This is the rarest of three licensed Beatles pinball machines that were released in 2018. Only 100 “Diamond Edition” games were produced, and they sold for premium prices. 250 Platinum Editions and 1614 Gold Editions were made. The total number of games is 1964, which is the year when the Beatles famously first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. Each of the three editions features different Beatles artwork, but otherwise the games are very similar. The playfield layout was copied from a previous game named “Seawitch” which was released in 1980. Nine different Beatles songs make up the sound track, and the voices of Ed Sullivan and DJ “Cousin” Brucie can also be heard from time to time. Originally there was a clause in the license agreement that prohibited the machines from being manufactured with coin doors, but it was dropped at the last minute and all games were sold with coin doors included. An earlier unlicensed Beatles themed game was released by Williams in 1967, which featured cartoon-like drawings of the four famous musicians on the backglass and a purposely misspelled band name: “The Bootles”.
