Tacky ads for stuff nobody wants usually include the words “At last!”. Well, in the case of NanoTech’s new Pinball Wizard PC game controller those words are actually justified. I’ve been waiting for something like this for ages.

One of the big problems with virtual pinball, on the PC or a games console, has always been the lack of any physical interaction and feedback. True pinball is a highly visceral, hands on experience. The closest I’ve found to date is using the Wii with the Nunchuck - but obviously that solution isn’t compatible with PC simulations such as Future Pinball.

Now NanoTech Entertainment, makers of the Multipin, have released their Pinball Wizard controller. This is a USB based device for PCs that effectively converts presses of flipper buttons etc into the keystrokes required for a PC simulation.

According to Nanotech:

The Pinball Wizard is constructed with true arcade materials and uses a real plunger and lockdown bar from actual pinball machines assuring the player that real arcade feel

Robert DeKett of NanoTech said:

We have come up with a design that will work with any pinball software, regardless of analog input support. This means we can support all pinball games. Our engineers have crafted a very flexible solution that is designed to support all existing pinball games and is field upgradeable ensuring long lasting support

It looks to me as if they’ve essentially taken parts from the MultiPin and added some software plus USB support. Very clever.

The Pinball Wizard is available to buy fromNanoTech for $299. Given the exchange rate, shipping costs to the UK and import duty that probably equates to three hundred quid. So unless NanoTech want to send me a freebie to review it looks like I’ll be waiting a while longer.

At last - but not yet.

Nick from Pins Anon has been working hard doing the groundwork for the 2009 UK Pinball Show. He’s now announced that the show is “99% confirmed” as taking place at Northampton Saints Rugby Club on Saturday 25th and Sunday 26th July 2009. Thanks Nick.

Unfortunately it’s 99% confirmed that I won’t be there - I’m a non-driver and the thought of getting from Edinburgh to Northampton on our clapped out British railway system isn’t one I relish!

It’s not good news when the world’s only remaining manufacturer of pinball machines lays off some of its top talent.

Pinball News reports that Stern Pinball has made a number of top names redundant. These include its two in-house game designers Dennis Nordman and John Borg who were responsible for Pirates Of The Caribbean and Indiana Jones.

Gary Stern is reported as saying that this in no way suggests the company is in trouble or that this is the end of pinball, it’s just a necessary adjustment to the current world economic situation.

I hope he’s right, but part of me can’t help thinking “He would say that, wouldn’t he”.

Despite my previous rant about Techball, there can be situations where reducing the physical aspect of the game can be a good thing.

The Winnipeg Sun reports on a specially designed pinball table being used to help disabled kids. The table is located at the Rehabilitation Centre for Children and has been modified to allow use by a wide range of people including those in wheelchairs. The flipper buttons are very large and require only minimal pressure to operate, if necessary the whole control panel can be removed from the machine for wheelchair use.

The pinball itself isn’t directly therapeutic, instead it’s used to relax kids attending the centre. The special table cost $8500 (Canadian) and was paid for with the help of a local business group.

This is a really great idea, I wonder if there’s any chance of places in the UK taking it up? It wouldn’t need to be restricted to disabled kids - or even kids at all. Anywhere that people get tense whilst waiting, for example a dental surgery, could potentially benefit from having an unmodified table on freeplay. Might this be a way of rehabilitating not just patients but also pinball itself?

The gadget blogs are alight with word of the new Techball Remote Controlled Upright Pinball game, available to buy now at the Hammacher Schlemmer website.

To call this “pinball” is a travesty on so many levels. The table looks naff - OK, that’s to be expected from a toy. But a vertical table?!? That’s not pinball, that’s pachinko with flippers! Even the flippers are curved, presumably because that’s the only way to hit certain things on a vertical table.

The worst thing of all is the fact that it’s remote controlled. No, no, no, no, no!

Pinball is a fundamentally physical activity, becoming one with the table. That’s one thing that otherwise excellent PC simulators like Future Pinball still can’t manage. At least toy plastic tables have physical flippers - pressing buttons from a distance can’t possibly compete. Removing the flipper buttons and replacing them with a remote control is a step backwards, not forwards.

This isn’t pinball in any form I recognise.