Pinball 2000 was the last pinball hardware and software platform developed by major pinball manufacturer Williams, and was used in the machines Revenge From Mars (under the brand name Bally) and Star Wars Episode I (under the brand name Williams) before Williams exited the pinball business on October 25, 1999. It is the successor to the Williams Pinball Controller platform. Unlike previous pinball machines, Pinball 2000 machines feature a computer monitor to display animations, scores, and other information. The player perceives this video to be integrated with the playfield, due to a mirrored playfield glass (utilizing an illusion called "Pepper's ghost") that reflects the monitor hung in the head of the machine. This allows the display of virtual game targets in the playfield's upper third that can be "hit" by the machine's physical steel ball. "Impacts" on these targets are detected by physical targets in the middle of the playfield, and by recognizing successful shots up the left and right ramps and orbits/loops. Revenge from Mars, the first of the two released games, sold a promising 6,878 units. However, Star Wars Episode I suffered from a rushed and top-secret production cycle and sold only about half as many units (3,525), leading to Williams' decision to close down its historic pinball division.

Development

The Pinball 2000 platform was originally designed to use a backbox video display (replacing the standard dot matrix display) but without the mirroring technique, reminiscent of those seen in Bally's Baby Pac Man (1982) and Granny and the Gators (1983) or Gottlieb's Caveman (1982) pinball machines. The first-generation mockup prototype of the Pinball 2000 architecture was called Holopin—it used main designer George Gomez's old Amiga computer to drive the video display, and a No Good Gofers whitewood prototype playfield. The integration of pinball and video was inspired by the Asteroids Deluxe arcade machine, which used a one-way mirror to add a static background graphic to the game's animated vector graphics.

Technical details

A conversion kit for Revenge from Mars was released so it could be converted into a Star Wars Episode I. The kit included a new playfield, ROMs, cabinet decals and a manual plunger.

Games

Released Planned (unreleased)