If Mattel would have?

[atari5200dude82]

If Mattel would kept there electronics division open , and held on a few more months or by the end of 1984. Would you think that it would made a difference? Or better, got out when they did? They had a great line up games in 84. if they would completed the Intellivision 4 and released it. it. would made a huge impact.Yes they were losing tons of money. . But the games sales were starting to turn around. 10 percent more than in 82. What if the released Quest and Space shuttle for the Intellivoice, would it made the Intellivoice sales stronger. What would happened if they marketed and supported and advertised the Ecs better, would it got stronger sales and more games. What are your thoughts and inputs. ?

 

 

Some of my thoughts. in my opinion

 

Mattel should of made the intellivision 2 stronger and more powerful, and still compatible ,with the master component, while they had an golden oppurtunity, instead wasting time and money development on 3 and 4 . Released 3 or 4 later on if demand was there.

 

Mattel should of not cancelled the intellivoice so quickly. If Quest, Woody woodpecker and maybe Space Shuttle would gotten released. I think it would of sold better Released the International Intellivoice also, for the people overseas.

 

better supported the ECS and the synthesizer. Released Super nfl , and more music games and more action games for it.

Edited May 11, 2014 by atari5200dude82

[+Rick Reynolds]

I like to dream about that stuff, but I'm not really the historian that I would need to be to talk authoritatively. But I did ask one of our interviewees on the podcast about the chops of the ECS itself as a home computer. I doubt it could have competed against machines like the C64 and later Apple II. It might have been competitive with the original TRS-80 in that very beginning era of home computing.

 

I don't know about Mattel's cash position, but they would have needed pretty deep pockets to weather the storm that the crash brought. I think the companies that went under at that time did so because they weren't positioned correctly for that market down-turn. Everything was built in the expectation that things were going up and up.

 

But this is just my impressions from reading various articles and such.

[+JasonlikesINTV]

I can't say whether or not they made the right decisions at the time, but while we're speculating.....

 

If Intellivision had survived the crash and stayed in the video gaming market, I would love to have seen their competitive and innovative prowess around the time of the 1st gen Wii, Xbox, PS1 rollouts. Imagine a modern competitor to the PS4, Wii U, and Xbox One. Would Mattel have gone the high graphics route of Sony, the online connectedness route of Microsoft, or the innovative user interface route of Nintendo?

 

It's not to late, Intellivision Productions

Edited May 11, 2014 by JasonlikesINTV

[SoulBlazer]

I like to dream about that stuff, but I'm not really the historian that I would need to be to talk authoritatively. But I did ask one of our interviewees on the podcast about the chops of the ECS itself as a home computer. I doubt it could have competed against machines like the C64 and later Apple II. It might have been competitive with the original TRS-80 in that very beginning era of home computing.

 

I don't know about Mattel's cash position, but they would have needed pretty deep pockets to weather the storm that the crash brought. I think the companies that went under at that time did so because they weren't positioned correctly for that market down-turn. Everything was built in the expectation that things were going up and up.

 

But this is just my impressions from reading various articles and such.

Most historians agree (and I like to think of myself as one, as I was trained for it!) that Mattel was bleeding too much money and had to shut down the electronics division when they did. Could they have avoided that? Perhaps. But everyone was taking it to the chin -- Coleco only lived thanks to the CPK's, Atari was sold off and divided into two and limped along, Activision only made it by changing totally to PC stuff for several years. Keith has said on the BSR page that the electronics division ALMOST sunk Mattel. It was only due to closing it and the strength of their other products (He-Man, Barbie, etc.) that they made it and recovered to be one of the big two toy companies (along with Hasbro).

[+Lathe26]

One of the big problems with gaming consoles is coming out with too many upgrades and add-ons that require game developers to adapt. This isn't referring to an odd joystick, but to the rather complex add-ons like the Intellivoice or the Sega CD and Sega 32X. A game developer has to either use up precious ROM space to enable the cool add-on features but limit themselves to a fraction of the market or they make a game only using the plain-Jane features to be able to target the entire market.

 

Nowadays, we know from history that such add-ons are a risky and expensive option for a company to take on. Back in Mattel's day, it was not so well known since no one had tried it before. Back then, it would have been really hard to predict which add-ons for the Intellivision were good ideas versus duds.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvR_3OTxs8A

[Troy_Whelan]

I wish they had kept going, and even wish they would pick back up now. Maybe not as a major distribution center, but at least like the homebrew market here to see their dreams finally completed. The big fights back then such as Mattel not wanting Coleco games to play on Intellivision II, and Coleco reportedly not putting much effort into their Atari 2600 games, and Atari not wanting anyone else to have a console or make games helped to fuel the downfall...that and the mass distribution of crap games at the end. It would be great to see an upgraded Intellivision now similar to the SGM for CV and/or the rumored CV2.

[bradhig]

I feel that if Mattel and Coleco hadn't tried to turn their consoles into computers they would have lived longer.

[Troy_Whelan]

I feel that if Mattel and Coleco hadn't tried to turn their consoles into computers they would have lived longer.

Yeah at the time the computer interfaces they provided were actually fairly powerful for the cost compared to dedicated PCs. But you have a point in that they were trying too hard to 1-up each other rather than focus on their games and unique offerings; Coleco with Arcade games and Intellivision with talking games and really fun non-arcade titles. They could have divided the landscape like that and both been very successful.

[+Lathe26]

... that all said, here's what I think Mattel should have done (hindsight being 20/20):

1. Pull the plug on the PlayCable. As innovative as it was, it was a monetary dud.
2. Similarly, ditch the System Changer. While it held the promise of opening up the Atari library, it's my understanding it didn't add many more sales of Intellivision consoles
3. Skip the Intellivision II. This added very little to Mattel except annoyed customers for games it broke and the 2nd rate controllers (and Coleco shipped patched games soon anyways).
4. Focus only on either Intellivision III or IV as the successor console, not both (Intellivision III here is not the one that INTV Inc shipped). Effort should focus on only 1 successor console at a time.
5. Make all the controllers plug-able (like the Sears Intellivision). This would allow for controller upgrades that would have not impacted on game development.
6. The next 3 items are mutually exclusive:
   1. Put more money and people into the Keyboard Component and actually deliver it. Merge the Intellivoice hardware into it (don't sell the Intellivoice stand-alone).
   2. Pull the plug on the Keyboard Component much earlier and develop a better ECS (a little more RAM, better BASIC). Merge the Intellivoice hardware into the ECS (don't sell the Intellivoice stand-alone).
   3. Only ship the Intellivoice. Ditch the Keyboard Component and the ECS completely.

This results in there being only 1 add-on for the Intellivision. Sure, it makes the history a lot less interesting but here's what we'd have in return:

1. Intellivision game developers only have 1 add-on to worry about instead of 3. I am counting the Keyboard Component as 1 of the 3 (think about the cartridges and software tapes that were actually developed but never really sold). I'm not counting the PlayCable or System Changer since they required minimal ROM changes or none.
2. Mattel's losses would have been much smaller during the crash. They could have weathered the storm with more money in the bank.
3. Maybe more games would have been developed earlier for the Intellivision, fueling more console sales. We'd be talking about 200 games, not 125 games.
4. The FCC never would have gone after Mattel.
5. There would be fewer ticked-off customers due to the Keyboard Component fiasco.
6. Mattel executives and designers would not have wasted time talking to banks and other industries about the unreleased Keyboard Component repackaging (there were 2 projects to fit the Keyboard Component into the Intellivoice-like plastics).
7. Mattel might have actually shipped the successor to the Intellivision to compete against Nintendo.
8. More controllers, better controllers.

Anyways, that's my thoughts, for what they are worth.

[+BBWW]

The should have released the original Keyboard Component or release the much more advanced Intellivision. But we have to remember that everybody tanked at that time. I don't know if anything could have saved it.

[doctorclu]

I think the last statement sums up what I feel best. They had to release SOME keyboard component because they promised they would, so that problem existed long before the crash.

 

No, I simply wish more was done with the ECS, as in more memory and more graphical capability. I WANT THE PROGRAM EXPANDER MODULE FOR THE ECS!! But then again maybe the answer then, or now, would be upgrade the Intellivision itself with an option to run the older mode for the older games.

 

But in all honestly, I believe no matter which way they went, the Intellivision as we knew it, which finally breathed its last breath in 1991 (Yowza that's a long time) had more than run it's course. I doubt Intellivision, which was out of the thoughts and minds of kids by the mid eighties, would have welcomed a Mattel game system in the Nintendo and Sega era. Look at the luck Atari had during that time and I think you get the idea.

 

Atari had some good systems, the 7800, Lynx, Jaguar, which I believe had all the elements of a fun system in each case. However while all were notable mentions, they were not the Nintendo and Sega systems. Mattel would have faired about the same.

[+intvsteve]

Honestly, having shelf space in a major chain like Toys R Us as late as 1990 to me was incredible. With *new* games and *new* units. Did the PS2 or original X Box have that kind of presence ten years after launch? BTW, that's an honest question. (OK, not really fair, since they had planned successors already out.) I don't really pay a lot of attention to the new consoles. (And by new, I'm talkin NES and later. Yeah, I'm a much lamer gamer than the typical crowd here )

 

Could Mattel Electronics have staved off its "demise"? Well, I'd argue that its so-called demise was brief and temporary, as it never really left stores. The brand died, but not the products. INTV Corp. started pushing new titles in what, 1985 / 1986? Not sure when they re-emerged on some store shelves, though. Unlike Atari, though, Intellivision stayed in caring hands, which I truly appreciate as a fan of the system.

 

I really think the market was in an irreversible turn at that point. Granted, basing statements like this on personal observations is totally inaccurate, but given the events that occurred, it's reasonable to conclude (guess this is probably all conventional wisdom but I'm feeling posty ):

• The primary market segment (adolescent males) moved on to something else (Girls? Cars? College? PC gaming? Insert your reasons here)
• The market was saturated - lots of great product was released, but also a lot of junk - consumers got more careful, but sellers, not knowing this new market and what would fly and what would not, stocked up on everything
• The 900lb gorilla of the market (the VCS) was getting pretty old (what 7-8 years old by then?), and looking at the emerging PC games market, with vastly better graphics and sound, incremental upgrade costs (new video / sound cards, etc. and downward sloped cost curves on those parts), the market demo that wanted to keep on gaming started to look at the consoles as toys and PCs as the place to be
• Arcades, the engine that drove the consoles early on, started dying (based on my personal experiences anyway) - i.e. this affliction didn't affect just consoles, but the wider electronic gaming industry
• The 'splash damage' from PC vs. Atari (wider market reads all consoles as: Atari) affected everyone - even Colecovision, which you could argue was at least on par w/ PC games at the time

It would have been awesome to see Mattel's plans come to fruition. So many of the things planned and actually developed were so far out ahead that I think perhaps the problem wasn't in the engineering, but timing, market readiness, and cost. I think had they patented a lot of this stuff and taken a more restrained R&D schedule to let the hardware catch up with the vision, and brought the R&D costs under control, it could have worked. Consider that there *was* no IBM PC when they started this stuff. When they started their efforts, the Apple II had barely been to market. Perhaps they thought that they could BE that next wave. They certainly had the vision, but got a little crazy with the frenzied nature of the times. But that would have made Mattel Electronics into something even more foreign - a technology company and not a toy company. Perhaps there was still too much of 'stick to what you know' and simply not enough time and money to nurture M.E.I. After all, the toy market produces tangible goods. The software market is way more slippery and abstract, and at the time, didn't really exist on a consumer scale. Look at how heavily they leaned on APh for engineering and software work. Maybe M.E.I. should have just bought APh outright and turned into a completely different kind of company? Speculation like this is fun.

 

I think a more modern analogy is maybe Microsoft's X-Box launch. (This is a stretch here, as I'm not read up on this stuff...) I remember lots of people scoffing at the product and outright laughing at it. This fat, ugly, noisy box that was just a PC in a modded case. Funny how gaming made that full circle - the challenges of compatibility and stability in the competitive PC market ended up frustrating that customer base once it decided it didn't have time to mess around w/ autoexec.bat, config.sys and driver updates. People assumed that X-Box would just be that all over again in a cheaper box. Now, MS has essentially infinitely deep pockets, so their situation is way different, but it sure seems they planned for the long haul. The XB360 has had really successful run and essentially split the market in two after Sega dropped out of the console business. It's perhaps swinging back to Sony now w/ XBone vs. PS4 (too early to tell?), but MS has certainly shown patience to play the long game. From my position of ignorance, I think it's interesting to see how they've got their 'Intellivoice' with the Kinect. A somewhat pricey add-on that is amazingly innovative but requires developer buy-in. Isn't it integrated into the hardware of the XBone? (I.e. what the original Intellivision III would have done?) From a technology standpoint, Kinect is actually seeping into the entire MS software ecosystem, if indirectly, so they're not just eating the cost, even if it withers as a gaming mechanic. But it was developed and delivered under an entirely different environment than what Mattel was doing back then.

 

Had the ECS integrated the Intellivoice and juiced up the RAM, could it have done better? Doubtful. Just like w/ the Intellivoice, it required developer buy-in, and you needed to sell enough of the units to justify it. Unless it was incredibly cheap and came with some killer app (and sorry, but as amazing as WSMLB was, that would not have been it), that wasn't going to happen. Had the original KC not been such a problem, this would have all played out differently, of course.

[+BBWW]

WSMLB did morph into Earl Weaver Baseball and to me was a must have came on the Amiga. I can't think of another sports title I played more with my kids then Earl Weaver Baseball.

 

I think Intellivison Baseball and it's variants were game changers all, a Video Hall of Fame Game contender is what I think Baseball on the Intellivision is. Amazing stuff and under recognized outside the community.

[+intvsteve]

Oh, I absolutely agree w.r.t. the importance and greatness of Intellivision's baseball titles, BBWW! Looking, back, I guess maybe WSMLB could have been a killer app as a pack-in - I remember the TV ads absolutely amazing me. That said, it was still early enough in the gaming software industry to make it a little risky. Nowadays, everyone expects their <your favorite sport here> 20xx annual release. Back then, a response to a kid asking for a new baseball game was likely to be: "Why? You already have that game!" In fact, I even applied that filter to my own purchases on the later releases, since I had roommates willing to play, why get these other versions when Tower of Doom, Pac-Man, Defender, Thunder Castle and the like are out there?

[+JasonlikesINTV]

For perspective....Super Mario Brothers for the NES came out in 1985 and was revolutionary. Most of the INTV games didn't come out for another few years. By that time Metroid was out.

[+BBWW]

For perspective....Super Mario Brothers for the NES came out in 1985 and was revolutionary. Most of the INTV games didn't come out for another few years. By that time Metroid was out.

True, but this is what if…WSMLB was released for the ECS in 1983. Earl Weaver Baseball was 1987! "Daglow and Dombrower had previously teamed together to create Intellivision World Series Baseball at Mattel in 1983, the first video game to use multiple camera angles and the first console sports sim." This trumps NES, IMO buy two years.

[+JasonlikesINTV]

WSMLB was impressively innovative for the time, but I have yet to find an Intellivision game with smooth and speedy gameplay (and cool graphics) that compares to SMB or Metroid. I'm just saying that those were great competitors that in many ways overshadowed the later INTV titles...a tough sell for a 9 year old. It would have been cool to see what they would have done with the Intellivision 4.

[+intvsteve]

WSMLB was impressively innovative for the time, but I have yet to find an Intellivision game with smooth and speedy gameplay (and cool graphics) that compares to SMB or Metroid. I'm just saying that those were great competitors that in many ways overshadowed the later INTV titles...a tough sell for a 9 year old. It would have been cool to see what they would have done with the Intellivision 4.

Oh, the NES absolutely had more capability w.r.t. graphics, and something like SMB or Metroid, while I'm not qualified to say is impossible, could most likely only be done as a pale imitation. Intellivision vs. NES is a cross-generation compare. How much was the NES and games when it came out? (I never got it back then.) Around $200 for the console and probably $30-$40 per game? For a budget-conscious parent, or the self-funded young gamer in high school or college who still had the old console around, it becomes a money decision, too. IIRC the new (1986+) games were running around $20 for INTV in the stores, and you wouldn't have needed a new console for them. (Guess I could crack out the old catalogs and check.)

 

The NES ushered in an entirely different kind of gameplay that the console was well-suited for - the platformer. Pitfall II is maybe sorta kinda like that, and I'm not knowledgeable about the later VCS library at all, so maybe there are others. I don't think the Intellivision could really compete with the platformer style of game with its limited resolution, even though those games graphically use the same building blocks - background tiles and scrolling. But 20x12 cards is just totally inadequate for games designed for a 32x20 tile screen.

 

Certainly The Dreadnaught Factor proves that you can have fast, smooth, and arbitrary scrolling and a highly interactive, target-rich "world". Worm Whomper is fast and smooth, though w/o scrolling. Tutankham actually works pretty well, too, from what I recall, though I confess not having spent a great deal of time playing it.

 

Maybe Boulder Dash will prove that actually, Intellivision could offer this sort of game, but then again, BD isn't really a platformer either.

 

I think trying to compete directly w/ the NES on a game-for-game just would not work. Maybe an ambitious developer could try a proof-of-concept for Super Mario Brothers.

 

So, in addition to the audience changing, the nature of the popular games on the NES transformed gameplay as well. It's to be expected - the technology of the NES and the newer generation of consoles offered new unique gameplay options, and it would have been foolish not to exploit them.

 

Would the Intellivision III have been a competitor w/ the NES and as capable for the platformer genre? How long would that console have needed to sell before the IV became viable? It seems the market has settled on relatively long life for consoles if the more recent trends are to be believed, so it seems the Intellivision IV would have needed to compete w/ the SNES and that era of consoles. Could it have?

[+JasonlikesINTV]

I know it's kinda unfair to compare Intellivision and NES, and they both had their strengths and weaknesses, but since they were offered at the same time (overlapped), 9 year old Jason had pretty much said goodbye to Intellivision and hello to NES. It was probably the novelty seeking kid in me that was bored with my ancient/broken Intellivision and jealous of my friend's cool new NES games.

[+intvsteve]

Silly 9-year-old Jason? What was he thinking?!

 

Illustrating my lameness (and age), I stuck to my Intellivision through middle and high school and even college. My sophomore year (college) I bought a bunch of INTV Corp games mail-order, and at the time, my roommate and an NES. A couple years later after returning from overseas, I was shocked to see INTV stuff in TRU. I never really got into the NES though. IIRC my roommate had Metroid, but mostly played Nobunaga's (?) Revenge and other similar games. A few years later another roommate had the SNES, and my GF at the time (now wife) had fun w/ Super Mario Kart (ghost track FTW!), but that's the only thing I ever remember playing on that. No console since the Intellivision has ever really interested me for more than a couple weeks. Don't think I ever spent more than an hour or two on PS*, any of the Sega consoles. Some time on N64 and GCN, but not really that much, even though I bought the GCN (mostly for Super Smash Bros, Mario Party and Super Monkey Ball.) The only newer console that's come close to hooking me has been the Wii, but that's faded, too.

 

Guess my brain just imprinted on Intellivision (and to some degree VCS and CV, though those were always and only at friends' / cousin's houses), and hasn't really moved on since, console-wise. I certainly have obsessively played some PC games, though.

[+DZ-Jay]

You know, when Joey (that snotty-nosed kid down the street that got everything he ever asked) got his ColecoVision, I really wanted one too. I bet you anything that, had I got one for that Christmas, I would have been a proud ColecoVision collector today instead of an Intellivision fan.

 

Fortunately, back then, parents were typically more conscientious when it came to toys, and rarely did you see a kid get one of each game console--especially when they were released just one or two years apart! (Except, of course, Joey; but he never had an Intellivision. Take that, biotch!)

 

-dZ.

Edited May 14, 2014 by DZ-Jay

[atari5200dude82]

I am like you intv steve. I always enjoy and going back to the Intellivsion. . Atari vcs/5200. i have played the others, and the newer consoles too. I loose interests in the new ones fast, besides the wii, but that kinda of faded also. i enjoy the ones i grew up with and played. Special time and special memories.

[fsuinnc]

I have always thought that many of the eventual problems of Mattel Electronics were rooted in a few mistakes they made in the very beginning.

 

1. The console unit itself, while acceptably attractive, putting the cartridge slot on the side, rather than the top is both unattractive and awkward.

2. I absolutely LOVE the original Intellivision controllers. I just happen to be the right age and my hands the right size or whatever but I found them perfect for the games like NHL Hockey, NASL Soccer, NBA Baskeetball, Sea Battle and many others. But the controllers should have been plug in not hard wired. Atari had already shown the advantages of paddle controllers and even the racing controllers and Intellivision also missed the third part controller market. Lets face it, even the upcoming Brickout release will never be as good as it could be if it had a paddle controller. Try to imagine what the games third parties might have created if they new Atari style joysticks and paddle controllers were options.

3. The cartridges themselves are dull. Atari had nice size cartridges with these great labels on them. They were a little dull at first but eventually most of them were awesome. Third party carts were much better than Mattel carts but for some reason still not as attractive.

4. All those great sports games with no single player versions. One of the dumbest marketing decisions ever made.

5. Not having the balls to release (a good version of) Meteorite as part of Astrosmash.

6. Releasing games like Space Armada and Night Stalker that just don't make the system seem 'more advanced' than the 2600 when compared to Space Invaders, Adventure, Superman, etc.

 

Just my thoughts as I experienced Intellivision ownership in late 70's and early 80's.