Why Weren't There More "First-Party" Pinball Machines?

[CC13]

It occurred to me that even though all of the Big Six had some video game affiliation at some point, pins based off of those properties are (at least to my knowledge) fairly rare. The only ones I can think of are Defender, Q*Bert's Quest and Spy Hunter, which all seem to have largely flown under the radar. Why didn't the Big Six exploit this fairly obvious synergy more often? Also, what first-party Big Six properties do you think would have made the best pins? I would pick Gauntlet for Bally, BurgerTime for Data East, Reactor for Gottlieb, Streets of Rage for Sega, Berzerk for Stern and Sinistar for Williams.

 

[DrainoBraino]

I have no idea why.

Replied to say: GAUNTLET WOULD BE AWESOME! Imagine...up to 4 players at once, simultaneous pinball action! "Warrior needs balls" ....uh wait that doesn't sound right.

 

[grashopper]

I bet Joust could have made a good machine. Shame they never made more.

 

[Jeff Strong]

I bet Joust could have made a good machine. Shame they never made more.

I still think it'd be perfect for head-to-head iPad battles.

http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=1316

 

[Kolchak357]

The place I play pinball has a Joust, but it doesn't work. I've going to this at arcade for several months and it has never worked. It looks like it would need a lot of work to get it running, but at least it isn't in a dumpster.

 

[grashopper]

Wow thanks Jeff. I have never seen that. I would be terrified of trying to do a head to head with my family on one tablet ... They get very into the game. If they ever give us some online gameplay that would be great to see also. Looks like a really interesting table.

 

[Richard B]

There's also Mr. and Mrs. Pac-Man, Street Fighter II, and Super Mario Bros. (2 tables), plus video pinball console games like Pokemon Pinball and Kirby's Pinball Land. There are many recent video game series that would make awesome pinball tables, such as Halo, God of War, Call of Duty Modern Warfare (though an unlicensed table based on modern combat would work just as well) and Metal Gear Solid, just to name a few. A new thread asking which games or game series would make awesome tables might prove interesting.

 

[CC13]

There's also Mr. and Mrs. Pac-Man, Street Fighter II, and Super Mario Bros. (2 tables), plus video pinball console games like Pokemon Pinball and Kirby's Pinball Land. There are many recent video game series that would make awesome pinball tables, such as Halo, God of War, Call of Duty Modern Warfare (though an unlicensed table based on modern combat would work just as well) and Metal Gear Solid, just to name a few. A new thread asking which games or game series would make awesome tables might prove interesting.

Yes, but those licenses were never owned by the Big Six pinball manufacturers. Basically, it breaks down like this: Bally bought Midway in the late 1960s, Data East made a number of video games through the '80s and '90s before going bankrupt in 2003 (with BurgerTime as the headliner), Gottlieb was a one-hit wonder (the hit in question being Q*Bert), Sega still develop video games to this day (though they recently dismissed much of their staff), Stern was another one-hit wonder (Berzerk this time) and Williams had an internal video game division that produced such classics as Defender, Robotron: 2084 and Sinistar, then got revived in the late '80s after they bought Midway and Bally's pinball division and made NARC & Smash TV. Also, for the record, the video game I most badly want to see made into a pin would probably be Donkey Kong Country.

P.S. There actually is a video game series called Modern Combat—it's a Modern Warfare knockoff developed by a mobile-centric French developer called Gameloft.

 

[Fungi]

I've played that Joust machine. Single player is not very fun. I never got to try head-to-head.