Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

1 hour ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

We haven't decided this yet.  Lots of things changing because of the Coronavirus.  It's possible (because of timelines) that units for Europe could ship directly from China.

But something for folks to remember....  ALL of the Founders Edition will be shipping from the U.S.!  Biggest reason... I gotta sign them all!!!

 

 

Haven't thought about it like that. Sure you need to sign all of them, but I expected you to pack'em all together in an Amico plane and fly them to Europe afterwards 🙂 instead of sending them one by one overseas. Hope you got a deal with customs, they tend to delay delivery on oversea parcels. 

So we will definitely be getting new gameplay videos this month ? Any chance of getting an entire level Of moon patrol ? Or another playable demo possibly ? 

25 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Maybe I can run it out of AtariVCS offices??! 

 

Oh wait... they are probably running it out of their own homes at this point.  

 

 

The use of the word “running” is giving the folks over at what is now referred to as Atari to much credit, the status of this project is laughable. Did you see the demo at the NYC esports gaming event? It was painful the videos I watched 😬 

8 minutes ago, MarioMan88 said:

The use of the word “running” is giving the folks over at what is now referred to as Atari to much credit, the status of this project is laughable. Did you see the demo at the NYC esports gaming event? It was painful the videos I watched 😬 

Right now there's no conceivable way they will deliver 15,000 units of anything anytime soon.

They posted pictures of their "production line" in some chinese backroom and they had maybe 4 or 5 assembly tables. 

From my time working with a company that did a lot of production in Ningbo for the circuit boards on boat engines and aquatic vehicles, let me tell you... Those 4 or 5 tables aren't making more than 50-100 units of anything. 

4 minutes ago, 1001lives said:

Right now there's no conceivable way they will deliver 15,000 units of anything anytime soon.

 

They posted pictures of their "production line" in some chinese backroom and they had maybe 4 or 5 assembly tables. 

 

From my time working with a company that did a lot of production in Ningbo for the circuit boards on boat engines and aquatic vehicles, let me tell you... Those 4 or 5 tables aren't making more than 50-100 units of anything. 

Yea I am a level headed guy who gets hyped up(like I am for Amico) but so so glad I didn’t back this train wreck. How could ANYONE with half a brain think the Atari VCS will EVER ship? I mean it’s been years of “more to come”, “stay tuned”, “weeks not months”

Joke is on the people who believe in this thing.

So it seems that the TurboGrafx-16 Mini and PC Engine CoreGrafx Mini have both been indefinitely delayed due to the virus. PC Engine Mini is safe provided you preordered on or before the 5th Japan time, but the turbo controllers might still be delayed. They really should have included those in the box, not the standard PC Engine controller that got phased out extremely quickly in favour of the turbo controllers...

I hope this doesn't affect Amico production too much. Everyone in electronics is going to be affected by it, and apparently some more than others, judging by this new development with the TG-16 Mini and CGX Mini. I hope it goes well for you guys, Tommy.

4 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

So it seems that the TurboGrafx-16 Mini and PC Engine CoreGrafx Mini have both been indefinitely delayed due to the virus. PC Engine Mini is safe provided you preordered on or before the 5th Japan time, but the turbo controllers might still be delayed. They really should have included those in the box, not the standard PC Engine controller that got phased out extremely quickly in favour of the turbo controllers...

 

I hope this doesn't affect Amico production too much. Everyone in electronics is going to be affected by it, and apparently some more than others, judging by this new development with the TG-16 Mini and CGX Mini. I hope it goes well for you guys, Tommy.

I was hoping the TurboGrafx-16 Mini wasn't delayed.  I just saw an article about it being delayed.  There's no new date for when it's coming out.  I was really looking forward to March 19th.  That darn virus is messing everything up.

1 minute ago, Atari_Master said:

I was hoping the TurboGrafx-16 Mini wasn't delayed.  I haven't heard anything saying it would be.  That darn virus is messing everything up.

There it is, right from the official PC Engine Mini account. The pictures are in English if you can't read Japanese.

1 minute ago, Steven Pendleton said:

 

There it is, right from the official PC Engine Mini account. The pictures are in English if you can't read Japanese.

Thanks.  I read an article on Kotaku and edited my last post.

5 minutes ago, Atari_Master said:

Thanks.  I read an article on Kotaku and edited my last post.

Okay. I almost ordered the CoreGrafx Mini instead of the PC Engine Mini, but I decided that I'd rather have Tokimeki Memorial than Salamander because I have the arcade version of Salamander on the Switch anyway. Now I am glad I did get the PC Engine Mini, as I will still get my PC Engine Mini on the 19th, unless they try to deliver it when I am at work. Usually they are pretty good about getting stuff to me before then, though. I'll be posting my thoughts on it over in the official TurboGrafx-16 thread here on the day I get it, so stop by if you want to read my thoughts on it!

3 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Okay. I almost ordered the CoreGrafx Mini instead of the PC Engine Mini, but I decided that I'd rather have Tokimeki Memorial than Salamander because I have the arcade version of Salamander on the Switch anyway. Now I am glad I did get the PC Engine Mini, as I will still get my PC Engine Mini on the 19th, unless they try to deliver it when I am at work. Usually they are pretty good about getting stuff to me before then, though. I'll be posting my thoughts on it over in the official TurboGrafx-16 thread here on the day I get it, so stop by if you want to read my thoughts on it!

 

Will do.  I look forward to what you think of it.  I pre-ordered the TurboGrafx-16 Mini back in July.  Hopefully the mini isn't delayed too long.  

Yeah, unfortunately even though a lot of chinese companies are back to work things are not getting much better. 

3 minutes ago, Atari_Master said:

Will do.  I look forward to what you think of it.  I pre-ordered the TurboGrafx-16 Mini back in July.  Hopefully the mini isn't delayed too long.  

Yeah, come hang out with the cool people in the TurboGrafx thread! I hope it isn't delayed for too long, and as I have said in quite a few threads, the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 deserves a hell of a lot more love and respect than it gets because it's a really kickass system with lots of awesome games. Hopefully this Mini will help it get some of the respect that it deserves. I might actually change my picture and custom status to reflect my love of the PC Engine soon.

5 minutes ago, 1001lives said:

Yeah, unfortunately even though a lot of chinese companies are back to work things are not getting much better. 

Yeah, this is somewhat concerning, but I hope everything regarding this virus gets back to normal and healthy as fast as possible. There are a few hundred people in Yokohama with it not far from where I live (~30 minutes), so hopefully they manage to contain it.

1 hour ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

And I can't wait to show folks this new trailer I'm working on!

Neither can we! Less chat, more video! Lol... 🙂

47 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Yeah... the HILARIOUS part about any bozo thinking that is that they think that a few hundred thousand dollars is going to somehow save the company!??!?  Um... that is about a week or so of overhead.

Seeing this topic has veered temporarily into Atari Box territory, I will point out that this touches on a an excellent point of the large differences between Atari and Intellivision.

By my understanding, Intellivision has multiple investors and partners helping shoulder the expenses until production starts and the units hit the market. If manufacturing costs along the way go up, the final price of the console can still be adjusted to compensate. So while it is hard perhaps to nail down exact pricing for an Amico currently, I have no doubts it will be produced and available.

For Atari, the only money they have to work with is the Indiegogo backer money; 3 million. Every expenditure Atari has comes out of that, there is no additional funds available or going in. So every production delay means more of the backers money being spent on things other then the direct production of the units. Likewise increased costs such as material and labour also have to come out of this 3 million; again reducing the amount available to actually produce units.

After three delays, and number four to be announced at any time (No chance of Atari meeting their March 31st delivery date); if I were a backer I would be having serious concerns about how much money Atari has left at this point to actually produce the units to fulfill their Indiegogo obligations to their backers. Every delay or increase moves Atari that much closer to 'This is a difficult letter to write... Indiegogo means you were buying into a vision, not into a product...' territory where Atari just walks away.

So in my opinion, Intellivision is the much more secure company financially and the one more likely to actually produce an actual product.

Anyways, long-winded rant aside, any rough idea about when the reveal of the new Amico games will happen? I loved the Astrosmash and Night Stalker trailers (I still want to call them Astroblast and Dark Caverns; my 2600-ness showing though), and eagerly await to see what is coming up next!

6 minutes ago, Tavi said:

Seeing this topic has veered temporarily into Atari Box territory, I will point out that this touches on a an excellent point of the large differences between Atari and Intellivision.

By my understanding, Intellivision has multiple investors and partners helping shoulder the expenses until production starts and the units hit the market. If manufacturing costs along the way go up, the final price of the console can still be adjusted to compensate. So while it is hard perhaps to nail down exact pricing for an Amico currently, I have no doubts it will be produced and available.

For Atari, the only money they have to work with is the Indiegogo backer money; 3 million. Every expenditure Atari has comes out of that, there is no additional funds available or going in. So every production delay means more of the backers money being spent on things other then the direct production of the units. Likewise increased costs such as material and labour also have to come out of this 3 million; again reducing the amount available to actually produce units.

After three delays, and number four to be announced at any time (No chance of Atari meeting their March 31st delivery date); if I were a backer I would be having serious concerns about how much money Atari has left at this point to actually produce the units to fulfill their Indiegogo obligations to their backers. Every delay or increase moves Atari that much closer to 'This is a difficult letter to write... Indiegogo means you were buying into a vision, not into a product...' territory where Atari just walks away.

So in my opinion, Intellivision is the much more secure company financially and the one more likely to actually produce an actual product.

Anyways, long-winded rant aside, any rough idea about when the reveal of the new Amico games will happen? I loved the Astrosmash and Night Stalker trailers (I still want to call them Astroblast and Dark Caverns; my 2600-ness showing though), and eagerly await to see what is coming up next!

Crowdfunding a brand new console platform isn't ever going to work out. In the end if you want to launch a new platform it has to be invested in and grown by people who are experienced in the industry. If they aren't experienced in the video game industry, they at least have to be very experienced in some kind of technology platform. 

Even with 8 million dollars, Ouya was a miserable thing and it was because of the people developing it and working on it. All the money in the world wouldn't have done anything for that group with that idea.

1 hour ago, Steven Pendleton said:

So it seems that the TurboGrafx-16 Mini and PC Engine CoreGrafx Mini have both been indefinitely delayed due to the virus. PC Engine Mini is safe provided you preordered on or before the 5th Japan time, but the turbo controllers might still be delayed. They really should have included those in the box, not the standard PC Engine controller that got phased out extremely quickly in favour of the turbo controllers...

 

I hope this doesn't affect Amico production too much. Everyone in electronics is going to be affected by it, and apparently some more than others, judging by this new development with the TG-16 Mini and CGX Mini. I hope it goes well for you guys, Tommy.

It does sound like this is hitting the entire gaming industry hard.

Nintendo is reporting having production problems with production of the Switch and expects shortages and delays, XBox and Playstation are also reportedly pushing back their new consoles due to production delays as well.

Hahaha, the hardcore gamers could be rioting in the streets by the end of the year over these shortages

8 minutes ago, Tavi said:

It does sound like this is hitting the entire gaming industry hard.

Nintendo is reporting having production problems with production of the Switch and expects shortages and delays, XBox and Playstation are also reportedly pushing back their new consoles due to production delays as well.

Hahaha, the hardcore gamers could be rioting in the streets by the end of the year over these shortages

Yeah, I posted somewhere, maybe even this thread, that there are already Switch hardware shortages here in Japan. It seems there are people scalping them on Amazon already:

https://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/offer-listing/B07WXL5YPW/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used

And yes, those are used, in case you can't read Japanese!

...or the URL, I guess.

12 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Yeah, I posted somewhere, maybe even this thread, that there are already Switch hardware shortages here in Japan. It seems there are people scalping them on Amazon already:

 

https://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/offer-listing/B07WXL5YPW/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used

 

And yes, those are used, in case you can't read Japanese!

 

...or the URL, I guess.

I like your new profile pic.  🙂

5 minutes ago, Atari_Master said:

I like your new profile pic.  🙂

So do I~

You'd be extremely surprised at how difficult it is to find a good quality PC Engine logo that doesn't have all sorts of artifacting and stuff. This one will do for now. I am still a Mega Driver, though, and yes, PC Engineer and Mega Driver are very much real terms that are used in Japanese to describe PC Engine and Mega Drive weirdos. Mega Driver is much more common, though, especially since PC engineer is kind of a real world job.

On 3/5/2020 at 1:52 PM, Tommy Tallarico said:

I agree.  And yeah... the idea would be that literally NOTHING would be the same.  The consoles would not be numbered and signed.  In fact... no real reason to even put a limited number on the VIP pre-orders (it's not like we're going to sell millions at this point!  Only doing something cool for the super early followers... which are mostly hardcore retro gamers).  Maybe FE folks have an issue with the fact that we would "limit" them (to 5200 or whatever).  If it was just an open-ended VIP pre-order... maybe the FE folks will still feel super special.

Thoughts?

 

 

 

I'm one of the buyter of the FE edition and I have no problem with a VIP edition.

In fact, as already stated by Tommy, this two versions are quite different, the only thing in common is the Vintage Woodgrand version of the console and this sounds right to me since this versione has never be stated as "limited" in any way.

21 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Yeah, I posted somewhere, maybe even this thread, that there are already Switch hardware shortages here in Japan. It seems there are people scalping them on Amazon already:

 

https://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/offer-listing/B07WXL5YPW/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used

 

And yes, those are used, in case you can't read Japanese!

 

...or the URL, I guess.

Went to my local big box retailer yesterday and zero Switches on shelf!

2 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Probably.  We can't just have people saying they want one without some kind of serious commitment.  Other companies can get away with doing that kind of stuff because they have BILLIONS in the bank on reserve.  We don't.

A company of our size will need to rely on serious purchase orders to ensure that the machines getting made will sell immediately.  By having someone put down a serious deposit... this pretty much ensures that they are serious about completing the order in the fall.  Retail is different... direct orders are different as well.  Out of 2600 Founders Edition about 10 folks have asked for their refund.  So it's a system that is working for us as the drop-off rate is very very minimal.  We can't overshoot projections... especially with the Coronavirus happening.  Things will be scarce and getting a really good idea of how many we MUST make will help us to better understand the amount we will need on launch.  I don't want to guess.

 

 

I know I am in 100 percent. I would have paid in full if the option was there. I have been really happy since the announcement of this console. I am sold on this system. In today's world, you don't see this kind of interaction between the owner of a company and his customer base. Customer service is all but non existent anymore.  

40 minutes ago, Tavi said:

Seeing this topic has veered temporarily into Atari Box territory, I will point out that this touches on a an excellent point of the large differences between Atari and Intellivision.

By my understanding, Intellivision has multiple investors and partners helping shoulder the expenses until production starts and the units hit the market. If manufacturing costs along the way go up, the final price of the console can still be adjusted to compensate. So while it is hard perhaps to nail down exact pricing for an Amico currently, I have no doubts it will be produced and available.

For Atari, the only money they have to work with is the Indiegogo backer money; 3 million. Every expenditure Atari has comes out of that, there is no additional funds available or going in. So every production delay means more of the backers money being spent on things other then the direct production of the units. Likewise increased costs such as material and labour also have to come out of this 3 million; again reducing the amount available to actually produce units.

After three delays, and number four to be announced at any time (No chance of Atari meeting their March 31st delivery date); if I were a backer I would be having serious concerns about how much money Atari has left at this point to actually produce the units to fulfill their Indiegogo obligations to their backers. Every delay or increase moves Atari that much closer to 'This is a difficult letter to write... Indiegogo means you were buying into a vision, not into a product...' territory where Atari just walks away.

So in my opinion, Intellivision is the much more secure company financially and the one more likely to actually produce an actual product.

Anyways, long-winded rant aside, any rough idea about when the reveal of the new Amico games will happen? I loved the Astrosmash and Night Stalker trailers (I still want to call them Astroblast and Dark Caverns; my 2600-ness showing though), and eagerly await to see what is coming up next!

You bet that the Bavarian government won't be supporting a project like this with more than half a million US dollars if there is the slightest doubt of reliability.

all this talk about high scores etc reminds me of a summer night in NJ way back in the real early 80's. Me and a couple friends rounded up the two best Donkey Kong players in the town and we told them what we wanted to do  and that we would give them the quarters to play and free slurpees. Once they agreed our plan was afoot.  The grand plan was based on the high scores only being able to give you three characters, I mean you can only do ASS so many times, it was old.  So we needed the entire high score top ten to send our message.  SO the plan began, we "accidentally" kicked out the plug and let the game reset.  We then let the two best players do their magic, we wanted the hi scores to be hi enough so they werent easily overtaken.  So for the next few hours they basically took turns and did their thing, They only messed up once which caused the only real delay to fix which was like an hour. So after 4 hours or so, Who can tell back then.. it was done.  On the Donkey Kong game at out favorite 7-11 in 8 high score slots read

HEY

ALL

YOU

MOT

HER

FUC

KER

S!!

it was glorious and it attracted a crowd to check it for about a week.  The nice Korean family that owned the 7-11 was oblivious to it all, but hey we brought them some extra customers.

Anyway.. it is a fun memory...man summers in the 80s as a care free teenager were glorious.