Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

3 hours ago, mr_me said:

They could and they might.  If they did I expect it to be an unadvertised feature, like an easter egg.  The games would have to be really simple because of hardware limitations; really simple.  Twenty years ago they had some conversions of intellivision games running on nokia phones.  That should be doable.

Yeah... we are hoping we have enough room left in the controllers to put an easter egg or two in there.  Considering some of the original games never took up that much space... it could be doable!  But we won't know for sure until we get controller firmware completely 100% locked down. Could also come in future firmware updates as well if possible.  But we are trying to avoid doing those kinds of things as much as possible.  In a modern era it's almost unavoidable... especially because you want to constantly add new features and make it better along the way.

41 minutes ago, Cranker said:

I loved the skiing footage but would like to see the mulipllayer in action !

Yeah! The multiplayer was played throughout the day and is SUPER FUN!!!  I don't think I've seen anyone show footage of that yet.

We'll be doing a full Skiing deep dive over the next month or two for sure!  Count on seeing a lot of the pack-in games in more depth by the summertime!

39 minutes ago, Cranker said:

Just don’t forget about Warlords and Adventure ! Warlords will be the most awesome multiplayer ever 😀😀😀

Absolutely!  Starting that one very soon!

37 minutes ago, Cranker said:

Don’t even say or think that ! I could not handle it 😩

Oh... trust me...

Us either!

14 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Maybe Amico II in 10 years from now.

Wouldn't that be something? 

Tommy, I know you want much more and all that, but the console is already a success. It's a reality and people are playing it (and liking it). Congratulations!

About the haters, they're starting to sound like certain qult. I see no difference between "hollywood stars are secretly trafficking with children" and "Tommy Tallarico is secretly paying money to everyone who likes the Amico".

A serious question: will the Suez Channel jam affect your company?

A not so serious question: if you plugged the Amico to an UPS (Uninterrumpible Power Supply, I had to Google it) and never turn it off, how low would it last before frying?

This was already posted but I just wanted to throw some love out there for this video. Relic Gamer had to take a ferry from an island to get to airport in the northwest US to hop a plane to Lubbock just to see the Amico and attend the Video Games Live concert - now that is commitment.

He shows rehearsal footage of the concert (see Tommy rocking out onstage even for a rehearsal), talks about the concert, the system, shows live game play footage of Biplanes, Skiing and Evel Knievel (a game which I don’t think anyone else has shown being played live). Just a great video:

On 11/6/2020 at 1:35 PM, Intellivision Master said:

Coming soon to Amico, "Intellivision Master The Game".  It could be a game show and I'm the host, lol.  All the questions are about Intellivision.  The goal is to beat Intellivision Master at his own game.  Do you have what it takes to win?

 

There are 10 questions.  And a bonus round which has only 1 question.  You must get the bonus question right to win the game.  By the way the questions change every time you start a new game.  That makes it more challenging.  Each question has a 10 second timer.  You can only get 3 wrong answers.  Anymore and it's game over.  

Tommy, here is the post I did about having an Intellivision Master game on Amico.  I hope you like my idea.  Also, the questions would consist of multiple choice, true or false and fill in the blank.  Another thing to add, is that you get the highest score if you beat the game 100%.  Only if you got every answer right though. By the way, there can be more than 10 questions.  Maybe have different categories with each one having it's own amount of questions.  Again all the questions are about Intellivision and the games.

7 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

The question is...

 

Do folks believe a bunch of people who actually played it or... people who didn't, whose obsession in life is to destroy a video game system they've never played and make fun of people who like it?

I don’t think I have really just come out and said this, because you wouldn’t think it is necessary, but here is my exact “relationship” with Tommy Tallarico.

First, he has never paid me a dime. Instead I have personally ordered a couple of hundred dollars of merch and last time I checked I have *3* special edition Amicos on order. That is like $1000 worth of Amicos with shipping and taxes. I have a wife, mortgage, two kids in college and that is the most I have probably ever spent on a product I am personally interested in, much less a video game system.

I literally went to my first Video Games Live concert in the Fall of 2019 just to meet him and, quite frankly, make sure he wasn’t just full of sh*t. I didn’t see any hardware at that time but I was amazed at this openness when he showed me videos on his phone recently sent from Hans Ippisch about Skiing (he was literally scrolling up and down on his phone's emails looking for the videos). It was an early beta at the time and in one video he even showed me game play without player shadows - that shows how early this was in the development. He didn’t ask me to sign an NDA, in fact, this literally was in the meet and greet line after the concert with dozens of people standing around.

Scroll forward to 2021 and a Tommy contacts people he knows lives in Dallas that he is going to show off the Amico there. I think he invites like 10 people (and a couple of staffers were on there too). I know because he had asked for my email so I was on the email blast about the event. 

I fully expected the event to be in a back room at the museum because, you know, it is an unreleased prototype system. Nope! it was in a hallway of the museum where you could see the front entrance turnstile. Once again no NDAs (although they did have a video release form if you we willing to be on camera) and literally anyone could (and did) just wonder up and the check things out. You might be wondering why I only played a relative handful of games - because people were continually playing it and everybody was rotating around so as not to hog the system. I could only stay a fairly short time (family commitments) so that is how much play time I could get in. I did get a swag bag from Tommy which consisted of an Amico bag, an Amico controller case, an Amico controller disc fidget spinner (actually the prized possession of the lot) and some Video Game Live merch, some of which I had already purchased when I went to the concert (yes I spent even more there on merch, which I am not counting in Amico purchases).  I did appreciate that and would like to thank Tommy for it. However for people who want to make something of this - please refer to the *$1200 plus dollars* I have already committed to Amico products. If that is my Amico “payment” I am still well over $1100 in the hole (so far, I am seriously thinking of gifting yet another Amico to a relative this Christmas).

Sure I am interested in the Amico, in fact, I am amazingly excited for it especially after the Frisco event - but my “loyalty” to Tommy Tallarico is only just respect for his openness and the quality of things he has shown so far. I don’t owe him anything but HE owes me something. He has promised me a decent, quality system that plays the types of games he has described & shown. So far he has delivered, so he gets my full respect and continued excitement in the system.

So that is my “relationship” with Tommy Tallarico, one as a customer, someone who was built into a fan because of the openness & what I have seen so far and someone who is excited for something new in the video gaming space.

Hello.

A couple things.

1.  HDMI TVs have worse ping issues than any wireless controllers.  But unless you're doing light gun games with the exact same technology, even HDMI ping is little to nothing humanly significant. At worst one 60Hz frame.  My PS3DTV fro. 2012 is at worst two 60 Hz frames,)

2.  In the Colecovision version of Burgertime, Peter Pepper can "round the corners" by pressing diagonally before the turn to avoid the exact timing issues.

3.  Just like modern fight sticks "technically work" with circle pad games, but games that do use both radius and angle and have more that 8 angles might be hindered by lack of control, if the Amico could use a fight stick (mainly because it accepts USB HID) only games that control fine with 8 ways or less will be games that play right.

I'm not saying optimize games for fight sticks.  (I'm saying optimize for the main Amico controller) I'm just saying don't lock out fight sticks, or paddles, or spinners and let the user decide if the control works on a take-it-or-leave it basis.

I'm not asking Amico programmers to anticipate non standard controllers.  I think the controller makers would deal with it at their level.

Besides, speed runners of Super Mario 64 digitize the analogue controllers for easy repeatability.  But that its own special category.

Some people find lack of precision an acceptable (even desired) cost for easy repeatability.

When he's playing Moon Patrol, the lights on the console change color whenever the UFOs appear.  That's pretty neat.

2 hours ago, GrudgeQ said:

I don’t think I have really just come and said this, because you wouldn’t think it is necessary, but here is my exact “relationship” with Tommy Tallarico.

 

First, he has never paid me a dime. Instead I have personally ordered a couple of hundred dollars of merch and last time I checked I have *3* special edition Amicos on order. That is like $1000 worth of Amicos with shipping and taxes. I have a wife, mortgage, two kids in college and that is the most I have probably ever spent on a product I am personally interested in, much less a video game system.

 

I literally went to my first Video Games Live concert in the Fall of 2019 just to meet him and, quite frankly, make sure he wasn’t just full of sh*t. I didn’t see any hardware at that time but I was amazed at this openness when he showed me videos on his phone recently sent from Hans Ippisch about Skiing (he was literally scrolling up and down on his phone's emails looking for the videos). It was an early beta at the time and in one video he even showed me game play without player shadows - that shows how early this was in the development. He didn’t ask me to sign an NDA, in fact, this literally was in the meet and greet line after the concert with dozens of people standing around.

 

Scroll forward to 2021 and a Tommy contacts people he knows lives in Dallas that he is going to show off the Amico there. I think he invites like 10 people (and a couple of staffers were on there too). I know because he had asked for my email so I was on the email blast about the event. 

I fully expected the event to be in a back room at the museum because, you know, it is an unreleased prototype system. Nope! it was in a hallway of the museum where you could see the front entrance turnstile. Once again no NDAs (although they did have a video release form if you we willing to be on camera) and literally anyone could (and did) just wonder up and the check things out. You might be wondering why I only played a relative handful of games - because people were continually playing it and everybody was rotating around so as not to hog the system. I could only stay a fairly short time (family commitments) so that is how much play time I could get in. I did get a swag bag from Tommy which consisted of an Amico bag, an Amico controller case, an Amico controller disc fidget spinner (actually the prized possession of the lot) and some Video Game Live merch, some of which I had already purchased when I went to the concert (yes I spent even more there on merch, which I am not counting in Amico purchases).  I did appreciate that and would like to thank Tommy for it. However for people who want to make something of this - please refer to the *$1200 plus dollars* I have already committed to Amico products. If that is my Amico “payment” I am still well over $1100 in the hole (so far, I am seriously thinking of gifting yet another Amico to a relative this Christmas).

 

Sure I am interested in the Amico, in fact, I am amazingly excited for it especially after the Frisco event - but my “loyalty” to Tommy Tallarico is only just respect for his openness and the quality of things he has shown so far. I don’t owe him anything but HE owes me something. He has promised me a decent, quality system that plays the types of games he has described & shown. So far he has delivered, so he gets my full respect and continued excitement in the system.

So that is my “relationship” with Tommy Tallarico, one as a customer, someone who was built into a fan because of the openness & what I have seen so far and someone who is excited for something new in the video gaming space.

When you said you spent 1000$ it made me realize that I ordered 2 FE which I would never normally do since I am not a collector but I will buy ALL games and accessories , 6 extra controllers and anything else they can sell me. What can I say ? I’m excited and have not looked forward to a system this much since I was a kid ! And I have the money to buy everything this time !!! That being  said , I have a family and am super careful with money. This is an exception ! So excited. Thanks Tommy and the whole IE team. Also , what a great bunch of people on this thread !!!!  😀😀😀

1 hour ago, Intellivision Master said:

When he's playing Moon Patrol, the lights on the console change color whenever the UFOs appear.  That's pretty neat.

Has anyone  mentioned what size TV or screen they were playing the games on?

That one looks great and I want to purchase the best possible viewing and playing TV I can!👍😁

5 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Yeah! The multiplayer was played throughout the day and is SUPER FUN!!!  I don't think I've seen anyone show footage of that yet.

 

We'll be doing a full Skiing deep dive over the next month or two for sure!  Count on seeing a lot of the pack-in games in more depth by the summertime!

 

 

That is great news!

9 hours ago, GrudgeQ said:

I don’t think I have really just come out and said this, because you wouldn’t think it is necessary, but here is my exact “relationship” with Tommy Tallarico.

 

First, he has never paid me a dime. Instead I have personally ordered a couple of hundred dollars of merch and last time I checked I have *3* special edition Amicos on order. That is like $1000 worth of Amicos with shipping and taxes. I have a wife, mortgage, two kids in college and that is the most I have probably ever spent on a product I am personally interested in, much less a video game system.

 

I literally went to my first Video Games Live concert in the Fall of 2019 just to meet him and, quite frankly, make sure he wasn’t just full of sh*t. I didn’t see any hardware at that time but I was amazed at this openness when he showed me videos on his phone recently sent from Hans Ippisch about Skiing (he was literally scrolling up and down on his phone's emails looking for the videos). It was an early beta at the time and in one video he even showed me game play without player shadows - that shows how early this was in the development. He didn’t ask me to sign an NDA, in fact, this literally was in the meet and greet line after the concert with dozens of people standing around.

 

Scroll forward to 2021 and a Tommy contacts people he knows lives in Dallas that he is going to show off the Amico there. I think he invites like 10 people (and a couple of staffers were on there too). I know because he had asked for my email so I was on the email blast about the event. 

I fully expected the event to be in a back room at the museum because, you know, it is an unreleased prototype system. Nope! it was in a hallway of the museum where you could see the front entrance turnstile. Once again no NDAs (although they did have a video release form if you we willing to be on camera) and literally anyone could (and did) just wonder up and the check things out. You might be wondering why I only played a relative handful of games - because people were continually playing it and everybody was rotating around so as not to hog the system. I could only stay a fairly short time (family commitments) so that is how much play time I could get in. I did get a swag bag from Tommy which consisted of an Amico bag, an Amico controller case, an Amico controller disc fidget spinner (actually the prized possession of the lot) and some Video Game Live merch, some of which I had already purchased when I went to the concert (yes I spent even more there on merch, which I am not counting in Amico purchases).  I did appreciate that and would like to thank Tommy for it. However for people who want to make something of this - please refer to the *$1200 plus dollars* I have already committed to Amico products. If that is my Amico “payment” I am still well over $1100 in the hole (so far, I am seriously thinking of gifting yet another Amico to a relative this Christmas).

 

Sure I am interested in the Amico, in fact, I am amazingly excited for it especially after the Frisco event - but my “loyalty” to Tommy Tallarico is only just respect for his openness and the quality of things he has shown so far. I don’t owe him anything but HE owes me something. He has promised me a decent, quality system that plays the types of games he has described & shown. So far he has delivered, so he gets my full respect and continued excitement in the system.

So that is my “relationship” with Tommy Tallarico, one as a customer, someone who was built into a fan because of the openness & what I have seen so far and someone who is excited for something new in the video gaming space.

10 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Yeah! The multiplayer was played throughout the day and is SUPER FUN!!!  I don't think I've seen anyone show footage of that yet.

 

We'll be doing a full Skiing deep dive over the next month or two for sure!  Count on seeing a lot of the pack-in games in more depth by the summertime!

 

 

I already planned on Skiing being the game I would play most but seeing the new footage it's a definite yes. I am looking forward to the deep dive. 

13 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Lets just say... you'll be seeing some epic new t-shirt designs coming soon.

 

 

 

Excellent news! 

Any new in-game footage coming out soon?

Would love to see Safecracker, B-17 Bomber, Hot Wheels, and of course... a little more AD&D.

Thanks!

This isn't Amico-related, but on this day in 1985, George Plimpton published a legendary April Fools article in Sports Illustrated.

https://www.si.com/mlb/2014/10/15/curious-case-sidd-finch

Tommy,

I'm done with Amico and can no longer support it.  October is too far away.  So, I'm getting an Atari VCS.  It's way cooler.  You won't see me around here anymore sadly.  This is my last post.  It's been fun though.  Good luck with Amico.  Bye.

April Fools!

23 hours ago, GrudgeQ said:

I don’t think I have really just come out and said this, because you wouldn’t think it is necessary, but here is my exact “relationship” with Tommy Tallarico.

 

First, he has never paid me a dime. Instead I have personally ordered a couple of hundred dollars of merch and last time I checked I have *3* special edition Amicos on order. That is like $1000 worth of Amicos with shipping and taxes. I have a wife, mortgage, two kids in college and that is the most I have probably ever spent on a product I am personally interested in, much less a video game system.

 

I literally went to my first Video Games Live concert in the Fall of 2019 just to meet him and, quite frankly, make sure he wasn’t just full of sh*t. I didn’t see any hardware at that time but I was amazed at this openness when he showed me videos on his phone recently sent from Hans Ippisch about Skiing (he was literally scrolling up and down on his phone's emails looking for the videos). It was an early beta at the time and in one video he even showed me game play without player shadows - that shows how early this was in the development. He didn’t ask me to sign an NDA, in fact, this literally was in the meet and greet line after the concert with dozens of people standing around.

 

Scroll forward to 2021 and a Tommy contacts people he knows lives in Dallas that he is going to show off the Amico there. I think he invites like 10 people (and a couple of staffers were on there too). I know because he had asked for my email so I was on the email blast about the event. 

I fully expected the event to be in a back room at the museum because, you know, it is an unreleased prototype system. Nope! it was in a hallway of the museum where you could see the front entrance turnstile. Once again no NDAs (although they did have a video release form if you we willing to be on camera) and literally anyone could (and did) just wonder up and the check things out. You might be wondering why I only played a relative handful of games - because people were continually playing it and everybody was rotating around so as not to hog the system. I could only stay a fairly short time (family commitments) so that is how much play time I could get in. I did get a swag bag from Tommy which consisted of an Amico bag, an Amico controller case, an Amico controller disc fidget spinner (actually the prized possession of the lot) and some Video Game Live merch, some of which I had already purchased when I went to the concert (yes I spent even more there on merch, which I am not counting in Amico purchases).  I did appreciate that and would like to thank Tommy for it. However for people who want to make something of this - please refer to the *$1200 plus dollars* I have already committed to Amico products. If that is my Amico “payment” I am still well over $1100 in the hole (so far, I am seriously thinking of gifting yet another Amico to a relative this Christmas).

 

Sure I am interested in the Amico, in fact, I am amazingly excited for it especially after the Frisco event - but my “loyalty” to Tommy Tallarico is only just respect for his openness and the quality of things he has shown so far. I don’t owe him anything but HE owes me something. He has promised me a decent, quality system that plays the types of games he has described & shown. So far he has delivered, so he gets my full respect and continued excitement in the system.

So that is my “relationship” with Tommy Tallarico, one as a customer, someone who was built into a fan because of the openness & what I have seen so far and someone who is excited for something new in the video gaming space.

Great post Grudge.

<obsessed stalker trigger warning ahead>
When you constantly tell the truth and are transparent every step of the way, there is no reason to hide. 

Sure, there are things we can't tell people every step of the way... and YES... things are going to change along the way (especially when you're always being so transparent). 

Reasonable and adjusted people understand this.

It was great meeting you again and I'm so glad you enjoyed playing Amico and saw total strangers (gamers and non-gamers alike) walking up and really loving it as well.

We've been experiencing these reactions in focus groups for a long time, so it wasn't surprising to me... but it was cool to see others experience it first hand as well.

As always, I appreciate your honesty and support!