Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

2 hours ago, 1001lives said:

Yep. The Ouya did irreparable damage to anyone in this space. Anyone and everyone trying to launch any hardware at all is dealing with the repercussions that they caused. Even very clear departures like the handheld Evercade has had a lot of "Ouya" comparisons when it's nothing like Ouya in any capacity. It's just "new hardware that isn't one of the Big 3 so it's Ouya"

Well... rest assured... you won't see me selling digital ads for Playboy as my next job. 

https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/playboy-julie-uhrman-president-media-1202936333/

One of their biggest issues was the person in charge wasn't a game maker, didn't really understand the gaming market and I don't think understood the importance of GAMES FIRST.

Oddly enough... the same problem that we see Google Stadia having as well.  All the money went into the tech... to play Destiny 2 three years after it's launch?  Now they are starting to buy studios and announcing exclusives... but is it too late?  How long is it going to take for a new studio to come out with a great experience that folks will expect to see on Stadia?  A few years?  Tens of millions of dollars?

And lets not forget our friends at Atari.  WHERE ARE THE GAMES?!??!!

To us... the GAMES are the most important thing... not the tech (although we have something unique, cool and different from the rest).  Games should be at the top of anyone's list who is designing and launching a new console.  Yet the biggest company on the planet with all the resources in the world couldn't pull it off and the folks at Atari aren't going to pull it off either. 

If you can't get the most important thing right...  I don't think the rest of it is going to go well either.

8 minutes ago, Atari_Master said:

Tommy,

 

Will Ladybug be on the Amico?

Not as of yet... but would love to see it on there someday.

12 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Well... rest assured... you won't see me selling digital ads for Playboy as my next job. 

https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/playboy-julie-uhrman-president-media-1202936333/

 

One of their biggest issues was the person in charge wasn't a game maker, didn't really understand the gaming market and I don't think understood the importance of GAMES FIRST.

Oddly enough... the same problem that we see Google Stadia having as well.  All the money went into the tech... to play Destiny 2 three years after it's launch?  Now they are starting to buy studios and announcing exclusives... but is it too late?  How long is it going to take for a new studio to come out with a great experience that folks will expect to see on Stadia?  A few years?  Tens of millions of dollars?

And lets not forget our friends at Atari.  WHERE ARE THE GAMES?!??!!

To us... the GAMES are the most important thing... not the tech (although we have something unique, cool and different from the rest).  Games should be at the top of anyone's list who is designing and launching a new console.  Yet the biggest company on the planet with all the resources in the world couldn't pull it off and the folks at Atari aren't going to pull it off either. 

If you can't get the most important thing right...  I don't think the rest of it is going to go well either.

 

 

Yep. I keep mentioning the SuperGrafx in the Amico discussion thread, mostly sarcastically since the SuperGrafx only has 5 (or 7 if you count the 2 Darius HuCARDs) exclusive (and mediocre) games, but I don't think the Amico will have a problem with games. The R-Type announcement at the reveal was quite shocking to me, and part of the reason that I kept my eye on the project silently all this time. I know you were serious at that point.

BTW Stadia is screwed. You want Ouya comparisons? Look no further.

14 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Not as of yet... but would love to see it on there someday.

 

 

Okay.

27 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

And lets not forget our friends at Atari.  WHERE ARE THE GAMES?!??!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWESB56wcxY

22 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

BTW Stadia is screwed. You want Ouya comparisons? Look no further.

Google entered the space for ulterior motives.

*conspiracy hat on*

I believe they're using parameters from Stadia users playing games to train AI how to react to things. 

*conspiracy hat off*

Or... They just had no idea what they were doing and mistakenly believed if you just provide a platform all devs will pour money into it and port their games.

2 minutes ago, 1001lives said:

Google entered the space for ulterior motives.

 

*conspiracy hat on*

 

I believe they're using parameters from Stadia users playing games to train AI how to react to things. 

 

*conspiracy hat off*

 

Or... They just had no idea what they were doing and mistakenly believed if you just provide a platform all devs will pour money into it and port their games.

I say both, and attempting to take your data for their own gain as well. Google is a terrible, evil company and I am glad to use literally 0 of their products. Well, I do use Gmail still because it's a pain to migrate EVERYTHING to ProtonMail.

1 minute ago, Steven Pendleton said:

I say both, and attempting to take your data for their own gain as well. Google is a terrible, evil company and I am glad to use literally 0 of their products. Well, I do use Gmail still because it's a pain to migrate EVERYTHING to ProtonMail.

I used Goog411 back in the late 00s and would call all the time for nearby restaurants and whatnot. It was great. Only in the mid 10s did I find out all those calls were being used to train Google's voice recognition and they never intended to provide a long term calling service like that.

So I've always had a sneaking suspicion from the start they'll provide some games, but actually want to map out and monitor player responses/stimuli and effects in games and map it to other things in their company. Like advertising spaces and human response/reaction times.

1 minute ago, 1001lives said:

I used Goog411 back in the late 00s and would call all the time for nearby restaurants and whatnot. It was great. Only in the mid 10s did I find out all those calls were being used to train Google's voice recognition and they never intended to provide a long term calling service like that.

 

So I've always had a sneaking suspicion from the start they'll provide some games, but actually want to map out and monitor player responses/stimuli and effects in games and map it to other things in their company. Like advertising spaces and human response/reaction times.

I never knew that existed, but it does not surprise me. I will not be surprised if they pull Stadia from the market within 2 years when nobody buys it anymore or when they get whatever data they are looking for.

3 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

I never knew that existed, but it does not surprise me. I will not be surprised if they pull Stadia from the market within 2 years when nobody buys it anymore or when they get whatever data they are looking for.

It was pretty odd to know that I was the user of a service that, without telling me, created a database of all my calls and my voice, of everyone's voices, accents, inflections, intonations, etc. and stored them in Google's servers, analyzed them inside and out, and created recognition applications with them. The Google Home we have now is partially the result of all that call data too. With that level of data they could accurately recreate anyone's voice, as well. Mine included.

Of course no one was ever reimbursed for the voice recognition training, much less informed of it.

I try to hate Google but they're still a cool company with a cute logo in my mind...

But yeah, they kind of suck. Soon I will be the victim of one of their legendary service cancellations, when they shut off Hangouts, Gmail's chat.

It looks like they have the money to start dozens of different projects and abandon 90% of them after a couple of years, so that's probably why they released Stadia. Nobody in their offices seemed to notice that a gaming system without exclusive games would never work, so I guess that also proves that people with lots of money are usually in their own bubble (this also explains most of the problems in the world).

6 minutes ago, 1001lives said:

It was pretty odd to know that I was the user of a service that, without telling me, created a database of all my calls and my voice, of everyone's voices, accents, inflections, intonations, etc. and stored them in Google's servers, analyzed them inside and out, and created recognition applications with them. The Google Home we have now is partially the result of all that call data too. With that level of data they could accurately recreate anyone's voice, as well. Mine included.

 

Of course no one was ever reimbursed for the voice recognition training, much less informed of it.

Of course not. They'd be afraid of having to pay you money if they did tell you they were doing something like that and you got angry, unless it was in their TOS. I'm not sure what Google Home is, but it sounds terrifying and I don't think I want to know. If anyone actually builds a real Death Star, it will either be Google or Disney. As it is, I expect that they do the same with Gmail and Microsoft does the same with Skype.

Anyway, this is quite off-topic. Tommy, how is game development going? Any newly added devs? I saw you were looking into contacting Headcannon/Stealth, who worked on Sonic Mania, one of the 2 best games released in the past ten years (the best is AM2R, by the way). Obviously you probably can't tell us if Stealth is onboard yet due to secret company stuff, but it would be nice, especially since their new game got cancelled quite quickly.

1 minute ago, IntelliMission said:

I try to hate Google but they're still a cool company with a cute logo in my mind...

 

But yeah, they kind of suck. Soon I will be the victim of one of their legendary service cancellations, when they shut off Hangouts, Gmail's chat.

 

It looks like they have the money to start dozens of different projects and abandon 90% of them after a couple of years, so that's probably why they released Stadia. Nobody in their offices seemed to notice that a gaming system without exclusive games would never work, so I guess that also proves that people with lots of money are usually in their own bubble (this also explains most of the problems in the world).

Yay, Google Graveyard!

https://killedbygoogle.com/

Someone should have shown them the SuperGrafx! 5 exclusives! Super expensive! Total failure!

1 hour ago, Steven Pendleton said:

The thing with the Genesis Flashback is that the Genesis/MD Mini has so much input lag that I find Sonic 2 to be totally unplayable. I fell off every floating platform in Emerald Hill because of it. Sure, AtGames has unbelievably terrible audio, but it seems to me that at least it doesn't have input lag like the Mini does if you use your original wired controllers. The Mini might sound better (although it still has its own audio problems) and it certainly looks cute next to my real MDCD32X, but it sucks to actually play, so I don't and use the real thing/Mega Sg/MiSTer instead. Maybe the Flashback actually plays better, but I have never used one.

 

So let's do an experiment.

 

Everyone here who bought the Flashback, why did you buy it? Probably "because it looked cool/because I had a Genesis or MD in the 90s/because I still have my old Genesis or MD carts/Mega Sg wasn't out yet/I didn't know it is bad/all of the above" if I had to guess, which basically proves the point I made earlier. The average consumer looks at something, says "that's cool" and buys it. Or they see it and don't care, so they don't.

I have been through this a number of times with people.  I do not notice any lag on my Atari FB9 Gold.  I bought it because eventually I will be getting rid of my 27" tube TV and need something that will work and look good on a modern TV.  For the amount of gaming I do, which isn't anywhere near what it was when I was a teenager, the Flashback works great.  I also bought an INTV flashback, but that turned out to be less than desirable so I had someone put a raspberry pie in there and now I have a great setup for playing Intellivision.  I plan on buying the Amico because I haven't bought a new system since the Genesis and want something simple to play with a retro feel to it.  The price of the system and games is right and the team of people working on it are doing a great job and are just like us in terms of gaming, so why not?  It's really a win-win and will introduce the entire family to co-op gaming without the hastle of trying to learn extensive game or controller directions.

17 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

 I'm not sure what Google Home is, .

That and Alexa , are a start of Big Brother... Stay away like I do..... lol 

6 minutes ago, atarifan88 said:

I have been through this a number of times with people.  I do not notice any lag on my Atari FB9 Gold.  I bought it because eventually I will be getting rid of my 27" tube TV and need something that will work and look good on a modern TV.  For the amount of gaming I do, which isn't anywhere near what it was when I was a teenager, the Flashback works great.  I also bought an INTV flashback, but that turned out to be less than desirable so I had someone put a raspberry pie in there and now I have a great setup for playing Intellivision.  I plan on buying the Amico because I haven't bought a new system since the Genesis and want something simple to play with a retro feel to it.  The price of the system and games is right and the team of people working on it are doing a great job and are just like us in terms of gaming, so why not?  It's really a win-win and will introduce the entire family to co-op gaming without the hastle of trying to learn extensive game or controller directions.

I don't know as much as I should about those Flashbacks for a proper discussion as I have not used them myself, so forgive me if I say something wrong here. I have to do some guessing.

Anyway, there's the one I forgot, convenience. Convenience is another thing that sells things to people. Flashbacks and those mini consoles are convenient and cheap. Analogue's clones are also convenient, and some may consider them cheap aside from the Neo Geo thing they did a while ago and the Nt/Nt Mini. But it's convenient to use the Flashbacks, so they sell.

I also mentioned differentiation in the Amico discussion thread. Stuff that is different from similar stuff also sells because it's different. Maybe not better, but different. See Xbox vs PlayStation. It's basically the same thing. The controller is different and each one has about 2 games the other doesn't, and the entire library for both is on PC or PS3. Lots of people buy one or the other simply because of the controller. Going back to what I said about differentiation and stuff being cool, Amico's controller is different from the rest. I guarantee someone will look at the controller, say "that is different, so it seems cool" and buy it. Or maybe even "that is different, so I want to see how well it actually works" and buy it. Again, these are average consumers, not necessarily the types of people here on the internet actually taking the time to ask the company's CEO questions about the system. That alone is probably unprecedented, as noted earlier above.

Just registered for E3... SO COOL to see Intellivision Amico on the list of "Products you are interested in seeing at E3". 

I know which box I checked!

52 minutes ago, 1001lives said:

Google entered the space for ulterior motives.

 

*conspiracy hat on*

 

I believe they're using parameters from Stadia users playing games to train AI how to react to things. 

 

*conspiracy hat off*

 

Or... They just had no idea what they were doing and mistakenly believed if you just provide a platform all devs will pour money into it and port their games.

They also want to push folks to live stream on YouTube as they are losing tens of millions of people each year to Twitch!

45 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

I never knew that existed, but it does not surprise me. I will not be surprised if they pull Stadia from the market within 2 years when nobody buys it anymore or when they get whatever data they are looking for.

Was watching this over the weekend.  I like his channel.  Lots of good insights and he's a tech guy as well. 

2 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Was watching this over the weekend.  I like his channel.  Lots of good insights and he's a tech guy as well. 

 

 

 

 

I watch his channel too.  He's got a lot of good topics.

27 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Tommy, how is game development going? Any newly added devs?

Yes!  Added 2 HUGE ones last week during our meetings at the D.I.C.E. conference in Vegas.

The 5 pack-in games are in Beta right now.  Lots of tweaking still to do to make them as perfect as possible... but so far, the initial fun factor is pretty high!  But the Beta stage is sometimes the most important.  Can make or break a game... so really focusing on making everything as playable and fun as possible.  The ramping of levels and balancing for a very wide audience of gaming is always a challenge... but something we feel confident about. 

7 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Just registered for E3... SO COOL to see Intellivision Amico on the list of "Products you are interested in seeing at E3". 

 

I know which box I checked!

 

I heard Sony won't be at E3.  I also heard Nintendo might not be either.  So it's just Microsoft & Amico.

2 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

They also want to push folks to live stream on YouTube as they are losing tens of millions of people each year to Twitch!

 

 

Twitch is specifically set up for streaming while Youtube isn't right? They need to redo their infrastructure and not alienate the entire internet by scaring billions of people away with stuff like COPPA first. That's also on the US government, though if Google wasn't obsessed with stealing people's data and selling it (They say they don't. They are lying), it wouldn't have happened.

3 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Was watching this over the weekend.  I like his channel.  Lots of good insights and he's a tech guy as well. 

 

 

 

 

Yeah, the only thing I watch regularly is Game Sack because Game Sack is damn incredible. I'll go take a look in a while, though.

2 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Yes!  Added 2 HUGE ones last week during our meetings at the D.I.C.E. conference in Vegas.

 

The 5 pack-in games are in Beta right now.  Lots of tweaking still to do to make them as perfect as possible... but so far, the initial fun factor is pretty high!  But the Beta stage is sometimes the most important.  Can make or break a game... so really focusing on making everything as playable and fun as possible.  The ramping of levels and balancing for a very wide audience of gaming is always a challenge... but something we feel confident about. 

 

Can I test something for you ? I will be glad to give my insight !

7 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

They need to redo their infrastructure and not alienate the entire internet by scaring billions of people away with stuff like COPPA first. That's also on the US government, though if Google wasn't obsessed with stealing people's data and selling it (They say they don't. They are lying), it wouldn't have happened.

To my understanding, COPPA is specifically to prevent corporations from harvesting data on children. That should not be a government thing. It's insane companies don't have that moderation capability within themselves to the point the government has to step in because ads are targeting kids at a young age now. 

It's a strange case but I don't believe anyone should be able to profit off ads specifically targeted to kids, sorry Youtube creators. Getting even more Google brainwash vibes.