Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

On 12/17/2020 at 1:40 AM, CurlyQ said:

Hahahaha!

Love it!

Another instant classic by @CurlyQ!!

23 hours ago, Intellivision Master said:

How about a winter themed game?

Skiing!

22 hours ago, LePionnier said:

Tommy, I was wondering if you can give us some update about Asteroids.

Did you ask the developer to priorize another game ?

Did Atari is not letting you have the game after all ?

Etc.

 

Thank you.

 

We have 12 games signed with Atari.  Have had them for 2 years.

8 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Skiing!

 

 

You can have more than one winter themed game.

21 hours ago, Silverbot said:

So what about Super Sprint from Atari, make it 8 players and bigger tracks to accommodate the wider screens we have today 

Nitro Derby will be our Super Sprint.

20 hours ago, woobman said:

will I be able to purchase  Amico "gift cards" down at my local Gamestop/Walmart? 

Yes.  $25 & $50's.

20 hours ago, woobman said:

If so, do you plan on making them stand out? Not just a rectangle.  A cool shape or feature.

No.  There are only 2 companies that supply all of the cards.  One company does all of the grocery stores, and the other does everything else.  You are limited to exactly what they have and how they hang them, check them out, etc.

20 hours ago, woobman said:

RFID may be cost prohibitive for them.

We actually spent the extra money and at this moment... ours will have RFID!!!

20 hours ago, woobman said:

If you haven't seen the new Apple gift cards, they are not your average gift card.  Instead of your standard plastic card, you get the unique ID (I think on a piece of paper inside the new packaging) and an Apple sticker. Multiple designs have been made, so multiple Apple stickers.  For the collector.. Another hunt! Especially if you different designs for different stores.  

Yeah... I believe it.  Apple is on a whole different level when it comes to what they can and can't do with gift cards.  

20 hours ago, woobman said:

 

If not right away, by Christmas. So my family knows what to get me

They'll be available in stores (and our online store) at launch!

20 hours ago, woobman said:

 

Anyone else think Amico Gift Cards would be cool?

 

I do!

19 hours ago, IMBerzerk said:

Let me be a little blunt, as you know I am lol... he and the rest of Clan VCS certainly got hosed.

 

His review was on par and had a lot of sarcastic undertone to it but for very good reason.  Like he says in the end... I'm still believing that something good will come out of this.  I can certainly appreciate he optimism, but coming from a game development background, it's hard as hell to flip the opinion of the public once it's so sour.  Doesn't matter how many good faith patches you put out, the opinion will be that you took too long, you pushed the incomplete product to meet an unachievable deadline... and on top if it, your efforts will be micro-analyzed to a fault because of it.  The PDF he mentions seems like a huge band-aid to an admitted back product release.

 

Epic fail on Atari's side.  It's a shame really, as looking at the unit, it's nice, has a nice retro look to the base unit and controllers.  Overall, it seems like it would have been a hit... but I can see his disappointment and agree that it has too many issues out of the box to warrant paying $300.  The game he does show (Asteriods, Basketball) look no better than my Retropie unit with similar scanline shaders and side overlays to compensate for the 4:3 aspect ratio of a standard 80's CRT.  The spin graphics looks nice in the Arcade menu, would have been good to see more of that... but noting he only really has 1 package to play with I'm guessing he couldn't be bothered.

 

Thanks for posting this... and I know it's only 1 review (seems he's the only one to get the unit as of making it), but my dream of stacking the Atari (VCS) and Intellivision (Amico) together once again like they were back in 1982 seems like it's going to have to wait for a while.

As I've always said... I'm hoping Atari does well and makes it to retail shelves so we can finally beat them after 40 years of dominance.  Hahhaha!  

If you think about it, we've already sold more Amico's than Atari VCS's and they started a year ahead of us, have a MUCH bigger name, have bigger and more well known licenses, are a publicly traded company and had over $3M to start the project with.  All massive advantages over Intellivision. I want them to do well... but I also want us to do better.

19 hours ago, Intellivision Master said:

 

That was GREAT!!

So glad to see him so excited about what I showed.

Will be showing others privately this week.

18 hours ago, Mik's Arcade said:

I've been playing this game series since it first appeared in Japan as part of the Simple 2000 series.

 

Today, the Earth Defense Force is going as strong as ever.

 

It is, in my humble opinion, the most FUN game I've ever played on consoles.  It is the perfect couch co-op game, and in general is one of the best pick up and play games there is.  I still play EDF 4 and 5 today, and 6 is coming out late in 2021.

 

EDF Amico would be welcome 

 

 

Oh wow.  That's a big statement. 

Thanks for sharing and letting me know. 

I've actually never heard about this game. 

Will definitely add it to my list of stuff to check out!

17 hours ago, CurlyQ said:

 

HAHAHAHAHAHHA!!!


"Mamma always said... life is like an Intellivision Amico."

Simple, family and fun.

On 10/28/2020 at 2:30 PM, Intellivision Master said:

With Irem games coming to Amico, like R-Type, maybe we'll get Hammerin' Harry.  Also, it would be great to have the Jaleco license too.  If that happens, we could get Earth Defense Force among other titles.

I mentioned EDF in this post.  Hopefully we get it on Amico.  Found out this is not the same as another game also named Earth Defense Force.  

16 hours ago, Starpaddler said:

@Tommy Tallarico This is one of the few decisions I have heard about that I hope IE reconsiders, and also that by simple you don’t mean we shouldn’t expect a game like Treasures of Tarmin on Amico - that game needs instructions (and use as reference, although not necessarily as a hard copy). Having recently got a Switch Light and my first physical media for it, I was disappointed (but not surprised) that there was no manual included (just a case and card). To this day, I still peruse the internet and look up game manuals for the original Intv games. I feel they were a huge part of the “retro” game experience (although it wasn’t retro at the time) and reading them and seeing the art within brings back many childhood memories.  Literally my first reaction when I heard there was going to be physical media on Amico was excitement to have the manuals come back. I remember being a kid and buying a game at the OC swap meet and sitting in the back of the car on the way home and reading their manuals.  Beyond instructions, they brought some serious depth to those simple games (by today’s standards, and let’s be real, Intellivision games were not only more sophisticated, they were also the more complex games back then).  For myself, a few extra bucks for physical media to include manuals would be a no-contest on value.  I may be one of only a few that feel this way, but would not be surprised if I wasn’t in the majority, especially for the more retro crowd (and the non-retro crowd may just not know any better).  Hope you consider giving this one some additional thought. 
 

As always, appreciate the ability to easily share our thoughts here on AA, and your availability for the same. 

We can't add them to our first run of physical media, but something we could consider doing in the future.  When you see the physical media and what we're doing (and for the retail price of $19.99) I think it will make more sense.

Will show you in person in January!

14 hours ago, Barley Farquahr said:

Got my vote!

 

I would be worth willing to spend more money to get physical documentation, in my case, along with my physical Media!

 

I also agree that many hours were spent with those old user manuals, especially if you hadn't played a game in awhile, and forgot a particular part of the game control, or needed a refresher.

 

I would be willing to pay an extra $5.00 to $10.00 to make sure to offset the costs of the physical media, documentation, and to make sure that there was still enough to have profit.

 

Hopefully that would be enough in this sad over commercialized world we live in.

 

Tommy, You tell us?  You're closer to this than all of us. What's the "magic" number?

 

I'm not asking for an exact number Sir, You can just throw out a ballpark like You normally do when You are discussing these things.

 

And NO, I'm NOT going to hold You to it! 

 

B

 

I totally hear what you guys are saying.

For us, the issue is two-fold.

1.  Having manuals for a game system that screams and focuses on SIMPLE is counter intuitive with our target audience.

2.  We would need to raise the retail price by about $5 because of weight & printing and the art & writing resources it would take to complete.  THEN you would need to convert them into a TON of different languages for EVERY country across Europe.  A special one for Canada (which now becomes twice as heavy, large & expensive) because you need English & French in order to sell in Canada.  Etc., etc., etc...

Just not worth the time and energy it takes for a company of our size in year one of putting out a physical product to retail shelves.

$19.99 is our sweet spot for Physical Media.  We don't want to go above that and our market research and focus testing says that as well.  Especially when you're selling the digital product for $9.99.

Hope that gives folks some more info and understanding as to the challenges of having manuals right now.

13 hours ago, Intellivision Master said:

I know it's not Amico related but another Star Wars actor has passed away.

https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-news/jeremy-bulloch-boba-fett-actor-original-star-wars-dead-obit-1105489/

Yeah... we saw that and spoke about it on one of our meetings yesterday.

In one of the hallways in our new building we painted it Boba Fett colors (the light olive green and burnt orange) and at the end of the hallway I brought in my full sized Han in Carbonite which hangs at the end of the hall.

Lots of big Boba fans at Intellivision.  We were all sad to hear the news.

Rainbow wanted to wish everyone here Happy Holidaze.... so he is using my PC at the moment.. just for this message.

~ love Rainbow

2 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

US customs is also crazy backed up.

 US Customs has always been so hit or miss, I know back in the day ( 15-20 years ago) we used to just pay out the butt for air freight since air freight just seemed to always cruise right through customs both from China and India with very little paperwork. It was either ship it by boat and wait a month for it to hit our shores, deal with a customs broker and then play the customs game which you obviously know can be one day or one month, its insane)  Air freight, we would order and have it in our hands within 10 days or so of course there was always limits to what you could ship via air. Not sure if this has all changed, Im guessing it likely has, nothing seems to get easier 

 I know it drove me nuts back then sorry to hear you guys are going through the waiting game as well.. it always seems to hit when you are in a time crunch, an offshoot of murphys law I guess...  The one thing I did learn from the whole thing, Customs Broker is an easy ass job where there doesnt seem to be much accountability. Its always some one else fault, meanwhile they still collect their fee.  Who knew.. 

1 hour ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

22 hours ago, woobman said:

will I be able to purchase  Amico "gift cards" down at my local Gamestop/Walmart? 

Yes.  $25 & $50's.

Nice, cant wait to see these in general retail, and see Intellivision sections added at retailers as well. That will be a good day.

Will there be any opportunity to by a reloadable, laser etched Amico Store cards of a different design then created for the founders edition?  
 

Think this would be a good edition to IE collectibles (that also has a purpose) for folks beyond the Founders. It could also be a mechanism to allow parents to controll their kids spending; load the gift card via an IE site, kids can spend what their parents have pre-loaded.  It could be kids first lesson on budgeting - spent your load and then an awesome game comes out they are excited about and now have to wait. Could help teach them to keep some reserves in the tank.

1 hour ago, AtariSociety said:

Rainbow wanted to wish everyone here Happy Holidaze.... so he is using my PC at the moment.. just for this message.

 

~ love Rainbow

coming to NJ, we just voted to make Charlie Brown Xmas trees legal 

13 minutes ago, bigdaddygamestudio said:

coming to NJ, we just voted to make Charlie Brown Xmas trees legal 

LOL.  TJ

18 hours ago, Starpaddler said:

 This is one of the few decisions I have heard about that I hope IE reconsiders, and also that by simple you don’t mean we shouldn’t expect a game like Treasures of Tarmin on Amico - that game needs instructions (and use as reference, although not necessarily as a hard copy)

perhaps a compromise would be game manual pdfs that can be easily downloaded and printed?  Writing good manuals is still a lot of work but at least this takes away the physical cost of producing them etc.. and for those that like the manual bathroom reading tradition, can keep the tradition alive   

On 12/14/2020 at 7:11 AM, Tommy Tallarico said:

An issue that modern parents need to deal with and that Amico takes care of.

6-year-old racked up over $16K on his mom's credit card

https://nypost.com/2020/12/12/this-6-year-old-racked-up-over-16k-on-his-moms-credit-card/

 

 

I totally get it that it's the parents responsibility... but that's my issue with a lot of this type of stuff is that a good number of parents don't even know their kids can do these kinds of things... and some of them unfortunately seem to find out the hard way.

Wondering if anyone here has had family or friends with similar types of stories? 

When we were doing a lot of in-person focus testing (back when we could!) we would hear these types of stories all the time.  A lot of the parents that would share their stories with us said they knew that mobile was like that, but didn't realize they could do things like that on the Switch.  So that's where most of them were getting burned.

 

 

Here is a followup

https://apple.news/A-1JgrEBBT1eHpez-NTbeEA

To bad Amico isn't out yet.  IE could have reached out and given them an Amico, that could have been a marketing bonanza.

3 minutes ago, Starpaddler said:

Here is a followup

 

https://apple.news/A-1JgrEBBT1eHpez-NTbeEA

 

To bad Amico isn't out yet.  IE could have reached out and given them an Amico, that could have been a marketing bonanza.

16k for Sonic rings.... thats a paddlin'

7 minutes ago, bigdaddygamestudio said:

perhaps a compromise would be game manual pdfs that can be easily downloaded and printed?  Writing good manuals is still a lot of work but at least this takes away the physical cost of producing them etc.. and for those that like the manual bathroom reading tradition, can keep the tradition alive   

Or, license a third party and sell them on the store front to those who want them, that way digital and physical are covered - only one small issue though as I could see it now - “Intellivision to sell instructions to their games separately”.  Kind of goes against the whole No DLC, In-app purchases and all 🤣

2 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Nitro Derby will be our Super Sprint.

 

 

 

I loved the idea of Super Sprint, there was something about those tiny cars and how clean the whole game looked that I really found appealing.

Looking forward to trying out Nitro Derby..

3 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Yeah!  I definitely want to see how these Arcade 1up pinballs play.  I got the Star Wars & Marvel ones... just waiting for delivery as they were delayed due to COVID (imagine that!).

 

Is there a general table that you would recommend?  I would definitely want feedback like rumble, tilt, feel on the paddles, etc.

Where/how do you purchase all the different digital tables?

 

 

My table has surround sound feedback (SSF) which is 4 vibrating speakers in the cabinet under the screen, so if the table supports it you get all the mechanical and ball sounds from the cabinet plus all the vibrations the ball creates around the table.the music and other sounds come from the main speakers in the back box.

i get most of my tables from https://vpinball.com all the tables and other stuff you need to download is free, it’s all created by the VPX community.

I got mine from https://www.bespoke-arcades.co.uk I do believe they ship to the USA. I think there web site in the process of being up dated as my table specs is not on there yet. They will put whatever software you want on . 👍😀