Homepin's Thunderbirds Pinball - latest update May 2015

[Pintoxicated]

Yes, I have approval to sell spare parts and PF toys with licenced art for as long as the machines last......

Nice work!!!

[Caveoftreasures]

I only counted proper pinball machines and consider a real production run to be 100 pinball machines or more to be a realistic figure to call it a fully produced pinball machine for the public.

I haven't seen anything mass produced by Spooky ? I have seen one or two prototypes but haven't seen 10 or 20 of the same pinball machine being delivered to customers, nothing about price or public videos etc etc. I thought this would have made www.pinballnews.com if it was newsworthy and something worth noting but it seems to be in the dark because I stick to this pinball forum or PinballNews or FB and Stern or JJP for pinball news.

Is there a video of ten or more finished and shipped machines from Spooky etc.
They seem to have been working on apx 4 different titles for Apx five years with little end results, so I have never taken them seriously. ?

Heighway Pinball, hope they do something cause I don't count the Bacardi toy etc, but the issue with Full Throttle is that reports say they only have pre orders for half a dozen in the USA only, a couple machines in Australia, and no great figures for the UK published. I wonder just how many millions this title has cost to set up a factory for, and if the orders haven't reached 100, it will be a massive financial loss ? I am perplexed how Heighway can possibly financially survive on paper.

The Big L pinball, again, how many have really been sold and how will they financially be able to set up a factory for such low numbers ? It's all great in theory, but the calculator tells a grim story for money being spent versus total returns to come in. If these were my businesses and my balance sheets, it would be almost like trading insolvent.
Financial warning bells. I just wonder if anything with these start ups are really ever going to eventuate and if any of them will be here in 1 or 2 years. Katana/Homepin excluded.

[swinks]

I only counted proper pinball machines and consider a real production run to be 100 pinball machines or more to be a realistic figure to call it a fully produced pinball machine for the public.

I haven't seen anything mass produced by Spooky ? I have seen one or two prototypes but haven't seen 10 or 20 of the same pinball machine being delivered to customers, nothing about price or public videos etc etc. I thought this would have made www.pinballnews.com if it was newsworthy and something worth noting but it seems to be in the dark because I stick to this pinball forum or PinballNews or FB and Stern or JJP for pinball news.

Is there a video of ten or more finished and shipped machines from Spooky etc.
They seem to have been working on apx 4 different titles for Apx five years with little end results, so I have never taken them seriously. ?

Heighway Pinball, hope they do something cause I don't count the Bacardi toy etc, but the issue with Full Throttle is that reports say they only have pre orders for half a dozen in the USA only, a couple machines in Australia, and no great figures for the UK published. I wonder just how many millions this title has cost to set up a factory for, and if the orders haven't reached 100, it will be a massive financial loss ? I am perplexed how Heighway can possibly financially survive on paper.

The Big L pinball, again, how many have really been sold and how will they financially be able to set up a factory for such low numbers ? It's all great in theory, but the calculator tells a grim story for money being spent versus total returns to come in. If these were my businesses and my balance sheets, it would be almost like trading insolvent.
Financial warning bells. I just wonder if anything with these start ups are really ever going to eventuate and if any of them will be here in 1 or 2 years.

Spooky sold out there run of 150 only ever to be made "AMH" with approximately 70-80 already sent out to customers already with 6-8 coming to Australia at the end of the year which is the last of the production run.

Spooky scrapped "Pinball Zombies from Beyond the Grave" but the word out suggests they are using that layout with new art for a licensed deal that they are going to announce in the next month or so. They have never worked on more than 2 designs publicly and there model has always been get the pin close to finish and then ask for a deposit 3 months out from the build. So if anything I think they will survive and people have been very happy with there games. Plus they are out west and have a strong support from Pinball Life for parts with about 6 people employed so they are taking it slow and steady. I doubt these guys will do big runs for a while but they admit building pinball is hard but they are living the dream.

Heighway are probably going to use Wayne in Melbourne for importing and distribution and they have a licensed deal to do Aliens and he has other businesses so guessing that they are funding his setup.

Big L are contracting a company to build the cabinets and then outsource assembly so they don't really have a factory.

[Caveoftreasures]

Does AMH mean Americas Most Haunted or something ?

How come the 150 ? Sold and the 80 ? Sent out hasn't been on any media anywhere noticeable. Is this info stuff you can only read on Pinside or the Spooky only website which I am assuming they have ?

Any photos of the finished AMH or videos of the production line or customer testimony videos etc.
Never seen anything on any of it.

Wasn't he doing a zombie theme, plus Galaxy a Girl plus the Hsunted theme and one other ?

You know more about it than I do. I understand that.

[swinks]

Does AMH mean Americas Most Haunted or something ?

How come the 150 ? Sold and the 80 ? Sent out hasn't been on any media anywhere noticeable. Is this info stuff you can only read on Pinside or the Spooky only website which I am assuming they have ?

Any photos of the finished AMH or videos of the production line or customer testimony videos etc.
Never seen anything on any of it.

Wasn't he doing a zombie theme, plus Galaxy a Girl plus the Hsunted theme and one other ?

You know more about it than I do. I understand that.

AMH = America's Most Haunted

They had a slow start on sales based on new company, non licensed and so decided to cap it 150 so to go onto other games. But just at the recent Texas show they brought 3 to the show, one was in a tournament and they took orders for 20 just at the show when it was announced the build would be capped at 150 plus 9 allocated for Aus but from what I heard only 7-8 coming to Aus. Ben Heck is probably a little more vocal about updates and code etc but it has been on Pinside and the spooky podcast and you can see his small factory photos and production line on Spooky Pinball facebook page. I was following heavily as was wanted to get one but for certain reasons I am not now.

Zombie theme = Pinball Zombies from beyond the grave

Galaxy Girl is the multimorphic game that Gerry is doing.

as for haunted, horror themes in general I am sure this will be Spooky's main area of builds

Hope that helps

[Caveoftreasures]

Sorry. Back to Thunderbirds.

Just watched a guy on SBS who does his own home style Thunderbirds videos and he makes the sets and all the spacecraft and space stations and does it exactly like the original TBirds was done.
He has been doing this as his hobby for almost 40 years he says.

Wish I had of recordered it, Mike would have liked this guys toy/model making for his pinball Playfield toys etc.
This fellow made some amazing Thunderbirds style movies with his own audio etc . Very cool.

[Caveoftreasures]

Thanks Swinksy.

[solar value]

Not to derail too much but in regards to the general state of manufacturing at the moment and where Homepin fits in the scheme of things:

As Swinks said, Spooky pinball are slightly different case because they have set themselves up as a boutique maker. They will produce small runs of machines over a longer time frame. However, they have sold a run of 150 and manufactured and shipped about half of these so they certainly deserve credit for that.

Heighway, however, are hoping to become a major player. They have spent a lot of time and money setting up a factory and have a real production line. They are very ambitious and intend to produce several titles per year. So there are actually a lot of similarities between Heighway and Homepin in that they both have a factory, have both produced an initial run of amusement devices (other than pinball) and are both hoping to produce many titles and become a large manufacturer. I would say Heighway is slightly ahead at this stage, their first pinball game is on the production line, but only because they started earlier. Heighway seems to be aiming to produce more titles at a quicker rate than JJP who, it seems, are content to spend more time on each game. Although we may well see the release of JJP #3 towards the end of the year as well (it has been in development in Pat Lawlor's studio behind the scenes since early last year).

It's going to be very interesting to see how things develop but we should have 4 major manufacturers up and running by next year: Stern, JJP, Heighway and Homepin. As far as I can tell these four big players are fairly secure at the moment (although JJP is embroiled in some legal trouble). Heighway has recently moved to a new, bigger factory and is hiring staff so all seems well there. Homepin of course looks serious from what we can tell from Mike's updates and pictures of the factory.

The other start-ups are less convincing but it is too early to tell. Dutch pinball seems to have righted themselves after their issues at the start of the year and Multimorphic are working steadily but are doing it all on their own capital and seem to be somewhat limited by that.

Then there are a few uncertains: the Spanish guy with the Nemo pins has had a lot of delays but there are no rumors of trouble, John Popaduik and Zidware seem to be going the way of Predator unless he can pull out something special. Circus Maximus have talent and resources but we don't know the price or how many Pinball Circus games they will produce yet. Riot pinball didn't get the interest in their Wrath of Olympus game and seem to be done unless they can team up with someone else. Silver Castle have their Timeshock machine which looks sharp but we haven't seen it flipping yet.

Hold on for the ride...the second half of 2015 is going to be insane!

[Caveoftreasures]

What's the goss about JJP and legal hassles ? Haven't heard about any of that yet ?

Interesting.

Also, good informative post Solar Value.

[Pop Bumper Pete]

What's the goss about JJP and legal hassles ? Haven't heard about any of that yet ?

Interesting.

Also, good informative post Solar Value.

rumor is they owe somebody half a mill