Jump to content
Due to a large amount of spamers, accounts will now have to be approved by the Admins so please be patient. ×
IGNORED

Steve Ritchie interview (2001?)


felixthadog

Recommended Posts

 

Thank you kind Sir :023:

 

Another Steve Ritchie interview: http://www.pinrepair.com/topcast/topcast_32.mp3

 

 

Thanks for the links :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting statement, I wonder if anyone could have predicted back then how popular pinball would become again?

 

MARK: Let me give you a history flash back: we will go back to 1982/3. Williams are making 500 or so of each pinball, Time Fantasy, Joust Pinball, Defender Pinball, Cosmic Gunfight. Then jump forward to 1992 and their making 12000, 15000 of the things. Clearly a big come back I think you would agree.

 

STEVE: Oh yes, no question.

 

MARK: Now can you foresee any sort of comeback again. It doesn't necessarily have to mirror that one but something you could definitely say as a comeback.

 

STEVE: No. Not possible.

 

MARK: You think there is no chance at all?

 

STEVE: I think there is no chance at all.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting statement, I wonder if anyone could have predicted back then how popular pinball would become again?

 

MARK: Let me give you a history flash back: we will go back to 1982/3. Williams are making 500 or so of each pinball, Time Fantasy, Joust Pinball, Defender Pinball, Cosmic Gunfight. Then jump forward to 1992 and their making 12000, 15000 of the things. Clearly a big come back I think you would agree.

 

STEVE: Oh yes, no question.

 

MARK: Now can you foresee any sort of comeback again. It doesn't necessarily have to mirror that one but something you could definitely say as a comeback.

 

STEVE: No. Not possible.

 

MARK: You think there is no chance at all?

 

STEVE: I think there is no chance at all.

 

While pinball may be popular again I don't think it will ever be popular enough for a manufacturer to pump out 12,000 of a single title. It seems like those days are long gone with the change in market towards the home player and collector.

 

I can dream, though...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

While pinball may be popular again I don't think it will ever be popular enough for a manufacturer to pump out 12,000 of a single title. It seems like those days are long gone with the change in market towards the home player and collector.

 

I can dream, though...

 

The home market will never be large enough to make up what the 70s and to a lesser degree, the 90s was. Picture this in the late 70s pre Space Invaders days, two containers with nothing but pinballs standing upright in boxes, 52-56 machines per container though memory. One arrived in and in two days every one of those machines was out on site. 3rd day, the other container came in, half went to other operators and the rest to sales. They were all Gottlieb SS machines and at that time Gottlieb was the 2rd most popular pinballs. That was in Australia and we on the world scale didn't make the top 10 countries. Have a look on the default country coin settings in alpha numberical pinballs and look how late it actually was before the factories started bothering entering default coin settings for Australia. Prior to that, all machines used in this country used the custom coin settings for setting the machine's pricing.

Unless the industry returns to making commercial machines solely to make the owner money, I think there is very low chance of such glory days returning. It would need a few very radical changes to what we all know as current pinball.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...