Intellivision Amico’s trademark changed to ‘abandoned’

[famicommander]

1 minute ago, MrBeefy said:

I think we are splitting hairs over the idea vs reality. 

 

That was the crux of the Amico issue. They said the idea of Amico was one thing, while the reality of Amico was another.

 

Their market is actually the same as Evercade, with how they implemented everything.

 

Also, at the price points the Amico landed at you are right that no one in their right mind would walk out the store with an Amico over a Switch. Any Amico success needed to be at a non-scary impulse buy realm.

They could price Amicos at 100 bucks and they wouldn't sell. There's absolutely no hook.

[MrBeefy]

25 minutes ago, famicommander said:

No. There was no market, there was never going to be a market. There's no hook. There's absolutely no reason anyone would look at an Amico and a Switch and decide to walk out of the store with an Amico, even if every single one of your hypotheticals were true. Nobody is buying a console for an Earthworm Jim game.

 

There was also no incentive to make games for the system, and no incentive to make exclusives.

I think we are splitting hairs over the idea vs reality. 

 

That was the crux of the Amico issue. They said the idea of Amico was one thing, while the reality of Amico was another.

 

Their market is actually the same as Evercade, with how they implemented everything.

 

Also, at the price points the Amico landed at you are right that no one in their right mind would walk out the store with an Amico over a Switch. Any Amico success needed to be at a non-scary impulse buy realm.

[roots.genoa]

I know it fits your profile pic but please don't loop the conversation, Beefy.

 

2 hours ago, famicommander said:

They could price Amicos at 100 bucks and they wouldn't sell. There's absolutely no hook.

Now I think you're exaggerating here. Beefy was interested when it was still supposed to be under $200.

[famicommander]

5 minutes ago, roots.genoa said:

I know it fits your profile pic but please don't loop the conversation, Beefy.

 

Now I think you're exaggerating here. Beefy was interested when it was still supposed to be under $200.

Beefy is one dude on a forum full of people that, versus the market at large, are extremely predisposed to be interested in something like this. Get out of your bubble for a second and put yourself in the place of the consumer at large. Evercade is wildly more successful than an Amico could ever be and Evercade is not even a fraction of a fraction of a percentage point of the console market. 

Edited September 3, 2023 by famicommander

[Bill Loguidice]

6 hours ago, MrBeefy said:

You do realize you took issue with my assessment of Evercade, and proceeded to say how it has a majority of mid tier crap right?

 

I didn't say less is more. I said they have been successful by peddling low range "crap games" in same vein as Amico. 

 

Literally on of my family's favorite games is NES Friday the 13th. It was a game that not just us kids but our mom would play. I love it, but I'm not going to convince myself if Evercade came out with a cart with it on it, that it still isn't a low tier game. Nor a system seller. Blaze is selling nostalgia. If they stopped selling oversized SD cards and went full digital would everyone who like it still like it? If the answer is no, then it isn't about the games.

 

I don't have an aversion to filler. I own an AtGames Gen 1 Sega handheld. I never understood why those games (funnily enough one is shark shark) upset people.

 

What are the "must play deep cuts" of Evercade?

By "must play deep cuts," I meant the non-big name titles that people discover and love or obscure titles that only a certain percentage have ever even heard of. That's obviously wildly different from individual-to-individual. One person's trash is another's treasure, as they say, but if there weren't a bunch of games on most cartridges, then there'd be nothing to discover. I was contrasting those so-called-by-some "crap" or "filler" games (I might even call some that!) to the big name titles "everyone" knows and loves like the Namco and Capcom stuff, some of the Atari titles, Duke Nukem 3D, BurgerTime, Another World/Out of this World, Bubble Bobble, etc. My point was that extra diversity is the way to appeal to the niche. The "deep cuts" fill in the gaps, with little downside, especially since these aren't trying to compete in the mass market in the traditional sense.

I'd argue that Amico was going a completely different route. They were purposely avoiding direct emulation of old games for the foreseeable future (when there was a future), and as much as they talked a big game about cornhole and MLB and what-not, I'd say that it was NEVER going to be about the actual games they had. That was secondary to the experience that the Amico purportedly was going to deliver, e.g., the focus on local multiplayer, the "unique" controllers, the so-called family-friendly experience (again, rather comical when the spokesperson was an online bully), etc. No rational person would have EVER thought it would have been primarily about the games considering the relative budgets, scopes, and titles that were going to be released, although we know full well that the most faithful sure as hell tried (e.g., one of the biggest superfans called the Finigan Fox demo the most beautiful game he's seen since Super Mario Bros. 3, which is head explodingly absurd).

In terms of Evercade games coming on cartridges, you know as well as I do that that's a big selling point for the demographic they're targeting. So yeah, I'd say going digital would have a big negative effect on their sales. That still doesn't mean it's not about the games, though. There are always going to be other factors. And of course, there's always going to be the jackasses out there who chime in with "get x generic system or software and play the ROMZ for free!". The fact that there's a legit way to play these games is certainly important for some of us. It definitely is for me. I think it's a win-win for EVERYONE, even if the rights holders are not always the ones who should really be benefiting. Still, it's all for the greater good of ongoing game preservation and accessibility outside of the darker recesses of the internet (which of course have an important place, but should never be the only place).

[Razzie.P]

9 hours ago, MrBeefy said:

If they stopped selling oversized SD cards and went full digital would everyone who like it still like it? If the answer is no, then it isn't about the games.

 

 

 Not about the games... Hmmm..

 

Wonder if anyone could sell a bunch of games that doesn't have games included?  Like... I dunno... "Physical products" that just has a box, some trinkets,  and the ghost of game-never-to-be or something.  Wouldn't that be something...

[Razzie.P]

7 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

Now I think you're exaggerating here. Beefy was interested when it was still supposed to be under $200.

Yep.  A lot of us were interested.  More than interested actually... A lot of us were quite excited for it and hoping the launch would hurry up and happen.

[famicommander]

5 minutes ago, Razzie.P said:

Yep.  A lot of us were interested.  More than interested actually... A lot of us were quite excited for it and hoping the launch would hurry up and happen.

I would have been interested too. But "us" is a lot smaller market than what is necessary to support a platform that relies on active support from video game developers. A lot of "us" including myself bought stuff like the Ouya and the Atari VCS (or, for that matter, the Jag/Jag CD/Lynx/XEGS/7800/5200). And they were all spectacular failures because "we" do not in any way represent a significant portion of the real world audience.

 

Trying to sell a brand new gaming platform with an ecosystem of new games is a whole different ballpark than selling collections of ROMs like the Evercades, Flashbacks, or various Mini or Classic or other retro gaming devices.

Edited September 4, 2023 by famicommander

[roots.genoa]

And I agree with what you said, it's just the way you said it that bothered me a little. 😉

 

Going back to the Evercade subject, even though that's a digression, it's clear to me (I publish articles about this stuff so I see the comments) that a lot of its owners enjoy physical releases, manuals and stuff. Personally, I don't care that much about physical, but I still wouldn't buy a Chinese handheld to play ROMs because of... discipline. I'm sure this has been discussed before but a lot of people feel overwhelmed when they have access to every game on a system (let alone several of them), as Bill said about Antstream for instance. I like to joke that I only know SNES games that start with the letter A. 😅 When I actually buy a game (physical or not mind you), it's a bigger incentive to actually play it and beat it. That's why I don't pirate.

 

That being said, Evercade has the same problem as mini consoles and compilations to me; you also have access to a (more or less) large amount of games at the same time, so even though it's better than having to choose between every game of a system's library, it remains a little more difficult not to try every game for 5 minutes then store the cart, compilation, or mini system. I only need to beat one or two games on each Evercade cart to feel I made it profitable, but still, I have to pick the game(s) I'm gonna focus on. I managed to do that recently with the Jaleco and Sydney Hunter carts, but I still have a few carts under wrap.

 

Edited September 4, 2023 by roots.genoa

[+GoldLeader]

I have Plenty of unplayed Evercade games!  Lots still in shrinkwrap.   (Kind of like every other system, but hey may need something for a rainy day!)...But I always like More not Less...That ROM befuddlement where you have too many choices,...Umm What do you kids call that?  It's like the same when you think Netflix offers Too Many things to watch...Anyway it's fine by me.  And if for some reason they put out a cart with 4 "Hits" and 3 more "Deep Cuts", but then threw in 5 "Bonus Games" (filler),  well that'd be fine too!  Sign me up!  I'll try them all eventually!

 

Or I won't...

 

 

[MrBeefy]

13 hours ago, famicommander said:

I would have been interested too. But "us" is a lot smaller market than what is necessary to support a platform that relies on active support from video game developers. A lot of "us" including myself bought stuff like the Ouya and the Atari VCS (or, for that matter, the Jag/Jag CD/Lynx/XEGS/7800/5200). And they were all spectacular failures because "we" do not in any way represent a significant portion of the real world audience.

 

Trying to sell a brand new gaming platform with an ecosystem of new games is a whole different ballpark than selling collections of ROMs like the Evercades, Flashbacks, or various Mini or Classic or other retro gaming devices.

I think this is where some of us got labeled haters. Even mod jaybird3rd didn't want to accept my wife's comments as real.

 

When I say success I mean more on the scale of Evercade. It was a very long shot to be anything bigger than that. It relied on them making money on consoles and courting indie devs with small games. But you did/do have idiots who believe they will take down the big three.

 

I always thought their pitch of 3.2 billion was dumb. Tommy knew nothing of data and how to interpret it. Just because everyone has a phone in their pocket and can play a free game doesn't mean they will buy a $200+ console.

 

It was always competing with Switch and Tommy knew it. I didn't own a Switch until after the pandemic was well under way. The main reason I own one is that my wife said she'd rather have it than me wasting money on something like Amico. She wasn't wrong.

20 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

I know it fits your profile pic but please don't loop the conversation, Beefy.

Haha I was out in the boonies when I posted initially. Looks like it double posted and when I did get back to service couldn't edit.

9 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

And I agree with what you said, it's just the way you said it that bothered me a little. 😉

 

Going back to the Evercade subject, even though that's a digression, it's clear to me (I publish articles about this stuff so I see the comments) that a lot of its owners enjoy physical releases, manuals and stuff. Personally, I don't care that much about physical, but I still wouldn't buy a Chinese handheld to play ROMs because of... discipline. I'm sure this has been discussed before but a lot of people feel overwhelmed when they have access to every game on a system (let alone several of them), as Bill said about Antstream for instance. I like to joke that I only know SNES games that start with the letter A. 😅 When I actually buy a game (physical or not mind you), it's a bigger incentive to actually play it and beat it. That's why I don't pirate.

 

That being said, Evercade has the same problem as mini consoles and compilations to me; you also have access to a (more or less) large amount of games at the same time, so even though it's better than having to choose between every game of a system's library, it remains a little more difficult not to try every game for 5 minutes then store the cart, compilation, or mini system. I only need to beat one or two games on each Evercade cart to feel I made it profitable, but still, I have to pick the game(s) I'm gonna focus on. I managed to do that recently with the Jaleco and Sydney Hunter carts, but I still have a few carts under wrap.

 

I can be this way with my RPi. Sometimes I think I have more fun setting it up than playing it! The next time I make an image I'm going to currate more.

14 hours ago, Razzie.P said:

 Not about the games... Hmmm..

 

Wonder if anyone could sell a bunch of games that doesn't have games included?  Like... I dunno... "Physical products" that just has a box, some trinkets,  and the ghost of game-never-to-be or something.  Wouldn't that be something...

Was it me or did it seem those who really liked Amico seemed like old dudes who were upset at Nintendo for the success of the NES while their consoles died? Nintendo killed my console and childhood!!!! 😭

[famicommander]

6 minutes ago, MrBeefy said:

When I say success I mean more on the scale of Evercade. It was a very long shot to be anything bigger than that. 

Evercade would not be successful if it relied on an ecosystem of active developers. Its userbase isn't nearly large enough for that. It's been selling well for three years now and they're just barely dipping their toes into "development" with what amounts to ROM-hacking some old Duke Nukem games. 

 

I keep repeating this, but Evercade is an absolutely ridiculous comparison. It makes no sense at all. Atari VCS and Ouya are by far the two most similar consoles in concept to what the Amico was going to be. Atari is orders of magnitude more relevant as a brand than Intellivision and the VCS has been a spectacular failure. And that's the only possible outcome for any version of the Amico.

[Razzie.P]

27 minutes ago, MrBeefy said:

 

 

Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft's notes:

 

Sony:  Player 4 is incompetent.  No perceived threat here.
Nintendo:  Wahoo!!!  These guys-a make-a me laugh!  Know a good plumber?  Cause they definitely a-made a poopy poo.
Microsoft:  Dear Diary.  I hope this message finds me well.  In our quest to buy every video game company in existence, we just really don’t want this one.  Sony can have them. 

 

34 minutes ago, MrBeefy said:

Was it me or did it seem those who really liked Amico seemed like old dudes who were upset at Nintendo for the success of the NES while their consoles died? Nintendo killed my console and childhood!!!! 😭

 

Nah, its just you. 😁  Maybe some were like that, but many of us just really liked the idea and potential of what it was promised to be.  I really liked it, and I'm kinda old and love Nintendo, even though they have some shitty practices that I can growl about (same as Sony, MS, etc).  But definitely not upset at them for having success while other consoles died.

 

 

 

[MrBeefy]

1 hour ago, famicommander said:

Evercade would not be successful if it relied on an ecosystem of active developers. Its userbase isn't nearly large enough for that. It's been selling well for three years now and they're just barely dipping their toes into "development" with what amounts to ROM-hacking some old Duke Nukem games. 

 

I keep repeating this, but Evercade is an absolutely ridiculous comparison. It makes no sense at all. Atari VCS and Ouya are by far the two most similar consoles in concept to what the Amico was going to be. Atari is orders of magnitude more relevant as a brand than Intellivision and the VCS has been a spectacular failure. And that's the only possible outcome for any version of the Amico.

That is true. I do think that was one thing that confused me about the "no ports" rule. Or the shoehorning in of crap multiplayer when they shifted. It was a basic android box. I thought it was always a waste of money to not just direct port and waste money. Like how they spent $100,000 to give EK liposuction.

 

Your mention of hook rings true too. That's why I got tired of "Switch bashing". I didn't own one and could see Tommy and anyone swallowing his tripe had no clue what they were talking about. I wanted to hear (and more importantly SEE) why Amico would be a good cheap console for my family. Tommy and Intellivision couldn't do that.

 

Which is why I will still go with the demographic is retro and nostalgia bait. That and men too scared to try/play Fornite with their kids. 😂 There was NOTHING there for families that wasn't better served elsewhere. And the products elsewhere were of better value too.

 

The only parent/family that would pick Amico in its current form over something like Switch is an ignorant consumer that has no ability to do basic research. If the demographic wasn't retro, then I lean towards idiots. Which I was interested in Amico so I think that lends some credence to the later. 🤪

[Matt_B]

The "no ports" rule was clearly just a meaningless soundbite. Most of the games actually developed for it, as opposed to the ones that never got past the demo stage, appear to have been ports of older Android games.

[+Stephen]

31 minutes ago, Matt_B said:

The "no ports" rule was clearly just a meaningless soundbite. Most of the games actually developed for it, as opposed to the ones that never got past the demo stage, appear to have been ports of older Android games.

Cutting edge!

[+Spriggy]

4 hours ago, Stephen said:

Cutting edge!

[mr_me]

11 hours ago, Matt_B said:

The "no ports" rule was clearly just a meaningless soundbite. Most of the games actually developed for it, as opposed to the ones that never got past the demo stage, appear to have been ports of older Android games.

Which do you consider to be ports of older Android games.  There's Evel Knievel, Emoji Charades, Brain Duel, and Care Bears.  Are you also counting Dynablaster, Sesame Street?  What else?

[Flojomojo]

1 hour ago, mr_me said:

Which do you consider to be ports of older Android games.  There's Evel Knievel, Emoji Charades, Brain Duel, and Care Bears.  Are you also counting Dynablaster, Sesame Street?  What else?

Why do you expect people to do research for you? 
 

Isn’t that list bad enough? On a system where supposedly everything was custom built, “exclusive,” and enhanced for the hardware. Add Moon Patrol and Sideswipers to the list, because even though they were unique, they obviously run fine on phones. And Nitro Derby, Night Stalker, Cloudy Mountain, and many more which only ever appeared in sizzle reel clips for a moment or two. 
 

Add to this the constant overpromises, failure to deliver, fighting with customers, lack of value, slimy investment schemes, deceptive marketing, and you have a real loser of a concept/project/product. 

 

Ask me to make you a list of reasons why. 

[mr_me]

I gave my list.  I didn't make the claim about most being old android ports.

 

What's bad about having a few ports.  That would have left plenty of exclusives.

Edited September 5, 2023 by mr_me

[Bill Loguidice]

If you work from the idea that the "exclusive" part of the console was the focus on local multiplayer, family-friendly gaming, and the unique controllers, then having exclusive games - truly exclusive or otherwise - would have been irrelevant. Frankly, very few, if anyone, was really going to buy the console for the "exclusives" the company could afford anyway. Having exclusive low-budget, indie-style games is not going to convince anyone of anything. I also can't think of any relatively recent indie game, e.g., Minecraft, Dwarf Fortress, etc., that had massive breakout success that wasn't on a massively popular mainstream platform. You can have a game with the biggest breakout success potential in the world, but if the platform has low market penetration, it's not going to do much. And obviously what we've seen of what was going to be on the Amico, nothing remotely had that potential regardless of what it was going to be on. These were strictly by-the-numbers games.

[mr_me]

Another distinctive feature would have been the elimination of microtransactions.  All these features including the family friendy aspect Bill mentioned were meant to appeal to specific segments of the population.  A breakout success would have been relative.

 

Had the system come out these games would have been only a start.  An install base even a small one would have brought some more interest with developers to make multiplayer games with the controller displays.  As it is most of the initial games, aside from a few, were based on existing ideas.

 

Edit:

I was expecting a library of classic board games e.g. Monopoly, Scrabble, Risk, etc..  Far from exclusive but would have fit what they were going for.

Edited September 5, 2023 by mr_me

[Bill Loguidice]

Just now, mr_me said:

Another distinctive feature would have been the elimination of microtransactions.  All these features including the family friendy aspect Bill mentioned were meant to appeal to specific segments of the population.  A breakout success would have been relative.

 

Had the system come out these games would have been only a start.  An install base even a small one would have brought some more interest with developers ti make multiplayer games using the controller displays.  As it is most of the initial games, aside from a few, were based on existing ideas.

Considering the games were relatively simple and the hardware was lower-end Android-based, AND we had a similar sort of concept with the now-defunct iiRcade who WERE able to get plenty of Android games converted to their platform, can we definitively say that what stopped the system from getting finished and released the MOST outside of business incompetence was in the fact those controllers? I mean, everything else seems pretty simple and straightforward (relatively speaking) and we KNOW that there were issues and changes with and due to the controllers. Frankly, since the controller thing was central to the platform, they'd HAVE to overcome any issues to make a releasable system and couldn't simply punt the controller idea and go with something that perhaps was easier to engineer, produce, and use.

[mr_me]

The first engineer working on the controller said it was done in 2019, hardware and firmware.  Different engineers made changes after that.  Developers talked about requesting features, changes of course introduce bugs to other games.  It could be with all the existing games and changes being made they never got out of that cycle.  We know they halted development on some games.  Hard to say when it was ultimately resolved.

Edited September 5, 2023 by mr_me

[Biff Burgertime]

On 9/3/2023 at 11:22 AM, Bill Loguidice said:

There's something to be said for giving the customer less, even if it's a lot less. It's sometimes a bit too much to expect the consumer to put a lot of thought into a purchase. Giving them less to think about is sometimes better.

Excellent point.

 

They used to make 1/3lb burgers, but marketing found that 1/4lb burgers sold better before because 4>3, people thought they were getting a better deal... 🤦‍♂️

Similar deal with some OTC meds. Various studies have found the ideal of dose Melatonin is <1mg. Yet it's usually sold in 3mg tablets because the customer perceives bigger = a better value.