I actually mentioned this to another member last night in a PM. I personally believe that if Stern folds, I would not be surprised to see another company rise up (either new or a resurrected name) and release a product. And with the NuCore hardware being less expensive and using common parts (I think), this gives P2K a BIG advantage! The system, albeit not 100% popular with collectors, is a phenomenal platform. The possibilities are endless. And this system could even run a standard format pin with an LCD instead of the DMD easily.

NuCore is the engine for the future of pinball. Period. It is versatile, and uses readily-found components.

Quoted from Sparky

NuCore is the engine for the future of pinball. Period. It is versatile, and uses readily-found components.

Sadly, last I heard about it Wayne is threatening to stop it. The threat alone may stall it for some time. No one wants to get in a legal battle over something that has limited revenue potential.

I agree it could have alot of potential for hobbyists. Don't see it replacing Stern. Operators cann't be bothered to put in a memory stick and update the software, I cann't see them buying NuCore unless it is a complete pinball. And if it's a complete pinball, it's going to cost the same or more than pinball costs now and operators aren't buying enough now.

Duane

Quoted from Sparky

Am I the only one that thinks that a haunted house theme would sell big-time? GTB's HH is still popular today... the horror theme never goes out of style...

Slightly OT unless were talking about themes in general, but I thought a Hot Wheels-themed machine would have been popular. Imagine orange tracks/ramps, a car/ball accelerator (à la High Speed 2), a vertical loop, etc...

Quoted from TwilightZone

Sadly, last I heard about it Wayne is threatening to stop it.

I'm not sure that he can....

NuCore is an Operating System made to emulate the Cyrix/Linux platform
which is used by Pin 2K.

Williams never owned the rights to that, so Wayne can blow smoke all he wants,
he doesn't have a legal leg to stand on...

He "might" be able to argue that using the P2K code to develop the OS
is a violation of copyright, but even that is weak...

And if NuCore becomes a reality, any new titles produced couldn't possibly
be a copyright infringement , ...unless someone was dumb enough to re-use
the "Pinball 2000" name .

I'd like nothing more than for Wayne to challenge this
and take a beating over it...  

He's a parasite to the hobby and needs to go away...


Steph

Quoted from Steph

I'm not sure that he can....

NuCore is an Operating System made to emulate the Cyrix/Linux platform
which is used by Pin 2K.

Williams never owned the rights to that, so Wayne can blow smoke all he wants,
he doesn't have a legal leg to stand on...

He "might" be able to argue that using the P2K code to develop the OS
is a violation of copyright, but even that is weak...

And if NuCore becomes a reality, any new titles produced couldn't possibly
be a copyright infringement , ...unless someone was dumb enough to re-use
the "Pinball 2000" name .

I'd like nothing more than for Wayne to challenge this
and take a beating over it...  

He's a parasite to the hobby and needs to go away...


Steph

No worries... wayne's time is up soon... he has the rights for 5 years only.

Quoted from Steph

I'd like nothing more than for Wayne to challenge this
and take a beating over it...  

He's a parasite to the hobby and needs to go away...

Agree with you 100%, but imagine you are one of the three guys that developed the system. You willing to start remortgaging your house so you can fight a law suite? Ever get involved with lawyers? It's expensive, even if you are right. You can go bankrupt fighting.

I only recall reading about Wayne threatening to go after them. I don't know the status today. If it is true, it will delay things for certain.

Like Sparky said, his rights have to run out eventually and that time must be coming soon. I have heard 5 years as well.

Time will tell.

I wish Nucore nothing but luck.

Duane

Quoted from Steph

And if NuCore becomes a reality, any new titles produced couldn't possibly
be a copyright infringement , ...unless someone was dumb enough to re-use
the "Pinball 2000" name .

Software, no.

Hardware, maybe?  

I bet if you copied the side rails and the P2k mounting hardware, or anything else specific to P2k, I'm sure you would have some licensing issues on your hands.  

Just to keep everyone in the loop...

NuCore is out being Alpha tested around the state of MI as I type this.  Chuck and Don are slated to release NuCore Q1 of 2009.  Any legal issues are being delt with already, and from last I heard from Chuck, Wanus (hope that doesn't offend anyone here...) will not be an issue in terms of licensing.  Gene also owns a number of P2K rights, of which he has the most recent P2K patent.  (Wayne has one of the preliminary P2K patents, but it looks like Gene's superceeds it?)

So the story as it unfolds will not have to worry too much (if at all) about the blunder from down under.

Now regarding new kits that could be dev'd for the game, there would have to be licensing agreements in place to have the new PF interface with the existing P2K cab, but that's about all I would think. (oh, and probably some PF mech's etc)  They would probably work with IPB and release them either through IPB or under their own design house names with IPB's approval.

The games wouldn't HAVE to run Nucore, as they would / could be sold with new ROM chips and used on the original PRISM cards.  Anyone running Nucore would also have to rip the ROM's that came with the kit into Nucore, as that is what they have to do now with RFM and SWEp1.

Exciting times to come I would imagine.   Lots of possibilities for sure.

D

Williams built the P2K OS from XINU code. They did so because they needed to modify the kernal. They elected not to go with Linux because they would have been obligated to release the changes publicly under the open source licencing agreement. With XINU they had no such obligation so they in fact do own the code or at least the changes that were made in order to run P2K.

WRT who owns what rights between Gene and Wayne, I would have to say it is dubious at best. Separating Williams from Bally in the later years seems like parting two siamese twins that share the same brain. I think the lawyers could bankrupt the both of them trying to sort that one out if they ever really went to court on it.

Exactly.  And the nice thing about NuCore is....  They don't modify the original code one bit.  All NuCore does is emulate the original hardware platform.

D

Quoted from TwilightZone

Ever get involved with lawyers? It's expensive, even if you are right. You can go bankrupt fighting.

This gets me chuckling when I think of Stern blatantly ripping off Bally.... oh wait he was a lawyer. Only a lawyer would have the nuts to do something like that.

Do we have any lawyers on here that can afford to start a pinball company?

Quoted from necro_nemesis

This gets me chuckling when I think of Stern blatantly ripping off Bally.... oh wait he was a lawyer. Only a lawyer would have the nuts to do something like that.

Sam Stern was a lawyer?

Quoted from necro_nemesis

This gets me chuckling when I think of Stern blatantly ripping off Bally.... oh wait he was a lawyer. Only a lawyer would have the nuts to do something like that.

Do we have any lawyers on here that can afford to start a pinball company?

Sam Stern and Harry Williams (the founders of Stern Electronics Inc.) were not lawyers. Gary Stern (the lawyer in the family), didn't get involved with really running the company until closer to the time of his father's death in the early 80's, to my knowledge.

Gary did, however, rip off Williams when he started Data East.

If you're going to throw stones, make sure you throw the right stones at the right people.

Quoted from Monkeybug

Sam Stern was a lawyer?

No Gary was... and now cooke is sounding like one too... i.e. trying to confuse the issue.

Guilty guilty guilty and had to pay royalties to Bally in the end. Nuff said.

Quoted from necro_nemesis

No Gary was... and now cooke is sounding like one too... i.e. trying to confuse the issue.

Guilty guilty guilty and had to pay royalties to Bally in the end. Nuff said.

Nobody was found guilty. They settled out of court.

Truth, truth, truth.

and, in the end... who's still making pinball machines?  

Why pay if your not guilty? If you read the story on posted on Marvin it would lead you to believe so.

From Marvin/Fix

Why Are Stern's Electronic Guts Essentially the Same as Bally's?
According to Tony Miller (a Stern employee in 1980), Gary Stern (a lawyer), with the backing of his father Sam Stern (a previous president of Williams), bought out Chicago Coin in the mid-1970s. At the same time Gary Stern also bought a small PC board assembly firm called Universal Research Laboratories (URL). URL was started by a couple of ex-Seeburg engineers to assemble PC boards. URL then later built a couple of video games (B17) and got into financial difficulties, where Gary Stern bought them out.

The reason why the Stern boards (1977-1982) were interchangeable with Bally was that URL 'reverse engineered' (copied) the Bally system. Litigation ensued, resulting in Stern paying a royalty to Bally for each game sold. Later Stern made some slight changes to the MPU board (to increase the amount of RAM and ROM).

Interestingly, when Gary Stern started DataEast in 1987, he did the same thing to Williams and copied their current "system11" boardset. The same result happened (lititgation), where DataEast ended up paying Williams a royalty for each game sold.

The other story is that Bally somewhat looked the other way when Stern copied their board system. The reason for this was simple: Bally wanted their pinball board system to be "the one", opposed to what Williams was doing. This way if a number of manufacturers used the "Bally solidstate system", it would become the "standard" and Bally would have the upper-hand over Williams. Pretty smart thinking really.

I thought we were talking about Pinball 2000?

Quoted from ALJO

Both! Pinball australia are releasing MM and CC under the Bally label.

Yeah! And pigs are flying out of my rear as I type this!

I find this thread offensive.  I'll be sending Sparky a PM momentarily.  

______________________________

It's a shame P2K died like it did, the developers that were at the NuCore seminar in Chicago were saying that Wizard Blocks was to be the first TRUE P2K game (the others were them just getting their feet wet).

Quoted from machine.slave

I find this thread offensive.  I'll be sending Sparky a PM momentarily.  

Not unless you want to see the following message next time you log on:

THIS WEBPAGE CANNOT BE FOUND.



So watch what you write, rooster .... uh.... Brock.  

Damn Tourette's...

(I still have a sense of humor...)


BALLS!!!


Spanky

Quoted from Sparky

So watch what you write, rooster .... uh.... Brock.  

Oh like I've never heard that one before!!  

Now I find this thread offensive... where's that PM button!

Quoted from Sparky

BALLS!!!

I'm also offended. PM heading your way, Ian!

And speaking of balls, to further derail this thread:

Quoted from ALJO

Never too late... find the prototype Wizard Blocks and you can try it, at what price though.

Gene has it in Chicago

The Nucore guys played it.. said it was good, but not nearly complete (software-wise)

Quoted from ALJO

Never too late... find the prototype Wizard Blocks and you can try it, at what price though.

I know a guy who had a Pinball Circus he had boroughed from a friend who had one of the two, after playing a while with it, he offered the guy 50 000$ USD for it, but the offer was denied, not too long after the owner sold it to the Pinball museum in Los Vagas... must of been sold higher than the offer, what do you guys think

that "guy" who sold it to the pinball Museum is Steve Kordek.... who also designed Ticket Tac toe ...

Faque ok Monsieur big shot "I know a guy" a qui Steve Kordek a prêter pinball circus... who's the guy!? cause I don't see a lot of names on the list of people Steve Kordek would give the game to!

Quoted from Mrhide

that "guy" who sold it to the pinball Museum is Steve Kordek.... who also designed Ticket Tac toe ...

Faque ok Monsieur big shot "I know a guy" a qui Steve Kordek a prêter pinball circus... who's the guy!? cause I don't see a lot of names on the list of people Steve Kordek would give the game to!

This combination of French and English in one sentence is offensive. I'm PM'ing Sparky.

Claude,



chill man! Maudit que tu est susceptible! et que j'HAIS les "nouveau" smilies par default! la "grosse bave verte" du smilie est censé être un gros smile pour démontrer que JE GNIAISE ... comme d'habitude!

et oui, Greg Kemnitz est sur la short liste de Steve Kordec,

oh ... and pinball 2000 sucks. no wonder they shut down the factory

Quoted from ALJO

mais ma fille de 17 ans m'a fait tout un coup hier pendent que j'etait A Ottawa pour aller chercher des Pins et ca m'a couter 2000$ de dégats

Ok... this sounds like promising new thread....  

[ Just kidding, I hope things work out for you... ]

Steph

Quoted from ALJO

Machineslave you knew that Gene had the Wizard Blocks and wrote it down on MAACA? Oh, what a "Big Shot" Phil must be thinking of you.

.. huh?

Quoted from machine.slave

.. huh?

I get it. It makes about as much sense as o-woof's 6.4 out of 10 rating on it.  

http://ipdb.org/rate/showrate.pl?gid=4489

WoW, I hope that somebody is going to make come alive again pinball2000....

Quoted from Mrhide

oh ... and pinball 2000 sucks. no wonder they shut down the factory

/me slaps Mrhide around with the largest trout he can find!!!

Seriously, if you judge a whole platform (in this case P2K) from the first two games they ever made (which by the way the designers fully admit are not 'players' games, they were only intended to showcase the new technology), is not only VERY short sighted but downright silly.

Sticking to that criteria, I'm guessing you feel that WPC DMD games suck as well?  (Seeing as Party Zone and T2 were the first 2 DMD's released and by all accounts are not very good)  Then again, if you look at where WPC ended up and apply that same logic to P2K.... just imagine what we might have seen!

I think P2K as a platform was ingenious with all of the advances they packed into it, and from a serviceability standpoint is head and shoulders above anything else on the market.

Doug

Quoted from Menace

Party Zone and T2 were the first 2 DMD's released and by all accounts are not very good

Hey what about GI?

Quoted from Mrhide

oh ... and pinball 2000 sucks. no wonder they shut down the factory

Yeah Phil with all due respect, IMHO your out to lunch on this one.   Stop testing coil voltages with your tongue.  

Quoted from Menace

/me slaps Mrhide around with the largest trout he can find!!!

holy mirc flashback batman

Quoted Text

Sticking to that criteria, I'm guessing you feel that WPC DMD games suck as well?  (Seeing as Party Zone and T2 were the first 2 DMD's released and by all accounts are not very good)  Then again, if you look at where WPC ended up and apply that same logic to P2K.... just imagine what we might have seen!

I actually like those 2 games a lot and would own them both if space wasn't an issue. had a lot of fun in the arcades with them.

Quoted Text

I think P2K as a platform was ingenious with all of the advances they packed into it, and from a serviceability standpoint is head and shoulders above anything else on the market.

agreed.  but the fact is those 2 games are ALL they gave us and if they admit they are not players game ... then I rest my case

Quoted from ALJO

Sorry Machineslave, it must be the french part that you would need to understand what I mean, I guess.

No no, I used a translator and still didn't get it  

Quoted from ALJO

and Gilligan's Island was the first DMD to be released from Williams/Bally, then came T2.

WRONG.  

Slugfest was the first DMD game RELEASED by williams

Quoted from Mrhide

agreed.  but the fact is those 2 games are ALL they gave us and if they admit they are not players game ... then I rest my case

Just because they are not 'players' games doesn't mean P2K sucks as a platform is what I was getting at.  The uppity ups @ WMS mandated that RFM and SWEp1 were to be more of a showcase piece rather than push the platform technology to produce kick a** games.  (that was to follow in subsequent releases confirmed by the designers)

PZ a good game? (and GI?)  To each their own I guess.  (and that being said I can finally understand your position on many things)    

Next you'll be telling me that Hollywood Heat is one of the best Gtb's of all time....

Doug

Quoted from Menace

Just because they are not 'players' games doesn't mean P2K sucks as a platform is what I was getting at.

I play my RFM, and then later I will play it again. Please define "players game" for me?

Rule #1 a game is good if you enjoy it.

PZ is fun. GI is fun. T2 to IMHO not as fun....

RFM looks like a game. It plays like a game. If I take a sniff inside the coin door it even smells like a game. Hell it even has a wizard mode. What's this showcase business?

Quoted from necro_nemesis

RFM looks like a game. It plays like a game. If I take a sniff inside the coin door it even smells like a game. Hell it even has a wizard mode. What's this showcase business?

He's quoting what the P2K DESIGNERS said at Expo, man!  You said yourself, a game is only fun if you find it fun.  Whether you found RFM fun or not is up to you, but the fact remains that the designers intended it to be a showcase of the technology 1st, and a fun game 2nd.  They were after all selling the technology to a bunch of board members and not players/operators

Quoted from Mrhide

WRONG.  

Slugfest was the first DMD game RELEASED by williams

And slugfest $!#%!@ OWNS!

Quoted from jeffo

And slugfest $!#%!@ OWNS!

Dude!  You've already sold it, you can turn off the smoke machine.  

Quoted from machine.slave

a showcase of the technology 1st, and a fun game 2nd.

That's it. No one can touch it anymore. It's going to the Smithsonian.

This looks like it could be a whole pinball 2000 meal deal.

http://tinyurl.com/5b8aav