Zen Studios brings its pinball platform to Steam on May 10, with a free download for Pinball FX 2 and six expansion packs priced at $9.99 each — Star Wars, Marvel, Marvel: Vengeance and Virtue, Marvel: Avengers Chronicles, the Pinball FX2 Core Collection and Zen Classics.

Zen Pinball 2 at last arrives for Wii U on Thursday. The Marvel tables are available, but not the new Star Wars series.

E3 is never a time for social calls. It's nonstop work. Last June, the only developer I met with outside the walls of the L.A. Convention Center was over drinks with Zen Studios' U.S. staff at the J.W. Marriott.

Star Wars Pinball's first three tables—The Empire Strikes Back, Boba Fett and The Clone Wars—will release next week on a slew of mobile and console platforms. Pricing and release dates are different for all of them, so pay close attention.

Zen Studios' hugely successful pinball simulation lands on its third console, the Wii U, later this month via the Wii U eShop. The game will incorporate features specific to the Wii U's GamePad, which includes controlling the plunger on the touchscreen, cycling through information displayed on the table's dot-matrix…

Zen Pinball's productive relationship with Marvel Entertainment has delivered 14 virtual tables to Pinball FX2 on the Xbox 360 and Marvel Pinball on the PS3, as well as on mobile devices. There's going to be a 15th table coming up soon: "Civil War," taken from the 2006 crossover continuity pitting Captain America…

At PAX today, Zen Studios said the next table in its acclaimed pinball lineup will be Plants vs. Zombies, licensed from PopCap, makers of the tower-defense hit.

When I first heard about Zen Studio's Kickbeat, I was understandably excited about it. A fighting game that uses music to cue its hits, designed by the people who made the supremely punchy Zen Pinball games? One that tells the story of You can import your own music?