That pinball game—which every Windows user has probably played at least once—might be making a comeback.
That game, which disappeared with the transition to a 64-bit OS, has prompted a response from senior staff in response to user feedback.
Like “Solitaire” and “Minesweeper,” “3D Pinball Space Cadet”—which was once included with Windows—features space-themed pinball elements such as upgrading a spaceship’s weapons and engines,as well as wormholes and black holes—and the premise involves rising through the ranks from space cadet to second lieutenant and first lieutenant by completing various missions.
After being included in “Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95,” it remained a pre-installed title through “Windows XP,” but when the code was ported to 64-bit, a bug caused the ball to pass through the table. Due to development priorities, it was subsequently removed from the bundled software.
Despite this, a comment on X reading “Give us back 3D Pinball!” was featured in the official “Inside Windows” video, sparking discussion among Pavan Davuluri, EVP of Windows & Devices, and Marcus Ash, CVP of Design and Research.
“People love games and Windows, and Windows offers a fantastic catalog ranging from casual games to AAA titles,” said Davuluri. He continued, “Windows has a great history of providing games out of the box, and we plan to add 3D Pinball to our matrix of considerations.”
While this doesn’t mean the game is “in development” or “on the roadmap”—it’s merely at the “under consideration” stage—it does shed a ray of hope on the possibility of reviving this title, which has long since been removed from the bundled lineup.
According to Raymond Chen, the Microsoft engineer who explained the aforementioned bug, there were past plans to repackage and release a 32-bit version that functioned properly, but these were abandoned due to licensing agreements with the developer, Cinematronics.
The day may yet come when that game—which brings back nostalgic memories of the hard-fought battles to achieve high scores—makes a comeback.
