Intellivision Amico’s trademark changed to ‘abandoned’

[Rowsdower70]

3 hours ago, jerseystyle said:

See that’s the issue though… it was never a competition. It never could have been. This was obvious to most of us from day 1. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t come out and be a fun unit (see Playdate or Atari VCS) but they touted the Amico as some big disruptor. TT mentioned Nintendo being “afraid” of the Amico, and the CHUDS lapped it up. No one on that side applied an ounce of critical thinking to this. 

Nowhere in my statement did I say Amico could have ever been competition.  

[roots.genoa]

5 hours ago, SteveTheColecoDude said:

It was just so absurd.

You meant 'absurb', right? 😉

[SteveTheColecoDude]

1 hour ago, roots.genoa said:

You meant 'absurb', right? 😉

 

No way man, the only time I misspell words is when I deliberately do them on "professionally" released videos in order to troll my haters.

Edited February 18, 2023 by SteveTheColecoDude

[Cebus Capucinis]

I only do that on the console box itself. That way everyone DEFINITELY knows I'm trolling.

[Tommy2D]

8 hours ago, Flojomojo said:

Meta Quest 2 (formerly known as Oculus, a better name in my opinion) is like a whole new game console. It’s a shame you have to put it on your face but the immersion is neat. 
 

Nintendo Switch is a tricked-out gaming version of Nvidia Shield, it’s been an awesome mobile console for me. I think it would be my “desert island” game console (so long as I could also have my phone)
 

What kind of “innovation” are you looking for? Many people just used PlayStation 2 as a DVD player. When the console people try wacky things like PS Move or XB Kinect, nobody plays them. 

I think that most of us were kind of spoiled in our youth (depending on age) by the extraordinary leaps forward in Audio/Visual computer processing.  I'm using "computer" broadly, here, to include consoles and traditional computers. 

 

When you go from Pong to Playstation, in twenty odd years, it's easy to carry a latent expectation that things will continue to advance in striking ways.  From an A/V standpoint, I think we've been in an incremental phase, for a while.  I remember watching a video, from a few years ago, where people had to really struggle to tell when a game had ray tracing activated.  Obviously, the differences between an NES and SNES game are much easier to distinguish. 4k vs 8k, not so much, without pixel peeping. 

 

I was just thinking of what would be a major change for gaming, aside from VR, and AI popped into my head. Are there any games that use AI for character conversations?  If it was reliable, that could be genuinely exiting.  It would be a small step towards having a "Holodeck" style experience. 

 

I'll have to do some poking around. 

 

 

[Rowsdower70]

22 minutes ago, Tommy2D said:

I think that most of us were kind of spoiled in our youth (depending on age) by the extraordinary leaps forward in Audio/Visual computer processing.  I'm using "computer" broadly, here, to include consoles and traditional computers. 

 

When you go from Pong to Playstation, in twenty odd years, it's easy to carry a latent expectation that things will continue to advance in striking ways.  From an A/V standpoint, I think we've been in an incremental phase, for a while.  I remember watching a video, from a few years ago, where people had to really struggle to tell when a game had ray tracing activated.  Obviously, the differences between an NES and SNES game are much easier to distinguish. 4k vs 8k, not so much, without pixel peeping. 

 

 

 

Very true in my case being an old fart.   That's why I felt like the PS2 (for me) was the last big leap.   While it was similar in function to the original unit, the graphic improvement was still quite noticeable, it was supported for a long time, and had a great library.  

[MrBeefy]

7 hours ago, jerseystyle said:

See that’s the issue though… it was never a competition. It never could have been. This was obvious to most of us from day 1. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t come out and be a fun unit (see Playdate or Atari VCS) but they touted the Amico as some big disruptor. TT mentioned Nintendo being “afraid” of the Amico, and the CHUDS lapped it up. No one on that side applied an ounce of critical thinking to this. 

He knew they were effed. That's why he had to do the Switch is EVIL crap. He knew his console price was going to balloon up and be the same basic price as Switch.

 

Astrosmash and Farkle are not the disrutors. He did that campaign to strike a chord with those people who have been scared to actually play modern games or consoles. I don't care if you think there are too many buttons on a modern controller. It is still less than the amount of buttons on an Intv controller.

 

The people who ate it up don't know anything about gaming. There's a great website that has a big list of games that appear to be of Amico quality. 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1TjnwNxL_y1BH4TxPOKbpNSIjde8F363nXZWBmIMRoUQ/htmlview#gid=0

 

https://amicogames.com/resources

 

It isn't rocket science. At best Amico could have been a niche console, but they cut themselves off at the knees by going to $200+. At that point it wasn't a cheaper alternative for families. The people who said it was is the same group of people who will buyna cardboard box for a game at the price of $30 extra dollars.

 

The $200+ is what caused my wife to encourage me to get a Switch instead. It was almost like I was the only one here at AA that cared about it as a family console and didn't care much about the Intellivision side. Going along with @SegaSnatcher's sentiment that is what caused @jaybird3rd to agree with a sock puppet, claiming that my wife's thoughts were made up to troll. Funny how it has been shown that Tommy was the biggest troll on AA.

 

What did people see in Tommy? I mean in short bursts I could see not noticing the red flags, but he threw them up here and elsewhere for years. 

 

6 hours ago, SteveTheColecoDude said:

 

Tommy said that Nintendo were paying for ads to show on Youtube using Amico related keywords 😆 It was just so absurd.

Deluded is more like it. Anyone who believed it are gullible and I have a bridge to sell them.

[+madman]

12 minutes ago, MrBeefy said:

What did people see in Tommy? I mean in short bursts I could see not noticing the red flags, but he threw them up here and elsewhere for years. 

 

They saw a dude who made some music for classic consoles years ago and a guy with money. It's easy to get people to like you when you have or appear to have money, just look at how many people fall for motivational speakers and spend $2,000 on a course to learn to be rich like them, or the whole social media "influencer" thing. 

[Tommy2D]

24 minutes ago, madman said:

They saw a dude who made some music for classic consoles years ago and a guy with money. It's easy to get people to like you when you have or appear to have money, just look at how many people fall for motivational speakers and spend $2,000 on a course to learn to be rich like them, or the whole social media "influencer" thing. 

I'd say that they also saw a dude who was working on an interesting project.  He also had a knack for making people feel like they were "on the team", presuming that they didn't rock the boat.  

 

I was always kind of puzzled by how SmashJT and others were so shocked that Tommy treated them like valued contributors.  Could they not see that it's a fairly common tactic to "butter someone up", in order to get something from them?  I would always think: if Tommy T really thought that you were this amazing person with incredible insight, wouldn't he offer you a job? In fairness, I think that he did dangle that particular carrot in front of a few folks.  Either way, he managed to get mostly free labor (from people making videos) and direct investments (DJC, Smash JT, etc.).

 

This whole saga became fascinating to me as soon as I noticed that the Shills/Superfan crew almost all referred to Tommy T., repeatedly, as their "friend".  I knew that couldn't be a coincidence and it just struck me as part of an odd strategy.  

Edited February 19, 2023 by Tommy2D

[MrBeefy]

1 hour ago, Tommy2D said:

I'd say that they also saw a dude who was working on an interesting project.  He also had a knack for making people feel like they were "on the team", presuming that they didn't rock the boat.  

This is a great point. He did use this type of manipulation tactic a lot. I get it at first, but after a while it is fairly obvious that's what it was. I was interested in the project and watched way more of his infomercials than anyone should. You could see after how he changed his answers he was telling people what they wanted to hear.

 

Hope in one hand or crap in the other. A lot of people hoped and got stuck with Tommy's crap in their other hand.

[jerseystyle]

8 hours ago, Rowsdower70 said:

Nowhere in my statement did I say Amico could have ever been competition.  

Never said you did. But MAN O MAN was there a lot of that on this very forum even late last year. It was nuts and, to me, painted the whole thing in a terrible light. TT did more damage to his brand with this nonsense then any “hater” ever could.

[Tommy2D]

22 minutes ago, jerseystyle said:

Never said you did. But MAN O MAN was there a lot of that on this very forum even late last year. It was nuts and, to me, painted the whole thing in a terrible light. TT did more damage to his brand with this nonsense then any “hater” ever could.

I found a Trailer Park Boys meme that touches on the Amico pre-order situation. 

 

Of course, it does suck that some people are out $100.  

[Tavi]

6 hours ago, Rowsdower70 said:

Very true in my case being an old fart.   That's why I felt like the PS2 (for me) was the last big leap.   While it was similar in function to the original unit, the graphic improvement was still quite noticeable, it was supported for a long time, and had a great library.  

I feel very much the same. I own an original Playstation, and the PS2 when it came out was an incredible jump ahead and I was happy to drop a few hundred on owning one. Backwards compatibility, and the PS2 has an amazing game library. Still the largest in Playstation history I believe by a considerable margin, and the PS2 also still sits the best selling console.

When the PS3 came out, it was an improvement, but certainly not as noticeable as between the PS1 and PS2 models. The gap between the PS3 and PS4 I feel is even smaller.

It has been a long while since a huge innovative leap has happened.

[roots.genoa]

6 hours ago, MrBeefy said:

Hope in one hand or crap in the other. A lot of people hoped and got stuck with Tommy's crap in their other hand.

Thanks for that vivid image. 😬

[MrBeefy]

So Phil Adam has time in the FB hugbox to say he was involved in bringing Tetris, but can't do an update on Amico.

 

Wanting glory/attention he can post. Doing his job? Not so much. Seems like Phil is just a more quiet Tommy.

[+Biff Burgertime]

13 hours ago, MrBeefy said:

The people who ate it up don't know anything about gaming. There's a great website that has a big list of games that appear to be of Amico quality. 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1TjnwNxL_y1BH4TxPOKbpNSIjde8F363nXZWBmIMRoUQ/htmlview#gid=0

"Ding Dong XL is a neon-infused one button arcade game. It is an addictive 'just-one-more-round' score attack that will test your reflexes."

 

https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/ding-dong-xl-switch/

 

NINTENDO is trying to get kids ADDICTED to DING DONG XL?!?

 

Save us, Amico!

[MrBeefy]

2 hours ago, Buffalo Biff Burgertime said:

"Ding Dong XL is a neon-infused one button arcade game. It is an addictive 'just-one-more-round' score attack that will test your reflexes."

 

https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/ding-dong-xl-switch/

 

NINTENDO is trying to get kids ADDICTED to DING DONG XL?!?

 

Save us, Amico!

It uses SO MANY buttons! How can my feeble little brain be able to handle how to play that game? Save me Amico!

[Cebus Capucinis]

If the Ding Dong has to be XL, guess I can't play it. 

[Rowsdower70]

4 hours ago, MrBeefy said:

It uses SO MANY buttons! How can my feeble little brain be able to handle how to play that game? Save me Amico!

Imagine how grandma will feel!

[MrBeefy]

6 hours ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

If the Ding Dong has to be XL, guess I can't play it. 

Amico can help cure you of that issue.

2 hours ago, Rowsdower70 said:

Imagine how grandma will feel!

Less disappointed after Cebus plays the Galaxy Purple Amico.

[Matt_B]

23 hours ago, MrBeefy said:

This is a great point. He did use this type of manipulation tactic a lot. I get it at first, but after a while it is fairly obvious that's what it was. I was interested in the project and watched way more of his infomercials than anyone should. You could see after how he changed his answers he was telling people what they wanted to hear.

 

Hope in one hand or crap in the other. A lot of people hoped and got stuck with Tommy's crap in their other hand.

Ah, if only there was a word for a man who pretends to befriend people in order to gain their confidence. 😀

[Tommy2D]

2 hours ago, Matt_B said:

Ah, if only there was a word for a man who pretends to befriend people in order to gain their confidence. 😀

I'm reading a book about the guy from "Catch me if you can" called "The Greatest Hoax on Earth: Catching the Truth, While We can". 

 

I'm about halfway through and it's a fascinating read.  Frank Abagnale, the guy that Leo DiCaprio played, apparently was not this dashing figure who outsmarted the FBI for five years.  He was much more of a common thief who spent a considerable amount of time in prisons or on probation. He didn't only steal from big businesses, he stole from families who trusted him and local businesses.  When he was facing 10 years of hard time, in Louisiana, he begged a local pastor to advocate for him and to receive psychiatric treatment.  That's a really far cry from a guy who claims that he was only arrested once, in France. 

 

Nearly all of his claims that made him seem like a transcendent genius are also fabricated. He never worked as an attorney, a college professor or a doctor in a hospital. Even his work, later in life, seems largely made up and designed to further his mystique.  He claimed that his company had a hundred employees, when it had 2.  He claimed to be working as a James Bond-style-undercover super agent, for the FBI, when it's much more likely that he's only been a guest speaker at the FBI Academy. 

 

Of course, there are some grains of truth in his story.  He did cosplay as a pilot and forge a pilot's ID.  He did fly on some "deadhead" flights and he did cash some doctored checks made to look like Airline Employee payroll checks. 

 

The main takeaway is that his real con is more of a "meta con".  He convinced people that he was this wayward but brilliant scamp with a heart of gold who could fool the world but who reformed and just wanted to use his talents for good.  He was the original hacker who traded his black hat for a white one, even though he was always a good guy, deep down.  He definitely had talent in terms of crafting a narrative that people loved and he made a ton of money selling it. It just had almost no basis in fact. 

 

After reading some of the book, I checked the comment section of the a YT video, from the movie, and there are so many people who are enamored with Frank Abagnale and who are giddy to point out that he's amazing.  There are even some threads where people bring up the truth about his claims, which a few reporters discovered way-way back in the late 70s, but his fans don't want to hear it.  They don't want to see the legend destroyed.  

 

I'm not going to get into specific parallels between Tommy T. and Frank lives but it was really interesting to see some parallels amongst their respective fans.  

 

 

[MattPilz]

1 hour ago, Tommy2D said:

Frank Abagnale, the guy that Leo DiCaprio played, apparently was not this dashing figure who outsmarted the FBI for five years.

That's pretty revealing. I hadn't done much reading into the real Abignale but when the film came out he was still telling the media that the movie "was a lot more accurate than I thought it'd be" and continued rolling with the stories of all his spoofed professions and evasions. The entire film was based on his own apparently not-so-autobiography. This expose of sorts makes me interested to read it. 

  

1 hour ago, Tommy2D said:

He claimed to be working as a James Bond-style-undercover super agent, for the FBI, when it's much more likely that he's only been a guest speaker at the FBI Academy. 

It looks like his Wiki is well sourced and aligns with this. "When the film was released, an FBI spokesperson acknowledged that Abagnale had given lectures at the academy 'from time to time,' but denied that Abagnale had been given commendations by the agency as claimed in the film's marketing."

Edited February 20, 2023 by MattPilz

[Rev]

9 hours ago, Rowsdower70 said:

Imagine how grandma will feel!

Wrinkly?

[roots.genoa]

4 hours ago, Tommy2D said:

Nearly all of his claims that made him seem like a transcendent genius are also fabricated.

"Print the legend"!

 

I personally loved that movie, but not really because of Frank Abagnale's so-called achievements.