Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

4 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

When the #1 video game journalist in the industry (Dean Takahashi) asks the #1 video game analyst on the planet (Michael Pachter) what the biggest news in the video game industry is going to be in 2020.

https://youtu.be/VtPswN68lIU?t=3142

WTF - for those who don't know, Michael Pachter is a lead analyst for Wedbush Securities specializing in the video game & social media markets - especially companies that are pre IPO (pre public stock offering). Basically it is his job to know the up & coming companies & trends in the gaming industry. That is kind of the equivalent to Troy Aikman saying your name when asked for the top up-&-coming quarterback prospect.

20 minutes ago, GrudgeQ said:

WTF - for those who don't know, Michael Pachter is a lead analyst for Wedbush Securities specializing in the video game & social media markets - especially companies that are pre IPO (pre public stock offering). Basically it is his job to know the up & coming companies & trends in the gaming industry. That is kind of the equivalent to Troy Aikman saying your name when asked for the top up-&-coming quarterback prospect.

Sweet! Quick, @Tommy Tallarico - float the company now! I wanna buy shares 🤪

33 minutes ago, MantaNZ said:

Sweet! Quick, @Tommy Tallarico - float the company now! I wanna buy shares 🤪

$25K can get you part of a convertible note that we keep aside for family & friends.  20% discount and 5% interest. 

 

19 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

$25K can get you part of a convertible note that we keep aside for family & friends.  20% discount and 5% interest. 

 

If I had $25k If throw it right at you. Sadly I'd struggle to get $25 together right now, haha.

21 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

... a convertible note that we keep aside...

Speaking of notes and convertibles...

6 minutes ago, Blarneo said:

Speaking of notes and convertibles...

Haha, cute!

Something I thought of while gaming over the Holidays:

How will the Amico handle the controls for 4-way games, like Night Stalker and, of course, Pac-Man, Burger Time and maybe Old Skool, to assure sharp corners can be taken without accidentally triggering a perpendicular direction due to a slight slant off the desired direction on the disk? I can do it with D-pads, but it takes physically lifting my thumb and plunking it down on each direction rather than the more natural movement of sliding my thumb around and on an 8/16-way joystick, it is atrocious, as many can attest.

The metroidvania debate is interesting. Everyone here is supposed to be hardcore gamers, but at the same time we all have some genres that find too complicated for us. For me, it's mostly strategy, RPG, realistic flight simulators... but one kind of game I seem to avoid is action/platform games with backtracking.

The original Playstation is my favorite console, but I never felt like playing Castlevania SotN, and Soul Reaver has a lot of backtracking and I didn't finish the game. When it comes to platform games, I prefer other approach: I finished Spyro, Gex 3D, Croc, Klonoa... and even Abe's Oddysee or Heart of Darkness, games without backtracking but not ideal for casual/non gamers due to the difficulty and the constant deaths, just like another favorite of mine, Another World.

Are metroidvania games suitable for (the) Amico? Can't they scare casual/non gamers as much as free roaming 3D games? Should Tommy add a 11th commandment about games not having the player kind of lost in a huge castle looking for some tiny object for hours, even if it's 2D? Considering some of the classic Intellivision games are clearly hardcore, should the console find a way to include all kinds of (E-rated) complex and "modern" games in a way that casual/non gamers are warned against playing the solo campaign and therefore be "scared" of the machine? I personally find a split screen Wolfenstein 3D clone with robots much more simple than Castlevania: SotN, but that's just me.

3 hours ago, Swami said:

Something I thought of while gaming over the Holidays:

 

How will the Amico handle the controls for 4-way games, like Night Stalker and, of course, Pac-Man, Burger Time and maybe Old Skool, to assure sharp corners can be taken without accidentally triggering a perpendicular direction due to a slight slant off the desired direction on the disk? I can do it with D-pads, but it takes physically lifting my thumb and plunking it down on each direction rather than the more natural movement of sliding my thumb around and on an 8/16-way joystick, it is atrocious, as many can attest.

With a disc controller every direction can be programmed for either horizontal or vertical.  An 8-way joystick or dpad works by pressing two directions at the same time for diagonals.  Pressing two directions at the same time is not possible with a disc controller, and the Amico disc has 64 directions.

11 hours ago, GrudgeQ said:

WTF - for those who don't know, Michael Pachter is a lead analyst for Wedbush Securities specializing in the video game & social media markets - especially companies that are pre IPO (pre public stock offering). Basically it is his job to know the up & coming companies & trends in the gaming industry. That is kind of the equivalent to Troy Aikman saying your name when asked for the top up-&-coming quarterback prospect.

He predicted that the Switch would be a failure though, but sometimes he's right.

4 hours ago, IntelliMission said:

 

Are metroidvania games suitable for (the) Amico? Can't they scare casual/non gamers as much as free roaming 3D games? Should Tommy add a 11th commandment about games not having the player kind of lost in a huge castle looking for some tiny object for hours, even if it's 2D?

See? This is what I'm talking about with the other convo I had upthread. 

The incessant desire to deny anybody a game genre they may like, simply because you don't, and build up a rationale to support it. 

If Tommy follows your advice, then I'm out. I wish the console luck, but it will have less to offer me and may not be worth the investment.

Amico will have adventure games.  As long as it doesn't hide objects or have complex puzzles, they should be okay.  You can't expect every game will be for everyone.

2 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

He predicted that the Switch would be a failure though, but sometimes he's right.

I should clarify that a lot of startups would love just to have Pachter know their name, much less try their product and then publicly claim they are going to be a surprise hit in the industry. IE & the Amico probably just appeared on the radar of a lot of other analyst & money folks whether Pachter is right, wrong or indifferent. It isn’t about him, it’s about “a noted startup analyst made a positive public comment”. Ears perk up around the field.
 

Also startup investment analyst are mostly wrong. How could that be? Well early round/angel investors aren’t looking for bank rates of return. Think 10,000 times your money back is crazy - nope, it is an outlier but not impossible. Early investors lose a lot but also make 2x, 5x, 10x, 100x occasionally too, it literally is the Babe Ruth effect - strike out most of the time, hit home runs most of the rest. If the Amico investor break even is 250,000 units sold, then if they sell 1,000,000 you would get close to 4x return, sell 3 m units like OG Intellivision 12x return, sell 10 m units, 40x return (roughly on all of that).

24 minutes ago, mr_me said:

Amico will have adventure games.

I know. We were assured that it will. 

And of course I'm all in, because it's an intriguing system I find very attractive. Also with regard to Metroidvanias, there's Tommy saying "You can count on it!" That is a confirmation (which I appreciate) that's being second guessed.

I'm also not going to get some things on the Amico that I do want, and I'm ok with that. I suggested another game like Pocket Fighter (pictured Below), a Chibi character street fighter game with simpler moves and cartoony Loonie Toons or Tex Avery style action, Tommy did shoot that one down, because fighting games (even the cutesy ones like Pocket Fighter) are usually an automatic 14+ rating. Since PF was a Sega Saturn game released in Japan only, I don't know what it's ESRB rating would've been.

My frustration is just the constant usage of the e-10 ratings, "family fun" concept or other Amico guidelines that some posters here are cynically using as an excuse to second guess anybody else's wish list, because of their own personal taste or bias.

Also, as I'm new to Atari Age, and not really understanding what makes it's long term members tick, but I have sensed a real disdain for Japanese games by a few since I arrived here. I don't know why that is, but I am thankful to Intellivision for singing a deal to get Irem games, including the only Amico game ready to play now (at least 15 seconds of it).

Amico will have fighting games; boxing has already been announced.  I hope no amico games will have cutesy graphics; that's just personal preference.

In another thread (Which Amico Games would you like to see) he said they won't, barring any ultra-boring, no personality robots. Boxing notwithstanding.

Hey Blarneo, thanks for your comments! I find them quite interesting.

I hope you don't take what I said about metroidvania games as a way to "try to impose my point of view"... I was just trying to express my opinion about some particular games that I find complicated and how the different kinds of "complexity" will be handled by the Amico... so Tommy can't follow "my advice" because it's not actually an advice, they are just some open questions that I'm sure the experts on this thread will be able to answer. 😉

By the way, is there a online list with the accurate and failed predictions from Patcher? That would be interesting. 🧐

4 hours ago, IntelliMission said:

 

Are metroidvania games suitable for (the) Amico? Can't they scare casual/non gamers as much as free roaming 3D games? Should Tommy add a 11th commandment about games not having the player kind of lost in a huge castle looking for some tiny object for hours, even if it's 2D? Considering some of the classic Intellivision games are clearly hardcore, should the console find a way to include all kinds of (E-rated) complex and "modern" games in a way that casual/non gamers are warned against playing the solo campaign and therefore be "scared" of the machine? I personally find a split screen Wolfenstein 3D clone with robots much more simple than Castlevania: SotN, but that's just me.

That's what I was thinking with the backtracking. I like some of the modern Castlevanias like on the GBA and DS. SotN was great but casuals would be more turned off by it than one more straightforward like the first, third, or fourth castlevanias.

1 hour ago, Blarneo said:

See? This is what I'm talking about with the other convo I had upthread. 

The incessant desire to deny anybody a game genre they may like, simply because you don't, and build up a rationale to support it. 

 

It Tommy follows your advice, then I'm out. I wish the console luck, but it will have less to offer me and may not be worth the investment.

Aw who's shitting in the punchbowl now? My point had nothing to do with not liking the genre.

15 minutes ago, Blarneo said:

My frustration is just the constant usage of the e-10 ratings, "family fun" concept or other Amico guidelines that some posters here are cynically using as an excuse to second guess anybody else's wish list, because of their own personal taste or bias.

 

Also, as I'm new to Atari Age, and not really understanding what makes it's long term members tick, but I have sensed a real disdain for Japanese games by a few since I arrived here. I don't know why that is, but I am thankful to Intellivision for singing a deal to get Irem games, including the only Amico game ready to play now (at least 15 seconds of it).

You might get lucky. Tommy did say the commandments were not to be taken literally so you may get that fighting game after all.

Also everyone here is different and even in terms of individual forums you can see different atmospheres. Heck I have no problem with Japanesse games but others will tell you its all crap since the 70s and 80s. There is a large span of gaming fans here.

11 minutes ago, mr_me said:

Amico will have fighting games; boxing has already been announced.  I hope no amico games will have cutesy graphics; that's just personal preference.

In all fairness boxing is classified as a sport. Will there be Haduken Fireballs or Dragon Uppercuts in this boxing?

22 minutes ago, IntelliMission said:

I hope you don't take what I said about metroidvania games as a way to "try to impose my point of view"... I was just trying to express my opinion about some particular games that I find complicated and how the different kinds of "complexity" will be handled by the Amico... 

No you were trying to shit in the punchbowl too. Stop shitting in his punchbowl!!!

20 minutes ago, IntelliMission said:

By the way, is there a online list with the accurate and failed predictions from Patcher? That would be interesting. 🧐

I don't know about a list but somewhere I saw he was 56% accurate. Same as flipping a coin. If I find it again I will post it.

4 hours ago, IntelliMission said:

The metroidvania debate is interesting. Everyone here is supposed to be hardcore gamers, but at the same time we all have some genres that find too complicated for us. For me, it's mostly strategy, RPG, realistic flight simulators... but one kind of game I seem to avoid is action/platform games with backtracking.

You can't always have games for non-gamers.

As long as Amico has games for non-gamers, it's fine to have few games for gamers and hardcore gamers.

You can't please everybody all the time.

10 minutes ago, MrBeefy said:

No you were trying to shit in the punchbowl too. Stop shitting in his punchbowl!!!

First off "Turd in the punchbowl" is an age old meme before memes. I didn't make it up, and since you are trying to turn this personal, then I'll just retract that remark and not engage with you any longer.

7 hours ago, Swami said:

Something I thought of while gaming over the Holidays:

 

How will the Amico handle the controls for 4-way games, like Night Stalker and, of course, Pac-Man, Burger Time and maybe Old Skool, to assure sharp corners can be taken without accidentally triggering a perpendicular direction due to a slight slant off the desired direction on the disk? I can do it with D-pads, but it takes physically lifting my thumb and plunking it down on each direction rather than the more natural movement of sliding my thumb around and on an 8/16-way joystick, it is atrocious, as many can attest.

Very simple.  The disc has up to 64 directions... but the programmer can easily set it to just 4 quadrants.  So for something like Pac-Man... you can only go up, down, left & right.  Even if you are slightly off to one side.  Think of it as a pizza only sliced 4 ways.

In regards to Night Stalker... as great as the game was (one of my personal favorites) I think we would all agree that the controls were not the best.  We've changed them and you can move a lot more "freely" now. 

Burgertime always felt better on the Intellivision disc... again... because it was only positioned in 4 quadrants (as opposed to the 16 they had available to them back in the day).  Burgertime is a perfect example of where a disc works better than a d-pad.

5 hours ago, IntelliMission said:

The metroidvania debate is interesting. Everyone here is supposed to be hardcore gamers, but at the same time we all have some genres that find too complicated for us. For me, it's mostly strategy, RPG, realistic flight simulators... but one kind of game I seem to avoid is action/platform games with backtracking.

 

The original Playstation is my favorite console, but I never felt like playing Castlevania SotN, and Soul Reaver has a lot of backtracking and I didn't finish the game. When it comes to platform games, I prefer other approach: I finished Spyro, Gex 3D, Croc, Klonoa... and even Abe's Oddysee or Heart of Darkness, games without backtracking but not ideal for casual/non gamers due to the difficulty and the constant deaths, just like another favorite of mine, Another World.

 

Are metroidvania games suitable for (the) Amico? Can't they scare casual/non gamers as much as free roaming 3D games? Should Tommy add a 11th commandment about games not having the player kind of lost in a huge castle looking for some tiny object for hours, even if it's 2D? Considering some of the classic Intellivision games are clearly hardcore, should the console find a way to include all kinds of (E-rated) complex and "modern" games in a way that casual/non gamers are warned against playing the solo campaign and therefore be "scared" of the machine? I personally find a split screen Wolfenstein 3D clone with robots much more simple than Castlevania: SotN, but that's just me.

At this point... we only have 1 solid platformer type game that we're working on and it looks cool, has a great character and a really interesting gameplay mechanic that people will love.

Our goal isn't to release 5 similar style games at once.  We really do have a huge variety of genres.  A lot of our most "hardcore" style games were shown in the Gamescom trailer.  I think there were only 3 games from the 17 shown that were truly more "casual" in nature.  But casual or hardcore doesn't have to mean complicated or hard.  Breakout is a perfect example.  Versus or Co-Op mode is easy and fun for both a hardcore and casual gamer.  That is our real goal.  To get folks (no matter what their skill level is) to play and have fun together.

2 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

He predicted that the Switch would be a failure though, but sometimes he's right.

Some might say that compared to the Wii... it is.  Has only done 50% of the sales that the Wii did.  

He's an analyst who is mostly correct and is very highly regarded in both the business and game industry community.

But even Babe Ruth didn't hit a home run every time and we're making sure that Amico is going to be a GRAND SLAM!!

 

Bottom line though.... he played it and really loved it.  I thought that was the coolest part.

1 hour ago, Blarneo said:

See? This is what I'm talking about with the other convo I had upthread. 

The incessant desire to deny anybody a game genre they may like, simply because you don't, and build up a rationale to support it. 

 

If Tommy follows your advice, then I'm out. I wish the console luck, but it will have less to offer me and may not be worth the investment.

AD&D Cloudy Mountain.  One example of the type of game you're talking about that it sounds like you would love.