Atari acquires Intellivision brand and large game portofilio

[PowerDubs]

We'll never know...but they have enough money to make most rich people look like beggars in comparison.

 

Lets hope the Rosen magic with a couple cows and a farm truck can rub off on Atari.

[The Dubious One]

On 5/23/2024 at 11:15 AM, imstarryeyed said:

This is great news to me, I think it games Atari more to work with as far as game libraries.  If you think about it, people who grew up with either or both consoles are getting older and older and the group seems to get smaller and smaller so a company uniting some game IP sounds like a good idea to me.

 

I would love to see Atari's take on Astrosmash, I bet it would be fun with a cool story arc. 

 

I resemble that comment. 😆

Seriously though... 79-84 I had a 2600 and my best friend who lived two doors down had an Intellivision.  I practically split my time evenly between the two houses, so it's essentially like I had both systems.  I'm psyched about this! 👍

[zzip]

13 hours ago, Lord Mushroom said:

I would say Atari has plenty of IP. It is not the best IP in the world, but they have a lot of it, and some of it is pretty good. They also have a considerable amount of money as long as Wade is interested in investing. What they lack is new ideas. Everything they do is about rehashing old stuff.

A lot of their games IP comes from the days where a game would be built around a concept and the name of the game is describing the concept   "Canyon Bomber", "Sky Diver"  "3D Tic Tac Toe".   It's stuff you can't build a franchise off of nor easily sell modern versions of.   And they have a small number of things with Franchise potential that they haven't really tapped:   Star Raiders,  Bentley Bear,  even SwordQuest as weak as the games were, it had a significant amount of lore and world-building.

[Mockduck]

So, the announcement in the press release about Atari getting 200+ games is....them just making up the number, right? How can there be 200+ Intellivision games they've acquired if there weren't even that many games released?

[famicommander]

1 hour ago, Mockduck said:

So, the announcement in the press release about Atari getting 200+ games is....them just making up the number, right? How can there be 200+ Intellivision games they've acquired if there weren't even that many games released?

-They didn't necessarily say they were all Intellivision games. Perhaps some are Aquarius games, perhaps they owned some titles on other systems. 

-Could be unreleased games, prototypes, or variants included in the list

[JPF997]

3 hours ago, zzip said:

A lot of their games IP comes from the days where a game would be built around a concept and the name of the game is describing the concept   "Canyon Bomber", "Sky Diver"  "3D Tic Tac Toe".   It's stuff you can't build a franchise off of nor easily sell modern versions of.   And they have a small number of things with Franchise potential that they haven't really tapped:   Star Raiders,  Bentley Bear,  even SwordQuest as weak as the games were, it had a significant amount of lore and world-building.

You could probably turn Missile Command into a sort of Wasteland/Fallout style RPG franchise, maybe a post apocalyptic game where a death cult is trying to launch nukes again and you have to stop them from destroying the remnants of civilization.

 

Sword Quest could become a Zelda style open world game or a jrpg style turn based game like the classic Final Fantasy games ,  there's no law out there that says that these old IP's have to remain  exactly the same decades after the original releases, everything has to evolve in order to survive.

Edited May 28 by JPF997

[mr_me]

1 hour ago, Mockduck said:

So, the announcement in the press release about Atari getting 200+ games is....them just making up the number, right? How can there be 200+ Intellivision games they've acquired if there weren't even that many games released?

They already said the number is not an error.

 

21 minutes ago, famicommander said:

-They didn't necessarily say they were all Intellivision games. Perhaps some are Aquarius games, perhaps they owned some titles on other systems. 

-Could be unreleased games, prototypes, or variants included in the list

They don't have any Aquarius titles but they have some IBM PC, Apple II, Colecovision, and NES. There are also more Atari 2600 games that wasn't part of the deal from last year. And considering unreleased titles across all platforms it still falls short of 200. So then there are licenses to games from other companies that they've secured. And finally there are Amico games. But the press release isn't clear on that.

 

15 hours ago, FifthPlayer said:

Here's the AA Thread discussing the topic.  If Activision doesn't own the Imagic IP, they are certainly acting as if they do. Who wants to challenge Activison's legal department?

 

 

Then there should have been more Imagic games on the Atgames Atari Flashbacks.

Edited May 28 by mr_me

[MrBeefy]

21 hours ago, Giles N said:

I think what’s going on is:

 

1) Atari needs 

   a) more IP

   b) money over time

 

«Atari will seek to expand digital and physical distribution of legacy Intellivision games, potentially create new games, and explore brand and licensing opportunities as part of a long-term plan to create value from the Intellivision properties.»

+
«The purchase includes the rights to more than 200 titles from the Intellivision portfolio and the Intellivision trademarks»

 

2) Amico needs money to finish their console

 

Leading to:

   Atari providing Amico money through the acqusition, and hoping 

  a) they can get license money for Intellivision titles over time

  b) getting license money over time for Atari IP made into Amico stuff.

 

“Atari has been a valuable partner and we have every confidence they will be a responsible steward of the storied Intellivision brand,” said Phil Adam, CEO of Intellivision Entertainment. “We look forward to our expanded collaboration and the prospect of bringing

a  broad  array  of  new  titles

to the Amico family gaming platform.”»

—-

Sounds like there may be an Amico plan to port Atari games to Amico.

 

Atari would get license money for those titles, if this is the case.

They already had a deal in place. If Atari is thinking Amico will be a steady stream of money for licensing and sales, they are dumb. They would be better off focusing on the VCS and that user base isn't that big.

[number6]

Interesting take on the 200?

 

If timestamp doesn't work goto 1:15:45

 

Also interesting (to me) is that BBG was unaware of the announced deal. There is also mention of other BBG properties and rights, etc. Refer to my prior post (BBG international trademark registrations) for some context on that.

 

Actually the majority of the video has a parade of guests with some rather interesting info in addition to the expected speculation.

 

#6

[Giles N]

31 minutes ago, MrBeefy said:

They already had a deal in place.

Well, - then its probably just getting a good deal (time will show if the price was a good one, right, - or will we have to guesstimate?) to secure things for the 2600+,AA-store and things they wanted to own feel ‘whole’. 
Whether it was worth it, time will show.

 

It seems they are willing to take some calculated economical risks in order to build up something thats actually about video-games and consoles rather than lots merch and few re-iterations of they’re manyfold released standard line-up of early classics.

 

Edited May 28 by Giles N

[zzip]

33 minutes ago, JPF997 said:

You could probably turn Missile Command into a sort of Wasteland/Fallout style RPG franchise, maybe a post apocalyptic game where a death cult is trying to launch nukes again and you have to stop them from destroying the remnants of civilization.

 

Sword Quest could become a Zelda style open world game or a jrpg style turn based game like the classic Final Fantasy games , 

Atari has "Adventure" which is a well-loved game that people say has Zelda-like potential,  but it has a terribly generic name (from a Franchise perspective)  SwordQuest has a better name / lore but the games were poorly received.

 

I wonder if they could do something unorthodox like fold a bunch of standalone IPs into a bigger franchise..    Like take a bunch of their smaller space games and merge them into a "Star Raiders" universe or since SwordQuest has multiple worlds, they could add a world based on Adventure,  and other adventure-type games they own or acquired

 

53 minutes ago, JPF997 said:

there's no law out there that says that these old IP's have to remain  exactly the same decades after the original releases, everything has to evolve in order to survive.

It has to stay recognizable..   Some familiar elements while expanding the world and technical aspects,  otherwise it feels like you just slapped a name on a game that has nothing to do with the original.

[Giles N]

42 minutes ago, MrBeefy said:

If Atari is thinking Amico will be a steady stream of money for licensing and sales, they are dumb.

Do you know how many Amico games were finished or close to finished (complete production)?

[Giles N]

24 minutes ago, zzip said:

Atari has "Adventure" which is a well-loved game that people say has Zelda-like potential, 

Yes, I started a thread here on ‘general’ about what a ‘Adventure’ game for modern PCs and Consoles shouid be like.

 

As to the title, it’s unproblematic that it sounds generic in itself, if you give it additional spins: ‘New Adventures - Ultimate Quests’, ‘Adventure - Return Of Glory’ or whatever represents the game fairly.

 

Remember that many long-lasting franchises didn’t depend on superior sounding titles: Mario Bros are just referring to two plumbers with Italian sounding names.

’Zelda’ is just a female name, in a by itself.

It’s the content that makes someehing epic or long-lasting or remembered.

Problem with Adventure is that it, together with so many early Atari games, never got a steady red-thread of natural sequels.

 

A good way to start is getting Adventure 2 for the 5200/Atari 8-bit onto to Atari 50th, through DLC content.

Edited May 28 by Giles N

[zzip]

38 minutes ago, Giles N said:

Mario Bros are just referring to two plumbers with Italian sounding names.

Mario was originally called "Jump-Man" which was terrible,  changing his name to Mario allowed the character to be fleshed out with some personality. 

 

40 minutes ago, Giles N said:

’Zelda’ is just a female name, in a by itself.

But the game isn't just called Zelda,  it's "Legend of Zelda" which at least provides some intrigue.

 

49 minutes ago, Giles N said:

Remember that many long-lasting franchises didn’t depend on superior sounding titles

No but it should be something unique,  problem is so many old Atari names are just generic descriptions.   "Street Racer" (as opposed to "Sidewalk Racer?")   "Combat",  "Air-Sea Battle".   I get it, they were first, so they could grab the most obvious generic sounding titles and they'll sell because there wasn't any competition.   But these names don't work in a world where there's hundreds or thousands of street racers, games with combat and battle, and tons of adventure and RPG games.   Even the lore in the Adventure manual is thin,  the protagonist has no name,  the antagonist is just called "an Evil Magician" and is never seen in the game.   Only the dragons are given names.   It's hard to build a franchise off that especially 40 years later.   it relies on gamers who have fond memories of the name or remember playing a game with weird duck dragons-   it would be hard to attract new players.

[Giles N]

41 minutes ago, zzip said:

It's hard to build a franchise off that especially 40 years later. 

No, it’s not hard - you just flesh out the categories you mentioned in ways that feels proper to the atmosphere in Adventure and the later homebrew based but recognised sequel Adventure 2.

 

Yes, you may actually have to spend time doing the fleshing-out, but it isn’t hard.

 

This is half-a-joke: I can do the Lore-fleshing-out and general world-reconceptualization for free, if Atari asks me.

Edited May 28 by Giles N

[mr_me]

2 hours ago, Giles N said:

Do you know how many Amico games were finished or close to finished (complete production)?

Maybe fifteen to twenty. Some may belong to the developers however, either way it's not enough to get to 200. The classic video game licenses they secured could get the number to 200.

 

Reading the press release it doesn't look like Atari SA is interested in publishing Amico games. Atari SA may have inherit two Amico games through the aquisition of Digital Eclipse. Amico Cloudy Mountain supposedly ready, Amico Night Stalker needing more work, Atari SA might publish those two.

 

2 hours ago, number6 said:

Interesting take on the 200?

 

If timestamp doesn't work goto 1:15:45

 

Also interesting (to me) is that BBG was unaware of the announced deal. There is also mention of other BBG properties and rights, etc. Refer to my prior post (BBG international trademark registrations) for some context on that.

 

Actually the majority of the video has a parade of guests with some rather interesting info in addition to the expected speculation.

 

#6

The speaker says that BBG had a licensing agreement with Intellivision Entertainment (IE) for about sixty Intellivision games, including the system Exec, for emulation. He says it should transfer over to Atari SA.

 

 

---------------

Question:

What do people think makes more money for Atari SA. Selling remakes like the recharged series, or selling collections of the original classics, whether through hardware or software?

Edited May 28 by mr_me

[number6]

42 minutes ago, mr_me said:

Maybe fifteen to twenty. Some may belong to the developers however, either way it's not enough to get to 200. The classic video game licenses they secured could get the number to 200.

 

Reading the press release it doesn't look like Atari SA is interested in publishing Amico games. Atari SA may have inherit two Amico games through the aquisition of Digital Eclipse. Amico Cloudy Mountain supposedly ready, Amico Night Stalker needing more work, Atari SA might publish those two.

 

The speaker says that BBG had a licensing agreement with Intellivision Entertainment (IE) for about sixty Intellivision games, including the system Exec, for emulation. He says it should transfer over to Atari SA.

Yes, and another speaker gives some detail on Miner 2049er, which happens to appear on my list of BBG International trademarks. As I indicated earlier, I believe it will take some time to iron out where this all goes, much less produce a list.

 

Just to clarify where you said "transfer". Yes, but BBG (as the speaker said) has licenses for those "60" and literally everyone has stated former agreements will remain in place. Ergo, those "60" are not exclusive to either BBG or Atari. Obviously my list was shorter than "60", so either the number is exaggerated or I have more to find.

 

#6

Edited May 28 by number6
added clarification

[MrBeefy]

2 hours ago, Giles N said:

Do you know how many Amico games were finished or close to finished (complete production)?

Shark! Shark!, Astrosmash, Finnigan Fox, Missile Command, Dart Frenzy, Rigid Force Redux Enhanced, Back Talk Party, Cornhole, Dynablaster, Space Strikers (Graviators), Evel Knievel, Bomb Squad. So about 12 games.

 

However out of those BBG had to finish Shark and Astro. Cornhole was released incomplete where you couldn't beat career mode and didn't have finished AI. The delay of Back Talk makes it seem it probably wasn't finished. Rigid and Finnigan should be done as those are already existing games, and they are struggling to get those out (probably because they owe devs money and can't get the source for the games). They haven't mentioned Evel Knievel recently so they probably let the license on that one lapse. Bomb Squad was done but the hardware and controllers couldn't handle the game. So that dev probably isn't going to give them anything.

 

So in reality, more like 6 games, two of which they can't get their hands on it seems. The console was suppose to release in 2020 and the pack in games in 2024 still aren't ready.

 

In terms of the Atari purchase these wouldn't necessarily be ones IE owned and sold. They abandoned and tried to redefine the word exclusive fairly early. So not many considering they said they were going to release with over 34 games. What they called "working on" was them basically asking for proof of concept/demos. They knew the footage of Bomb Squad was busted and still used it in a sizzle reel.

 

Tldr: A handful, and not part of the sale IMO.

[+cmart604]

On 5/25/2024 at 6:50 AM, Albert said:

I have no intention of moving the Intellivision forums.

 

 ..Al

Yes, please don't ever do that. 

[number6]

@thread

 

One example to illustrate what I mentioned in my last posting:

 

Miner 2049er - BBG Entertainment

 

Miner 2049er - Atari (Delaware)

 

Both current and both registered in the U.S. at uspto. As I mentioned prior also registered at EUIPO as an International registration by BBG.

 

#6

[Giles N]

8 minutes ago, MrBeefy said:

Shark! Shark!, Astrosmash, Finnigan Fox, Missile Command, Dart Frenzy, Rigid Force Redux Enhanced, Back Talk Party, Cornhole, Dynablaster, Space Strikers (Graviators), Evel Knievel, Bomb Squad. So about 12 games.

So, one thing I believe could be done with all of this, - the new acqusition, would be to find 1 to 3 other partners.

1 partner would make an Intellivision GameStation hardware unit with a quality, - I repeat  quality-controller [good to use and response and non-independent on retro-looks in design].

They should also find 50-100 retro games from other systems to have diversity of experience - arcades, console games, computer games.
 

2.A second partner would license as many Intellivision Arcade- or Movie/ or Comic- or Franchise-bound title as practically possible

 

3.One partner would go through the Amico games to find everything of quality there, even complete some stuff that need finishing.

 

4.Atari would bring in every complete and playable title they acquired, perhaps also license Intellivision titles themselves for this release.

And it should very clearly be shown Atari was the main-publisher. Giving Intellivision fans as much as they want in one psck, they also remind them it’s due to Atari this is happening.

 

That is: bringing tte system as close as possible to a full Intellivision retro-console with lots of extra retro games for others to test out.

 

In short: an Intellivision GameStation presented and published by Atari & friends.

[MrBeefy]

25 minutes ago, Giles N said:

3.One partner would go through the Amico games to find everything of quality there, even complete some stuff that need finishing.

I'm telling you, there isn't anything really there for Atari. The best looking games were a demo of Night Stalker and Cloudy Mountain. Which they could build upon if they wanted.

 

Anything else they were working on related to the old IPs did not look that good or were using stolen assets (Armor Battle).

 

Atari would be better to build new Intv games from the ground up IMO. The exceptions being Night Stalker and Cloudy since they own the studio that started those.

 

Atari was smart to wash the stink of Amico off of it almost immediately. They should just Recharge up the old Intv games.

 

And if Lock n Chase was part of the deal, do a Pac-Man VS knock off.

 

Edited May 28 by MrBeefy

[Nall3k]

We're probably going to see an Intellivision+

Bookmark this post, I am Nostradamus.

[Giles N]

4 minutes ago, MrBeefy said:

Atari would be better to build new Intv games from the ground up IMO. The exceptions being Night Stalker and Cloudy since they own the studio that started those.

Ok, and with that element changed - would they be served releasing an Intellivision GameStation…?

[number6]

6 minutes ago, MrBeefy said:

Atari was smart to wash the stink of Amico off of it almost immediately.

Not to mention they don't get tangled in the existing Amiga/Amico co-existence agreement or any other agreements not made public.

 

#6