Beetlejuice Pinball's First Show Games Have Arrived!; More Atari Recharged Cabinets are Coming; The Most Expensive Claw Machine Prize Ever?
By knapparcade
This morning, the folks at Pinball at the Beach shared pictures of Spooky Pinball setting up a whopping ten Beetlejuice pinball machines for their first public appearance ever at this week's Pinball at the Beach show. It kicks off tomorrow at the Tradewinds Resort in St. Pete Beach, Florida. I will have coverage of the show here courtesy of friends who are going, so make sure to check back this weekend for any updates. In honor of the show, Stern Pinball has released a special Insider Connected badge for players who log in from the event.
Alan-1, the company that is building cool commercial arcade cabinets for Remastered Atari games, just announced that it is going to show off an impressive THREE new machines at next month's Amusement Expo International in Las Vegas (3/16 - 3/19). Any guesses as to what Atari games they will be? My favorite of them so far is definitely Asteroids Remastered.
Speaking of Atari, Tony Temple, the well-known "Arcade Blogger" is back after a brief hiatus with a fantastic article on his website. I don't know where he gets this stuff, but he has awesome lost video and pictures of Atari's 1980 game Battle Zone on the production line. How cool is that?! Unseen Footage of Atari Battlezone Cabinet Production
While we're on the subject of arcade history, Capt N Retro has created a dedicated YouTube channel for his "Lost Pins" series of videos about super rare pinball machines. If you're into industry history like I am, they're a must watch. Below is a recent one about the wild Python Angehlo, his contributions to pinball and odd games that never got made.
Last up we have an arcade subject that I don't talk about here very often...Claw Machines. I actually find them to be kind of entertaining. I used to have a working claw machine in my garage that I picked up in a bowling alley arcade raid that I rented a huge truck and drove around narrow, winding mountain roads for (I should share pictures of that one of these days). Anyhow, my kids and their friends went bananas for the claw machine when I had it at their birthday parties back in the day. The giant arcade chain Dave and Busters has been promoting its newish "Human Crane" game lately in which players are put in a harness and lowered into a giant container of stuff. That's actually pretty cool to see in itself, but now there's a MEGA prize in the bin at some D&B locations - a $15,000 3-carat diamond engagement ring! Five rings are hidden in the Human Crane ride at Dave & Buster's 156 locations. The game cost $20 to play. Dave & Busters is hiding 3-carat diamond rings worth $15K in their ‘human crane’ machines — here’s what it takes to snag one
