Stern is working on a better system now - obviously because of competition - but their last SAM system was uninspired, meant merely to take everything they had, and duplicate it using more modern technology (since the old parts were getting difficult to source). The only actual benefits SAM really has over Whitestar is USB updating and slightly increased storage (but still pitifully low compared to what it should have been at the time). And the only changes visible to players are slightly clearer audio (still rather poor due to storage space issues), and a few more monochrome shades (16, but I think Keith said only 10 were actually usable).
Heck... if you sat an X-Men next to a 1995 Frankenstein and asked a layman to pick out which one was technically more advanced, they'd probably go with the 17 year old model because it had stereo sound and a bigger DMD!
Now with WOZ... it's going to be painfully obvious it's more advanced than anything else out in the field.
what i dont understand is why pinballs only play one way these days? like why isnt there more than one game that is allowed? other than easy and hard and so on, why cant they have a few choices of games? you have your regular rules that suit the theme for regular game play.
Then have other smaller games like skill tester style? or small battle games, eg who can hit that spinner the quickest and your mate has to beat that time,
especially if they are made for home markets now, another example- there are three drop targets in your game, and on your dmd or lcd is a set of orders that come up you must knock down those targets on order with timer before you loose that game, like a practice mode on a Xbox game.
you arent worried about draining balls or bound by regular rules, you just have to aim for targets or ramps or do certain things outside regular pinball rules to help hone skills for regular play,
if its wifi you even go up against your mate or what not fro mthe other side of the world, stern have not been thinking out side of the box and are thinking like pinball 20 years ago limited by tech, however they arent limited by tech, they are limited by imagination.
pinball must be networked imo, so you can battle off with people in real time and have their score on your machine, so you can get angry and plot your revenge when its your ball, and make it feel like they are playing beside you, when actual fact they are on the other side of the world.
