Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

E3 is cancelled. I am interested to see what everyone, not just Intellivision, will do instead. Except for companies that I'm not interested in.

22 minutes ago, Tavi said:

It is one of the Intellivision games I have always wanted to try. Once I get this Tandyvision I purchased working I will see about finding myself a copy. Hopefully with inserts as they seem to be essential to being able to play the game.

Worst case scenario I can wait a year and a half for it to come out on the Amico. I am pretty sure Tommy has mentioned Intellivision has the rights to the entire Imagic library; so I would hope at some point it will be released as one of the 2021 retro title games on the system.

Quote from Tommy about Microsurgeon (October)

So Demon Attack and Microsurgeon could be ready for launch. One thing is sure, they are in production now !

Also, here what's the vision for Tommy about Microsurgeon. (also in October 2019)

COOL !

with twitch and You Tube there are opportunities. I suspect some you tube and twitch personalities are about to get a huge payday from some companies who want to use their channel and influence to reach a large audience.  E3 is a dinosaur from a bygone era, it may never recover from this because it will be shown to no longer be needed ( which it isnt) 

18 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

E3 is cancelled. I am interested to see what everyone, not just Intellivision, will do instead. Except for companies that I'm not interested in.

Being an Apple guy and enjoying the fun at past Macworld Expos... then Apple left and the show petered out.... and gone as the dodo... Apple found they could put on their own events and still have large excitement.  Every Apple store has small mini events too.

I bet @Tommy Tallarico and Intellivision could put on some event, online of course, to show off Amico.  Hopefully they are still able to build up excitement and still hit the 10/10/2020 date as much is riding on it.. even if it is a tad softer date now with all the craziness happening in the world.

Hoping for the best!

TJ

On 3/9/2020 at 2:29 PM, woobman said:

Hi Tommy,

 

If E3 gets cancelled you should set the booth up and have a tour anyway.  In your own, Tommy way, of course.  To make it a genuine experience, set some speakers up just beyond the outside the booth. Pump in loud crowd noises and music.  So much that you have to yell into the microphone to show off some of Earthwork Jim's new moves and levels. Don't forget to have spinning and blinking lights. That is a must.

 

I'm sure all the cool stuff you are going to give away at the booth is already produced, or at least, on it's way.  Put the items in the store and send the proceeds to a good charity. it would be our way of giving back.

Sorry everyone .. I didn't mean to get E3 cancelled with this post...  

One thing to remember in these times is

42 minutes ago, bigdaddygamestudio said:

with twitch and You Tube there are opportunities. I suspect some you tube and twitch personalities are about to get a huge payday from some companies who want to use their channel and influence to reach a large audience.  E3 is a dinosaur from a bygone era, it may never recover from this because it will be shown to no longer be needed ( which it isnt) 

It was a dinosaur, but it still had some value I think.

One of the things I enjoyed was watching the streams of those just walking around checking out the various announcements and exhibits. You would often see something interesting outside your usual gaming/console bubble that we all have.

Now, if everyone is doing their own thing this year, the Nintendo guys are only going to watch the Nintendo feeds and so forth. Which I also expect everyone will be releasing on their own schedule now. So there will be no general overviews or accidental exposure because you will have to now seek out the information on whatever platform/developer you have interest in.

I expect no E3 will not be a huge problem to the major players, but for the smaller guys and up and comers like the Amico they are all going to have to work extra-hard now to get themselves noticed.

2 hours ago, bigdaddygamestudio said:

...

 

anyway back to more fun stuff, Did any of you guys play microsurgeon back in the day?

Imagic cartridges for intellivision were hard to find where I was back in 1982/83. Imagic advertised Microsurgeon but it just wasn't showing up in the stores near me.  In 1983 all the new Intellivision cartridges were hard to find. Didn't get Microsurgeon until the 1990s, ebay probably.

1 hour ago, Tavi said:

...

Worst case scenario I can wait a year and a half for it to come out on the Amico. I am pretty sure Tommy has mentioned Intellivision has the rights to the entire Imagic library; so I would hope at some point it will be released as one of the 2021 retro title games on the system.

Are you talking about the original or remake.  You can play the original Microsurgeon today in emulation with a dual analog controller.

47 minutes ago, mr_me said:

Imagic cartridges for intellivision were hard to find where I was back in 1982/83. Imagic advertised Microsurgeon but it just wasn't showing up in the stores near me.  In 1983 all the new Intellivision cartridges were hard to find. Didn't get Microsurgeon until the 1990s, ebay probably.

 

Are you talking about the original or remake.  You can play the original Microsurgeon today in emulation with a dual analog controller.

I was thinking of the original, as Tommy had said after the Amico had established itself (and thus would not become mis-identified as just another retro console) original Intellivision games would be eventually released for the Amico; starting in 2021 I believe?

I had completely missed that they were working on a remake of Microsurgeon, but reading up on the linked posts it does sound like it could be quite fun as well!

8 hours ago, Tavi said:

Anyways, as this is supposed to be an Amico thread I should make mention again that no E3 will be a blow to the Amico. With Sony stepping aside, the Amico had a chance to steal the spotlight and get some serious word of mouth and free media promotion. It seems Intellivision might have to dip into their advertising budget a bit sooner then expected to replace the expected E3 coverage?

Just because Sony didn't show up, doesn't mean Tommy would have the main stage at his disposal. Or that the press would give him the same amount of space. It doesn't work like that, it's not a comedy club, the night regulars are away, new guy can grab a mic and shine.

There's a whole machinery of power and money that doesn't get undone so easily just because some of the big boys change their plans. 

It is a blow to people who wanted to try and use the console.

Perhaps if Amico's launch is done online, it will have a greater chance to make an impact. 

If they use Youtube or Twitch they can potentially reach millions of people, although at the same time, it will be obvious if they have a low audience, and they will be exposed to negative comments from the public. 

It doesn't matter, because in the end, it's not the E3 audience that Intellivision is after, but moms and grandparents, so even if Intellivision didn't do anything in June, the chances of making a good launch wouldn't be affected, provided the marketing is still going on.

55 minutes ago, Guy said:

Just because Sony didn't show up, doesn't mean Tommy would have the main stage at his disposal. Or that the press would give him the same amount of space. It doesn't work like that, it's not a comedy club, the night regulars are away, new guy can grab a mic and shine.

There's a whole machinery of power and money that doesn't get undone so easily just because some of the big boys change their plans. 

It is a blow to people who wanted to try and use the console.

Perhaps if Amico's launch is done online, it will have a greater chance to make an impact. 

If they use Youtube or Twitch they can potentially reach millions of people, although at the same time, it will be obvious if they have a low audience, and they will be exposed to negative comments from the public. 

It doesn't matter, because in the end, it's not the E3 audience that Intellivision is after, but moms and grandparents, so even if Intellivision didn't do anything in June, the chances of making a good launch wouldn't be affected, provided the marketing is still going on.

I think people (including me) were hoping the "only new console on the floor" story would get picked up by several outlets trying to find a story at E3. However you are right, E3 is also a massive wave of tech news and is easy to get buried at. Now Intellivision can time it's own launch, script everything out & make a slick presentation, send out/deliver test machines to media in a controlled manner, maybe giving exclusive previews of certain games to certain outlets (i.e. play the PR game) and generally control their own destiny. Hurts not having the big stage BUT you are also act number 47 of 113 on that stage too, so yeah E3 isn't the end all & be all for Intellivision.

On 3/1/2020 at 1:11 PM, Tommy Tallarico said:

You said you "HAD" high hopes for Amico and now you're depressed that you aren't going to get that??   I'm totally confused and need to understand where you got this idea from.  Please go into further detail so I can prove to you that your feelings about this are based on incorrect info or a misunderstanding of our goals and focus.

The main reason is that your view of the 20% retro games looks like you're OK with compartmentalizing people and making games targeted to specific groups.

Sorry, but I have to give a lot of explanation...

When I fist started to play board games with my family, I had only a few Eurogames and they were more or less similar. Everyone loved playing those games, so I bought more games and sought games that were different. I thought more originality would keep the fun.

Different games had different results. For example, when we first play Pandemic, it immediately became the favorite game of my sister, but my mother didn't like that game at all.

Personally, I use games as a way to socialize, so any game will do. That's why I don't mind playing Monopoly with my niece, even if I find the game really dumb (I'm the kind of guy who played ASL in college).

However, I'm an exception. When I added more board games to my collection, everyone wanted to play different games. So no matter what game we ended up playing, there was always someone who was not satisfied, who felt frustrated, who didn't have fun, and this clearly killed the mood.

The result is we barely play board games altogether anymore.

If with Amico you make games specifically tailored to different audiences, I'm guessing the same thing will happen. People will have their own kind of game they want to play on Amico and they will view other games are inferior. In my mind, if the goal is to unite people, it's not enough to have some games for everyone, it's also important that people do not view the games that are meant for everyone as less fun than other kind of games. Playing those family games should not feel like some kind of chore or an unwanted compromise.

-

I remember an interview when you said to a woman that she will play Moon Patrol with her mother and they both will have fun together during next Christmas. In my mind, I imagined those remakes would be like the game Overcooked, that is games that are built from the ground up to be multiplayer and with strong interactions between people.

After seeing the demos of Night Stalker and Astrosmash, it seems obvious to me this is not the case. Those remakes look like the originals, only with better graphics and more bells and whistles, and the multiplayer aspect of those games seems tacked on. I'm sure some retro gamers will love those games, but without a solid multiplayer experience, I don't see how a teenager, a soccer mom or an elderly could love playing those games for more than a few times.

At first, I was saying to myself the lack of a solid multiplayer experience was because those demos were alpha versions, but it looks to me anytime someone raises an objection to retro games, your answer is that it's OK because those remakes will be only 20% of the library.

That's what depresses me. It's this 20% justification. Instead of saying those games will focus on the multiplayer experience for everyone (instead of trying to be faithful to the original games), you seem to say that it's OK if they are not for everyone because they are only 20% of the library.

I know I won't play board games on Amico. I already have my own board games. So that's 20% gone. I know there's very little chance adults will want to play edutainment games. Another 20% gone. Motion controlled games are great as occasional party games, but apart from exceptions like Beat Saber, they are generally too light to be played regularly. Also, many women tend to not like serious sports games. So do I remove another 10%? Your 20% justification (and the demos of Night Stalker and Astrosmash that I saw) makes me think retro games won't interest many people. So another 20% gone.

It looks like the main tool for reuniting the whole family is mainly within the 20% original IP, but original IP doesn't say anything about the gameplay. How many of those original IP will be targeted at kids? How many targeted at elderly people? How many at women? How many at teenagers?

I talked about Overcooked. It's far from perfect, but it's still a game that was built from the ground up to be multiplayer. How many games like that will be on Amico? Because if the goal is to unite family and friends, I believe those games should be the majority.

On 3/6/2020 at 8:52 AM, Tommy Tallarico said:

This one is better!

I'm so gonna redo this at some point!  Maybe get Steven Tyler to sing it.

 

I've been telling people for years your related to the screaming demon!

It is true, correct?

On 3/9/2020 at 10:26 AM, Tommy Tallarico said:

Cumberland Farms!  Now that's some east coast shit right there!  Do they still exist???  Anyone here from the east coast remember Dairy Mart?  They were the big competitor of Cumberland Farms back in the day.

 

 

How about Store 24 on Boston Road? Across the street from a certain school. 😉

3 minutes ago, Zeptari1 said:

How about Store 24 on Boston Road? Across the street from a certain school. 😉

Speaking of Boston.  What was the name of the band who sings "We were just another band out of Boston..."

It's on the tip of my tongue but I can't seem to remember. 

Hmmmm

🤔

1 minute ago, Michael Garvey said:

Speaking of Boston.  What was the name of the band who sings "We were just another band out of Boston..."

It's on the tip of my tongue but I can't seem to remember. 

 

Hmmmm

 

🤔

Pretty sure that was Kansas!  😂

TJ

Just now, Michael Garvey said:

Speaking of Boston.  What was the name of the band who sings "We were just another band out of Boston..."

It's on the tip of my tongue but I can't seem to remember. 

 

Hmmmm

 

🤔

1 minute ago, Zeptari1 said:

Nope. Still not ringing a bell....what was that band name....

2 minutes ago, AtariSociety said:

Pretty sure that was Kansas!  😂

TJ

YES. That's it!!!!

1 minute ago, Michael Garvey said:

YES. That's it!!!!

Really? WOW! I gotta look this one up.

Now Who was the band that sung "Who Are You?" ?

I can't figure out Who sang that song.

Hmmmm

🤔

37 minutes ago, Michael Garvey said:

Now Who was the band that sung "Who Are You?" ?

 

I can't figure out Who sang that song.

 

Hmmmm

 

🤔

The What.

I think they were originally The Which, but there were too many misunderstandings.

1 hour ago, Michael Garvey said:

Now Who was the band that sung "Who Are You?" ?

 

I can't figure out Who sang that song.

 

Hmmmm

 

🤔

I almost want to Guess, but I think I am getting them confused with someone else.

Man e3 canceling is a bummer, I always look forward to every e3, even tho sme have been underwhelming, this year is the year of new consoles. Feel like the hype is not going to be the same, oh well. Digital is our future 

Hey Tommy,

Without E3 to fly the Intellivision flag high...whats plan B look like? I know PS and Xbox like the idea of doing a pre-filmed show as it help them to "control the message"...is this something you'd consider or is there still a decent way to get it in people's hands?

Looking forward to your interview with ReviewTechUSA

Cheers!