Intellivision Amico’s trademark changed to ‘abandoned’

[Shawn]

When I was a kid, the 2600 was what everyone had. I knew one guy who's dad played colecovision. It looked nicer but the controls sucked. INTV wasn't mentioned once by me or any of my childhood friends. It was Atari and then Nintendo. Coleco was out there, INTV was nothing. As I got a little older, longer after the INTV was gone I came to know of it, but that's it. 

[MrBeefy]

The only Intv I've ever seen also happens to be the one I bought off a guy. I never see them anywhere. 

[Wayler]

3 hours ago, MrTrust said:

Sound arguments and the questioning of sources

Why would you do that, why, why? If you thought these things would be kryptonite for mr_me, you have gravely misjudged your opponent.

 

You have summoned the Cthulhu and damned us all...

[roots.genoa]

9 hours ago, digdugnate said:

 

Most people would prefer to forget that Bill Cosby promoted the TI-99/4A, I suspect. 

[mr_me]

9 hours ago, MrTrust said:

...

These number look bogus to me.  Most sources put 2600 sales at 2M in '80 on account of Space Invaders.  I haven't seen anything which confirms your 1.2M Intellivisions in '82.

...

You are correct, there isn't an article with a 1982 sales number.  There are articles for Intellivision sales in 1980, 1981, 1983 and the total from 1980 to 1983.  So the 1982 number can be calculated and it is about 1.2M, about a thirty-three percent increase over 1981 sales.  Only need to ask rather than make accusations.

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/04/business/mattel-is-counting-on-its-toys.html

 

Is that 2M Atari 2600 consoles in year 1980 or lifetime through 1980.  Either way Mattel's increase in market share in 1981 was dramatic.  Mattel claimed less than 20% of the home video game market in its 1982 fiscal report with record profits for the company driven by its Mattel Electronics division and Intellivision.  Atari was by far number one (75+%), with Magnavox and its Odyssey2 a distant third (three to four percent).  Once the 2600 and Intellivision became discounted legacy systems in 1983, their sales are less relevant, Colecovision was the clear winner in 1983 over the Atari 5200. The Atari 2600 continued to sell millions of units at a discounted price in the later 80s.  We don't have sales numbers for Intellivision past 1983 but it's nowhere near that of the 2600, neither were relevant at the time anyway.  It's more relevant to look at market share year by year when they were relevant.

[Bill Loguidice]

12 hours ago, MrBeefy said:

Isn't one of ColecoVisions issue is that it doesn't own any games? Maybe they do and I'm unaware. If so, the best they can do is slap a label on something. I know they did those mini cabinets.

 

They own ColecoVision games, which they've successfully licensed to both AtGames and iiRcade for various products, including most recently for inclusion on home arcade machines. The veracity of that ownership has been debated, but considering it's never been challenged to my knowledge in the many, many years of licensing means it's probably solid. A quirk of the ownership is that they seem to have valid rights to games that would otherwise need a secondary license, like the ColecoVision version of Zaxxon. The ownership is a mix of first and third party published games.

[Bill Loguidice]

Computer and videogame marketing, like the industries themselves, were definitely in their infancy from the late 70s to very early 90s, with a veritable battle of the spokepersons. There were easily more than a dozen recognizable to semi-recognizable names pitching/promoting various computers and consoles, although I'd say the apex was the mid-80s. These days, of course, you only very occasionally see "famous" people as spokepersons for these types of products, and it's usually a very limited campaign or one-off.

 

I had actually pitched a fiction book at some point in the 2010s based on the "Spokesperson Wars," with the various spokepersons as characters being genuinely invested in the various products they were pitching. The concept never gained traction with publishers, but I always thought it would be a fun idea to explore. Top of my head, you had Milton Berle with the Fairchild Channel F System II, Bill Cosby with TI, Alan Alda with Atari, Bill Plimpton with Mattel, the MASH crew for IBM PS/2, Sarah Purcell for Tomy, Roger Moore for Spectravideo, Isaac Asimov and Bill Bixby for Tandy, John Madden for CBS, Dom DeLuise for NCR, etc. I mean, that's a motley crew if there ever was one, and that's just a handful. There were of course companies like Timex that went a different route and used the characters from the BC comic strip as their mascot, as did IBM with The Little Tramp, not to mention many of the post-Crash videogame companies trying hard to be associated with mascot characters. 

[+GoldLeader]

11 hours ago, Shawn said:

When I was a kid, the 2600 was what everyone had. I knew one guy who's dad played colecovision. It looked nicer but the controls sucked. INTV wasn't mentioned once by me or any of my childhood friends. It was Atari and then Nintendo. Coleco was out there, INTV was nothing. As I got a little older, longer after the INTV was gone I came to know of it, but that's it. 

 

^This is closer to my experience...But still not it, exactly.  We all had our bubbles we grew up in.  As for mine:   Everyone truly into video games at the time had a 2600;  Those who didn't grow out of the hobby bought ColecoVisons,  except for one outlier,   bought that giant, weird, 5200 thing.  While I was certainly aware of the Intellivision,  and hated their commercials insulting my beloved Atari,  I never knew anyone who had one.  The thing looked like an appliance, had crap controllers, and came with old man games;  We were playing Pac-Man and Space Invaders,  We didn't give an F about Blackjack...But we knew Donkey Kong!  I can tell you that.

[Bill Loguidice]

17 minutes ago, GoldLeader said:

 

^This is closer to my experience...But still not it, exactly.  We all had our bubbles we grew up in.  As for mine:   Everyone truly into video games at the time had a 2600;  Those who didn't grow out of the hobby bought ColecoVisons,  except for one outlier,   bought that giant, weird, 5200 thing.  While I was certainly aware of the Intellivision,  and hated their commercials insulting my beloved Atari,  I never knew anyone who had one.  The thing looked like an appliance, had crap controllers, and came with old man games;  We were playing Pac-Man and Space Invaders,  We didn't give an F about Blackjack...But we knew Donkey Kong!  I can tell you that.

I was born in 1972, so my prime time in school in central New Jersey was in the 1980s. My experience was similar. I basically knew one girl with an Odyssey2, one boy with an Intellivision, and then everyone else (who had something), including me around age 7, had an Atari 2600 (I would soon get a ColecoVision, which only a handful of others got, and I knew one guy who had a 5200). Similarly, a bit later on on the computer side, a handful of kids (including two friends) had Apple IIs, one girl had a Kaypro, my one friend had an Atari 8-bit, and basically everyone else including me had Commodore 64s (of course there were a few other computers mixed in along the way and shortly thereafter because of the way things were discontinued/cleared out, etc.).

None of that anecdotal stuff means much, of course, but I do think we all more or less saw consistent things, and certainly sales and even modern communities bear a lot of that out.

[atarifan88]

1 hour ago, GoldLeader said:

 

^This is closer to my experience...But still not it, exactly.  We all had our bubbles we grew up in.  As for mine:   Everyone truly into video games at the time had a 2600;  Those who didn't grow out of the hobby bought ColecoVisons,  except for one outlier,   bought that giant, weird, 5200 thing.  While I was certainly aware of the Intellivision,  and hated their commercials insulting my beloved Atari,  I never knew anyone who had one.  The thing looked like an appliance, had crap controllers, and came with old man games;  We were playing Pac-Man and Space Invaders,  We didn't give an F about Blackjack...But we knew Donkey Kong!  I can tell you that.

It's funny how many people complained about the Intellivision controller while the Colecovision controller was more of an ergonomic nightmare! 😄

[mr_me]

1 hour ago, Bill Loguidice said:

They own ColecoVision games, which they've successfully licensed to both AtGames and iiRcade for various products, including most recently for inclusion on home arcade machines. The veracity of that ownership has been debated, but considering it's never been challenged to my knowledge in the many, many years of licensing means it's probably solid. A quirk of the ownership is that they seem to have valid rights to games that would otherwise need a secondary license, like the ColecoVision version of Zaxxon. The ownership is a mix of first and third party published games.

Sega successfully challenged Coleco Holdings registration of the Zaxxon trademark.  Their reasons include "lack of ownership".  Similarly, Coleco Holdings didn't purchase the Coleco trademark, they only registered an abandoned trademark.

 

Colecovision Zaxxon also has copyrighted graphics owned by Sega that needs licensing.  The game code was originally the 1982 copyright property of Coleco Industries.  In 1989 Coleco's remaining product assets were sold to Hasbro. You can't claim abandoned copyrights like you can trademarks, so that's another question.  Did Coleco Holdings claim to own and license any copyrights to Atgames or just trademarks?

[Wayler]

[Bill Loguidice]

30 minutes ago, atarifan88 said:

It's funny how many people complained about the Intellivision controller while the Colecovision controller was more of an ergonomic nightmare! 😄

I never minded the ColecoVision controller. Today, it's very easy to unscrew the knob and screw on a ball top, which improves the ergonomics dramatically. The Intellivision controller is certainly unique, but not always well-suited to as many game types.

[MrBeefy]

52 minutes ago, Wayler said:

[Razzie.P]

1 hour ago, Wayler said:

My hands get like that after playing on the Intellivision controller, too.

[MrTrust]

8 hours ago, mr_me said:

Only need to ask rather than make accusations.

Now, now, have I not stuck up for you over and over when people in here dogpile and accuse you of sinister ulterior motives?  I'm not accusing you of anything; I just don't trust your interpretation of the sources.

 

8 hours ago, mr_me said:

Is that 2M Atari 2600 consoles in year 1980 or lifetime through 1980.  Either way Mattel's increase in market share in 1981 was dramatic.  Mattel claimed less than 20% of the home video game market in its 1982 fiscal report with record profits for the company driven by its Mattel Electronics division and Intellivision.  Atari was by far number one (75+%), with Magnavox and its Odyssey2 a distant third (three to four percent).

 

So they had a good year; what is this supposed to prove?  On their absolute best day, they're a marginal player, which is the original point that was being argued.  So they had a 30% increase in sales.  Atari had a 100% increase in '80, and again in '81 and '82.  Is there any indication that Mattel were on a trajectory to do anything like that?  There is not. 

 

There's no useful metric by which Intellivision came anywhere close to performing as well as Atari.  Not one.  Period.  The end.

 

8 hours ago, mr_me said:

Once the 2600 and Intellivision became discounted legacy systems in 1983, their sales are less relevant, Colecovision was the clear winner in 1983 over the Atari 5200.

To quote Maury Chaykin in Wargames, Mr. PuhtaytuhHead... MR PUHTAYTUHHEAD!  There were 35 first-party 2600 titles released in '83 and over 150 third-party ones.  If there are 200 games coming out on your console in a year, it ain't a "legacy" system.  It wasn't a legacy system in '84, either, when there were over 20 new games for it, many being marquee licensed titles.  When a system is being actively supported on the software side even moreso than the supposed flagship of your line, it's not legacy.

Colecovision was the clear winner of a bum fight in which everyone lost.  From the standpoint of being a household name that has built-marketability, the Colecovision is irrelevant.  So is the 5200, the Odyssey2, the Vectrex, the Intellivsion, all of it.  The only all these different outfits to survive past '85 is Atari; largely because of the 2600.

 

8 hours ago, mr_me said:

The Atari 2600 continued to sell millions of units at a discounted price in the later 80s. We don't have sales numbers for Intellivision past 1983 but it's nowhere near that of the 2600...

 

And why is that?  It's because the 2600 was a legitimate success and the Intellivision and everything else from that period were not.  Even as late as '87 or '88, more kids had a 2600 in their home than an NES.  It was still getting new games, it was still selling, and the name "Atari" was as synonymous with "video games" as "Nintendo" would be.

That's a success.  That's a successful game console looks like.  Selling a couple million units while your parent company loses half a billion dollars, sells your division off, and then you disappear in a few years is not what a successful console looks like.  Not, that is, in the sense that this is a big, marketable property 40 years down the line like the Amico Bros would have it.

 

9 hours ago, mr_me said:

...neither were relevant at the time anyway.  It's more relevant to look at market share year by year when they were relevant.

 

[MrBeefy]

1 hour ago, MrTrust said:

Now, now, have I not stuck up for you over and over when people in here dogpile and accuse you of sinister ulterior motives?  I'm not accusing you of anything; I just don't trust your interpretation of the sources.

 

 

So they had a good year; what is this supposed to prove?  On their absolute best day, they're a marginal player, which is the original point that was being argued.  So they had a 30% increase in sales.  Atari had a 100% increase in '80, and again in '81 and '82.  Is there any indication that Mattel were on a trajectory to do anything like that?  There is not. 

 

There's no useful metric by which Intellivision came anywhere close to performing as well as Atari.  Not one.  Period.  The end.

 

To quote Maury Chaykin in Wargames, Mr. PuhtaytuhHead... MR PUHTAYTUHHEAD!  There were 35 first-party 2600 titles released in '83 and over 150 third-party ones.  If there are 200 games coming out on your console in a year, it ain't a "legacy" system.  It wasn't a legacy system in '84, either, when there were over 20 new games for it, many being marquee licensed titles.  When a system is being actively supported on the software side even moreso than the supposed flagship of your line, it's not legacy.

Colecovision was the clear winner of a bum fight in which everyone lost.  From the standpoint of being a household name that has built-marketability, the Colecovision is irrelevant.  So is the 5200, the Odyssey2, the Vectrex, the Intellivsion, all of it.  The only all these different outfits to survive past '85 is Atari; largely because of the 2600.

 

 

And why is that?  It's because the 2600 was a legitimate success and the Intellivision and everything else from that period were not.  Even as late as '87 or '88, more kids had a 2600 in their home than an NES.  It was still getting new games, it was still selling, and the name "Atari" was as synonymous with "video games" as "Nintendo" would be.

That's a success.  That's a successful game console looks like.  Selling a couple million units while your parent company loses half a billion dollars, sells your division off, and then you disappear in a few years is not what a successful console looks like.  Not, that is, in the sense that this is a big, marketable property 40 years down the line like the Amico Bros would have it.

 

 

Then NES came along and showed them how its done. And slowly a bunch of aging men started to hate Nintendo for destroying their beloved consoles. Completely ignoring that their destruction was not due to Nintendo, but their own ability to grow and expand.

 

Oddly enough the same group will also blame anyone other than the bad decisions of Tommy Tallarico and company, on the death of Amico. It was haters! It was Pat! It was Covid! Nintendo saw what Amico was doing and pushed out Clubhouse Games! THE HORROR!

[Cebus Capucinis]

Guys, guys, who cares about the difference between Atari and Intellivision?

 

Let's unite and focus on the positive!

 

Think about what the consoles each had in COMMON!.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.....FCC certs.

[+frankodragon]

And yet, TT can't get any because he can't get any. 

 

[Rev]

Atari 2600 sales vs Intellivision is similar to comparing PS2 sales to Gamecube.   Still a wide margin but all systems are beloved to those that owned and remember them. 
 

As Cebus pointed out, lets revert back to the phantom FCC certs.   This topic we have barely scratched the surface on!

[MrBeefy]

6 minutes ago, Rev said:

Atari 2600 sales vs Intellivision is similar to comparing PS2 sales to Gamecube.   Still a wide margin but all systems are beloved to those that owned and remember them. 
 

As Cebus pointed out, lets revert back to the phantom FCC certs.   This topic we have barely scratched the surface on!

So what is the latest on that? Did Tommy's mother say how proud she was that he obtained the certs?

 

While we ponder the great FCC certs discussion, here is some music to enjoy. Unless you love Tommy and the Amico beep boop.

 

 

[mr_me]

7 hours ago, MrTrust said:

Now, now, have I not stuck up for you over and over when people in here dogpile and accuse you of sinister ulterior motives?  I'm not accusing you of anything; I just don't trust your interpretation of the sources.

 

 

So they had a good year; what is this supposed to prove?  On their absolute best day, they're a marginal player, which is the original point that was being argued.  So they had a 30% increase in sales.  Atari had a 100% increase in '80, and again in '81 and '82.  Is there any indication that Mattel were on a trajectory to do anything like that?  There is not. 

 

There's no useful metric by which Intellivision came anywhere close to performing as well as Atari.  Not one.  Period.  The end.

 

To quote Maury Chaykin in Wargames, Mr. PuhtaytuhHead... MR PUHTAYTUHHEAD!  There were 35 first-party 2600 titles released in '83 and over 150 third-party ones.  If there are 200 games coming out on your console in a year, it ain't a "legacy" system.  It wasn't a legacy system in '84, either, when there were over 20 new games for it, many being marquee licensed titles.  When a system is being actively supported on the software side even moreso than the supposed flagship of your line, it's not legacy.

Colecovision was the clear winner of a bum fight in which everyone lost.  From the standpoint of being a household name that has built-marketability, the Colecovision is irrelevant.  So is the 5200, the Odyssey2, the Vectrex, the Intellivsion, all of it.  The only all these different outfits to survive past '85 is Atari; largely because of the 2600.

 

 

And why is that?  It's because the 2600 was a legitimate success and the Intellivision and everything else from that period were not.  Even as late as '87 or '88, more kids had a 2600 in their home than an NES.  It was still getting new games, it was still selling, and the name "Atari" was as synonymous with "video games" as "Nintendo" would be.

That's a success.  That's a successful game console looks like.  Selling a couple million units while your parent company loses half a billion dollars, sells your division off, and then you disappear in a few years is not what a successful console looks like.  Not, that is, in the sense that this is a big, marketable property 40 years down the line like the Amico Bros would have it.

 

Nobody is saying the Intellivision sold like the 2600.  The 2600 had monopoly level numbers.  It's just saying that the Intellivision was clearly in second and the Odyssey2 a distant third, as in the linked article. Nor is it saying the Intellivision name is as relevant today as the Atari name, it isn't.  But it's not irrelevant either.

 

Everyone can have their opinion about how relevant the Intellivision is today.  However that has little to do with Intellivision Entertainment naming themselves after the old console.  The only reason they did that is because the founding partner and CEO is a fan of the old console.

[roots.genoa]

7 hours ago, MrBeefy said:

Then NES came along and showed them how its done. And slowly a bunch of aging men started to hate Nintendo for destroying their beloved consoles. Completely ignoring that their destruction was not due to Nintendo, but their own ability to grow and expand.

Absolutely! Exactly like SEGA fans started to hate Sony, completely ignoring that... that... No, wait, Sony did kill SEGA dammit! 😭

[Matt_B]

46 minutes ago, roots.genoa said:

Absolutely! Exactly like SEGA fans started to hate Sony, completely ignoring that... that... No, wait, Sony did kill SEGA dammit! 😭

But... but... Sega are still going and making some of the best games that they ever have!

 

https://www.metacritic.com/pictures/2023-game-publisher-rankings/25

 

Sure, they're not making consoles any more but everyone knows that that's a mug's game. The chances are that you're just going to burn a ton of money and end up with nothing to release. 😉

[roots.genoa]

1 hour ago, Matt_B said:

But... but... Sega are still going and making some of the best games that they ever have!

Sure, but almost none of these games are related to what I used to love about SEGA. 😔