Is the Amico dead?

[youxia]

13 minutes ago, mr_me said:

Again, that's not market research, they haven't shared their market research.  So we can't comment on something we haven't seen.

The guy (CEO) literally says "I can also share with you that we’ve done a ton of market research", and his other quotes are full of figures and projections. I think I can very much comment on that, because context matters, and the fact he hasn't linked to some particular study is not a technicality which could stop me from doing so.

 

I know you're trying to come across as an impartial voice but this is really stretching things a bit.

[mr_me]

Market research is an investment they made at not an insignificant cost. It's an asset I wouldn't give away freely.  I'd share it with potential investors under an nda.  And repeating what I wrote earlier: (... you can disagree with their findings for your own reasons, but you can't say their research is flawed without having seen it.  Maybe they have something to back that up, maybe they don't, we don't know.)

Edited April 1, 2022 by mr_me

[youxia]

34 minutes ago, mr_me said:

Market research is an investment they made at not an insignificant cost.

Since, as you insist, they haven't shared anything, you also don't know what the cost of the research was, what it was, or even if it was conducted at all.

 

Meanwhile, I don't need to see an actual document to comment on what a CEO is saying about it. He's either making stuff up or not, but it's not important because the only thing that matters is what he is saying in public - it's kind of binding like that -  and that was the gist of my joke (once again, yes, it was a joke - which for some reason you're trying to present as a serious statement).

 

Besides the actual "research" is not that important - as you have correctly observed "nothing is proven until it performs in the market." That's why it was rather annoying to see Mr. Tallarico wield it like something cast in stone and irrefutable (besides the fact it was never shown). I don't really care what luminaries such as Moms 2.0 (real name, you couldn't make it up) or some PR agency say because these things are not exact science and are often either tailored to please the interested party or based on flawed methods/parameters. And even the good ones don't always transalte into an assured result, because there are too many unpredictable factors involved. You have read the SEC filling, the Risk Factors section is 15 pages long!

[Downland1983]

1 hour ago, mr_me said:

Market research is an investment they made at not an insignificant cost. It's an asset I wouldn't give away freely.  I'd share it with potential investors under an nda.  And repeating what I wrote earlier: (... you can disagree with their findings for your own reasons, but you can't say their research is flawed without having seen it.  Maybe they have something to back that up, maybe they don't, we don't know.)

You can spend a ton of money doing "market research" and still be wildly wrong regarding your assumptions/conclusions of what the buying public truly wants.  It doesn't mean that market actually exists no matter what your data extrapolations tell you at the time.

[MrBeefy]

2 hours ago, Downland1983 said:

No, the misspellings are to set the box apart as the rare variant edition for collectors!

But what about the jokes and innuendos it represents?! ?

 

Maybe they are are trying to rebrand as Intellevision because they did such a "great job" with the Intellivision name?

[MrBeefy]

2 hours ago, youxia said:

Well, obviously...I wasn't being serious ? And the market research/focus groups/billions of punters was TT's mantra, used in countelss interviews and hater rebukes.

 

There is actually some merit to this, because the number of casual gamers is truly huge and people love buying new gadgets. But when the new gadget is priced nearly the same as its biggest competitor while being hugely inferior, then it's a no brainer to predict what will happen.

 

Like I said back then, if you could sell it for ~129$ then it would have some fighting chance as a cheap impulse buy. But no, they had to harp on about how advanced and brilliant it all is and how it couldn't possibly cost less.

My wife, a mom, said Amico was too expensive and to buy a Switch. Plus being a casual gamer she really wasn't interested in any of the Amico games shown. The mom's and casuals is at best a talking point to make you think they had an actual plan. They didn't it was all fluff to buy into hype and get you to invest.

 

The market research was probably, focus tests (not a good way), The Secret, and based on the articles used to try and prove a point (they actually did the opposite) Google search. 

[+Lathe26]

45 minutes ago, Downland1983 said:

You can spend a ton of money doing "market research" and still be wildly wrong regarding your assumptions/conclusions of what the buying public truly wants.  It doesn't mean that market actually exists no matter what your data extrapolations tell you at the time.

Side note to the Amico discussion: Windows Vista wasn't the result of market research.  It was an early release (2007) of the massively delayed Windows 7 (2009) because Windows XP (2001) was getting long in the tooth.  Microsoft felt it was better to release the Vista than wait for it to be fully baked.

[Rev]

Now THIS is how you make edutainment games!  I hope Amico has word and math games like this when it is finally out. 
 

 

 

Edited April 1, 2022 by Rev

[Downland1983]

21 minutes ago, Lathe26 said:

Side note to the Amico discussion: Windows Vista wasn't the result of market research.  It was an early release (2007) of the massively delayed Windows 7 (2009) because Windows XP (2001) was getting long in the tooth.  Microsoft felt it was better to release the Vista than wait for it to be fully baked.

Yeah, that's true.  I included it because it appeared in a list of Biggest marketing research fails of all time, and because of how memorable Apple's "I'm a Mac/I'm a PC" campaign was that appeared all over television networks lampooning Vista at the time.   

[MrBeefy]

1 minute ago, Rev said:

Now THIS is how you make edutainment games!  I hope Amico has word and math games like this when is is finally out. 

 

I wouldn't hold your breath. Too bad you can't take a 'peek' into the future to see. 

[Pink]

6 hours ago, Flojomojo said:

Today would be a fine day to restore the old Amico forum in read-only mode in the Archive section. Especially if you were able to restore some of the salient predictions that were removed from the thread. The new owners of Intellivision took people for a ride and collected lots of money. The now-former CEO made hundreds of claims that seemed dubious at the time. They look even worse with the benefit of hindsight, now that we know more about what was (and was not) happening behind the scenes. 

 

Why today? Because it's April Fool's Day. 

There are some posts from Tommy T. that you can still find & read towards the end of that long running infamous Atari VCS/AtariBox taco thread. They're quite fascinating to read in hindsight ?

[MrBeefy]

Just now, Pink said:

There are some posts from Tommy T. that you can still find & read towards the end of that long running infamous Atari VCS/AtariBox taco thread. They're quite fascinating to read in hindsight ?

Way back when I thought this had way more potential than the atacoshoebox. They almost had to work harder to make themselves look worse than Atari. I think they are working on being worse than the Chameleon, but we aren't to the official end.

[mr_me]

2 hours ago, Downland1983 said:

You can spend a ton of money doing "market research" and still be wildly wrong regarding your assumptions/conclusions of what the buying public truly wants.  It doesn't mean that market actually exists no matter what your data extrapolations tell you at the time.

Of course, market research only mitigates risk, it doesn't eliminate it.  As I said before, that research has to be proven in the market.  And it's only a part of the risks startups have to deal with.

[m-crew]

Now , why are people jumping off the bandwagon now.. just wondering and not sure whats going on.. 

[wolfy62]

28 minutes ago, m-crew said:

Now , why are people jumping off the bandwagon now.. just wondering and not sure whats going on.. 

Hey,even if the Amico is dead,it's great to see that you are alive!!!

Welcome back!?

[Downland1983]

1 hour ago, mr_me said:

Of course, market research only mitigates risk, it doesn't eliminate it.  As I said before, that research has to be proven in the market.  And it's only a part of the risks startups have to deal with.

The other thing is, the purchase orders to retailers aren't guaranteed sales in and of themselves either.  If the Amico does release and flop, those retailers are going to have to clearance their purchased inventory to get rid of the undesired/unsold stock.  Retailers typically have an agreement in place with their vendors (in this case, Intellivision Entertainment), where the vendor has to eat, in most cases, the majority of that loss.  And since IE is a startup, as you say, they would have almost no leverage with Best Buy or Gamestop to establish terms that would favor IE in that situation.  Take the PlayStation Classic for example.  Sony released it in December 2018 at $99.  Before the end of even that first month, retailers like Best Buy found themselves already slashing the price almost in half to $59.  By March of 2019, the price was slashed again to $40.  By July, they were practically trying to give away still unsold units at $20.  That's why most people don't consider those Best Buy and Gamestop purchase orders of the Amico to be profit-sold units until they are actually seen being sold off the shelf in quantity.  The fact that IE hasn't shown the capability to even fulfill those purchase orders doesn't help matters.  They are like the entrepenuers you see on Shark Tank in search of a large cash infusion because of how many purchase orders they claim to have had to pass up due to not having the funds for production.

 

"Retail buyers will always push to have brands cover 100% of the markdown liability. That is, 100% of what the retailer would have made had the item not been discounted. You can negotiate that down to half or less than half of 100%, depending on how creative and knowledgeable you are about how retail works."  

Markdowns. What they are, why you need to consider them, and strategies for minimizing your risk.

[m-crew]

55 minutes ago, wolfy62 said:

Hey,even if the Amico is dead,it's great to see that you are alive!!!

Welcome back!?

Thanks my brother,  is it not great to be alive !!!!! how lucky are we.......  That's for sure.... I really hope its not dead, Considering what has and is going on in the world for over two years now , we need to hold on to hope and faith... That it will come to be.  Because we know who to blame for this and much much more in the world today... If you are awake to truth you will know what im talking about...

[roots.genoa]

8 hours ago, atarifan88 said:

Do any of you all have this issue with your Switch?

No because I didn't play that kind of games on the Switch, but I did have that kind of issue with the Wii actually. ?

[roots.genoa]

14 minutes ago, m-crew said:

Because we know who to blame for this and much much more in the world today... If you are awake to truth you will know what im talking about...

[Pink]

1 hour ago, Downland1983 said:

The other thing is, the purchase orders to retailers aren't guaranteed sales in and of themselves either.  If the Amico does release and flop, those retailers are going to have to clearance their purchased inventory to get rid of the undesired/unsold stock.  Retailers typically have an agreement in place with their vendors (in this case, Intellivision Entertainment), where the vendor has to eat, in most cases, the majority of that loss.  And since IE is a startup, as you say, they would have almost no leverage with Best Buy or Gamestop to establish terms that would favor IE in that situation.  Take the PlayStation Classic for example.  Sony released it in December 2018 at $99.  Before the end of even that first month, retailers like Best Buy found themselves already slashing the price almost in half to $59.  By March of 2019, the price was slashed again to $40.  By July, they were practically trying to give away still unsold units at $20.  That's why most people don't consider those Best Buy and Gamestop purchase orders of the Amico to be profit-sold units until they are actually seen being sold off the shelf in quantity.  The fact that IE hasn't shown the capability to even fulfill those purchase orders doesn't help matters.  They are like the entrepenuers you see on Shark Tank in search of a large cash infusion because of how many purchase orders they claim to have had to pass up due to not having the funds for production.

 

"Retail buyers will always push to have brands cover 100% of the markdown liability. That is, 100% of what the retailer would have made had the item not been discounted. You can negotiate that down to half or less than half of 100%, depending on how creative and knowledgeable you are about how retail works."  

Markdowns. What they are, why you need to consider them, and strategies for minimizing your risk.

Yep indeed, just read up on the history of the Atari Jaguar and Walmart. Walmart had boatloads of unsold Jaguar consoles that they were never able to sell back in the day and had to send back to Atari.

 

Edited April 1, 2022 by Pink

[jerseystyle]

1 hour ago, m-crew said:

  Because we know who to blame for this and much much more in the world today... If you are awake to truth you will know what im talking about...

[mr_me]

1 hour ago, Downland1983 said:

The other thing is, the purchase orders to retailers aren't guaranteed sales in and of themselves either.  If the Amico does release and flop, those retailers are going to have to clearance their purchased inventory to get rid of the undesired/unsold stock. ...

Without retailer purchase orders there are no retail sales, so it's an important step.  It is the responsibility of Intellivision Entertainment to back retailers with the marketing required to sell those units.  If they don't sell, it's the company's fault, not the retailers.  Unlike the Atari VCS, for example, retailer sales will be critical to the success of Amico.  They won't reach their target audience in the numbers they need without them.  If that fails so does the company.  Whatever happens, securing those purchase orders is still an achievement that shouldn't be diminished.

Edited April 1, 2022 by mr_me

[phoenixdownita]

1 hour ago, roots.genoa said:

who's the actor? what's the skit?

So in context, it made me laugh so hard  ... thank you .... "the path of the righteous has to lead to the right or he/she would be called the lefteous which is not even a word and I don't know why"

[kevtris]

8 hours ago, mr_me said:

Market research is an investment they made at not an insignificant cost. It's an asset I wouldn't give away freely.  I'd share it with potential investors under an nda.  And repeating what I wrote earlier: (... you can disagree with their findings for your own reasons, but you can't say their research is flawed without having seen it.  Maybe they have something to back that up, maybe they don't, we don't know.)

Any market research that was performed is woefully out of date now; 3-4 years old at this point. I suspect market research has a half-life of 3-6 months for a market that moves as fast as video games. 

[MrBeefy]

4 hours ago, wolfy62 said:

Hey,even if the Amico is dead,it's great to see that you are alive!!!

Welcome back!?