On September 13, 2012, FarSight Studios launched their project on Steam Greenlight with the hope that the pinball community would pull together and help establish a solid base of support for The Pinball Arcade and convince Valve to allow them to publish one of the greatest pinball simulators ever on Steam...and seven months later, with support as strong as ever, Valve gives The Pinball Arcade the greenlight![PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
Thanks to the overwhelming support of every pinball enthusiast that voted for The Pinball Arcade, real pinball is finally coming to the PC...and FarSight Studios thanks everyone for their continued support of FarSight's mission to create the greatest pinball video game ever made!
Some info on the upcoming PC version has been released and is as follows :
? The PC version uses Directx 9.0c, which is also used on the Xbox 360 version, so the rendering engines are similar. They both use the same tech for the ball reflections (PS3 is done differently because of hardware differences).
? The HDR/Bloom on the PC version is different from the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions due to the nature of their hardware.
? The PC version uses much less compression on the textures with some of them completely uncompressed, while both the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions use DXT compression on the textures.
? Lighting model is the same as on the Xbox 360 version, but FarSight would like to add some more advanced lighting tech for higher end GPUs.
? Anti Aliasing on the PC version will be at a much higher level...up to 16X, whereas the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions are 2X.
? Portrait mode is not working just yet, but FarSight plans to setup portrait screens while they're redoing the main menu.
As far as when The Pinball Arcade will be available on Steam and how many tables will be available for purchase on day one, FarSight has to implement Steam's SDKs into The Pinball Arcade and redo the main menu to match the mobile and PS3 style before they can release on Steam. Also, they need to tune the lighting on each table specifically for the PC which means there's a chance not all tables will be available for purchase on launch, but the PC version should be caught up with tables releases shortly thereafter.
Last, but certainly not least, Kickstarter backers of The Twilight Zone and/or Star Trek : The Next Generation who chose the PC as their platform of choice (which includes those who pledged at the $100 tier and above) should be getting the special PC build towards the end of April or early May.
