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Song of the Week
The obvious picks for Fallout week were Marty Robbins' "Big Iron" or The Ink Spots' "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire," and I probably should have gone with one of them. But the only song actually on my mind this week was Neon Indian's "Fallout," from 2011's Era Extraña, and since I do listen to our Song of the Week playlist from time to time, I didn't want to pop either of those into it. (They're here and here if you want the wasteland mood.)
The other reason is that I've been reading Chris DeVille's excellent Such Great Heights: The Complete Cultural History of the Indie Rock Explosion, and this song was very much part of that era for me.
Pinball News of the Week
Stern Reveals Fallout, and Raises the Price to Go With It
Stern officially revealed Fallout on Thursday: Keith Elwin's new game, in Pro, Premium, and LE (no SLE materialized, despite rumors), built around both the Bethesda games and the Prime Video series.
We've got all the key details in our usual launch post, but a few highlights: a lower playfield featuring a new Magna-Flip mech, Fat Man launcher, inverted flipper, and a bottle-cap spinner. And a price increase. The Pro is $7,299, the Premium $10,699, and the LE $13,999. George Gomez said at media day that no other game's price will go up "this year." 770 LEs this release, but word is most of those are spoken for already.
Based on what I've seen so far in community discussions, the reception to this release seems overwhelmingly positive. If you're in Seattle this weekend, PAX West has the first public games.
Build a Better Pinball Business With Pinventory
Pinventory is business software for your pinball and arcade business — the games, the venues, the money, and the paperwork.
Log collections, split revenue with your locations, and email a branded payout statement when you settle up. Payback %, payoff date, and total return for every game, so you know which titles are really earning. Every repair, part, and audit is tracked per game and available on reports.
Players scan a QR code on the cabinet to report a broken game — no app, no login. It lands in Pinventory, sends an alert, and can be assigned right to a tech.
Free forever. Pro is $19/month if you want more. Built by Ed Giardina, creator of the IFPA Companion App.
James Fremont's Hands-On From Media Day
James Fremont covered media day for us on Wednesday in Elk Grove Village and filed his hands-on review. Among Elwin games, it shoots most like Godzilla; the lower playfield reminded him of Twilight Zone's Powerfield, and the one pop bumper in the left outlane area (Elwin says Paragon was the inspiration) drained him at least twice. There's also a shop you can rob, though you're likely to get caught. He got the hang of the game faster on the Pro.
solar_espeon Remembers Dolly Parton, and the Backglass Her Team Sent Back
Dolly Parton died on August 25 at 80. We noted it last week; solar_espeon has now returned to the 1979 Bally game that carried her name. The fun historical story is in the art. Dave Christensen drew her in denim with a guitar and roses, Dolly approved it, and her publicists rejected it anyway: "that's not who Dolly is." What Bally shipped a year later is a compromise you can still see on the machine, and Christensen's colleagues thought it would cost sales. The back half includes a Pinball Primer-style rundown of the rules.
IFPA Women's Championship Weekend Heads to Chicago
The IFPA has set the dates and venue for its Women's Championship Weekend: the Women's North American Championship on Friday, April 9, 2027, and the Women's World Championship on April 10 and 11, both at The Pinball Capital in Stone Park, Illinois. It's the fourth WNACS and the tenth Women's Worlds, and it moves from Lyons Classic Pinball in Colorado, where this year's was played in March. Each winner gets a new-in-box Stern Pro, the prize pool has picked up $900 in donations ($500 of it from TPC owner Francis Wisniewski), and Fox Cities Pinball will stream it.
Barrels of Fun Takes the Dune Line Down
Barrels of Fun posted "THE LINE IS DOWN!" this week: the Dune run is finished. Dune was announced in April 2025 as a single $11,600 trim capped at 1,000 units. It didn't go that way. The launch was early and rocky. It landed on top of Stern's King Kong and just ahead of Harry Potter, but it eventually picked up steam and made it to about 720 total units sold.
I liked the game when I reviewed it, and I've said in Moving Units more than once that people who play it tend to agree. Barrels signed off with "May thy knife chip and shatter."
Links of the Week
LoserKid Pinball Podcast: Fallout by Stern Pinball Reveal Podcast — Keith Elwin, Harrison Drake and Rick Naegele on how Fallout got built. Elwin says Bethesda's Todd Howard insisted on the Fat Man over the Junk Jet, and 770 LEs is a nod to 2077, the year the bombs drop. Also as video.
Fox Cities Pinball at Stern media day — Keith Elwin’s game demo from Stern’s HQ.
Pinball NERDS Podcast: Fallout, Top 5 Rad + 1 Bad — the usual release format from Orbital Albert.
Cooltoy: Is the New Stern Pinball Worth the Hype? — a review, plus separate gameplay videos of the Pro, Premium and LE.
IFPA Quarter Drop, 2026 3Q — the IFPA's quarterly look behind the rankings: three new staff, 29 incident rulings, and proposals for a Certified+ tier and certified Pin-Golf, both slated for WPPR v6.3 in January. They want feedback on the proposals.
WPPR v6.3 sneak peek — Josh Sharpe's July preview of the same rules changes, and the last one Tilt Forums hosted before the site went into archive mode.
Silverball Chronicles: Zaccaria of Bologna, Italy — deep dive on the Italian manufacturer, from Marino Zaccaria's first machine in his own bar in 1964 to the gambling rules that shaped what Italian games were allowed to do.
Poll of the Week
Last Week’s Poll Results
“$10,000 for American Pinball machine??? I know that is market but quality issues of the past must be cleared before I drop that much on an AP game”
“PinAccess is suppppper sketchy”
“Interested in checking it out. Not buying it. Always a fun game, but not really a must have for me. I bet it'll be pretty though!”
“But only because I can't afford it. Brilliant game!”
“Why does the hobby need any remakes? This just takes money out of the pool that could be going to unique IPs and BTW, you can already buy these games at a much lower price how is the game play that much better?”
“Looks great! Can’t wait to play this again!”
“I already have one. Why would I want a remake?
That being said I hope they do a better job than CGC. Every CGC remake I have tried played horribly. Not even close to the originals. So I hope that AP holds themselves to a higher standard.”
“Never liked the original”
“I’m halfway in until a bit more information arrives. The original is a great game, so so my interest in the remake is sufficiently piqued.”
“Totally IN!… will be besides my classic one…
AP, JJP, and BoF are my favorite(and only) Pinball manufacturers now, Spooky is fine too but I haven’t bought one yet. Thanks AP for this title!”
“Doesn't float my boat!”
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