Pokémon Pinball Has ARRIVED! ⚡ Gotta Catch ’Em All!
Pokémon Pro arrives at Fork River with first-run defects; Stern quality issues surface immediately.
Pokémon Pinball Has ARRIVED! ⚡ Gotta Catch ’Em All!
⚡ Pokémon Pinball Has ARRIVED! ⚡ A new machine has entered the line up at Forked River in London, Ontario Pokémon Pinball! In this video we check out the game, the artwork, gameplay features...
Synopsis
Mike Dus (Pinball Shenanigans) and Cory acquire a show-used Pokémon Pro pinball machine from Allentown, experiencing a 4-hour border crossing delay. After delivery to Fork River arcade in London, Ontario, they uncover first-run manufacturing issues including a misaligned left orbit lane guide, node board errors on startup, clunky plunger, and low game completion rates (5 games out of 322 plays). They perform field repairs and set up the machine alongside an Eight Ball Champ restoration for their venue's tournament lineup.
Highlights
- Pokémon Pro MSRP is $6,995 USD; Mike purchased show-used unit for $6,400 plus $1,000 CAD tax (~$10k CAD total)
- Pokémon Pro has a known left orbit lane guide manufacturing defect where the lane sticks out ~1/4 inch from the post, feeding balls to drain and causing playfield damage
- First-run Pokémon Pro units experience multiple issues: clunky plunger, orbit shot problems, balls getting stuck in pop bumper nook, and plunger hitching
- Node boards on the Pokémon Pro showed five tech alerts on startup with message 'All node boards are invalid'
- The machine showed only 5 completed games out of 322 total plays at the Allentown show, while another venue's game (comparison reference) had 948 completed plays
- The game code is still 'pending license or approval' and is 'very early' in development
- The border crossing for importing the machine from Allentown took 4 hours and involved brokers and commercial goods paperwork
- Eight Ball Champ is a Williams classic that says 'quit talking and start talking,' and Cub Wizard borrowed this quote from it
Notable quotes
“All node boards are invalid. Cory, I want my money back. What a hunk of garbage.”
“It was a very bizarre factory f-up from Stern, but you know, it is pinball and even new out of the box things don't always work 100%.”
“Well, here's the thing. Look at Eight Ball... 948. That's like triple the number of plays. Only five ended. Maybe the code is not quite up to snuff on that.”
“It did say pending license or approval. So it looks like the code is still underway.”
“Might have to do a couple fixes to it since it is the first run. You know, there's that whole left orbit lane guide issue and clunky plunge issue.”
“See how it's sticking out from the post by like a quarter inch? That feeds the ball right into the drain and also the ball can hit the edge of it and cause damage.”
“This is the new Spike 3 cabinetry that I was talking about. Just sort of butt together. It's not dovetailed or whatever anymore. I have a thing for that.”
Entities
- Stern Pinball· company
- Allentown· event
- Eight Ball Champ· game
- Pokémon Pro· game
- Pinball Shenanigans· organization
- Cory· person
- Mike Dus· person
- Spike 3· product
- Fork River· venue
- London, Ontario· venue
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