Atari acquires Intellivision brand and large game portofilio

[digdugnate]

3 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

Yeah it's impressive given there were 5 other topics on the subject (3 are still active). 😅

 

Mine was posted at the same time and locked!  😭😅

[82-T/A]

I saw this on X... and basically professed my love to the official Atari Twitter page. 

 

I think for me, it means less about the fact that we'll likely see a re-release of many of these old Intellivision games, and more about what it means for Atari's brand in general. I'm just really happy to see what Atari is doing, and excited that Atari is seizing the moment so to speak. I can't say I know what the future looks like... but Atari seems to be cornering much of the nostalgia and vintage market, while also acquiring some decent mostly current software companies as well.

 

Anyway, I don't have much to say, other than I'm really supportive and will continue to shovel money your way. Thanks Atari!!!

[82-T/A]

On 5/23/2024 at 9:38 AM, Mockduck said:

Good chance to bring the INTV collection to the VCS! Maybe keep pursuing the Cloudy Mountain game that's an update of the D&D game with licensing removed. Good luck!

 

I want an open world online multiplayer Shark Shark, game resets every 30 days and you just keep getting bigger every time you eat.

 

Yeah... the Intellivision game I want to play more than anything, is that old AD&D one they had back in the day. I played it at a friends house when I was a little kid, and I remember being blown away. At the time, I only had maybe 5 or 6 Atari 2600 games which were all "high score" type games, and that felt like the first RPG style of video game I'd ever seen at that point.

[zzip]

15 hours ago, Albert said:

Very few, from what I can see.  Here's the Wikipedia page with the list of ColecoVision games:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ColecoVision_games

 

These are the games I can spot that were published by Coleco and may be entirely original titles:

 

Fortune Builder

Illusions

Monkey Academy

Super Action Baseball

Super Action Football

Telly Turtle

 

And that's all I can see, and I'm not even 100% sure all the games in the above, short list are entirely original and/or without IP encumbrance.  Everything else is either based on an existing game, uses a third-party trademark as part of the name/theme, or is a title published by a third-party.  Remarkable to see just how few original games were created for the ColecoVision.

 

 ..Al

And Atari probably doesn't need yet another baseball and football game at this point either.

[+Intellivision Master]

On 5/24/2024 at 10:40 AM, 82-T/A said:

 

Yeah... the Intellivision game I want to play more than anything, is that old AD&D one they had back in the day. I played it at a friends house when I was a little kid, and I remember being blown away. At the time, I only had maybe 5 or 6 Atari 2600 games which were all "high score" type games, and that felt like the first RPG style of video game I'd ever seen at that point.

The AD&D game is on the INTV collection 2 for Evercade.  https://evercade.co.uk/cartridges/intellivision-collection-2/

[duzkiss]

7 hours ago, MASTER260 said:

Unless Atari buys BBG, (which, if I were Atari that has been going around buying all of these random companies, would choose as my next target after acquiring Intellivision & M Network,) I can see if Atari decided to make some sort of Intellivision collection or mini, they'd end up including the Astroblast Atari 2600 ROM on it since the game is so heavily tied to Intellivision in people's minds & they don't have the rights to the Intellivision Astrosmash ROM.

A small FYI BBG several years ago purchased

First Star Software.  And in first Stars inception as a company, over 50% of it was owned by Warner Communications.  The same Warner Communications that once owned Atari and when they sold Atari...kept the Atari Arcade division.  We'll, First Star owns lots of titles and many were on platforms such as the 2600, 5200, Atari 8bit and C64.  Some of First Star Titles include (Astro Chase™, BOiNG! ™, Boulder Dash®, Bristles™, Flip & Flop™, Millemium Warriors™; Omnicron Conspiracy™; Panic Button™; Rent Wars™; Security Alert™; and, U.S. Adventure™)

Here's a small list:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Star_Software

 

Anyway, an acquisition of BBG would do several things.  Unite titles from The Warner Bros Investment era, uniting the 2 Intellivision titles that were sold to them a year ago and would give Atari even more games for its Atari 400 system it recently released.  This new Atari is about Restoration and I bet that the Moby purchase was made to better understand IP ownership and IP transfers between so many companies.  I do see Moby becoming a ROM store in the future or providing the information to Steam GOG and Epic.  As it is...it provides that information to Digital Eclipse when they add historical info to rereleased games.

 

I am surprised they haven't merged with Ziggurat Interactive who also owns several past Atari properties and The CEO of Atari once managed Ziggurat.

 

 

 

[Spanner]

mmm, spending money on getting more games or more copyright to games but still have the problem of selling stuff in the US only and have to use 3rd parties to sell there products in the rest of the world, very odd, I would fix that first and make Atari.com site Europe compatible first, will not get bigger profits if only selling in one area only because 3rd parties get a cut from the price of the product they are selling for Atari and end up losing money so then no point selling elsewhere so products will not be available to buy in Europe or the rest of the world, only available to buy in the US, if that happens then Atari will be dead to the rest of the world because they only sell stuff in the US only and no point looking at there site no more and people in the end will stop looking.

[Giles N]

2 hours ago, Spanner said:

products will not be available to buy in Europe or the rest of the world, only available to buy in the US,

They sell most of their products digitally methinks, - and the 2600+ and 400Mini are covered by Amazon  -, leaving mostly VCS-stuff and Merch to be US-only.

 

With the VCS only having sold 10,000+ units, it would seem it’s the digital market, of mini-consoles that make up the more important market-factor.

[+Fred_M]

5 hours ago, Spanner said:

mmm, spending money on getting more games or more copyright to games but still have the problem of selling stuff in the US only and have to use 3rd parties to sell there products in the rest of the world, very odd, I would fix that first and make Atari.com site Europe compatible first, will not get bigger profits if only selling in one area only because 3rd parties get a cut from the price of the product they are selling for Atari and end up losing money so then no point selling elsewhere so products will not be available to buy in Europe or the rest of the world, only available to buy in the US, if that happens then Atari will be dead to the rest of the world because they only sell stuff in the US only and no point looking at there site no more and people in the end will stop looking.

I agree 100%. To make your argument complete, Atari is only one of the resellers of a.o. the 2600+ and the 400mini for the US (both are distributed by Plaion in the US). Atari mainly licenses their properties to other companies, so they can make products (2600+ and the400 mini are actually European products). For example companies like Plaion, Retro Games ltd, Blaze, Jakks Pacific, My arcade, Arcade1up, Diffuzed, Atgames and probably many more. But you are right in the case of the Atari VCS. It is not officially available in Europe, so it was a small deception for European users that Atari stated that their VCS joystick would work on the400 mini too (and was probably a better option than the crappy joystick that was included with the400 mini).

 

Atari clothing is also available everywhere. In Europe Atari branded shirts were available at a.o. H&M, Primark, Zavvi, EMP, America today, Numskull, Smash and probably at many more stores/brands. Non of these were actually made by Atari.

Edited May 24 by Fred_M

[Greg2600]

I've seen that naturally the chatter has turned to Coleco, but I'm not sure that's an option.  It's owner (for awhile now) Dormitus Brands' Mark Thomann has basically been bringing similar products to market using the old Coleco branding that Atari SA have.  Unlike Intellivision, which was basically sitting dormant.

[Giles N]

8 hours ago, 82-T/A said:

Yeah... the Intellivision game I want to play more than anything, is that old AD&D one they had back in the day.

They can just rename it Advanced Dark-chambers & Dandys

[82-T/A]

1 minute ago, Giles N said:

They can just rename it Advanced Dark-chambers & Dandys

 

Hah... ah man. I'd like to think that maybe Wizards of the Coast would do us a solid and like the license fee would be $1 for each game. I'm OK with that. 

 

[+swlovinist]

I know that a list of games has not been released, but are there general lists that would be perceived as ones that Atari did buy from Intellivision?   Are there any major exclusions of Intellivision games that were not part of the deal?

[Giles N]

I hope they’ve gotten Thunder Castle - I liked that: the atmosphere, graphics… gameplay was cool too, even if a bit too pac-manish (nothing wrong in itself, couid just use something additional). 
 

[Giles N]

27 minutes ago, 82-T/A said:

 

Hah... ah man. I'd like to think that maybe Wizards of the Coast would do us a solid and like the license fee would be $1 for each game. I'm OK with that. 

 

Yes, but reality would land us with ‘Astro Daggers & Diamond-Demons’.

Life is harsh…
 

[+jeremiahjt]

I asked on Discord about how many of the 200 plus games were licensed games, and I was told about a quarter.  Which honestly, I would have thought the percentage would be higher.

[Albert]

1 hour ago, jeremiahjt said:

I asked on Discord about how many of the 200 plus games were licensed games, and I was told about a quarter.  Which honestly, I would have thought the percentage would be higher.

Seems the Intellivision library has a larger percentage of original games versus licensed games, complete opposite of the ColecoVision, for instance.  The 2600 had a good mix of original and licensed games, although still heavy on the licensing once Atari released Space Invaders.  The 5200 is nearly all licensed games, with a few exceptions like the RealSports titles, Countermeasure and Space Dungeon.  The 7800 is pretty heavy on licensed games, although there are a bunch of interesting and original games (such as Ninja Golf, lol).  

 

While the Intellivision does have a bunch of licensed titles, they did a good job of creating quite a few original titles.

 

 ..Al

 

PS: Not Space Dungeon, apparently.

[Atariboy]

Space Dungeon is actually a licensed game, too. It was a Taito arcade game.

[Albert]

5 minutes ago, Atariboy said:

Space Dungeon is actually a licensed game, too. It was a Taito arcade game.

Ahh, thanks. 

 

 ..Al

[CPUWIZ]

11 minutes ago, Atariboy said:

Space Dungeon is actually a licensed game, too. It was a Taito arcade game.

 

Indeed, 1982.

 

 

[MrBeefy]

1 hour ago, swlovinist said:

I know that a list of games has not been released, but are there general lists that would be perceived as ones that Atari did buy from Intellivision?   Are there any major exclusions of Intellivision games that were not part of the deal?

Astrosmash and Shark! Shark! Those are owned by BBG.

[+D Train]

14 hours ago, digdugnate said:

 

Mine was posted at the same time and locked!  😭😅

you should stand proud with an honorable mention!

[+jeremiahjt]

1 hour ago, Albert said:

Seems the Intellivision library has a larger percentage of original games versus licensed games, complete opposite of the ColecoVision, for instance.  The 2600 had a good mix of original and licensed games, although still heavy on the licensing once Atari released Space Invaders.  The 5200 is nearly all licensed games, with a few exceptions like the RealSports titles, Countermeasure and Space Dungeon.  The 7800 is pretty heavy on licensed games, although there are a bunch of interesting and original games (such as Ninja Golf, lol).  

 

While the Intellivision does have a bunch of licensed titles, they did a good job of creating quite a few original titles.

 

 ..Al

 

PS: Not Space Dungeon, apparently.

If I was going to guess the Colecovision percentage, I would guess over 90%. For Intellivision, I was thinking half. Of course all those Intellivision sports games got rereleased by INTV Corp. without the license. I would guess the sports titles in the acquisition would be license free games, but I guess I could see both being in there.

[Albert]

9 minutes ago, jeremiahjt said:

If I was going to guess the Colecovision percentage, I would guess over 90%.

You would be correct, based on my examination of the legacy ColecoVision library yesterday.  There are only a handful of games that are original and have no other IP attachments.  And two of the titles I listed didn't count, either, as one was based on other IP, and one was developed by another party (although don't recall if Coleco published it, in which case they might have outright owned it).  The ColecoVision library has the most lopsided ratio of original to licensed games I've seen on probably any retro platform.

 

 ..Al

[duzkiss]

I don't know IF there is a topic on this and tried the search option - if Atari now owns all Intellivision Trade Marks, name, software Ideas and Patents minus the A on life support, will this forum now include Intellivision software and hardware links, upgrades and products?  They are now part of Atari and even though most people will never think so and keep them separated, I believe they belong in the family fold and the listing and sub listings should include them.