Gary Stern has just recently aquired the Sega Pinball Division. Just in time too, since Williams has recently pulled out of the pinball industry completely. Not much is known about what will be happening with Stern Pinball tho.
Stern pinball is usually pretty obscure to most people.
Although Stern only stayed in business about 8 years, they made their mark on the industry and also in the hearts of collectors. Stern games seemed to have an amazing ability to send the ball screaming into the flipper in-lanes and right over the flipper before your fingers could even react. While this was sort of a trade mark on all the non-widebody games from them, it defintely was not the only 'signature' of a Stern game. Another aspect of Stern games that I enjoyed so much was the ability of Stern's Drop Target banks to be swept down all at once with a ball approaching from the side. Many a collector has been 'bitten' by the Stern bug.