An original table from an emulator possibly remade as a physical machine? How endlessly amusing...

Confirmation of some potentially very interesting news at Polygon: FarSight has been in talks with "some of the famous pinball designers from the past" to design original tables for Pinball Arcade. Two words: Ritchie Brothers. Please.

I can only hope, given an unlimited canvas, that things at least stay within the realm of the physically possible. Video game elements have been creeping into Zen Pinball since the beginning, which is one of the reasons I prefer Pinball Arcade despite Zen's slightly tighter ball physics. Ideally, we can trust old-school pinball developers not to be tempted, but terrible things have happened to pinball in the past once this became a possibility - from the addition of enemies to High Speed on the NES to Pinball 2000. An article at Stern Pinball goes into greater detail on the issue. Blame lays squarely on Williams executives for the latter nonsense, but there's a fine line between the "unfeasibly expensive and/or breakable" gimmick and the "impossible" one, and from there it's a slippery slope to the table flying away and shooting lasers. That's not what I play Pinball Arcade for.