Discussion/request: "Boutique" pinball tables

[Shaneus]

Heh, thanks for the good images of the machine.

As a fan of Sonic up to this day, I have to say that there was so much wasted potential, having been made out of leftover Predator parts. Namely that there ought to be a slot machine embedded in it, as whenever pinball comes up in a Sonic game, slot machines are always close by. Still want to play it though.

Whodunnit? begging for a Sonic re-theme. "Jumping" up the elevator could easily be tweaked to make a Sonic jumping sound, one of those three ramps could be designated as the special theme access. Or even used to emulate left-middle-right of the Sonic 2 bonus stage where one ramp is worth rings, one is worth nothing and the other has bombs on it.

Or something.

 

[Espy]

The artwork on Sonic looks way better than most any stern. I would hope the rollover in the plunger doesn't score or that could be spammed (assuming anyone actually wanted to spend time just lightly plunging for prolonged periods of time. Interesting but seems kind of pointless.

It's an odd amalgamation of art styles. I see CGI renders, Uekawa drawings and Sonic Chronicles backgrounds. It's fine as it's just a fan piece, but a consistent art style would be great if there was an official one. Preferably hand-drawn as it would be far too easy to stick CGI renders all over it and make it another ugly Stern stockart fest.

 

[Nightwing]

I would love to see Skit-B's Predator table in digitized form,preferably on TPA.

 

[Zombie Aladdin]

It's an odd amalgamation of art styles. I see CGI renders, Uekawa drawings and Sonic Chronicles backgrounds. It's fine as it's just a fan piece, but a consistent art style would be great if there was an official one. Preferably hand-drawn as it would be far too easy to stick CGI renders all over it and make it another ugly Stern stockart fest.

The thing is that, with the exception of the occasional handheld title, official Sonic art is no longer hand-drawn. I think the last game to have hand-drawn artwork was Sonic Rush Adventure, though CGI Classic Sonic in Sonic Generations, personally, is VERY well done CGI that looks just like the original 2-D artwork for the earliest Sonic games. That being said, there have been some promotional artwork for merchandise and events here and there that are 2-D.

Considering we're going to have a 3-D CGI cartoon premiering at the end of this year, it's pretty clear which artistic medium SEGA has chosen for Sonic. if you look at the Archie Sonic comics' covers recently, even they have created CGI renders of their own characters (though the insides are still hand-drawn by Tracy Yeardley and the like). The fact of the matter is that Sonic is a children's franchise, and children prefer CGI over hand-drawn.

 

[Espy]

The thing is that, with the exception of the occasional handheld title, official Sonic art is no longer hand-drawn. I think the last game to have hand-drawn artwork was Sonic Rush Adventure, though CGI Classic Sonic in Sonic Generations, personally, is VERY well done CGI that looks just like the original 2-D artwork for the earliest Sonic games. That being said, there have been some promotional artwork for merchandise and events here and there that are 2-D.

Considering we're going to have a 3-D CGI cartoon premiering at the end of this year, it's pretty clear which artistic medium SEGA has chosen for Sonic. if you look at the Archie Sonic comics' covers recently, even they have created CGI renders of their own characters (though the insides are still hand-drawn by Tracy Yeardley and the like). The fact of the matter is that Sonic is a children's franchise, and children prefer CGI over hand-drawn.

The hand drawn art is still used in a variety of promotional and merchandise stuff. it would be a good excuse to make a proper old-fashioned hand drawn playfield design, like Metallica had, but I reckon whoever the designer is, alongside SEGA, will push for stock art on the playfield...

Not confident that we will see one any time soon, though. Stern only push for the biggest licenses. And if they do have a Muppets machine coming out as rumoured, they'll have met their "family friendly" quota for the next few years...

 

[Zombie Aladdin]

CGI art is not necessarily stock art. They could make their own CGI art just for a potential Sonic the Hedgehog pinball machine.

CGI sells. 2-D children's films now struggle to perform in theaters, at least in the United States. The Princess and the Frog turned a profit, but it was supported by old-school animation fans and Disney fans, and it infamously was outdone at the bix office by Alvin: The Squeakquel. Disney has also tried to push for wide releases of Hayao Miyazaki's films, and despite near-universal acclaim, theater owners don't really want it because the biggest potential audience, children, see 2-D animation (unless it's on TV) as old-fashioned, the sort of thing their parents would've liked as kids.

Technically, CGI is also hand-drawn though. The hand is on a mouse rather than around a pen or a stylus, but it is still done completely manually and still requires artistic talent.

Say, speaking of Skit-B, has anyone ever played that Duck Hunt machine? Unlike Predator or Sonic the Hedgehog, it doesn't have a snowball's chance in Hades of selling, even if Nintendo approved of it. I don't think Duck Hunt could help sell the upcoming Wii U release either, unlike what Gottlieb's Super Mario Bros. could do. Duck Hunt was just a well-known tech demo for the Zapper.

 

[Shaneus]

CGI doesn't always sell

 

[Mark W**a]

The fact Sonic has never been made into a real pinball machine is a real shame.

I wonder why Sega or another company never tried to market pinball to Japan. You would think with the love of Pachico machines (or whatever it's called) pinball would be a hit...

 

[Zombie Aladdin]

It's because pachinko is so big in Japan that pinball has never been able to get any significant foothold--whatever audience pinball could muster, pachinko already took it. There are, in fact, pachinko parlors--establishments dedicated entirely to pachinko, and they are common sights. (Pinball can only wish to be that popular.) You have a small group of hardcore pinball fans, but they are devoted Americanophiles, comparable to fans of pachinko in the United States. Pachinko has become very sophisticated and evolved parallel to pinball (it even went from electromechanical to solid-state at about the same time as pinball and is now just as tied to popular franchises as pinball). The big thing, however, is that whereas pinball has turned into a game to be played purely for entertainment, pachinko is still a gambling device there. People in Japan figure (correctly) that pinball is a close relative of pachinko, but it means pinball has a strong stigma of gambling there (hence why Sonic games, whenever pinball is present, tends to be associated with casinos and slot machines), and pachinko fans are satisfied with all the different machines there.

By the way, SEGA is the absolute master of the arcade scene. It's always on top of trends in arcades and other similar venues in every major region of the world. SEGA made both those Key Master and Barbet Cut redemption machines you see everywhere, for instance. Right now, the guys at SEGA know pinball isn't really popular, at least popular enough to get back into, so it's sticking to redemption games, video games (home and arcade), and pachinko machines.

CGI doesn't always sell

You sure about that? Shrek definitely sold much better than Family Guy. And the Shrek franchise is a MASSIVE one.

 

[Espy]

CGI art is not necessarily stock art. They could make their own CGI art just for a potential Sonic the Hedgehog pinball machine.

They could... but I doubt it would happen. The vast majority of Sonic merch uses the same few renders over and over. The vast majority of people wouldn't notice the difference, so there's no real incentive. Mind you, this is pure speculation on a machine that is unlikely to ever exist, at least for a few years, so bit of a moot point!

You're talking to someone with five Sonic statues in his room. I keep on top of this kind of thing

 

[Zombie Aladdin]

And you're talking to someone who has played every main series Sonic game except Sonic 2006 to 100% completion and most of the side-series ones I can get access to, and a vast collection of the franchise's music. (Me, I'm a plush collector. I'm still looking for a good Eggman plush. They're rare.)

You are absolutely right though--when it comes to official artwork, they do just use the same images for anyting outside the games and TV shows. Then again, they do change from game to game.

With Sonic Boom over the horizon, though, any Sonic-related thing released in North America will more likely use artwork from that. Takashi Iizuka seems really motivated, more so than usual, to push Sonic Boom in the west, and with the character design going in a different direction than before, they'd be easily recognizable as the characters from Sonic Boom. Prototypes of plushes of the characters with those designs have already been showcased, and they are the only ones shown this year so far.

 

[Espy]

And you're talking to someone who has played every main series Sonic game except Sonic 2006 to 100% completion and most of the side-series ones I can get access to, and a vast collection of the franchise's music. (Me, I'm a plush collector. I'm still looking for a good Eggman plush. They're rare.)

Sounds like we will get along well.

 

[Zombie Aladdin]

I thought Sonic fans were supposed to make a hissy fit over anything that isn't Batman: The Animated Series.

 

[Captain B. Zarre]

They could... but I doubt it would happen. The vast majority of Sonic merch uses the same few renders over and over. The vast majority of people wouldn't notice the difference, so there's no real incentive. Mind you, this is pure speculation on a machine that is unlikely to ever exist, at least for a few years, so bit of a moot point!

You're talking to someone with five Sonic statues in his room. I keep on top of this kind of thing

I LOVE Sonic, first video game I ever played was Sonic Adventure 2.

 

[Captain B. Zarre]

I wonder why Sega or another company never tried to market pinball to Japan. You would think with the love of Pachico machines (or whatever it's called) pinball would be a hit...

SEGA created pinball, most of their mid-90s output has Sonic somewhere on it (Maverick?, Apollo 13, Batman Forever, Frankenstein)

 

[Zombie Aladdin]

SEGA also made machines in the 1970s for a Japanese audience. It was successful for a while due to not needing import costs (which drove up the price per game and otherwise turned people away), but the line eventually fell out of popularity as they're hard to repair.

SEGA's '90s pinball division, however, worked totally independently of any of the facilities making video games. SEGA Pinball was tied to its parent company but otherwise functioned as if it were a different company. Most SEGA fans have never even heard of any of the pinball machines SEGA made in either decade (nor would they be interested if ever brought up, which is likely why SEGA doesn't mention them much).