Sources
Contributors to this record: Flipcommons Catalog, Flipcommons AI Descriptions (MachineModel).
- theme
- MythologyFlipcommons CatalogFantasyFlipcommons Catalog
- description
- Flipcommons AI Descriptions (MachineModel)*Sinbad* is [[manufacturer:bell-coin-matics]]'s solid-state, four-player pinball, built in [[location:italy/bo/bologna]] in 1979 as a joint production with the fellow Bolognese firm [[manufacturer:europlay]]. It reworks [[manufacturer:gottlieb]]'s 1978 *[[model:sinbad]]*[1], sharing that game's [[theme:fantasy]] cast of the legendary Arabian sailor — a subject Gottlieb had drawn from Ray Harryhausen's swashbuckling *Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger*, the 1977 film Columbia Pictures had in cinemas the very year it bought Gottlieb outright. That coincidence made Gottlieb's machine the first pin whose film and factory answered to one corporate parent, the template every later Hollywood tie-in would follow.[2] For the two Bologna firms, though, the hit was less a licence to buy than a design to rebuild. Europlay specialised in [[technology-generation:electromechanical]] remakes of the earliest [[technology-generation:solid-state]] tables, and its own one-player electromechanical Sinbad — carried in the catalog as *[[model:sinbad-adventures]]* — ranked among the firm's biggest sellers.[1] Its partner had itself been founded only a year earlier, in 1978, and earned its living from conversion kits that reworked older [[manufacturer:bally]] machines rather than from designing games of its own.[3] Bologna's coin-op trade was crowded enough that at its peak the city reportedly held more pinball factories than Chicago, the American industry's own capital.[4] Bell returned to Gottlieb's design the following year, paring it back further into a 1980 kit titled *The Hunter*.[5] Only in the mid-1980s did the company set rebadged kits aside for machines of its own, by then trading as Nuova Bell Games and building its own circuit boards.[6]
- game_format
- Pinball[7]Flipcommons Catalog
- player_count
- 4[7]Flipcommons Catalog
- technology_generation
- Solid State[7]Flipcommons Catalog
- year
- 1979[7]Flipcommons Catalog
- corporate_entity
- Bell Coin Matics[7]Flipcommons Catalog
- title
- Sinbad[7]Flipcommons Catalog
- name
- Sinbad[7]Flipcommons Catalog
- status
- activeFlipcommons Catalog
- slug
- sinbad-bell-coin-maticsFlipcommons Catalog
Citations
- TILT.IT — https://www.tilt.it/bell.htm
Some of them, like EUROPLAY (again based in Bologna), produced some EM versions of the very first SS pinballs. Their major success was a one-player EM version of the Gottlieb SS pinball "SINBAD".
- The Skill Shot — https://theskillshot.substack.com/p/the-pinball-machine-that-started
In 1977, Columbia Pictures released a movie called Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger. [...] The same year Columbia released the film, Columbia bought Gottlieb. [...] And almost immediately, Gottlieb made a Sinbad pinball machine. This had never happened before [...] the movie studio that made the movie now also owned the pinball company that made the pinball. [...] Every pinball machine you've ever played that's based on a current Hollywood film owes something to that 1977 corporate deal.
- Kineticist — https://www.kineticist.com/manufacturers/bell-games-nuova-11
Bell Games (later Nuova 11) is an Italian pinball manufacturer founded in Bologna in 1978 by Mr. [...] Cavazza that began as a specialist in conversion kits and budget operator upgrades for older Bally machines
- TILT.IT — https://www.tilt.it/bell.htm
This factory was also based in Bologna; at one time there were more pinball factories in Bologna than in Chicago!
- TILT.IT — https://www.tilt.it/bell.htm
"THE HUNTER" (1980) was a simplified version of Gottlieb's "Sinbad" (1978).
- Flippers.be — https://www.flippers.be/bellgames.html
The company started as Bell games and made conversion kits for Bally pinball games. [...] The company later changed into Nuova Bell games [...] and these all have their own custom boardset, no more kits for Bally pinball machines were produced.
- TILT.IT — https://www.tilt.it/flipper_pinball/ipdb/bell-games
Sinbad (co-production Europlay/Bell Games) – ss – 4p