Intellivision Amico’s trademark changed to ‘abandoned’

[SegaSnatcher]

1 hour ago, 1980gamer said:

I have a theory...   The October release would play nicely into a MLB commercial.

Playoff Baseball, showing Amico MLB baseball,  from Intellivision, the people with the first talking game.  Yer Out, of $100!

Fixed it for you.  Much more modern now. 

Joking aside,  I just want a new Baseball Stars 2 Neo Geo or RBI Baseball NES style baseball game.  

Edited August 17, 2022 by SegaSnatcher

[Matt_B]

MLB? Who's interested in that?

 

Surely they'd want to time it to coincide with the Yankees fantasy camp as that's where the real megastars hang out. 😄

[1980gamer]

8 minutes ago, SegaSnatcher said:

Fixed it for you.  Much more modern now. 

Joking aside,  I just want a new Baseball Stars 2 Neo Geo or RBI Baseball NES style baseball game.  

Ouch!

[1980gamer]

Doh, Didn't quite quote that correctly... But, you get the idea.

 

[MrBeefy]

1 minute ago, jerseystyle said:

I’m offended that you branched out beyond Trailer Park Boys. However, awesome GIF.

This one makes me think of Amico too.

 

[MrBeefy]

46 minutes ago, rayik said:

 

 

Did IE ever state what their advertising at / with the conference would consist of?

 

Did IE state what individual was going to speak at the conference?  (Not just the title of a non-identified individual)

 

Reason I'm asking, is I don't recall IE stating what exactly this marketing at MOM 2.0 Conference would consist of.  Google search only returns an IE press release saying they were going to be a sponsor and were creating an Amico console.

Cara Acker may have done a small video that regurgitated a lot of their first rocketship video.

 

Edit. 

it is nice to have a video that doesn't require a 5th of the time spent on the CEOs bogus resume.

 

Edited August 18, 2022 by MrBeefy

[Matt_B]

8 hours ago, MrBeefy said:

I also suspect that is what happened to Ark for manufacturing. They probably gave Ark money and said they had so much in POs. So Ark probably too a down payment and gave them a line of credit. When it came time to manufacture Ark probably asked to see evidence of what they had "pre-sold".

 

I have heard before that manufacturing can be a multistep-like process in which you have to meet milestones. IE probably met the first one which is where they dropped that missing million. Then when it came tike they probably only had evidence for their 10,000ish preorders and whatever measly number Gamestop said, and Ark was like sorry but you don't meet the threshold and we aren't giving you the credit anymore.

 

I know I wouldn't give them a line of credit for 100,000 units when at best they can only sell 10k. I'd never see any money back from IE.

I've always wondered what happened with the Ark money.

 

Contracting to get a ridiculous number of units made and having to forfeit when retail demand failed to come through sounds like the sort of overconfident rookie mistake that they'd make. Surely they'd have noticed that pretty much every other independently developed games console tends to launch with just a few thousand units, maybe twenty thousand tops, though?

 

Obviously there are other possibilities, like failing to finish the hardware on schedule, or just being so far behind with the firmware and/or games. Whatever the reason, I'm sure it's not a good one.

[MrBeefy]

7 minutes ago, Matt_B said:

I've always wondered what happened with the Ark money.

 

Contracting to get a ridiculous number of units made and having to forfeit when retail demand failed to come through sounds like the sort of overconfident rookie mistake that they'd make. Surely they'd have noticed that pretty much every other independently developed games console tends to launch with just a few thousand units, maybe twenty thousand tops, though?

 

Obviously there are other possibilities, like failing to finish the hardware on schedule, or just being so far behind with the firmware and/or games. Whatever the reason, I'm sure it's not a good one.

Probably a little bit of everything.

 

A few more Mom 2.0 things. The beginning of the Cara Acker video I posted earlier shows up. Then I spotted these in the same short video.

[MrBeefy]

Sorry for the multiple posts. Looms like they set up for what I would call a digital exhibit hall. Basically the type of thing vendors would do to sell their product, service, program, etc.

 

It looms like they may have done a discussion for up to 2 hours max. https://mom2.com/2020-intellivision/

 

Here is the Mom 2.0 fact sheet too.

Intellivision Amico Fact Sheet.Sep 2020.pdf

[+CurlyQ]

2 hours ago, 1980gamer said:

I have a theory...   The October release would play nicely into a MLB commercial.

Playoff Baseball, showing Amico MLB baseball,  from Intellivision, the people with the first talking game.  Yer Out!

 

I heard there's a hacked ROM version of MLB that features: Bean Balls, Taunting the Pitcher, Bench Clearing Brawls, Singing the National Anthem (Intellivoice), Nut Scratching, Player Ejections, Arguing calls/kicking dirt onto the Ump, Seventh Inning Stretches, Walk-Up Theme Songs, Airplane Flyover's, Team Mascots, Dugout Pranks, Icy Hot Jock Straps, Corked Bats, Weather Effects (Hurricane's and Typhoons), Tarp Sliding, Pie Throwing, Streakers and all kinds of other cool shit.

 

[Matt_B]

32 minutes ago, MrBeefy said:

A few more Mom 2.0 things. The beginning of the Cara Acker video I posted earlier shows up. Then I spotted these in the same short video.

124 views, eh? Now that's marketing for you!

 

Sheesh. Even DJC usually gets better numbers than that even if most people are just hate-watching him these days.

[+CurlyQ]

11 minutes ago, Matt_B said:

124 views, eh? Now that's marketing for you!

 

Sheesh. Even DJC usually gets better numbers than that even if most people are just hate-watching him these days.

 

DJC had a special guest recently.....

 

[SegaSnatcher]

29 minutes ago, CurlyQ said:

 

DJC had a special guest recently.....

 

Looks like an Amico therapy session is about to take place.  People burned by Tommy need a support group. 

[rayik]

1 hour ago, Matt_B said:

124 views, eh? Now that's marketing for you!

 

Sheesh. Even DJC usually gets better numbers than that even if most people are just hate-watching him these days.

Hey.  125 views now.  It's four minutes too long.

[mr_me]

3 hours ago, Matt_B said:

They've done a lot more than just got them manufactured though. They're all seemingly selling very well, so I don't think you can fault them on the marketing front either. The Evercade is onto its third revision already and the Pocket and PlayDate are so heavily backordered that you wouldn't get one until next year if you bought them now. Maybe it's a bit too early to tell with the A500 Mini but it went straight into retail globally without much of a fuss, and has had a generally positive reception.

 

That's as opposed to things like the new Atari VCS and the Polymega that came out but pretty much got forgotten except by a tiny core group of users. They weren't so hot on the marketing, to spell it out.

 

It should go without saying that marketing and manufacturing should ideally be feeding off each other. I can't help think that Intellivision set themselves up to fail by needing to sell in huge quantities just to break even, at a price too close to the mainstream console market, and with a lack of distinct features.

Marketing was presumably just another of those things that they kept kicking down the road because, having been hamstrung by their failures in design and manufacturing, it was never going to be easy or obvious for what they were trying to create, regardless of how much money they could throw at it. I'd have thought that their only hope would be that one of the games might turn into a viral hit, but there doesn't seem an obvious candidate from what they've shown.

Don't know what any of those products had for marketing.  I heard about them here on Atariage most in Amico discussions.  Ultimately word of mouth is the best marketing.

 

Handhelds are a great idea.  There's been a shortage of options in the market.  The great thing for Analogue is that they already have an existing market of people with software libraries ready for their products.  Thought Atari SA did well with their Indiegogo campaign, selling and delivering to their fans.

 

Without large scale mass production for Amico they don't really need much marketing.  Getting existing preorders out will be a small first step, no marketing needed.  Marketing spending likely goes up as they anticipate inventory goes up, if they ever get to that point.

 

 

3 hours ago, Rowsdower70 said:

The two most obvious candidates that I saw were Cloudy Mountain and Night Stalker, which was quickly abandoned.

My theory is the "final hardware" they went with couldn't handle them and it was cheaper to just abandon them. 

The hardware that was recommended to the earliest developers is weaker than what's reported to be in the product.  Which everyone knows is nothing special.

 

Amico Night Stalker is one Amico game that isn't developed in Unity.  The developer used their own development system, using traditional 2D techniques.  It should run more efficiently than other Amico games.  It's listed on their website but not as a launch window game.  It is a bit of a mystery of why that it is.  It could be one of the few Amico games that's self-published.  Maybe the developer decided to pause until there's more certainty with the system release.  There is also something in the Republic/Fig agreement that says initially all Amico games are first party.  That's because of varying revenue splits with different developer agreements.

 

Different Amico games will appeal to different people, whether that was Earthworm Jim or Night Stalker, for example.  For their primary target audience it could be Back Talk Party that moves them to buy the system.

 

 

[MattPilz]

1 hour ago, MrBeefy said:

Here is the Mom 2.0 fact sheet too.

Excerpt:

 

Quote

Seamlessly levels the playing field through Intellivision’s proprietary Karma Gaming Engine, which allows novice and experienced players to enjoy gaming together.

 

But we know from Tommy's later interviews that Karma Gaming Engine was just a marketing gimmick "it's made-up BS."

 

Intellivision still used it as a selling point for their third crowdfunding campaign, even declaring it to be patented technology None of the patents they list were approved:

 

>

 

[1980gamer]

Did no one catch the Amico is a Microsoft product?

[MrBeefy]

27 minutes ago, MattPilz said:

Excerpt:

 

 

But we know from Tommy's later interviews that Karma Gaming Engine was just a marketing gimmick "it's made-up BS."

 

Intellivision still used it as a selling point for their third crowdfunding campaign, even declaring it to be patented technology None of the patents they list were approved:

 

>

 

Their less than honest claims over the years will be what gets them in trouble. Especially on any money related thing like Republic and Fundable. Fundable was at least the most honest about the console not being complete and ready.

22 minutes ago, 1980gamer said:

Did no one catch the Amico is a Microsoft product?

Microsoft didn't want to buy them. It wasn't "a good fit". 🤣

[Razzie.P]

4 hours ago, 1980gamer said:

This is strange...

 

[Matt_B]

50 minutes ago, mr_me said:

Don't know what any of those products had for marketing.  I heard about them here on Atariage most in Amico discussions.  Ultimately word of mouth is the best marketing.

 

Handhelds are a great idea.  There's been a shortage of options in the market.  The great thing for Analogue is that they already have an existing market of people with software libraries ready for their products.  Thought Atari SA did well with their Indiegogo campaign, selling and delivering to their fans.

 

Without large scale mass production for Amico they don't really need much marketing.  Getting existing preorders out will be a small first step, no marketing needed.  Marketing spending likely goes up as they anticipate inventory goes up, if they ever get to that point.

They didn't have megabucks marketing but they used their channels effectively. Youtubers with millions of subscribers and tech/gaming review sites got preview units, free dev kits and in some cases open source system software was released to engage the development community, detailed technical specs were released for those interested in such things, and discussions about them were allowed to take place without anyone trying to step in to control the narrative. Sure, they got plenty of word of mouth too, but that's only good if the words are overwhelmingly positive.

 

If you think Atari did well with their Indigogo campaign though, I'd beg to differ. They went into it with just lumps of plastic, mocked up footage and a wish list of specs that bore scant semblance to the eventual product which was delivered two and half years later, and went into full denial when called out on all that. It coming out at all was probably a closer run thing than a lot of people might think as the then incoming CEO had to bankroll the production and launch with loans out of his own pocket. All told, I'd be surprised if they manufactured more than 20,000 units in the end. It's certainly not made a profit for them.

 

I'd agree that the Amico isn't going to need much marketing now, at least, although that's mainly because it'd be unlikely that they'll ever have anything worth selling.

[MarioMan88]

4 minutes ago, Matt_B said:

mainly because it'd be unlikely that they'll ever have anything worth selling.

Atari won this console war too 😉

 

Atari 2, INTV 0

 

Anyone remember the former CEO’s guarantee? 

[Matt_B]

1 minute ago, MarioMan88 said:

Atari won this console war too 😉

 

Atari 2, INTV 0

 

Anyone remember the former CEO’s guarantee? 

Yeah, I don't think too highly of the new VCS but a walkover is still a win.

 

Still, I've made the comparison before that it's like two aging boxers having a fight in the car park outside a world title bout, like it still means something.

 

It really doesn't, and at least one of them should probably clear off before the cops arrive. No prizes for guessing which.

[+Lathe26]

7 hours ago, MrBeefy said:

 

... I wasn't a lap dog for him, ...

 

Why be a mere lap dog when you can be a cake cat!!
 

 

[+Lathe26]

12 hours ago, MattPilz said:

$10,000,000 seems like a substantial marketing budget for a start-up, in my opinion.

 

[+Lathe26]

On 8/11/2022 at 10:06 PM, Lathe26 said:

This thread is now the 5th^* longest thread in the Intellivision forum!  🥳🎊🎉

 

The long threads are:

1. Intellivision Ebay Roundup (14.8k replies)
2. Song Game (7.1k replies)
3. Intellivision Purchases and Deals (3.8k replies)
4. LTO Flash! - Intellivision Flash Cartridge Information (2.5k replies)
5. Intellivision Amico’s trademark changed to ‘abandoned’ (2.3k replies)

* Not sure whether to count the "Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A" thread (>35.5k replies) so it was omitted from the list.  That thread started in the Intellivision forum but was moved to a separate forum, though I think that was after it had surpassed the "Intellivision Ebay Roundup" thread.

 

Caveat: if I missed a longer thread, feel free to call it out.

 

This thread is now the 4th* longest thread in the Intellivision forum!

1. Intellivision Ebay Roundup (14.8k replies)
2. Song Game (7.1k replies)
3. Intellivision Purchases and Deals (3.8k replies)
4. Intellivision Amico’s trademark changed to ‘abandoned’ (2.7k replies)
5. LTO Flash! - Intellivision Flash Cartridge Information (2.5k replies)

* Same caveat as previous