when will we see cabinet options?

[Larry]

standalone "machines" create new revenue streams

 

[mpad]

Hello? I just use multiple displays, adjusted the angle of my display, used a custom controller, and put a wooden box around it. Since when is it illegal to mod your pc hardware? Who the f@ck cares?
This makes me go nuts. Must be about the master plan to sell this to arcade operators? Genius.
VCabs are for private pinball enthusiasts, and the community knows how to handle the legal part. Nobody would put their cab in a commercial arcade, right?

Just fix the freakin portrait camera view for a beginning!

 

[chinzman93]

standalone "machines" create new revenue streams

Sorry, didn't see this post. Yes...does kind of sound like that they could be considering a pay for play. Yikes....Lawyers please take number. On the positive side, to make that work, they would need to put out a pretty kick-ass product. But there is already a pretty high standard for cab support and frankly because of the community, it is much more flexible to change.

Edit: I would still most likely be willing to pay for this, but it better be pretty damn good.

 

[chinzman93]

Hello? I just use multiple displays, adjusted the angle of my display, used a custom controller, and put a wooden box around it. Since when is it illegal to mod your pc hardware? Who the f@ck cares?
This makes me go nuts. Must be about the master plan to sell this to arcade operators? Genius.
VCabs are for private pinball enthusiasts, and the community knows how to handle the legal part. Nobody would put their cab in a commercial arcade, right?

Just fix the freakin portrait camera view for a beginning!

Agreed....really don't even need wood around it. Two monitors and some clever control setup is still better than messing around with a phone or tablet. Though, I do use those in airports and similar situations.

 

[mpad]

Agreed....really don't even need wood around it. Two monitors and some clever control setup is still better than messing around with a phone or tablet. Though, I do use those in airports and similar situations.

Yeah for me it's just a big awesome pinball controller with integraded displays.
Don't have a coin door and won't be needing one in the future.

 

[chinzman93]

Yeah for me it's just a big awesome pinball controller with integraded displays.
Don't have a coin door and won't be needing one in the future.

And that's all you should need. But if would be nice if it was setup in such a way that someone could upgrade in the future if they desire. The coin door I really never considered since currently all TPA tables are free play, that maybe a bump in the road. Maybe they think there is a pinball resurgence going on like in the early 90's and are trying to capitalize. But, I am afraid it will end the same way. Certain groups will try and cash in, fail in a few years and then we will back to a few years ago.

 

[Larry]

I would gladly pay extra

Have you ever noticed all the ROMs are set to "free play"...I've always believed it for the same basic legal reasons (wont work with a coin slot).

 

[Larry]

I think the bottom line (literally) is this...

hold your hands really far apart:
This is how much we want

hold your hands really close together:
This is how much time the Farsight team has to work with

The stream today pretty much drove home the point that they need more help... the reasons for that are unnecessary to speculate. It is what it is.

I'm pretty sure seasons 5 will lead to 6 and 6 to 7, somewhere in there everything will fall into place... in the meantime, I really don't envy all the legal fees they must be paying, not to mention hours sitting on the phone... I'm happy to be a consumer in these matters.
The cabinet support is surely not going to stop being asked for so I'm sure will get done eventually, but if it's tied up with legal-ese on top of manpower shortages, it's no wonder the subject is sort of a sore one on both sides, "we" want more than "they" can deliver.

Ok, me shuts up and enjoys the show!
Phantom of the Opera..oh ya season passes ftw!

 

[chinzman93]

I think the bottom line (literally) is this...

hold your hands really far apart:
This is how much we want

hold your hands really close together:
This is how much time the Farsight team has to work with

The stream today pretty much drove home the point that they need more help... the reasons for that are unnecessary to speculate. It is what it is.

I'm pretty sure seasons 5 will lead to 6 and 6 to 7, somewhere in there everything will fall into place... in the meantime, I really don't envy all the legal fees they must be paying, not to mention hours sitting on the phone... I'm happy to be a consumer in these matters.
The cabinet support is surely not going to stop being asked for so I'm sure will get done eventually, but if it's tied up with legal-ese on top of manpower shortages, it's no wonder the subject is sort of a sore one on both sides, "we" want more than "they" can deliver.

Ok, me shuts up and enjoys the show!
Phantom of the Opera..oh ya season passes ftw!

If there is a legal reason that it is slowed down, I suppose that I can could understand that. But since cabinet support is my primary concern with TPA, I would just appreciate an explanation if they want me to fork over more cash. I am sure you are right season 4 will turn into season 5 and so on...But I am not going to fork over cash in the meantime without a good reason. I think almost a year in waiting is being patient, if they can't give a better explanation well then that is their decision. I hate saying that but that is what it comes down to.

Edit: As you said correctly we want more than they can deliver. However, they are the ones that originally said they wanted to support cabinets. I would suggest that maybe we might not want so much if they didn't offer it knowing that they couldn't deliver in a reasonable time frame. This has not been only on cab support, but a general trend for other platforms.

 

[rehtroboi40]

If there is a legal reason that it is slowed down, I suppose that I can could understand that. But since cabinet support is my primary concern with TPA, I would just appreciate an explanation if they want me to fork over more cash. I am sure you are right season 4 will turn into season 5 and so on...But I am not going to fork over cash in the meantime without a good reason. I think almost a year in waiting is being patient, if they can't give a better explanation well then that is their decision. I hate saying that but that is what it comes down to.

Edit: As you said correctly we want more than they can deliver. However, they are the ones that originally said they wanted to support cabinets. I would suggest that maybe we might not want so much if they didn't offer it knowing that they couldn't deliver in a reasonable time frame. This has not been only on cab support, but a general trend for other platforms.

Excellent points. All we want is what FarSight claimed they were going to deliver, and are still claiming availability on Xbox Live Arcade and the WiiU. Those claims, nearly three years later, still sit, uncorrected, on their official website.

Even while those versions remain vaporware, they have mentioned cabinet support for PC and a new GUI for all platforms. That was nearly a year ago, and still nary a sign of them.

Despite the respect I have for FarSight re-creating classic Pinball tables for play at home, they have simply promised too much. They can't deliver all the extra features they said would be on the PC version, they signed an exclusivity deal with Microsoft to bring TPA to the 360 and One in the summer of 2014 (how did that turn out?) which only further extends the already extended wait for Season 2 and the rest of season 3 on the PS4. Plus, the release of the PS4 was marred by bugs, including sound problems that were nowhere to be found in the lesser-powered PS3 version.

Even though I am a fan of Farsight for their overall excellent body of work, I seriously wonder how they are staying in business, and how their employees are not burning out.

The tone of this message was meant to show concern for FarSight, not anger at them BTW.

 

[Kratos3]

Excellent points. All we want is what FarSight claimed they were going to deliver, and are still claiming availability on Xbox Live Arcade and the WiiU. Those claims, nearly three years later, still sit, uncorrected, on their official website.

Even while those versions remain vaporware, they have mentioned cabinet support for PC and a new GUI for all platforms. That was nearly a year ago, and still nary a sign of them.

Despite the respect I have for FarSight re-creating classic Pinball tables for play at home, they have simply promised too much. They can't deliver all the extra features they said would be on the PC version, they signed an exclusivity deal with Microsoft to bring TPA to the 360 and One in the summer of 2014 (how did that turn out?) which only further extends the already extended wait for Season 2 and the rest of season 3 on the PS4. Plus, the release of the PS4 was marred by bugs, including sound problems that were nowhere to be found in the lesser-powered PS3 version.

Even though I am a fan of Farsight for their overall excellent body of work, I seriously wonder how they are staying in business, and how their employees are not burning out.

The tone of this message was meant to show concern for FarSight, not anger at them BTW.

The guy who was spearheading the new UI is one of the guys who left and had to be replaced.

 

[mpad]

I have to say one positive thing: I like the old UI, except the menu could be sorted out a bit. The new one (bluish) looks too generic imo. So maybe not that big a loss the guy left...

 

[mpad]

And a coin door is nothing else than a very complicated button. So no matter what rom they use. Inserting a coin can definitely be don by the press of a button.
Ever played VP?

 

[Larry]

Not to throw gas in the fire but VP brings up my point, by definition every user has to click a EULA which is basically saying they own the real machine and are bound by the same restrictions thereof. It's pretty much all FS would have to do in the meantime is beef up the EULA a bit for cab mode.

VP is fun if you don't mind clicking "YES" every time MAME loads a ROM with no nvram file and happily proceeding to break the law.

Ok, I'm really done... and for the record I completely agree with most folks assessment, it's been a while since anything was released "on time".

EDIT: 1- I know EVERYONE has something on their PC which is greyware at best (myself included)
2- There are lots of fun original tables in VP that don't have the MAME license issue, my bad
3- who am I kidding

 

[L33]

Ive just got back from a Play Expo event, and they had over 100 pinball machines. Was looking forward to this event, but came away a bit disappointed. Problem was, 100 machines sounds like a lot, but when there are huge numbers of people all wanting to play, you dont really get a chance to have a go on them. And I couldn't believe how often these machines kept failing. They seemed to be constantly being wheeled away for fixing, then brought back once mended. It was nice to see several of the games TPA have recreated, but only really got chance to play the odd one. And being originals, some of them weren't in the best condition, and it was difficult to hear what was going on.

The point is, the machines didn't shout out reliability, and to own all of them would require you to be a millionaire! I know its not quite the same, but TPA virtual games are pretty close, and it would be great to be able to own and play these games in the comfort of your own home, not using your thumbs on an iPhone, but to really feel like you're playing on the real thing on a cabinet. Much more reliable, plenty of choice within one cabinet and you don't have to be rich to own one. And pretty much zero maintenance costs.

I was so looking forward to today, and excited to finally play the real deal, but you know what...Im now thinking I prefer the virtual world. So come on FS, lets get that cab mode sorted, Im sure you're not that far off now.

 

[TomL]

This is a great post.

I used to a lot of pinball, and the quality of the game depends a lot of the quality of the table. Weak flippers, crud on the playfield, worn out rubbers, broken switches, we tend of forget all of that when we think back to the glory of playing pinball IRL.

 

[chinzman93]

I finally got to watch a recording of the twitch feed and it does seem like they are considering being able to place these in arcades which I would assume would require some kind of method for charging for play (working coin doors and non-free play ROMS?), which to me could be a good thing because it would probably mean a much more polished product and integration into cabs. But I can't see this working out well unless they toughen this thing up (I would love it). Operators won't make any money if they have 30 minute to 1 hour games. I don't see shorter ball times happening with software tuned to not frustrated phone users.

 

[mpad]

I hope this is all a big misunderstanding. The whole "put cab into arcade to insert coin" thing has nothing with the initial idea here. It was about providing the the technology for us private cab owners. And by technology I mean "just" to fix a proper camera, use 2nd screen for Backglas, support pindmd2, and enable custom controllers.
This is nothing that can or should be held up by any legal issue.
Do we need another thread about "private cabinet options"?

 

[chinzman93]

I hope this is all a big misunderstanding. The whole "put cab into arcade to insert coin" thing has nothing with the initial idea here. It was about providing the the technology for us private cab owners. And by technology I mean "just" to fix a proper camera, use 2nd screen for Backglas, support pindmd2, and enable custom controllers.
This is nothing that can or should be held up by any legal issue.
Do we need another thread about "private cabinet options"?

That may have been the original plan. I am only suggesting that their original plan may have changed. I would prefer what you suggest. But, if they are going to do this at an arcade level then it is possible we will get a much better product, all though it will probably be decades into our future, which will require the Christopher Lloyd BTTF license for us to come back and enjoy...

Basically, I think they believe they found another potential revenue stream and are exploring it. Unless the physics get a power up, I don't think it will work.

 

[striggell]

After seeing their ghostbusters pinball is going to be a stand alone program that you buy tokens so you can play it's quite probable FS are looking at another revenue method for any cab version. Having said that if it did end up being a coin op version aimed at arcades there's a fair chance it would never be available for our private cabs anyway.

I love my cab but if I were in an arcade and had to chose between real pinball or virtual pinball, real would win out every time