Hi John, and welcome!
It's amazing to talk with one of the best pinball designers! Good week: I have just bought last wednesday my first "Popadiuk Pinball", and my favourite machine, a fantastic Cirqus Voltaire, and three days later you're appearing at our forum...
Well, more data about the New Canasta. Antonio Cruz, its designer, told us at FER 2010, that the development begun several years ago working for Bifuca (Pinball Tronic firm). It seems Bifuca decided to discontinue the project, but Antonio carried on with it, alone, until another company, Orenes (
www.orenesgrupo.com/ing/index.htm) decided to support and build the project.
Antonio told us more than 200 machines were in production (September 2010), and the project looked fine, but then, they begun to send the final price to the interested people, and the surprise was the price is around 4,000€ (the cost of a NIB Stern in Spain is around 4,500€). So, it seems that the 200 machines are real machines, but rumours say all they belong to Orenes, who is installing them at their own establishments (their main business are slot machines).
Good news from FER 2010 were to see the real New Canastas, and the confirmation from Antonio that they wanted to develop more moderne and complex tables. But from then, we have no information about it.
2011 FER-INTERAZAR dates are from March 30th to April 1st, and MarsaPlay and Orenes will be there. I hope we will have more news then.
Regards!
a ver Antonio si se pasa por aquí con noticias nuevas y de paso como va el tema.
