Newsbytes: Atari Relief Pitcher Prototype; New Owners For American Pinball; Ski Hero & More
Welcome to the first Newsbytes of 2026. This is a series of posts here on Arcade Heroes that rounds up byte-sized pieces of news from around the worlds of arcades and pinball. The year has started off with quite a bit of news, which is hopefully a good sign for how the rest of 2026. Let’s dive in:
Atari Relief Pitcher Prototype Dumped
It wasn’t too long ago that a prototype for Atari Games’ Jammin’ was dumped, and now the old adage about waiting a long time for a bus and two turning up at the same time is playing out with Atari arcade prototypes, as we have another to talk about. This is a curious one, being for a title that did technically release, but in an almost wholly different form several years later (albeit under the exact same name – a similar thing happened with Atari’s Road Runner from around the same time). Relief Pitcher as we previously knew it came out in 1992 for arcades, and later the SNES in 1994 (a cancelled Lynx port was also in the works), however this baseball game was originally under development during 1986 on the System 1.
Like Jammin’, the game has been made functional in MAME, and is playable with two analogue sticks. Apparently its preservation came about after an owner of an actual prototype PCB came forward with dumps, unlike Jammin’ where that was derived from backup tapes; thanks to the MAME team for their great work once again in getting this piece of arcade history out there (one of the fellows who assisted things there uploaded the below gameplay video, and also has a great documentary on Jammin’ out now).
American Pinball & Orbit Games Under New Ownership
This news spread around a bit already last week, but after contacting them for comment, there wasn’t much else to share, so we’re putting it here. One of the main companies on the pinball scene after Stern and Jersey Jack, American Pinball started off with Houdini: Master of Mystery back in 2017, and their most recent release dropped in 2024 with Barry O’s BBQ Challenge. Their corporate structure has been a little confusing as they were under the umbrella of a parent company that focuses on manufacturing, while that same parent was also involved in other ventures. There was also a time right before 2020 where it looked like AP were going to try out some redemption games, but they scrapped those plans and kept with pinball.
More recently though, their new video game and redemption-focused sister brand/business Orbit Games popped up with a lot of crossover between them and American Pinball, such as showing off Whirl-O-Ball at the American Pinball booth for Pinball Expo 2025, and Orbit using AP’s social media channels on every post. Now, both companies are under new ownership by a family-owned manufacturing investment firm called JB Vincent L.B. out of Texas. JBV has made Ron Lindeman President of both companies. The pinball news site Kineticist did an interview with Ron (more extensive than one I did with him on LinkedIn), which covers details for those interested, although there isn’t anything news related for upcoming games.
I would note that this does not mean that American is closing – in fact, in the weeks running up to this announcement, I saw Ron posting several ads for hiring people to work at AP. They are about to launch Whirl-O-Ball, but we’ll have to wait and see if there’s anything else.
Ski Hero
Around IAAPA time, a mysterious new UNIS title known as Ski Hero was mentioned on a show preview given out by Shaffer Distributing. It soon vanished from that and didn’t appear at the event in the end, but some investigation revealed that it had oddly been listed on Polish company Magic Play’s website, despite not being officially announced by UNIS themselves. Through this, it was confirmed the game was a new take on an Alpine Racer-type skiing simulator, and now UNIS have unveiled the game themselves in a roundabout way with this single YouTube trailer. Why they haven’t made greater play of it is anyone’s guess (there’s been no trade show sightings so far), but this may be one to expect for Amusement Expo in March:
ATRAX Expo
Whilst EAG 2026 out in London has been the main trade show happening of the month, another additionally took place over in Istanbul, beginning right as that show ended. The ATRAX Expo covers Turkey’s amusement and attraction industries, naturally including the main arcade distributors for the likes of Bandai Namco, Sega Amusements (who made several posts promoting their showcased titles over on LinkedIn), LAI Games and others. This below video by GTI gives an impression of what was there; a few new titles that weren’t at EAG did appear, e.g. Ace’s Hover Rush and UNIS’ Turbo Nova racing games. There was also seemingly more VR on show here, which is interesting given how little EAG had of that:
Bamigos – New Company Out Of India
We have a new manufacturer to share with you today, a company out of India who are moving into creating new videmption games and attraction equipment. According to Virender Khanna, founder of Bamigos, they have been in business for three years now, mainly focusing on selling games to the growing arcade market in India. Their line-up also includes a couple of VR products, and exergaming AR pieces, like their Hyperjump. I’ve yet to hear back on some questions I asked (particularly about international distribution), but they are now on our radar for future developments. Visit their website here.
The Indie Games Of Super MAGFest 2026
I did not get a chance to attend Super MAGFest 2026 this year, but fortunately Joe at Indie Arcade Wave did, and there were quite a few interesting indie arcade titles on hand. He’s been posting brief videos of these to his social media, although we are unsure on which of these are simply one-offs, or if the creators are looking at producing a few. Links to the videos that have been shared on Twitter/X, as that seems to have the most examples (they also post a lot on Instagram, but that doesn’t work as well on desktop vs. mobile, on top of not showing all of the same videos). There is a surprising number of these that were brought to the show; nice to see Chef It Up still around and among them after the coverage we’ve given it:
- Super Sharp Birds
- League of Foes
- Nothing Good Can Come Of This
- Hungry Hungry Hippos (not the Adrenaline redemption game)
- Typing Party
- Slam City Oracles (Quick Cabinet Look)
- Particle Mace
- Nidhogg II
- Foam
- Massive
- Volleybird (Quick Cabinet Look)
- Waddle Throttle
- Chef It Up
- Dye Breaker (Quick Cabinet Look)
- Weathersys Admin
- Don’t Push Me
- Galactic Battleground
- Kung Fu Kickball
- Cosmotrons
IAW additionally did a tour of MAGFest, which you can check out here:
Also of note, IAW recently interviewed Brian Stabile and Caris Baker of Astro Crow Games, discussing their indie game Jai-Alai Heroes and its rerelease last year. This game is available and in-production, being built at Fun Company.
RIP David Rosen
Finally, some sad news that has long been around the moon and back in terms of reach, but deserves a nod here too. Days into 2026, it was confirmed by RePlay Magazine and his spokesperson that Sega co-founder and former CEO David Rosen had passed away on the Christmas Day just gone, having lived to the grand old age of 95. It goes without saying by this point that he had an immeasurable impact on both the arcade and video game industries at large, being one of their biggest and very earliest proponents dating back to the 1950s/60s. Our condolences to his family, friends, and anyone who had the privilege of meeting the man when he was still around in the business; you can find a great obituary for him here.
Headlines
Registration Is Now Open For Amusement Expo International 2026
Konami’s Demon Slayer Nichirin Battle Gets Its First Location Test
It Looks Like DDR World Is Also Rolling Out In South Korea
Enterrium In Schaumburg, IL Gets A DanceRush Stardom – Apparently a offline mode-only test for future US Konami plans?
Bandai Namco’s Penlalive Goes Back On Location Test In Japan
Bandai Namco Are Also Testing One Piece Dawn Strike Again
Fun World, Nashua’s Galaxian 3 Theatre Is Back Up And Running – This was originally fixed last year, but went down again until now due to a projector fault
Maimai DX Circle Is Now Available On All International Cabinets
Sega Amusements Commemorate Ian Colley’s 25th Anniversary
3MindWave Celebrate IAAPA 2025, 1k+ Units Sold For Apex Rebels – There may well be more news on Apex coming soon…
LAI Games Names Jason Gould As VP Of Global Sales, Marketing
Changes Come To The IFPA – This is the organization that deals with pinball tournaments
New Footage Of The Much-Missed London Trocadero Funland Arcade
Arcade Odyssey Gets Some Mainstream Gaming Press
Mini-Documentary About The ICE Chexx Bubble Hockey Game
An Argument To “Bring Back Arcades” Using Retro – I have many thoughts on this one, but will address in a video in the next week or two.
Raw Thrills Now Has An Operator App – No link to this, but as I was setting up a new Minecraft PC, I had to register with Raw Thrills and it installed an app on my phone. It’s not available on a public store and it’s fairly bare bones at the moment, but perhaps that will change with future updates. It’s also tied to RT’s High Score website, which I’ve long thought would make for a good player-centric app.
[Home Headlines]
Nintendo Is Holding A Nintendo Direct About The Super Mario Bros. Galaxy Movie On Sunday
Hideki Konno, Director & Producer At Nintendo Since 1986, Has Retired
Sonic’s 35th Anniversary Celebrations Officially Begin
Ubisoft Cancels And Delays Several Games; Prince of Persia Remake Among The Canned
The Newzealand Story Remake Is Coming To Steam Next Month
Atari Is Putting Some Marketing Behind Their Upcoming Bubsy 4D Game – I got to play the demo to this at PRGE and… I didn’t hate it (I have not enjoyed any of the 2D Bubsy games I played).
The Creator Of The Fantastic Racing Homebrew FASTER Is Now Making Cavey Taxi For The Atari STe – Basically it’s Crazy Taxi but in a cave?
Meta Discontinues Horizon Workrooms, Scales Back VR Push With 1,500 Layoffs – Rant time, as I’d gladly have taken just $1B to explain to them why this would be the likely result to save them $99B, but this is the problem when you have a megacorporation with an essentially unlimited supply of money and dysfunctional management with no clear, singular vision how how to creatively approach the tech. That they spent $100B on this is just crazy to me, and I will gloat to the professional VR goalpost movers that “I told you so.” Like LaserDisc, Betamax, and VCD users, there will always be a niche out there so VR won’t completely go away, but it never was going to replace all flat displays, laptops, and smartphones, like we were told.
I’m also seeing goalposts moved towards “Well, the future is LBE VR!” but let me press X for Doubt on that, once again, for the sheer fact that LBE VR has been a thing for as long as Meta’s been dumping money into it. All of the promises there, from The Void to Hologate to VRsenal, have likewise failed to produce the lofty results they promised. For the few companies who started off as VR-only makers abd haven’t gone bankrupt, a few have been pivoting and seeing more success in MXR. Granted, the market is such that one or two like Sandbox VR seem to be doing fine, but it’s hardly a market that can support 20 different VR arena companies. If you have ridiculous money to waste on it like Zuckerberg, then that’s your prerogative, but you could likewise invest that into AR or MXR technologies and get more bang for your buck.
That’s it for this Newsbytes; which of today’s stories (e.g. the Relief Pitcher prototype) interest you most?
The post Newsbytes: Atari Relief Pitcher Prototype; New Owners For American Pinball; Ski Hero & More appeared first on Arcade Heroes.
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