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The King Kong Pinball Machine They Didn’t Want You to See

The Lost Pins – King Kong (Data East, 1990)
The giant monster pinball machine that almost was…

In this episode of The Lost Pins, we dive into one of the most legendary, mysterious, and tragic cancellations in pinball history — Data East’s King Kong (1990).

This wasn’t a concept.
This wasn’t a whitewood.
This wasn’t a “maybe someday.”

King Kong existed. In force.

By the time Data East pulled the plug, as many as NINE fully built prototypes had been created — each with different layouts, mechs, and features as the game was actively being tuned for production. Collectors who have played prototype #9 (the final build) confirm the rules were nearly finished, the layout was being refined, and the game was painfully close to release.

Featuring:

A massive oversized “Kong” flipper

A unique cannon shot (pre-T2!) used to blast King Kong into a cage

Multiple prototype layout variations (ramps, upkickers, flipper changes)

Gorgeous artwork by Kevin O’Connor (K’OC)

Big, bold sound design and music by Brian Schmidt

And classic late-80s Data East stereo chaos

This was Data East swinging for the fences. And then… it vanished.

Licensing uncertainty, internal chaos, rising production costs, and pure corporate panic are believed to have killed the game at the last second — leaving only a handful of prototypes in private collections and one of the biggest “what if?” stories the pinball world has ever known.

At one point, these prototypes were quietly sold off for a few thousand dollars… long before anyone realized they were sitting on a holy grail.

Today, King Kong is considered one of the most sought-after lost pinball machines in existence.

In this episode, we break down:

The real development history of King Kong

Why the game was canceled so late in the process

What made the design so ambitious (and risky)

How many prototypes are believed to exist

And why this game has become pure legend among collectors

If you love rare pinball machines, unreleased arcade games, prototype history, and the weird stories the manufacturers never wanted told — welcome to The Lost Pins.

Because some games were too wild to survive the boardroom.

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