New Pinball Arcade from makers of Williams Collection

[Tanooki]

Well yeah lots of dirty pool is going on with the marvel stuff no doubt there. And you're right Zen has had those tables for those 2 franchises. Sadly that doesn't bode well for Indy. What you'll end up with is likely nothing, but if they did, it would be some terrible Zen Pinball release with unrealistic physics and a wonky annoying table layout. Tried for a long while years ago to like their tables and they blow. If it's a choice between using bootlegged ROMS and VPINMAME (or just NOTHING) or taking a Zen table. I'd rather do without.

[+save2600]

Speaking of wonky compromises, has anyone ever gotten this to work yet with TPA?

 

 

I know it's not designed to work that way, but what a gol-damned shame and a waste of good hardware. Figured with all the jailbreaking and hacks today, *someone* would have adapted this to a real pinball simulator already.

 

Worst case scenario, would even like to see the makers of TPA release a board that could be retro-fitted into these things, making them true universal Bluetooth controllers. The device sure as hell ain't doing any good sitting in its box - which I bet most who bought these relegated them to. Purchased all of the tables for it and well, yeah...

[Andromeda Stardust]

The movie rights to Marvel characters are split between a few companies. Long-term contracts that were made with Marvel before the Disney takeover. Fox owns film rights to the X-men, Fantastic Four, and all related characters (like Deadpool). Sony owns the film rights to Spider-man but they worked out a crossover deal with Disney to put Spider-man in Civil War in exchange for having Iron Man in the next Spider-man movie. Fox hasn't been so cooperative and it's started a feud. Under Disney, Marvel has cancelled the Fantastic Four comic book (after 645 issues) and removed Fantastic Four/X-men characters from posters, t-shirts, and merchandise. They've even edited old comic book artwork for t-shirts to remove Fox licensed characters that were originally in the pictures.

Wow, they are really ruining Marvel by splitting up the franchises which ought to exist together in the same universe. I Redboxed Civil War, glad I didn't buy it. Way too much political stuff going on which was hard to follow, making the movie long and dry to sit through.

 

I gotta draw the line when they start censoring certain characters out of Tshirts and posters or reprintings of vintage art because licensing agreements.

 

I noticed DC Comics finally pulling their heads out of their bums making good root for the bad guys type action flicks (suicide squad) which also alluded to previous events in SuperMan vs Batman. New Wonderwoman coming as well.

I just wish Superman didn't have to die...

 

 

They should make a Marvel vs DC but we know that'll never happen...

 

As far as pinball, Disney has a contract with Zen Studios for the Marvel and Star Wars licenses. Maybe Zen has an exclusive for other Disney owned properties as well?

I downloaded all the non-Marvel themed tables on the Wii-U Zen app. IMO the Marvel tables just seemed uninspired to me compared to the others...

[Andromeda Stardust]

Speaking of wonky compromises, has anyone ever gotten this to work yet with TPA?

 

s-l1600.jpg

 

I know it's not designed to work that way, but what a gol-damned shame and a waste of good hardware. Figured with all the jailbreaking and hacks today, *someone* would have adapted this to a real pinball simulator already.

 

Worst case scenario, would even like to see the makers of TPA release a board that could be retro-fitted into these things, making them true universal Bluetooth controllers. The device sure as hell ain't doing any good sitting in its box - which I bet most who bought these relegated them to. Purchased all of the tables for it and well, yeah...

The issue here is that there is no controller standard across all iOS or Android releases, and third party companies release hardware and get backing from a couple developers and hope and pray their device gets popular enough that more devs support it. To the devs, it's not worth supporting something that 2% of the userbase has, or worse, supporting a dozen or so incompatible peripherals. Just look at stuff like the iCade. It had great success at first but then developers just ignored it afterwords, and I seriously doubt you could fit newer tablets into an old icade without major modification to the original case. The device manufacturers don't care about third party devices nor creating their own peripheral standards for developers to support, creating a Wild Wild West scenario with tons of crappy third party devices all getting nil support from developers.

 

As a result of all of this, the vast majority of mobile developers shoehorn everything to work with touch and/or tilt control that's standard across all devices, and little if any support goes to third party controllers. Compare that to say Steam support for HID and Xinput, or any actual game console with standard controllers out of the box. One reason why I love the Switch, it's like a tablet with slide on game controllers. No third party BS...

[mckafka99]

Speaking of wonky compromises, has anyone ever gotten this to work yet with TPA?

 

s-l1600.jpg

 

I know it's not designed to work that way, but what a gol-damned shame and a waste of good hardware. Figured with all the jailbreaking and hacks today, *someone* would have adapted this to a real pinball simulator already.

 

Worst case scenario, would even like to see the makers of TPA release a board that could be retro-fitted into these things, making them true universal Bluetooth controllers. The device sure as hell ain't doing any good sitting in its box - which I bet most who bought these relegated them to. Purchased all of the tables for it and well, yeah...

A while ago I stripped open an 8-Bitty and this device and soldered the necessary buttons into the 8-Bitty to at least get the flipper buttons to work. It was a bit of a hack but worked as intended.

[+save2600]

A while ago I stripped open an 8-Bitty and this device and soldered the necessary buttons into the 8-Bitty to at least get the flipper buttons to work. It was a bit of a hack but worked as intended.

Direct connection like that would be sweet, with no Bluetooth lag either. Thanks for the idea! Might as well turn mine into a 2600 controller for use with Midnight Magic, etc. It will get a lot more use that way, but will probably leave the wireless stuff in just to have options.

[+FujiSkunk]

Wow, they are really ruining Marvel by splitting up the franchises which ought to exist together in the same universe.

 

Once upon a time, Marvel wasn't a movie studio and wasn't owned by another movie studio. So the only way any Marvel properties could become movies was for other movie studios to license their properties. All the "non-Marvel" Marvel movies that have come out since the creation of Marvel Studios and the MCU are the product of licenses negotiated in the early 2000's or even prior.

 

Some of those old licenses have since expired and the movie/TV rights have reverted back to Marvel. That's why Daredevil (formerly Fox) and Ghost Rider (formerly Columbia/Sony) are now in shows produced by Marvel Studios. In other cases, the license holders decided to play nice and let Marvel "borrow" their characters back... for a fee, of course. That's why the Hulk (Universal) and Spider-Man (Sony again) have appeared in the MCU. But for Deadpool, the X-Men and a few others, other studios are holding onto the properties they licensed and continuing to make their own movies outside of the MCU.

 

However, even if Deadpool's movie rights weren't owned by another studio, don't think Disney wouldn't make an R-rated movie if they thought it was the smart thing to do. That's what their Touchstone and Hollywood Pictures outlets are for. And if you don't think Disney would make a Marvel movie outside of the MCU, they actually already have: Big Hero 6.

 

Just to go further off this tangent, as boog mentioned, the Fantastic Four is one of those currently-"non"-Marvel Marvel properties. Many of these licenses have a condition where, as long as a studio is making movies, they can keep the license. Fox currently owns the Fantastic Four license. Marvel was really hoping to get the Fantastic Four into the MCU, so much so that reportedly they offered Fox an extension on the Daredevil license if they were to let the Fantastic Four license expire. Fox refused, figuring there was more money to be made in building a new cinematic universe with the Fantastic Four characters. After all, it's worked pretty well with the X-Men (also Fox) so far. The result... well, we all know how well that went.

 

As for Marvel's own treatment of the Fantastic Four, that's not because they can't print the comics anymore; the comic rights are still Marvel's, and always will be. However, Marvel is becoming a bit infamous for not exactly helping draw attention to properties that are still licensed elsewhere. It wasn't "censorship" in the sense that they *had* to remove the Fantastic Four et al from t-shirts, etc.; it's because they chose to, as a way of sticking it to Fox.

 

And now to bring this back onto the subject, Season 6 maybe hasn't had as many legendary titles as some of the other seasons, but finally getting two of my favorite tables, Dr. Who and Eight Ball Deluxe, was worth the price of admission to me.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Just to go further off this tangent, the Fantastic Four is one of those currently-"non"-Marvel Marvel properties. Many of these licenses have a condition where, as long as a studio is making movies, they can keep the license. Fox currently owns the Fantastic Four license. Marvel was really hoping to get the Fantastic Four into the MCU, so much so that reportedly they offered Fox an extension on the Daredevil license if they were to let the Fantastic Four license expire. Fox refused, figuring there was more money to be made in building a new cinematic universe with the Fantastic Four characters. After all, it's worked pretty well with the X-Men (also Fox) so far. The result... well, we all know how well that went.

That explains the metric tons of superhero movies coming out in recent years. I was wondering if it ever slowed down a bit or the market was oversaturated. I mean, at least a half dozen movies every hear from major studios every year, if not a dozen.

 

And now to bring this back onto the subject, Season 6 maybe hasn't had as many legendary titles as some of the other seasons, but finally getting two of my favorite tables, Dr. Who and Eight Ball Deluxe, was worth the price of admission to me.

You're lucky to get season six on whatever platform you supported. After Ouya went bust, I immediately downloaded the TPA app on Wii-U day one, $120 for four season passes, and nothing since then. I don't think they plan to release a single update. At least give us seasonal updates like with PSN and XBLA. Heck it never even launched in Europe, and my Kickstarted pledge for Dr Who on Wii-U platform goes unfulfilled. Sorry Farsight, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice...

[Asaki]

However, even if Deadpool's movie rights weren't owned by another studio, don't think Disney wouldn't make an R-rated movie if they thought it was the smart thing to do.

I doubt ANY studio would think that an R-rated Deadpool movie would be a smart thing to do =)

 

As I recall, Ryan Reynolds fought pretty hard to make that happen.

[Andromeda Stardust]

I doubt ANY studio would think that an R-rated Deadpool movie would be a smart thing to do =)

 

As I recall, Ryan Reynolds fought pretty hard to make that happen.

It turned out to be a very smart move. Awesome script which totally breaks the fourth wall, plus it sold gangbusters at the box office and on DVD/BluRay.

[boog]

Pinball Arcade Season 6 is finally underway on PS4. Other consoles will get season 6 soon.

 

Consoles are so far behind that the final season 6 table was already announced for mobile/PC last week. So, console owners now know the entire season's line-up before deciding whether to get the season pass. The tables of season 6 have been pretty disappointing because Farsight didn't have a Bally/Williams license for a while and padded the season with mediocre Gottliebs. They've renewed the Williams license so hopefully season 7 will be better.

 

Season 6 is:

Indy 500, Frank Thomas Big Hurt Baseball, Eight Ball Deluxe, Doctor Who, Bone Busters, Jacks Open/Centigrade 37, Doctor Who:Masters of Time (Farsight 'original'), Gladiators, Al's Garage Band on Tour, Cactus Jacks, and Swords of Fury.

 

Indy 500 through Gladiators were released for PS4 today, along with the $30 season pass. The last three tables probably won't appear until fall.

[+FujiSkunk]

XBox One is getting Season 6 as well, finally. No announcement for Wii U or XBox 360, sorry to say.

[+HatNJ]

Hopefully season 6 makes it to PS 3 if its on ouya then PlayStation 3 should not be left behind But This is Farsight and Sony so hopes are low at best

[boog]

Farsight confirmed that season 6 will be released on PS3/Vita, hopefully it'll show up soon. I'm waiting for it too... I'd rather keep all the tables together, and Vita cross-buy makes it easier to justify the cost.

[ComputerSpaceFan]

Pinball Arcade Season 6 is finally underway on PS4.

I'll once more quote the Starcraft solider here.......

 

[HammR25]

I see Farsight is still claiming they're going to release more tables for the Xbox 360. I wouldn't have expected less but will be shocked if it happens.

 

http://pinballarcadefans.com/showthread.php/10231-So-What-s-next-for-the-360?p=256796&viewfull=1#post256796

[Andromeda Stardust]

XBox One is getting Season 6 as well, finally. No announcement for Wii U or XBox 360, sorry to say.

Wii-U hasn't been updated since their day one release, and still isn't available in PAL territories. Five tables from season 5 at launch last spring, then crickets...

[Asaki]

Yeah, I'm not expecting anything new for the WiiU from them. Switch? Maybe.

 

Steam definitely seems like the platform to stick with.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Steam definitely seems like the platform to stick with.

Problem is, I really don't want to sit at an uncomfortable desk to play pinball. The Switch tablet would be perfect device for it though.

 

I do have a fairly old Nvidia G-force card (96 CUDA cores) from 2011 in my Windows 7 x64 desktop rig, which in all honesty was a budget card at the time I bought it. In fact I didn't even include a GPU in my budget, but I had to run to the CPU store when I realized my motherboard didn't have integrated video.

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gt-430

 

I have no idea if that GPU is strong enough to run current Steam builds, but the CPU is a 4.2Ghz 8-core Bulldozer (AMD FX-8150) with 16Gb RAM. I built my current rig primarily as a Mandelbrot render machine, not with gaming in mind. And Windows 10 can shove it; I ain't upgrading to that steaming pile.

 

LOL, old video showing TPA running on my exact CPU/GPU combo.

This video was obviously done well before they implemented the DX11 lighting improvements. The GT-430 is technically capable of handling DX-11, but how well? I also wonder how it scales to a 1600x1200 screen resolution?

[Asaki]

Problem is, I really don't want to sit at an uncomfortable desk to play pinball.

Playing it on the WiiU Gamepad is convenient, but I like having it in high-def, with my LCD monitor in portrait mode. It really opens up a lot of the details. I've got this really terrible looking setup right now with a Logitech controller and a comfy chair.

 

If I could find a decent Windows tablet, that would be nice, but allegedly the controls are a bit dodgy there. And I don't really want to spend that much money just to play portable TPA. If I had a lot of free time, I could hack apart some older laptops with busted hinges into a poor-man's virtual pinball machine.

 

I don't know about that card, I think I'm running a 650 right now (Windows 7). DX10 and 11 both run alright as long as I don't crank the graphics too high.

 

I can't decide which DX version I like better...DX11 kind of looks better, but at the same time, kind of looks worse also. DX10 is a heck of a lot more colorful, but maybe not quite as realistic. So sometimes I'll swap between them, probably annoying my Steam friends =)

[+FujiSkunk]

LOL, old video showing TPA running on my exact CPU/GPU combo.

This video was obviously done well before they implemented the DX11 lighting improvements. The GT-430 is technically capable of handling DX-11, but how well? I also wonder how it scales to a 1600x1200 screen resolution?

 

I'd say give it a shot, but be prepared to fiddle with the controls, of which there are a lot more in the DX11 version. I have an HP laptop and an Asus-based desktop, both previous-gen i7 systems with onboard video. I was pleasantly surprised to discover they could handle the DX11 version of Pinball Arcade. I had to adjust some sliders down, and knock the resolution down as well, but even then I thought it still looked better overall than the DX9 version running at full detail. The good news is, if you do have to knock down the resolution, the app handles that itself, so you don't have to worry about changing your computer's resolution, or setting it back afterward.

 

The only real downside is the DX11 version is a slight bit buggier than the DX9 version. Be careful about hitting the escape key, or you'll find yourself playing in windowed mode, and the only way to get back to full-screen mode is to restart the program.

 

 

I can't decide which DX version I like better...DX11 kind of looks better, but at the same time, kind of looks worse also. DX10 is a heck of a lot more colorful, but maybe not quite as realistic. So sometimes I'll swap between them, probably annoying my Steam friends =)

 

DX9. They didn't do a DX10 version. I agree DX9 makes it easier to see table detail, because you're not seeing the wash-outs and other effects of the lighting tricks that make the tables look more realistic and yet darker in the DX11 version. Still, I like those lighting tricks, so I play the DX11 version more.

[Asaki]

The good news is, if you do have to knock down the resolution, the app handles that itself, so you don't have to worry about changing your computer's resolution, or setting it back afterward.

I kind of wish the game (both versions) did give you more control over the resolution, but they are hard locked to 16:9. My monitor, and a lot of other monitors, is 16:10, so either I get black bars, or the image gets stretched out a bit. I have to fiddle with it a bit to avoid getting scaling artifacts, which look pretty bad any time the camera moves around (which is not toggle-able on certain tables).

 

The only real downside is the DX11 version is a slight bit buggier than the DX9 version. Be careful about hitting the escape key, or you'll find yourself playing in windowed mode, and the only way to get back to full-screen mode is to restart the program.

I do have a lot of issues with the menu/controls in both versions (most of the menu is very broken and requires a mouse), but I've never had that issue come up. But I play in fullscreen-window mode (which helps alleviate input lag in most setups), so maybe that's the difference?

 

DX9. They didn't do a DX10 version.

Ah, yeah, I knew that didn't sound right.

[Andromeda Stardust]

So, using this with a 1600x1200 monitor is out of the question then?

[Asaki]

So, using this with a 1600x1200 monitor is out of the question then?

I haven't tried it, but I'm sure you'll just get black bars.

[+FujiSkunk]

I kind of wish the game (both versions) did give you more control over the resolution, but they are hard locked to 16:9. My monitor, and a lot of other monitors, is 16:10, so either I get black bars, or the image gets stretched out a bit. I have to fiddle with it a bit to avoid getting scaling artifacts, which look pretty bad any time the camera moves around (which is not toggle-able on certain tables).

 

Have you tried the DX11 version, with its independent X and Y resolution settings? Does it still give you borders if you select X = 1980 and Y = 1200?

 

I do have a lot of issues with the menu/controls in both versions (most of the menu is very broken and requires a mouse), but I've never had that issue come up. But I play in fullscreen-window mode (which helps alleviate input lag in most setups), so maybe that's the difference?

 

No, both versions are set to play full-screen, and the DX11 version will always start full-screen. But if I hit the escape key, a window border forms around the game. Curiously however it doesn't seem to do it for all resolutions, as I discovered while doing a test for 1600x1200. I usually run the DX11 verison at 1366x768, the highest 16x9 resolution I can get away with before it starts dropping frames. Maybe it's just something about that specific resolution that the game has a hard time accommodating.

 

So, using this with a 1600x1200 monitor is out of the question then?

 

My guess is it might work, though you may have better luck with the DX11 version. The DX9 version does not offer a 1600x1200 setting, but with the DX11's independent X and Y selections, you can choose X = 1600 and Y = 1200.. Unless Asaki is correct and the game assumes all monitors are 16x9 regardless of resolution, this should work.