Intellivision Amico’s trademark changed to ‘abandoned’

[Cebus Capucinis]

ALL I WANTED WAS CORNHOLE AND SHARK! SHARK!

[Cebus Capucinis]

38 minutes ago, IntyFanMatt said:

it will be an absolute MIRACLE.

But will it be as much of a miracle as the NES being successful?

[IntyFanMatt]

Just now, Cebus Capucinis said:

But will it be as much of a miracle as the NES being successful?

[Cebus Capucinis]

That makes me wonder. What if the MARKETING was a focus group of, like, 4 people, and those people colluded to purposely tank the Amico?

 

"Golly gee whiz Mr. TT what I'd really love is Farkle, it'd be such a value add and absolutely a must-buy for me despite owning $2 of dice, I'd for sure spend $90gazillion on your footbath device if only it had Farkle and some stupid emoji game that nobody understands. I'm a MOM so you can trust my opinion, and my totally real and not entirely made up children would buy one too just for that, especially little Jim-tendo who is totally not a mole for the Switch in any way, shape, or form, and I'd appreciate you not asking questions or comparing your amazing console to an established market!"

 

Conspiracy theories! (Meanwhile, TT tweets "I was suspicious that every focus group Mom named her kids 'Reggie'....)

[+CurlyQ]

16 hours ago, Razzie.P said:

if the marketing never started, what did the marketing team do all this time?

Edited August 20, 2022 by CurlyQ

[SegaSnatcher]

On 8/18/2022 at 7:16 PM, 1980gamer said:

TT did post here a lot.  But could that be he is just a retro gamer like most of us?

And he should leave the marketing to the target audience, to the marketing people.

Respectfully, he didn't come to AA for the passion of retro games.  He came here simply to promote his project and get his ego stroked by fans.

Yes, he should have hired PR from the start and never made himself the center of attention.  Too little too late on that. 

[roots.genoa]

9 hours ago, jerseystyle said:

who runs Playdate? Who runs Evercade? Who runs Analouge?

Don't know about the first two but...

 

8 hours ago, Matt_B said:

L3/R3 are, again, a couple of extra functions you can get out without moving your thumbs. They're not great for precision control, but again they'd ideally just get occasional use for things that you might otherwise need to dive into a menu for.

Uh... In most "modern" games (FPS, TPS, etc.) they're used to crouch and run, which is not something you would do through a menu. In the new Doom games it triggers the glory kills which is a huge part of the gameplay. That's why I played the first one with a pro controller because I didn't want to ruin my right Joy-con stick with it. 😰

[digdugnate]

5 hours ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

That makes me wonder. What if the MARKETING was a focus group of, like, 4 people, and those people colluded to purposely tank the Amico?

 

"Golly gee whiz Mr. TT what I'd really love is Farkle, it'd be such a value add and absolutely a must-buy for me despite owning $2 of dice, I'd for sure spend $90gazillion on your footbath device if only it had Farkle and some stupid emoji game that nobody understands. I'm a MOM so you can trust my opinion, and my totally real and not entirely made up children would buy one too just for that, especially little Jim-tendo who is totally not a mole for the Switch in any way, shape, or form, and I'd appreciate you not asking questions or comparing your amazing console to an established market!"

 

Conspiracy theories! (Meanwhile, TT tweets "I was suspicious that every focus group Mom named her kids 'Reggie'....)

I'm getting Mr. Snrub vibes from this. lol

 

[Matt_B]

2 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

Uh... In most "modern" games (FPS, TPS, etc.) they're used to crouch and run, which is not something you would do through a menu. In the new Doom games it triggers the glory kills which is a huge part of the gameplay. That's why I played the first one with a pro controller because I didn't want to ruin my right Joy-con stick with it. 😰

For any game where you think L3 and R3 are being used poorly, try asking yourself which of the trigger or face button controls you'd prefer to swap them over with. As I said before, it's bad game design to put anything but the least used functions on them, although consoles will let you change assignments if you want to, so there's room to have differing personal preferences. If you're not prepared to swap controls or think that L3/R3 should be done away with entirely though, how else would you get at those functions without sticking them behind a menu?

 

I suppose FPS is a genre where there's always the argument that you can't beat keyboard and mouse, because you're never going to run out of keys on a keyboard and you can get both faster and more precise movements out of a mouse than you'll manage with an analogue stick. However, if you're trying to play them with a controller you're far better off with a modern one than something that doesn't have L3/R3, four triggers and gyro assisted aiming. Getting back to the Amico, just imagine playing Doom 2016 with one of those horrors; well, I guess they said 3D games weren't happening for other reasons.

 

Also, L3/R3 usage depends a lot on the types of games you play. For strategy games and RPGs they'll frequently do things like switch through camera modes or bring up the map view that are genuinely nice things to have and the pace of such games makes accidental activations far less of an issue.

[mr_me]

On 8/18/2022 at 11:50 PM, MrTrust said:

 

1.  Someone's already said, and more are going to, but the price needed to be $150-$175 at most.  Anyone who doesn't think they were overpriced at over $200, let alone over $300 is out to lunch.  They might not have been competing with Nintendo, but rest assured, Nintendo would compete with them.  Once you're at $200, the relative value propositions of the Switch and Amico are not even in the same ball park.

 

2.  Have 5 Cloudy Mountains in the chute for year one.  That is to say, a slate of solid-looking games, with a house style that uses your running man brand, with appealing graphics and gameplay that is derived from the kinds of games the parents of young families grew up with, but modernized.  See the Atari Recharged series and take notes.  Their Missile Command looks good and plays like a logical extension of the old game into the 21st Century.  Amico MC looks like a wet dog smells and has controls which I can tell are bad just by looking.  Touchscreen track pads and using the disc as four buttons?  No.  Not what either of those things should be used for.

 

3.  Asymmetrical co-op.  For instance, I'm playing Finnegan Fox as the main character, and all the challenging platforming stuff is still there, but my kid gets to be the sidekick that basically can't die, has some weak attacks they can do, and they can move around really easily and collect power-ups for me.  The game is still challenging for me, and it's easy for my kid, who gets to mess around but still feel like she's really contributing to our team effort, even though it's not unbalancing the game in my favor.  See half of Nintendo's Catalog going back to, say, New Super Mario Bros.

 

4.  Make "casual" games that feel more like activities.  I actually listed several ideas in a long-gone thread off the top of my head, but one I remember was a variation on Eat Poop You Cat.  2 or more players each get one component of a scene they have to draw using their screen, which appears on the TV, and another player has to guess what it is they're all drawing collectively.  There should be games that do not require all players to have a controller.

 

4.  Make the board games actually worth getting.  For instance, do a $10 Winning Moves Games bundle with Pass the Pigs, Pretty Pretty Princess, Pay Day, and Rack-0.  Have variant playing pieces you can use.  I would pay $20 for something like that, even.  Those are commerical games that are cheap, but not ubiquitous, and will likely get lost or left at someone else's house, plus I don't like any of them enough to care about owning a physical copy.  So, there's real value there. Farkle and Hearts are great games, but are played with generic components I already have, and no value is added by having electronic versions.  This is why Cornhole was such a bad answer to Wii bowling.  Bowling is expensive and a logistical headache to get the family together for.  Cornhole is not.  One creates value, the other, not.

 

5.  Demonstrate that you're going to have at least one year's worth of games.  One of the things I told Tommy was that I felt like if they were making margins on the consoles (we now know they wouldn't, but that was initially the plan), there would be less incentive to support the machine on the software side if it wasn't a hit on launch, and that even if they got to market, the thing would likely wither on the vine since we did not see any progress being made on any of the post-launch games.

 

6.  Just stop being so full of shit.  Stop claiming to have all these big things in the works when you don't.  Stop pretending like anyone who's ever played or used a video game console before is "hardcore" and "not your demo".  Stop with the embarrassing fake-grassroots street team faux-viral greybeard YouTube clown show.  Stop answering every question, no matter how respectfully it's put, with a douchebag attitude.  Stop weasel wording your way into selling people snake oil like physical "products".

 

I would have definitely given the Amico a chance at $150 even with all the problems.  I would still have been open to it at, say $230 if I saw a solid library of games developing, which did appear to be happening early on before all of this shovelware crap showed up, and I was seeing solid commitments to have EWJ4, Tron, BurgerTime, etc. in the chamber after launch.  Even failing that, I probably would not have been so vocal against the system if Tommy, who I do think is a talented composer and a charming guy, wasn't such a douche every time I talked to him, and if the fans of the system hadn't thrown such ridiculous temper tantrums when anyone pointed out inconvenient realities.

If, for some people, they are competing with Nintendo/Xbox/PS that's fine because the company is not expecting to sell fifty million units.  They are not depending on grabbing market share from other consoles. Retailers seemed to be onboard with a $250 price.  Supposedly that's where the number came from as an upper limit if they were to be at retail.

 

I disagree about Recharged Missile Command.  Not having attack waves makes it feel very different from the original Missile Command.  I'd like to try the Amico touchpad for Missile Command, nothing is worse than a thumbstick for that game.  Maybe the Amico launch library isn't good enough, maybe they should have focused their resources on fewer games.  No system's launch library is ideal but you have to start somewhere.

 

Amico Rigid Force Redux Enhanced has the second player who can't die idea gameplay.  Maybe they should have tried in other games.  While they all have multiplayer modes, some Amico game are geared more for single player while others more for multiplayer

 

Things have changed but they had about fifty games in development, half to be released with the system, the other half within the first year.  Then a second wave of fifty games.  That all takes money but it was their plan until they get an install base to attract third party publishers.  Not every game is going to interest everyone, but they already demonstrated their willingness to invest in game development.

 

 

On 8/19/2022 at 12:19 AM, MrBeefy said:

Why do you think the thread got moved? 🤣

 

No problem being in that forum when everyone was all, "Tommy is doing this right. Shut up haters! Intellivision is back!"

 

Now when you can't reasonably excuse it. Please move from the Intellivision forum because I don't want to eat crow. 

 

Either way I'm fine with the move and suggested it be moved to people then saying it should belong there. But whatever. It is an interesting "study in Psych and group behavior."

 

But going back to that ITS NOT FOR YOU hardcore gamer. It was a manipulation technique to try and discredit people. The CEO didn't want any potential buyer or pigeon with money to blow articulate reasonable things. The fact people still can't see that is hilarious.

 

I am the "target demo" for Amico. Young family, who likes family get together with their huge family. Not afraid of larger games but likes simple pick up stuff. A $28 tablet is great for casual stuff for Jr Beefy and has more on it than Amico ever would, and at the same price the Switch offers more and better experiences. The wife isn't a huge gamer, but the Switch has landed perfectly with her. The Amico showed nothing for her. It is too the point that she is talking of getting a Switch Lite for herself. She has never wanted any console for herself. Anyone who says they aren't competing is out of touch. 

The original Q&A thread got moved from the Intellivision section as well.  Most of the people posting there were different than those in the Intellivision section, as is the case with this thread.

 

If other people are like you and go for Nintendo over Amico, that's okay, it's what a competitive market is about.  It goes without saying that most households won't buy an Amico, the question is how many would buy one

 

22 hours ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

My guess is they also did it backward, similarly to the way a kid would. Draw the ULTRACOOL shell first, THEN try to fit the hardware inside it. While this doesn't render the design impossible, it certainly puts restrictions on board design and requires more expensive solutions as kevtris pointed out.

 

Having what you want the product itself to look like in your mind is a good idea, but being a slave to the concept art and not giving in that for efficiency and cost savings is an unwise choice for a startup with little cash on hand.

It was pointed out that the pcb design is not the most efficient, at least not the one that we've seen.  But that's not necessarily a restriction of the case design.

 

22 hours ago, bigdirkmalone said:

It seems from the outside that this is what happens. He HAD to mimic the look of the old Intellivision and controller. Everything else was secondary to that. And that would've been ok, I guess, if the games then were retro focused and not chasing the "family" market. But they really should've had games finished and in the can before trying to "market" this thing.

While the controllers originally had a vertical design, they were redesigned by the end of 2019.  They changed the side buttons to shoulder buttons making it a horizontal orientation like other game controllers.  If action games don't use the two buttons the controller can work vertically but otherwise the Amico controller is a horizontal controller with two shoulder buttons.

 

21 hours ago, Razzie.P said:

...

 

I have no issue with it being an all digital console, if that's what they want to do.   I'd happily buy what I want, and when the servers go kaput, hack the thing and download the rest.  Boxes with no game, while adamantly trying to convince everyone that we're wrong because those are "exactly the same as cart and disc based media" was a bit crappy, though.  If I remember right, they kept using an early boxed copy of "World Of Warcraft" to prove their point.

 

 

Despite the arguing that happened over terminology, their idea is that rfid cards could be lent out or transferred, while the game itself is downloaded.

 

There's an easy solution to servers going down and lack of physical media.  That is backing up your app to external storage.  It's always been a feature of Android and allows people to have apps on new devices that have long disappeared from the store.

 

14 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

...

 

Yes but like someone said earlier, going full digital for games kinda contradicts the no DLC/patch/loot box philosophy (even though they shouldn't have gone for NFT either by following that logic). But it's still the same target problem; mom 2.0 probably doesn't care about digital media anyway, while the no DLC stuff seems to cater to retrogamers that don't like modern gaming instead.

 

Imho, Tommy was not doing a console for AtariAge members or moms; he was doing it for himself. And since he lacks self awareness (but loves to blames other people for it), he doesn't realize other people may not like the same things as him.

The no DLC was meant for parents who don't like paying more for a game after they already purchased it.  There isn't a no patch rule, patches to fix problems are allowed.  Physical media in this day and age is mainly for collectors, collectors of all ages.  Although losing the ability to play purchased games in the future is a valid concern, it need not be dependent on physical/digital distribution.

 

The former CEO couldn't have got this thing started without the help of the founding partners.  These people agreed with the vision and put quite a bit of their own money in the project.  And besides Republic investors who relatively have a small amount individually invested there are a few individuals/entities that also put significant money in the project.  They would have had the opportunity to due diligence.  Then there are the retailers who allegedly put in 100k units of purchase orders to start.

 

17 hours ago, MrWaffles said:

That's strange, considering the entire game is in 3D. Where did the developer discuss these "traditional 2D techniques" or the custom engine?

I was surprised to hear Amico Night Stalker is not 3D.  You can hear the developer talk about it in this video.

 

Edited August 20, 2022 by mr_me

[zapzapzac]

13 minutes ago, mr_me said:

If, for some people, they are competing with Nintendo/Xbox/PS that's fine because the company is not expecting to sell fifty million units.  They are not depending on grabbing market share from other consoles.

THE FIRST SENTENCE MAN

 

You can't even get through your first statement without heaping on the bullshit. For some people? No. Business competition and market share is not subjective, it is not an opinion, it is not a choice you make. Just because TT declared he won't be competing doesn't mean a single thing.

 

You shrug your shoulders at an obviously logically sound comment and say "oh well I guess if YOU'RE choosing to compete ..." no. That isn't how this works.

 

Intellivision Amico is in direct competition with the big 3 whether you admit it or not.

[zapzapzac]

24 minutes ago, mr_me said:

they already demonstrated their willingness to invest in game development.

??????

 

I see a bunch of hacked together barely functioning student projects. Throwing devs a thousand bucks (three years ago) to make Missle Command for the 9000th time is not investing in game development. That's intellectually dishonest.

Edited August 20, 2022 by zapzapzac

[1980gamer]

36 minutes ago, zapzapzac said:

THE FIRST SENTENCE MAN

 

You can't even get through your first statement without heaping on the bullshit. For some people? No. Business competition and market share is not subjective, it is not an opinion, it is not a choice you make. Just because TT declared he won't be competing doesn't mean a single thing.

 

You shrug your shoulders at an obviously logically sound comment and say "oh well I guess if YOU'RE choosing to compete ..." no. That isn't how this works.

 

Intellivision Amico is in direct competition with the big 3 whether you admit it or not.

Just like Starbucks is in direct competition with Coke.

[1980gamer]

33 minutes ago, zapzapzac said:

??????

 

I see a bunch of hacked together barely functioning student projects. Throwing devs a thousand bucks (three years ago) to make Missle Command for the 9000th time is not investing in game development. That's intellectually dishonest.

Can you provide a list of developers and even better, what they were paid?

I think everyone here would love this information!

 

Thank you!

[zapzapzac]

1 minute ago, 1980gamer said:

Just like Starbucks is in direct competition with Coke.

Explain how Intellivision is just as different as Starbucks and Coke. Go for it.

[1980gamer]

Just now, zapzapzac said:

Explain how Intellivision is just as different as Starbucks and Coke. Go for it.

Not so much the switch...  But You really think Shark Shark players are coming from the Call of duty crowd?

 

Crossover, of course.  Just like people that drink coffee and coke.

[zapzapzac]

Just now, 1980gamer said:

But You really think Shark Shark players are coming from the Call of duty crowd?

 

No honey Call of Duty isn't a video game console, let's get you some soup and get you to bed.

[1980gamer]

1 minute ago, zapzapzac said:

 

No honey Call of Duty isn't a video game console, let's get you some soup and get you to bed.

You are quite astute.  I am so glad you can extrapolate information from data provided.  

 

[zapzapzac]

Just now, 1980gamer said:

You are quite astute.  I am so glad you can extrapolate information from data provided.  

 

I asked you to logically explain the following: "Starbucks is to Coke just as much as Amico is to the Big 3." That's a statement you provided, I asked clarification on. You then bring up the "call of duty" crowd. What am I supposed to think? The Call of Duty crowd is not a console or console maker. Your statement has not been clarified.

What I think you're attempting to hint at is that "the big 3" equals the "Call of Duty" crowd. Which is beyond confusing. So again, please clarify what you mean.

[Cebus Capucinis]

3 hours ago, digdugnate said:

I'm getting Mr. Snrub vibes from this. lol

 

Makes total sense given the Amico is the Monorail of consoles.

[digdugnate]

2 minutes ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

Makes total sense given the Amico is the Monorail of consoles.

I've sold Amicos to Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook, and by gum, it put them on the map!

[digdugnate]

2 hours ago, mr_me said:

If, for some people, they are competing with Nintendo/Xbox/PS that's fine because the company is not expecting to sell fifty million units. 

 

I thought they weren't competing with the other consoles.  I'm confused now.

[jerseystyle]

8 minutes ago, digdugnate said:

I thought they weren't competing with the other consoles.  I'm confused now.

No see, TT was gonna pull in the “anti-rape” demographic. It’s a huge MARKET that’s been ignored by Nintendo. 

[SegaSnatcher]

2 hours ago, 1980gamer said:

Not so much the switch...  But You really think Shark Shark players are coming from the Call of duty crowd?

 

Crossover, of course.  Just like people that drink coffee and coke.

Switch is not the Call of Duty box.  In fact there isn't even a single Call of Duty game on Switch.    mr_me is absolutely wrong saying Switch isn't direct competition with the Switch, just like Tommy was wrong when he said the same thing. 
 

Edited August 20, 2022 by SegaSnatcher

[SegaSnatcher]

3 hours ago, mr_me said:

If, for some people, they are competing with Nintendo/Xbox/PS that's fine because the company is not expecting to sell fifty million units.  They are not depending on grabbing market share from other consoles. Retailers seemed to be onboard with a $250 price.  Supposedly that's where the number came from as an upper limit if they were to be at retail.

No, they are objectively competing against the Switch whether they like it or not.  This is not debatable.  The Switch is looked at as the family console right now and you are being incredibly dishonest if you are going to say this isn't the case.  

How many times do I have to post these videos?  The title of all these videos below share one key word, "Family".  Last time I checked the Amico was targeting families. 
 

 

Edited August 20, 2022 by SegaSnatcher