data East - no support?

[Brian Clark]

So would I. I don't know how much time and money Farsight has to sink into the development of emulating an operating system. If it's a lot then I just can't see the monetary reward for emulating the limited amount of Data East tables that would be logically obtainable. I think it's quite possible that, if Farsight sticks to their original statements of 40 to 50 tables, we may never get any Data East or Sega pins. We've all seen that they don't exactly advertise that they have the rights to them. It's only brought out when someone asks specifically about it. Kinda like when I asked them directly about the missing two songs from CFTBL. Farsight didn't post that information up front and for good reason. It's a disappointment.


Who knows? Farsight may decide there's enough want for some DE tables and decide to do them. But when you add up all or most of the two Hall of Fame collections, numerous WPC and System 11 titles along with a handful of classic Bally and Gottlieb's, and throwing in a few modern Stern's, you get to 40 or 50 tables pretty quick.

They mentioned right away that they had the rights to DE and SEGA when they were first asked. They even mentioned interest in Tales from the Crypt. It's very possible we won't see DE tables, but at the same time, nothing has been confirmed and Farsight is still in the process of deciding on tables. Farsight hasn't even said anything about tables like Earthshaker, Fish Tales, or BK 2000 yet. I highly doubt they will do DE if they can't do the emulation since the tables were all released in the era with full soundtracks and the start of more complex rules. I don't see how Stern is any less limited than DE and SEGA since most of those games are licensed, as well. At least with SEGA, they already have the Whitestar hardware emulated. Not to mention the Stern S.A.M. games are recent, not emulated yet, and still have the same issue with licenses.

Real tables have bugs and all games are buggy, but Farsight's QA isn't the best and their games have been buggy since the Genesis days. There are also plenty of titles out there less buggy than Pinball Arcade, including some physics based games. Gottlieb Hall of Fame PS2 has some serious issues with no way around but to get another version. I have some hopes for more emulation aside from WPC and Whitestar since they are working with the PinMAME author (and it looks like System 11 will be emulated very soon), but it seems most of the issues were more from making a streamlined engine and worries about creating more bugs. I just wish Pinball Arcade was handled by a team that would try to get important features out rather than one that may not be equipped to handle the things necessary to make the product all it can be.

Don't get me wrong I love pinball arcade, but I'm surprised with some of the excuses given for buggy games. I keep hearing that Skyrim is buggy simply becuase it's an RPG, despite games like Dark Souls apparently being far less buggy (and I like Skyrim quite a bit myself). It used to be mainly PC getting buggy games with console releases being more polished (there are exceptions, though), but now it's ok for a game to be released buggy with fixes later.

 

[MrTwister]

Why are these licence so expensive? No one will ever build new flippers, so the licences will rost in their cellars...

Why they sell it a little cheaper so some fans could have some fun with that?

 

[BonzoGonzo]

you mean licences for movie stuff -> movie title, actors faces on the backboard/playfield, movie sound clips/music?

 

[MrTwister]

I think they bought a complete pack. I dont think they buy 1 licence for the name, 1 for an actor etc...

Second, isn't there a Diffentation between wich product you eant to sell, and the quantity of the product?

 

[BonzoGonzo]

they bought the rights for the pinball table, not the stuff mentioned above...

for example -> williams' demolition man needs extra rights for usage of movie quotes (like "send a maniac to catch a maniac") and the likenesess of wesley snipes, stallone and sandra bullock on the backglass...

 

[gooche77]

That's not much of a likeness to Sandra Bullock.

 

[BonzoGonzo]

tell that to her lawyers