Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

2 hours ago, bigdaddygamestudio said:

Back in the Day, How many here actually saw this Intellivision ad in a movie theatre?

 

 

I've never seen this before.  It was cool.  Thanks for sharing.

So, 6 Games = £60, 2 Controllers @ £60 each = £120, so that makes the Amico just £70........BARGAIN!!!! 👍😀

22 hours ago, Matt-H06 said:

Another thought is patches and updates. Will games have them and if so how would physical media get patched?

Yes.  If a patch is needed it will happen.  Physical media versions would be the same as physical version patches with all current systems.  The console recognizes it and downloads the patch via internet.  The last few physical games I've purchased for PS4 did this exact same thing.  Took about 5 minutes to load the game... then a few more minutes to download multiple patches. 

Crazy.

21 hours ago, Jeffrey Bouchard said:

Tommy could we possibly see a Rocky game and others that you mentioned? I would love it if possible.

We had a meeting with MGM last February but they wanted WAY too much for the Rocky license. 

Also... the reason why one of the best previous Rocky mobile game took the Rocky license off the product.. which was a bummer because it was a cool game.

These things typically go up and down depending on the time.  They are doing another Rocky movie (I believe coming out in 2022) so they put a lot of value on the license right now.  If the new movie tanks... we could end up getting it a lot cheaper. 

Such is the way of licensing.  ESPECIALLY in Hollywood!

21 hours ago, Swami said:

Me too, except fishing. Can't bring myself to spend $70 on what was declared as the most boring of its games. 

Yeah.... I don't think I really played any of the games after the first time.  I just liked collecting them all because it was so unique.

Tommy, my two cents on licensing, since I'm an old timer....LOL.....   Licensing costs can seriously hurt a company, their so exorbitant in many cases.  I'd love to see you prioritize on getting the historic licenses for The Original 125's at this point, with any others being bonuses!  I think that you know where I'm going here.....  😃 

19 hours ago, Lathe26 said:

Tommy,

The only one I worked on was the original XBox to write a Windows driver for the controller (for low-level testing, not enabling gaming).

 

Did you ever see the early prototype versions of the Duke controller?  I'm curious if they were seen outside of Microsoft.  They were painted gold, the controllers cable ran to a large black box with 2 metal plates, and had a USB and serial connection on the other side of the black box.  The box probably had the real electronics in it while the controller was only switches.  The controller itself was a different shape.  It was taller (like how the Sega Dreamcast controller is tall) and was much more circular.  The center circle was raised compared to the out side grips.  Below is a crude drawing that I created from memory. 

 

 

 

 

I'm good friends with Seamus Blackley, Ed Fries & J Allard.  I may or may not have seen what you're talking about behind closed doors once.

18 hours ago, Alpha82 said:

I can only guess at this one but I would assume that the physical game gets added to your system with other games and a patch if needed would be downloaded in the background 

Correct.

16 hours ago, PeterPepper said:

I saw AMD is having issues as well, but this covers tariffs and freight costs. This isn't the only area that is impacted, freight and shipping is an issue across the board.

 

https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/12/22227040/nvidia-amd-gpu-shortage-rtx-3080-3070-3060-ti-3090-rx-6800-xt

Yeah.  I could list 100 different things and ways that COVID has personally affected in our pipeline/budgets/resources/timelines, etc. 

But... it's up to us to take the burden and figure it out.  We just see it as another difficult challenge we need to figure out.  We refuse to compromise on quality.

Folks at the retail level aren't really going to see the massive effect 2020 had until 2021 gets going and they start to see everything pushed to a later date. 

Anyone who thinks that any company is using COVID as an "excuse" isn't someone with a lot of understanding or knowledge about production, manufacturing or retail.
 

44 minutes ago, Silverbot said:

So, 6 Games = £60, 2 Controllers @ £60 each = £120, so that makes the Amico just £70........BARGAIN!!!! 👍😀

We could have easily done the console with one controller and no games for the $179 price we were originally shooting for.  But the market research, retailers, family focus groups, etc. all pointed to the same thing.  They want a complete co-op experience out of the box with lots of options at their fingertips within minutes.  And they are willing to pay a bit extra for that convenience.  The Wii was $249 with one controller and one super amazing tech demo (Wii Sports) when it was launched.  And non-gamers/casuals LOVED it and they couldn't keep it on the shelves.  We're going after the same type of audience but with 2 controllers, 6 games and at the same exact $249 price point 15 years later.  AND all of our games are $9.99 or less, all are co-op and with NO violence, adult/sexual content, harmful toxic online, etc.

Most casual, hyper-casual and/or non-gamers don't like the idea of doing research to see which version of the XBOX controller will be best for them, or which model of hardware they should get or which games will they need to find that are family friendly co-op.  Hardcore or your average console gamer may not mind.  But the "family" and "mom" mindset is different.  The folks who dislike our concept can't seem to grasp that.  And that's okay.  Our success doesn't rely on the people who are not our target audience.

28 minutes ago, Papa Pete said:

Tommy, my two cents on licensing, since I'm an old timer....LOL.....   Licensing costs can seriously hurt a company, their so exorbitant in many cases.  I'd love to see you prioritize on getting the historic licenses for The Original 125's at this point, with any others being bonuses!  I think that you know where I'm going here.....  😃 

 

Hahahha!  Yep!  Don't worry @Papa Pete... we've been all over it for more than a year! 

You'll notice how I've never once said that TRON is off the table for us.

On 1/15/2021 at 8:23 AM, Tommy Tallarico said:

On my top 10 films of all time!  I'm a huge fan.

 

Also on that list... Rocky, Star Wars, Raiders, Godfather, Planet of the Apes, early James Bond, Tron & Tombstone... so pretty good company!

 

 

This list is crazy lacking in Cameron and Spielberg movies.  I still love ya Tommy but this did make me question our relationship a tad

3 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

We had a meeting with MGM last February but they wanted WAY too much for the Rocky license. 

Also... the reason why one of the best previous Rocky mobile game took the Rocky license off the product.. which was a bummer because it was a cool game.

These things typically go up and down depending on the time.  They are doing another Rocky movie (I believe coming out in 2022) so they put a lot of value on the license right now.  If the new movie tanks... we could end up getting it a lot cheaper. 

 

Such is the way of licensing.  ESPECIALLY in Hollywood!

 

 

If you need a famous boxer for a particular game...how about Mike Tyson?

43 minutes ago, Loafer said:

This list is crazy lacking in Cameron and Spielberg movies.  I still love ya Tommy but this did make me question our relationship a tad

Yeah Tommy, show some love for The Terminator & Aliens.  And E.T. too.

7 minutes ago, Intellivision Master said:

Yeah Tommy, show some love for The Terminator & Aliens.  And E.T. too.

No love for QT??? I know he’s controversial but Pulp Fiction has to be on a few people’s top ten list here on AtariAge 🤣 It’s hilarious!

5 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

We could have easily done the console with one controller and no games for the $179 price we were originally shooting for.  But the market research, retailers, family focus groups, etc. all pointed to the same thing.  They want a complete co-op experience out of the box with lots of options at their fingertips within minutes.  And they are willing to pay a bit extra for that convenience.  The Wii was $249 with one controller and one super amazing tech demo (Wii Sports) when it was launched.  And non-gamers/casuals LOVED it and they couldn't keep it on the shelves.  We're going after the same type of audience but with 2 controllers, 6 games and at the same exact $249 price point 15 years later.  AND all of our games are $9.99 or less, all are co-op and with NO violence, adult/sexual content, harmful toxic online, etc.

 

Most casual, hyper-casual and/or non-gamers don't like the idea of doing research to see which version of the XBOX controller will be best for them, or which model of hardware they should get or which games will they need to find that are family friendly co-op.  Hardcore or your average console gamer may not mind.  But the "family" and "mom" mindset is different.  The folks who dislike our concept can't seem to grasp that.  And that's okay.  Our success doesn't rely on the people who are not our target audience.

 

 

Yeah, your definitely going the right way with it, having it all there straight out of the box! That’s why I said it was a bargain, and when you see the price of just the console, I don’t get why people complain about it. 👍😀

I wonder if we'll see more Meet Amico videos.  According to the Intellivision YouTube channel, the last one was 3 months ago.

8 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Yeah.... I don't think I really played any of the games after the first time.  I just liked collecting them all because it was so unique.

 

 

I know what you mean. I just bought it on a Best Offer for $50 to complete my American release collection. Do you have any of the European Domyos Interactive Fitness ones or the Japanese ones? I believe I have all of the Domyos Interactive ones and one of the Japanese ones. The Japanese ones are mostly kids educational ones or old folks rehabilitation ones. I got the Japanese Body Balancer one you use with a stepper or elliptical. No games, unfortunately, just 16-bit people dancing around like DDR games, but with step and calorie count.

Want to sell more consoles? Then here's something that you can pass along to Intellivision's marketing department... video games and booze are a winning combination! 😆

10 hours ago, skylinesandsunsets said:

video games and booze are a winning combination! 😆

10 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Yeah.  I could list 100 different things and ways that COVID has personally affected in our pipeline/budgets/resources/timelines, etc. 

 

But... it's up to us to take the burden and figure it out.  We just see it as another difficult challenge we need to figure out.  We refuse to compromise on quality.

Folks at the retail level aren't really going to see the massive effect 2020 had until 2021 gets going and they start to see everything pushed to a later date. 

Anyone who thinks that any company is using COVID as an "excuse" isn't someone with a lot of understanding or knowledge about production, manufacturing or retail.
 

 

 

This is very true. COVID is a supply chain nightmare, a lot of different companies are having to slim down product lineups in the interim because they can't get enough of anything to produce..this goes for food, personal care, electronics, etc. New innovation work gets pushed back on the manufacturing and test side because direction from top is whatever is commercialized is prioritized to keep stuff on shelf and get it out the door. I've had multiple work projects delayed at least 3-6 months because of this. I am so glad I am not working in supply chain right now lol. I have friends that still do and its like Black Friday every other day and panic buying on things that aren't considered top selling items. This is very appropriate:

On 1/15/2021 at 12:34 PM, Tommy Tallarico said:

Fun game you guys are playing with the list.


Here's a different take on this list...

 

I worked on 17 of those consoles!  

 

The only one I never owned was the Neo Geo.  But I did play it.  Was too damn expensive for me to own at the time, but my best friend David Perry had one at the office when we worked at Virgin Games in the early 90's... so I just played his.

 

No Neo Geo? I expect better from you Tommy! I think my Neo Geo games are currently worth 4-5 times what I paid for them, the prices seem to be rocketing up at the moment, or maybe I just hadn't paid attention for a while. Could be a good investment for you! I blame AVGN. The game selection isn't very varied of course, that's the shame with the Neo Geo.

It's cool that David Perry had one back in the early 90's, I couldn't have afforded one back then. Though being able to buy the Metal Slug games back in the day would have saved an absolute fortune! They already cost thousands when I got my Neo Geo (needless to say I don't own any of them on Neo Geo).

I think I've owned pretty much all those consoles bar the 8 bit ones, to my shame!

I hope people realize the COVID rate, in the USA, at least, is three times now what it was in the summer. Election rallies plus holiday boosts didn't help.

On 1/15/2021 at 8:23 AM, Tommy Tallarico said:

On my top 10 films of all time!  I'm a huge fan.

 

Also on that list... Rocky, Star Wars, Raiders, Godfather, Planet of the Apes, early James Bond, Tron & Tombstone... so pretty good company!

I think you are missing an obvious one on that list: Willy Wonka!  Oh, and may Spider Man too!