Happy New Year’s Eve! I’m back at home after a trip with my family to visit my parents in Perth for Christmas and a stop in Adelaide on the way home. Man, the music and bar scene in Port Adelaide have to be the best in the country.
There’s some pretty great arcades in that area as well.
It’s only been four days since my last article, but it is much easier to write for this site on my computer than on my phone, so now that I’m at my desk here’s a bunch of stories that I’ve been saving up.
First up, there’s big news about upcoming Bally Williams pinball remakes. Pedretti Gaming has signed a multi-year contract with a software firm named Athyrio Games to develop software and video content for future pinball machines.
Who is Athyrio Games you ask? The company was started by Sam Zehr, a longtime veteran of the coin-op industry who previously designed, programmed, and shipped software at major companies in the industry, including Capcom Pinball, Konami, Midway, Incredible Technologies, and PlayMechanix.
Most recently, Athyrio has been doing my software and display animations for Chicago Gaming Company’s pinball remakes including the amazing color dot matrix animations for both CGC’s Attack From Mars and Medieval Madness Remakes.
This is big news for Pedretti. It will represent a massive step forward in the company’s ability to create high-quality remakes of classic Bally Williams pinball machines in the future.
Pedretti Gaming is rumored to be working on another remake right now. There has been talk that its next game may be based upon the fantastic 1996 Williams game Tales of the Arabian Nights (TOTAN). In fact, someone reached out to me this week and said that Pedretti may officially announce TOTAN as soon as in March. I have reached out to them to see if I can confirm that timeframe and will report back when I get a response.
A TOTAN Remake would be huge news in my household, because it is my wife’s favorite game :). In fact, she just came up to me the other day when we were at the Game Terminal and said “Look, they have TOTAN!” A remake would be very, very tempting for me.
I mentioned in my predictions for 2026 article a few days ago that the other potential remake name that Pedretti has been linked to is Capcom Pinball’s rare 1996 game Big Bang Bar. My money is on a Spring announcement from Pedretti announcing that or TOTAN. Both would be excellent choices.
I had planned on making this a multi-topic article but it ended up being long enough to stand on its own. So look for more articles here with the rest of the stuff that I’ve been saving over the next several days. There’s always so much fun stuff to talk about in the hobby 🙂
Here’s the official announcement:
“📣 𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐀𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 – 𝐎𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 ✨
We are pleased to officially announce that 𝐏𝐞𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢 and 𝐀𝐭𝐡𝐲𝐫𝐢𝐨 𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬 have entered into a long-term collaboration agreement for the development of software and video content for our upcoming pinball titles.
𝐀𝐭𝐡𝐲𝐫𝐢𝐨 𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬 needs little introduction, but we would like to highlight a few key points that make us particularly proud of this partnership:
– 𝐀𝐭𝐡𝐲𝐫𝐢𝐨 𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬 is a company founded and led by true pioneers of the pinball industry, with a strong focus on software quality, reliability, and attention to detail.
– 𝐀𝐭𝐡𝐲𝐫𝐢𝐨 has developed and contributed to some of the most successful pinball remakes of recent years, delivering robust and well-crafted game code.
– 𝐀𝐭𝐡𝐲𝐫𝐢𝐨 shares our vision and values, and is fully committed to working side by side with us to create new, outstanding pinball experiences.
At 𝐏𝐞𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢, we have placed our customers at the center of every decision. We carefully listened to all the feedback, ideas, and suggestions received from the community, and based on this input, we chose to improve by partnering with the best professionals in the industry.
This long-term agreement represents an important step forward for 𝐏𝐞𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢 and reinforces our commitment to delivering the highest possible quality in our future games.
Learn more about 𝐀𝐭𝐡𝐲𝐫𝐢𝐨 𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬 at:
👉 https://athyriogames.com
Discover 𝐏𝐞𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢 products at:
👉 https://www.pinballremakes.com
#PinballCommunity #pinballwizard #pinball #remake #flippers #pinballgame #pinballmachine #flipper #pinballmachines”