![]() We want to be able to communicate back and forth with the machine, download code updates, upload into the cloud so we can have competitions across territories, all kinds of things. GamesBeat: It’s a legit computer, basically? Just like a car used to have a cable down there. Then you have a data line to semi-smart boards down there. There are LEDs connected to the PCB to light that backglass. It has a very small PCB in it, no fluorescent lights. We were in a matrix system - a light matrix, switch matrix - but now this is a bus system. Stern: A few years ago, we started switching from what we call our Sam system to our Spike system. GamesBeat: As far as platforms go, are you still upgrading? Somebody loses a ball, something happens, it’s like the football game last night. ![]() Then anybody standing out in the audience can see what’s going on. Especially when they put a monitor that’s showing the playfield itself. Stern: I have to tell you, going to pinball tournaments and watching the finals, sometimes it gets really interesting, really intense. GamesBeat: Are you planning to broadcast that as well? So we’ll have the Stern Pro Tour starting soon with hundreds of thousands of dollars in prizes. The professional aspect of it is getting even more interesting. It just takes some extra quarters and you’re going to get better. You keep your eye on the ball, like tennis, baseball, whatever it is. But with the GPS and the locator, if you like the digital game, now you know where to go find the real game. We already have pinball locators where people contribute locations to our website. We come out with the terrestrial game at the same time we come out with the digital game. Now, if I had a dream - we’re going to work on this. It lets somebody learn a game, because the digital games are exactly the same - the same artwork, the same game rules, the same physics and geometry. It makes a little money for us, although not a lot. ![]() Stern: The young people, the millennials, they go to the barcades, but they get their knowledge and their gameplay from the smartphone, let’s say, and the different consoles. GamesBeat: Is that whetting the appetite for a real machine? We just brought that out on the Nintendo Switch, because our games are also available digitally - Oculus, PS4, and so on. Star Wars is obviously a phenomenal title. GamesBeat: What’s done the best for you lately? ![]() Just like you’d trick out your Harley-Davidson, you can trick out your pinball machine. We just started to sell complete games, made in the Chicagoland area, to China, instead of building there or buying games from there. We’re very much in Europe, in Australia, a little bit in Russia, a little bit in Israel, a little bit in Dubai. So we have a B-to-C business for homeowners, and B-to-B for operators. It has an accelerator ramp that you don’t see in the pro version. The premium, which has all the extra features of the limited edition, but not all the extra eye candy - for example, this is a premium Star Wars. Then we make a limited edition, maybe 500 - they’re numbered and signed by the designer - that retails closer to $9,000. The pro version, the regular version, is going to retail over $5,000. You tell your wife it’s for the kids, and the kids end up enjoying it quite a bit. Somebody like you, you’ve got a rec room, you want a pinball machine next to the pool table. And then we make games for what we call rec room buyers. Collectors might be people who have many games. We also make games for enthusiasts and collectors. We make games for operators who put them in barcades, in family entertainment centers and what have you, all over the world. Our customers - we have three segments, so we have different versions, because one size doesn’t fit all. We make a pro version, a premium version, and a limited edition version. The cornerstone games are our bread and butter, so to speak. Then we make some vault editions and some studio games. We make three new cornerstone games a year. We have the pro version around the corner there. This is our newest, Guardians of the Galaxy. GamesBeat: What do we have here? Some new machines?
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