In Stern’s factory far, far away (from Australia), Star Wars Pinball machines are rolled off the production line in record numbers!
With Star Wars celebrating its 40th anniversary, Stern Pinball has come to the party with three machines (designed by Steve Ritchie) that will have every Star Wars (and pinball) fan drooling uncontrollably! So strong is the Star Wars franchise, the pinball machines are reportedly selling like hot cakes, with the 800 run of LE machines already spoken for! Shipping (to Australia) for the Pro model begins in July, with the LE and Premium editions to follow not too long after. Don’t fret about the Pro and Premium models selling out, Stern will build an unlimited amount of these machines to fulfil demand.
Talking to RePlay Magazine, Stern’s Director of Marketing and Licensing Jody Dankberg states that, “There’s been a lot of excitement and anticipation around this title, resulting in record sales for a game that had not even been seen in person. Everyone loves the original trilogy: It’s the basis for all things Star Wars. We felt that these movies helped us tell the best story possible while being able to use cool elements from the original films. The majority of our customers are nostalgic for those movies.”
For those curious to know why Stern chose to tap the original trilogy instead of Disney’s new Star Wars films, Dankberg told RePlay that the firm believes more customers are interested in the originals over the new movies. We reckon Stern have got that right!
Australian pricing for the three pinball models (including GST):
- Star Wars Pro $8,350
- Star Wars Premium $10,800
- Star Wars Limited Edition (LE) $12,500
The force is definitely strong with these pinball machines!
source: Stern Pinball Inc.
Whoa, what a way to start June!
Pinball Press
With the internet rumour mill running amok regarding Stern’s next pinball machine, we wonder if they will announce a new Star Wars themed pinball machine on ‘May The 4th Be With You‘ Star Wars day? We can only hope!
source: Internet Pinball Database
Thinking back to the 1999 Christmas season, we were still playing our Nintendo 64 quite a lot, but we were saving up frantically for a Sega Dreamcast. Star Wars games featured prominently in December 1999, but after the massive disappointment of The Phantom Menace prequel released earlier that same year, we steered clear of these games as a matter of protest. It was our loss, as some of these new Star Wars games on the 32-bit and 64-bit platforms were absolute crackers! Other notable games that we loved playing around that time were Driver and Soul Reaver on the Playstation.
Ms. ausretrogamer
Casen Sperry, Mike Brown and Landon Sperry of 
Panthera
Hot Tour
SMASH!
The Beast
The Shuttle
The Droids Series
The Droid EVII
The Red Droid
R2PO
“On the First day of Christmas my true love sent to me”, No, no, no! There will be no ‘The Twelve Days Of Christmas’ singing here, thank you. With Christmas just around the corner, we thought we would ease the gift buying burden by giving you ‘The Twelve Gift Ideas For Christmas’ to help you get something special for your really cool geeky / nerdy partner.
