Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

1 hour ago, LePionnier said:

Hello Tommy. I enjoyed the discussion you had with Pete.
There were several interesting points raised, including two that I would like to look at in detail with you (The second subject will probably be later this week on another post).

 

Physical versions of several games available, and different versions exclusive to different stores ! 😀

From a collector's point of view, Amico will be amazing. Already it's hard enough alone just to narrow down which color we want for the console! Lol
Knowing roughly 30% of the games will have physical versions (in addition to digital), and those physical copies are low cost,
it's not unlikely that several collectors will try to obtain the majority of these physical games, and for some even, to try and collect them all!
My question focuses on this category of "completionist" collector who wants to own everything! 🙄 lol
But first of all, while I don't know the retail prices or profit figures that'll be earned,
I would like to use fictitious amounts as a theoretical, to better place us in the situation and play out the question.

 

(The following amounts are fictitious).

Moon Patrol will be reachable at the console's launch, available for digital download for $10. Intellivision Entertainment generates $2 profit for each digital game sold.
And good news for collectors, the physical version will also be available at a cost of $30.  
So for $20 more, the buyer will have in his possession a souvenir or object reminding him that he owns Moon Patrol.
It seems that on this additional $20 that collector spent, IE generates another $3 from the merchandise sale,
therefore IE earns a total $5 profit on each purchase of a game in physical format. Interesting for IE, and for the collector who
pays a lot less money than he would on collector's editions you see with other video game consoles !

 

Some brainstorming hypothetical physical objects available.

But the fun doesn't stop there! Because the collector is also choosing which retailer he'll visit to buy his physical game.
Depending on where he shops, he will not get the same physical souvenir for that copy of Moon Patrol!
Indeed, GameStop will offer a 6 inch plush lunar buggy, while at Toys R Us, the player will get a mini physical cartridge (decorative) stylized like the vintage 80s Intellivision cartridges,
along with a set of 20 cards depicting the landscapes played within the game, and the different enemies and bosses encountered (Rumor has it that some random cards were signed...)
At Costco you can pick up a lunar buggy statuette, resting on the parking pad at the lunar base we see at the start of the game. The lunar buggy will illuminate when in total darkness!
Meanwhile Amazon has opted for a sweater depicting the final battle between the lunar buggy and Puffy (the breakout star of Shark! Shark!)

 

Collectors tear their hair out of their heads at the daunting task !    QUESTIONS !

So this is great news for the many collectors, but it raises some interesting questions.
Would a person wishing to obtain the 4 collectibles have to pay $30 each time ?

 

Can these physical editions be available and purchased separately, without having the key code packed in to play them,  thus allowing collectors to be able to spend $20 to pick up that exclusive,
instead of $30 (presumably already owning a digital copy of the game, or a copy from one of the other store exclusives of that game)?  IE would still make $3 profit on each purchase !

 

If this is not possible, would there be any plan that should those 4 different Moon Patrol physical games be purchased to be used on the same console, the Amico virtual store could detect the excess game purchases ?  
" I see that you have 3 additional versions of Moon Patrol. You may exchange each additional game for credit and download a game from the following list."
This way, the player who spent $120 to have 4 physical versions of Moon Patrol, could choose 3 other games at $10 each as credit (He would probably choose games that will have no physical support).
Intellivision Entertainment doesn't lose any money at all, and on the contrary, it made a $3 profit on the physical medium, 4 times in our collector's scenario,
and the games that the collector "exchanged" via the virtual store they made their usual $ 2 in profits, as they do on each digital game sold.
And most importantly, the player does not spend an additional $30 unnecessarily because he wanted to collect everything he could for his favorite game! 😊

 

Perhaps the difficulty that I see looking down the road with this last proposal would be in sorting out the profit arrangements for transfers of a game from one developer
(the purchased physical game has that $10 digital game including the developer's profit margin) to another (another developer responsible for the digital game exchanged).
Example :  If Moon Patrol is produced by Tommy Tallarico, there would be $6 (3 games, each earning $2 in profit, exchanged for 3 other games) that would need to be withdrawn/transferred
to share it with Pete EBO, RetroAB and NolaGamer for the 3 other games produced !?

 

In short, I wonder what are the considerations, what would be possible for someone who would like to collect everything ?
In the worst case scenario, I could probably sell the digital version of the game for $5 to a friend (the $5 that I will receive pays for the gas in getting to his place, sooo... Lol).
However, a worse scenario could emerge. Depending on how to download the key code to obtain the game.  If it's a card like a golden ticket, I could get away with it.
But, if I have to bring my beautiful statuette over to his console or his controller to play, I'm afraid my friend will tell me:
 "What is that !?   It's really great !  Did you really only pay $20 more for it ?   I'll buy the physical version for myself ! "
And there's the conundrum.  I'm stuck with my 4 digital games, and I'm left to find someone else who won't want the physical prize themselves ! !  Lol

 

Thanks to RetroAdvisoryBoard for some quick editing help! 👍

 

Le Pionnier

Most of the physical media won't be $30.  Only super special limited edition ones.  I'm calling them the CMART CARTS.   

We'll have a complete list of ALL available physical media up on our website (and where they will be available).  Will be very helpful for the folks looking to complete everything.

40 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

The $100 deposit is completely 100% refundable at any time! So no pressure at all.

I bought more than I need, so some will be for friends.

I will wait all the news about Amico in the next months, and I will try to sell Amico to them.

I didn't want to take a chance that my friends really like Amico, and that it was already out of stock at launch !

So here is the question. Will you tell us until when it can be refundable, so if some friends don't want to buy it, I will cancel 1 or 2 Amico !

Thank you.

2 hours ago, GrudgeQ said:

At this point his ego has gotten tied up in this thing failing, really kind of sad. First the idea that Nintendo isn't the king of family friendly anymore probably isn't something he wants to admit. Next he thought this would be the return of the "glory days" of his channel when he went after the Chameleon. Finally I think he thought a "big time YouTuber" like him could sink the Amico just by trash talking it. This must be a huge blow to the three external things that he props himself up on.

Well, to be honest, I can identify with Ian. I had to go to a shrink for 6 years and learn meditation because I got so rage filled over the existence of the Bally Astrocade in the early 80s, that I was vandalizing cars. It was a dark time when they had the audacity to sell that... THING ... at Montgomery Ward only. 

Wait! That never happened. 😈

6 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Most of the physical media won't be $30.  Only super special limited edition ones. 

What about the just plain special editions, without the "Super"? $22.50? 

Blarneo's Math Fun should be a Super Atomic Special Edition for $45 and a toy gorilla. 😁

2 hours ago, GrudgeQ said:

At this point his ego has gotten tied up in this thing failing, really kind of sad. First the idea that Nintendo isn't the king of family friendly anymore probably isn't something he wants to admit. Next he thought this would be the return of the "glory days" of his channel when he went after the Chameleon. Finally I think he thought a "big time YouTuber" like him could sink the Amico just by trash talking it. This must be a huge blow to the three external things that he props himself up on.

Sorry for anyone not aware of the drama, ignore this post.  For anyone who is bothered by it/following it, some thoughts:

The amount of energy spent on a small consumer electronics good they have no interest in purchasing is.. an unfortunate waste of time.  I'm not interested in the daily tabloids of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle or Prince William and Kate or Princess So-and-So, so I just ignore it.  As they concern me, that there is a royal family.. I'm aware, I don't have much thought beyond the media attention I find inflated, it's an annoyance.  And that's the end of it.

Here you'd expect the two to be mostly indifferent.  Watch the review trailer, the big announcements, and proclaim, "I don't see the audience they think they can get with this.  I just don't see the market for it.  Maybe I like a couple things it's trying to do, but I don't think it's enough to sell this product, especially at the price they're pushing."  That is a perfectly reasonable take, and that was the bulk of their reaction in Spring of 2018 when they first reported on the Intellivision Amico.  The same stance later that fall at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo trailer.  They made a number of assumptions, I'd love to have argued some of those but they were making observations based on their perspective, all fair. 

Then Pat covered the Gamescon trailer this past August, where we first saw actual footage of Amico games. He was notably unrehearsed on the topic, and didn't do any research before addressing what he saw and why he didn't think the console would work.  Cue the negative feedback.. which the two should not be unaccustomed to, they've taken extreme positions and belittled fanbases, belittled groups in general dozens and dozens of times on their podcast, some amount of criticism should be expected.

Then the Twitter spat followed - first radio silence as Tommy and Amico supporters/followers directly tweeted Pat's account, requested an interview, a sit-down, an off-the-record, any sort of dialogue.  Total silence on Pat's end.  And some amount of disparaging comments here on this thread, a couple references from Tommy the two took umbrage with... and they used their next podcast together a couple weeks later to launch an all-out attack.  No fewer jabs here than the number of disparaging tweets and their own viewer's YouTube comments Pat liked and responded to.  There's an echo chamber there, and a fair amount of joy in derision.  Not exactly a one-way street.  Ever since, it's been dozens and dozens of underhand references and subtle jabs in every other podcast.  And more likes from Pat when his audience joins in the fray.  They didn't go unnoticed.  Just as Rich from ReviewTechUSA noted the year and a half of subtle, passive-aggressive remarks Pat has made, that mostly go over the listeners' head unless they're aware of the cold distance between Pat and Rich following Rich's call-out of Pat's remarks, unless they're aware that when Pat and Ian make any inside-joke reference to "family, friends, family", cheap money-grabbing microconsole attempts at our nostalgic heartstrings, any attempt to say Nintendo isn't firmly meeting the needs of a family audience - they're adding underhanded swipes at Intellivision. 

I won't presume to understand Pat's motivation.  He either reads this forum thread - completely open access - or certain posts are forwarded to him by members of his audience.  He's read a couple, cherry-picked, that bring up a point he concurs with.  But if I were him, I'd step back.  Ask why I'm making snide comments like "enjoy playing your Shark! Shark!", "We'll see, maybe it sells.. 5,000" (The DigiBLAST sold over 100,000.  The Game Wave sold something like 70,000 units.. relatively unknown consoles - are you unaware of the business and sales aspect of this, or excessively dismissive just to be trite?), why I'm snickering and egging Ian on as he rants how Amico's games "look like absolute dog shit!", then two weeks later gleefully motivated to cover the "51 Worldwide Games" on Switch.. especially since it included a 1 second inclusion of a pool table - and you spent how much attention tearing Intellivision a new one because... they included a 1 second screen grab of a pool table?  The irony isn't lost.  At some point in this, the benefit of the doubt that he's pretending to cover the Intellivision console objectively is lost.  Just as the "our good friend Tommy Tallarico" wears phoney when you proceed to insult the guy, just like Ian did saying, "our good friend Rich at ReviewTechUSA" before disparaging him in every way he knew how, as the pair do when they disparage Ninja, or Pewdiepie, or any number of easy targets they'll never confront or engage with in any meaningful way.  The slings come hard and fast and the duo seem comfortable lobbing them and affronted when a swing back is ever taken.

But I would step away from the personalized, emotional entanglement here.  When Intellivision makes a major announcement, cover it.  There's been a four month period where any news drip from Intellivision has been covered and hyper-scrutinized.  There's a lot of video game news out there that may interest the two more.  Maybe it is of interest, but in that case, do better research.  Reach out, behind the scenes, to people you engage with.  Some of Pat's audience support Amico - maybe ask them to write why, what points they think he's not getting right, not seeing.  Let them bring the research to you.  

At the end of the day, it's a video game console.  It's trying to add a hundred, two hundred, four hundred new games to the world you wouldn't have.  Yes, Evel Knievel and Emoji Charades exist as free-to-play mobile games, with ads every few minutes, with microtransactions to ding you for more game a couple bucks at a time - these are being rehauled and re-imagined, just like Asteroids and Shark! Shark! are existing games being rehauled and re-imagined.  But, new games.  Lots of new games.  If you are at all as interested in video game preservation, as you purport to be, covering every odd little unreleased ROM that makes the news, why is this concept of hundreds of unique games something you're so dead-set against????  It needn't be Intellivision, it can be Pillsbury or Crazy Steve's Fireworks Superstore Extravaganza putting out the console - the brand has all of 5% relevance here to its intended audience.. the point is, new, unique games.  Even if this didn't sell more than two units upon launch, it's a new video game system out in the world, trying to do new things, with all those new games for people to play if they're into it.  It's a win for the video game community.  I just don't get the disparaging stance.   

11 minutes ago, RetroAdvisoryBoard said:

 

Sorry for anyone not aware of the drama, ignore this post.  For anyone who is bothered by it/following it, some thoughts:

 

 

 

The amount of energy spent on a small consumer electronics good they have no interest in purchasing is.. an unfortunate waste of time.  I'm not interested in the daily tabloids of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle or Prince William and Kate or Princess So-and-So, so I just ignore it.  As they concern me, that there is a royal family.. I'm aware, I don't have much thought beyond the media attention I find inflated, it's an annoyance.  And that's the end of it.

 

Here you'd expect the two to be mostly indifferent.  Watch the review trailer, the big announcements, and proclaim, "I don't see the audience they think they can get with this.  I just don't see the market for it.  Maybe I like a couple things it's trying to do, but I don't think it's enough to sell this product, especially at the price they're pushing."  That is a perfectly reasonable take, and that was the bulk of their reaction in Spring of 2018 when they first reported on the Intellivision Amico.  The same stance later that fall at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo trailer.  They made a number of assumptions, I'd love to have argued some of those but they were making observations based on their perspective, all fair. 

 

Then Pat covered the Gamescon trailer this past August, where we first saw actual footage of Amico games. He was notably unrehearsed on the topic, and didn't do any research before addressing what he saw and why he didn't think the console would work.  Cue the negative feedback.. which the two should not be unaccustomed to, they've taken extreme positions and belittled fanbases, belittled groups in general dozens and dozens of times on their podcast, some amount of criticism should be expected.

 

Then the Twitter spat followed - first radio silence as Tommy and Amico supporters/followers directly tweeted Pat's account, requested an interview, a sit-down, an off-the-record, any sort of dialogue.  Total silence on Pat's end.  And some amount of disparaging comments here on this thread, a couple references from Tommy the two took umbrage with... and they used their next podcast together a couple weeks later to launch an all-out attack.  No fewer than the number of disparaging tweets and their own viewer's YouTube comments Pat liked and responded to.  There's an echo chamber there, and a fair amount of joy in derision.  Not exactly a one-way street.  Ever since, it's been dozens and dozens of underhand references and subtle jabs in every other podcast.  And more likes from Pat when his audience joins in the fray.  They didn't go unnoticed.  Just as Rich from ReviewTechUSA noted the year and a half of subtle, passive-aggressive remarks Pat has made, that mostly go over the listeners' head unless they're aware of the cold distance between Pat and Rich following Rich's call-out of Pat's remarks, unless they're aware that when Pat and Ian make any inside-joke reference to "family, friends, family", cheap money-grabbing microconsole attempts at our nostalgic heartstrings, any attempt to say Nintendo isn't firmly meeting the needs of a family audience - they're adding underhanded swipes at Intellivision. 

 

I won't presume to understand Pat's motivation.  He either reads this forum thread - completely open access - or certain posts are forwarded to him by members of his audience.  He's read a couple, cherry-picked, that bring up a point he concurs with.  But if I were him, I'd step back.  Ask why I'm making snide comments like "enjoy playing your Shark! Shark!", "We'll see, maybe it sells.. 5,000" (The DigiBLAST sold over 100,000.  The Game Wave sold something like 70,000 units.. relatively unknown consoles - are you unaware of the business and sales aspect of this, or excessively dismissive just to be trite?), why I'm snickering and egging Ian on as he rants how Amico's games "look like absolute dog shit!", then two weeks later gleefully motivated to cover the "51 Worldwide Games" on Switch.. especially since it included a 1 second inclusion of a pool table - and you spent how much attention tearing Intellivision a new one because... they included a 1 second screen grab of a pool table?  The irony isn't lost.  At some point in this, the benefit of the doubt that he's pretending to cover the Intellivision console objectively is lost.  Just as the "our good friend Tommy Tallarico" wears phoney when you proceed to insult the guy, just like Ian did saying, "our good friend Rich at ReviewTechUSA" before disparaging him in every way he knew how, as the pair do when they disparage Ninja, or Pewdiepie, or any number of easy targets they'll never confront or engage with in any meaningful way.  The slings come hard and fast and the duo seem comfortable lobbing them and affronted when a swing back is ever taken.

 

But I would step away from the personalized, emotional entanglement here.  When Intellivision makes a major announcement, cover it.  There's been a four month period where any news drip from Intellivision has been covered and hyper-scrutinized.  There's a lot of video game news out there that may interest the two more.  Maybe it is of interest, but in that case, do better research.  Reach out, behind the scenes, to people you engage with.  Some of Pat's audience support Amico - maybe ask them to write why, what points they think he's not getting right, not seeing.  Let them bring the research to you.  

 

At the end of the day, it's a video game console.  It's trying to add a hundred, two hundred, four hundred new games to the world you wouldn't have.  Yes, Evel Knievel and Emoji Charades exist as free-to-play mobile games, with ads every few minutes, with microtransactions to ding you for more game a couple bucks at a time - these are being rehauled and re-imagined, just like Asteroids and Shark! Shark! are existing games being rehauled and re-imagined.  But, new games.  Lots of new games.  If you are at all as interested in video game preservation, as you purport to be, covering every odd little unreleased ROM that makes the news, why is this concept of hundreds of unique games something you're so dead-set against????  It needn't be Intellivision, it can be Pillsbury or Crazy Steve's Fireworks Superstore Extravaganza putting out the console - the brand has all of 5% relevance here to its intended audience.. the point is, new, unique games.  Even if this didn't sell more than two units upon launch, it's a new video game system out in the world, trying to do new things, with all those new games for people to play if they're into it.  It's a win for the video game community.  I just don't get the disparaging stance.   

 

 

Awesome post. Great perspective. 

16 minutes ago, RetroAdvisoryBoard said:

 

Sorry for anyone not aware of the drama, ignore this post.  For anyone who is bothered by it/following it, some thoughts:

 

 

 

The amount of energy spent on a small consumer electronics good they have no interest in purchasing is.. an unfortunate waste of time.  I'm not interested in the daily tabloids of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle or Prince William and Kate or Princess So-and-So, so I just ignore it.  As they concern me, that there is a royal family.. I'm aware, I don't have much thought beyond the media attention I find inflated, it's an annoyance.  And that's the end of it.

 

Here you'd expect the two to be mostly indifferent.  Watch the review trailer, the big announcements, and proclaim, "I don't see the audience they think they can get with this.  I just don't see the market for it.  Maybe I like a couple things it's trying to do, but I don't think it's enough to sell this product, especially at the price they're pushing."  That is a perfectly reasonable take, and that was the bulk of their reaction in Spring of 2018 when they first reported on the Intellivision Amico.  The same stance later that fall at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo trailer.  They made a number of assumptions, I'd love to have argued some of those but they were making observations based on their perspective, all fair. 

 

Then Pat covered the Gamescon trailer this past August, where we first saw actual footage of Amico games. He was notably unrehearsed on the topic, and didn't do any research before addressing what he saw and why he didn't think the console would work.  Cue the negative feedback.. which the two should not be unaccustomed to, they've taken extreme positions and belittled fanbases, belittled groups in general dozens and dozens of times on their podcast, some amount of criticism should be expected.

 

Then the Twitter spat followed - first radio silence as Tommy and Amico supporters/followers directly tweeted Pat's account, requested an interview, a sit-down, an off-the-record, any sort of dialogue.  Total silence on Pat's end.  And some amount of disparaging comments here on this thread, a couple references from Tommy the two took umbrage with... and they used their next podcast together a couple weeks later to launch an all-out attack.  No fewer than the number of disparaging tweets and their own viewer's YouTube comments Pat liked and responded to.  There's an echo chamber there, and a fair amount of joy in derision.  Not exactly a one-way street.  Ever since, it's been dozens and dozens of underhand references and subtle jabs in every other podcast.  And more likes from Pat when his audience joins in the fray.  They didn't go unnoticed.  Just as Rich from ReviewTechUSA noted the year and a half of subtle, passive-aggressive remarks Pat has made, that mostly go over the listeners' head unless they're aware of the cold distance between Pat and Rich following Rich's call-out of Pat's remarks, unless they're aware that when Pat and Ian make any inside-joke reference to "family, friends, family", cheap money-grabbing microconsole attempts at our nostalgic heartstrings, any attempt to say Nintendo isn't firmly meeting the needs of a family audience - they're adding underhanded swipes at Intellivision. 

 

I won't presume to understand Pat's motivation.  He either reads this forum thread - completely open access - or certain posts are forwarded to him by members of his audience.  He's read a couple, cherry-picked, that bring up a point he concurs with.  But if I were him, I'd step back.  Ask why I'm making snide comments like "enjoy playing your Shark! Shark!", "We'll see, maybe it sells.. 5,000" (The DigiBLAST sold over 100,000.  The Game Wave sold something like 70,000 units.. relatively unknown consoles - are you unaware of the business and sales aspect of this, or excessively dismissive just to be trite?), why I'm snickering and egging Ian on as he rants how Amico's games "look like absolute dog shit!", then two weeks later gleefully motivated to cover the "51 Worldwide Games" on Switch.. especially since it included a 1 second inclusion of a pool table - and you spent how much attention tearing Intellivision a new one because... they included a 1 second screen grab of a pool table?  The irony isn't lost.  At some point in this, the benefit of the doubt that he's pretending to cover the Intellivision console objectively is lost.  Just as the "our good friend Tommy Tallarico" wears phoney when you proceed to insult the guy, just like Ian did saying, "our good friend Rich at ReviewTechUSA" before disparaging him in every way he knew how, as the pair do when they disparage Ninja, or Pewdiepie, or any number of easy targets they'll never confront or engage with in any meaningful way.  The slings come hard and fast and the duo seem comfortable lobbing them and affronted when a swing back is ever taken.

 

But I would step away from the personalized, emotional entanglement here.  When Intellivision makes a major announcement, cover it.  There's been a four month period where any news drip from Intellivision has been covered and hyper-scrutinized.  There's a lot of video game news out there that may interest the two more.  Maybe it is of interest, but in that case, do better research.  Reach out, behind the scenes, to people you engage with.  Some of Pat's audience support Amico - maybe ask them to write why, what points they think he's not getting right, not seeing.  Let them bring the research to you.  

 

At the end of the day, it's a video game console.  It's trying to add a hundred, two hundred, four hundred new games to the world you wouldn't have.  Yes, Evel Knievel and Emoji Charades exist as free-to-play mobile games, with ads every few minutes, with microtransactions to ding you for more game a couple bucks at a time - these are being rehauled and re-imagined, just like Asteroids and Shark! Shark! are existing games being rehauled and re-imagined.  But, new games.  Lots of new games.  If you are at all as interested in video game preservation, as you purport to be, covering every odd little unreleased ROM that makes the news, why is this concept of hundreds of unique games something you're so dead-set against????  It needn't be Intellivision, it can be Pillsbury or Crazy Steve's Fireworks Superstore Extravaganza putting out the console - the brand has all of 5% relevance here to its intended audience.. the point is, new, unique games.  Even if this didn't sell more than two units upon launch, it's a new video game system out in the world, trying to do new things, with all those new games for people to play if they're into it.  It's a win for the video game community.  I just don't get the disparaging stance.   

 

 

I love your posts man!  I learn so much!

TRON system ordered :)

2 minutes ago, themewsh said:

TRON system ordered

Aww Man! This isn't happening. He only thinks it's happening.

3 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

What a concept eh?  Putting a big lit up ON button that you can actually PUSH... right in the front and center of the console.

 

 

 

 

 

Will that sorcery work for turning it off, too?   

With current systems, I've always thought turning the thing on was as simple as pressing the button on the controller, but never really thought about powering on by pressing the button on the console since I figured I'd still have to press the controller button to turn it on before it can do anything.  Never occurred to me that it could have caused confusion.  Turning them off, though, seems to involve a wee bit of trickery.  Seems like you have to hold a button, navigate menus, and power down / suspend that way.   My PS4 likes to bitch at me if it's ever powered down any other way (or a power outage happens)   With the Amico, will it be as simple as pressing that button to power off old school style, or will the OS require a "proper shut down procedure" to avoid any data loss/corruption/other reason?

1 hour ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Heck yeah!  Just posted this on social...

 

WOW! WOW! WOW! Such an incredible opening VIP Pre-Sale yesterday for Amico! Thousands were sold and the numbers exceeded our expectations! Lot of folks asked if we could keep the limited pre-sale open til this Friday when most folks get paid. Considering the state of the world and economy right now we definitely want to extend to at least this Friday. Thanks again to everyone who helped to make the VIP pre-order launch so successful yesterday. If you know people with young kids or family & friends who miss playing together (no matter what your skill level) please share the Limited VIP Pre-Order link as this offer comes with a bunch of extra goodies and value that you won't see on any store shelf this Christmas. The $100 deposit is completely 100% refundable at any time! So no pressure at all.

 

Thanks Amicos!!

 

http://bit.ly/VIPAMICO

I was just going to ask how things are going. That's awesome to hear. 

Thousands of orders on top of the 2600 already sold for the FE - Great news man.

Keeping it open until Friday at Midnight EST/PST is definitely the way to go I think. Maybe even early Saturday morning. 

54 minutes ago, LePionnier said:

I bought more than I need, so some will be for friends.

I will wait all the news about Amico in the next months, and I will try to sell Amico to them.

I didn't want to take a chance that my friends really like Amico, and that it was already out of stock at launch !

 

So here is the question. Will you tell us until when it can be refundable, so if some friends don't want to buy it, I will cancel 1 or 2 Amico !

 

Thank you.

Yep.  Right before the product ships it will send you an email and calculate your shipping, taxes, etc.  If at that point you don't want it... you can just cancel the order.  If not... you'll be asked for the remaining amount.

51 minutes ago, Blarneo said:

What about the just plain special editions, without the "Super"? $22.50? 

 

Blarneo's Math Fun should be a Super Atomic Special Edition for $45 and a toy gorilla. 😁

We think we can get it anywhere from $14.99 - $22.50 but can't confirm anything at this point.  Average being around $19.99.

21 minutes ago, malrak said:

 

Will that sorcery work for turning it off, too?   

 

With current systems, I've always thought turning the thing on was as simple as pressing the button on the controller, but never really thought about powering on by pressing the button on the console since I figured I'd still have to press the controller button to turn it on before it can do anything.  Never occurred to me that it could have caused confusion.  Turning them off, though, seems to involve a wee bit of trickery.  Seems like you have to hold a button, navigate menus, and power down / suspend that way.   My PS4 likes to bitch at me if it's ever powered down any other way (or a power outage happens)   With the Amico, will it be as simple as pressing that button to power off old school style, or will the OS require a "proper shut down procedure" to avoid any data loss/corruption/other reason?

Push the button, console goes night night. 🙂

56 minutes ago, RetroAdvisoryBoard said:

 

Sorry for anyone not aware of the drama, ignore this post.  For anyone who is bothered by it/following it, some thoughts:

 

 

 

The amount of energy spent on a small consumer electronics good they have no interest in purchasing is.. an unfortunate waste of time.  I'm not interested in the daily tabloids of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle or Prince William and Kate or Princess So-and-So, so I just ignore it.  As they concern me, that there is a royal family.. I'm aware, I don't have much thought beyond the media attention I find inflated, it's an annoyance.  And that's the end of it.

 

Here you'd expect the two to be mostly indifferent.  Watch the review trailer, the big announcements, and proclaim, "I don't see the audience they think they can get with this.  I just don't see the market for it.  Maybe I like a couple things it's trying to do, but I don't think it's enough to sell this product, especially at the price they're pushing."  That is a perfectly reasonable take, and that was the bulk of their reaction in Spring of 2018 when they first reported on the Intellivision Amico.  The same stance later that fall at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo trailer.  They made a number of assumptions, I'd love to have argued some of those but they were making observations based on their perspective, all fair. 

 

Then Pat covered the Gamescon trailer this past August, where we first saw actual footage of Amico games. He was notably unrehearsed on the topic, and didn't do any research before addressing what he saw and why he didn't think the console would work.  Cue the negative feedback.. which the two should not be unaccustomed to, they've taken extreme positions and belittled fanbases, belittled groups in general dozens and dozens of times on their podcast, some amount of criticism should be expected.

 

Then the Twitter spat followed - first radio silence as Tommy and Amico supporters/followers directly tweeted Pat's account, requested an interview, a sit-down, an off-the-record, any sort of dialogue.  Total silence on Pat's end.  And some amount of disparaging comments here on this thread, a couple references from Tommy the two took umbrage with... and they used their next podcast together a couple weeks later to launch an all-out attack.  No fewer jabs here than the number of disparaging tweets and their own viewer's YouTube comments Pat liked and responded to.  There's an echo chamber there, and a fair amount of joy in derision.  Not exactly a one-way street.  Ever since, it's been dozens and dozens of underhand references and subtle jabs in every other podcast.  And more likes from Pat when his audience joins in the fray.  They didn't go unnoticed.  Just as Rich from ReviewTechUSA noted the year and a half of subtle, passive-aggressive remarks Pat has made, that mostly go over the listeners' head unless they're aware of the cold distance between Pat and Rich following Rich's call-out of Pat's remarks, unless they're aware that when Pat and Ian make any inside-joke reference to "family, friends, family", cheap money-grabbing microconsole attempts at our nostalgic heartstrings, any attempt to say Nintendo isn't firmly meeting the needs of a family audience - they're adding underhanded swipes at Intellivision. 

 

I won't presume to understand Pat's motivation.  He either reads this forum thread - completely open access - or certain posts are forwarded to him by members of his audience.  He's read a couple, cherry-picked, that bring up a point he concurs with.  But if I were him, I'd step back.  Ask why I'm making snide comments like "enjoy playing your Shark! Shark!", "We'll see, maybe it sells.. 5,000" (The DigiBLAST sold over 100,000.  The Game Wave sold something like 70,000 units.. relatively unknown consoles - are you unaware of the business and sales aspect of this, or excessively dismissive just to be trite?), why I'm snickering and egging Ian on as he rants how Amico's games "look like absolute dog shit!", then two weeks later gleefully motivated to cover the "51 Worldwide Games" on Switch.. especially since it included a 1 second inclusion of a pool table - and you spent how much attention tearing Intellivision a new one because... they included a 1 second screen grab of a pool table?  The irony isn't lost.  At some point in this, the benefit of the doubt that he's pretending to cover the Intellivision console objectively is lost.  Just as the "our good friend Tommy Tallarico" wears phoney when you proceed to insult the guy, just like Ian did saying, "our good friend Rich at ReviewTechUSA" before disparaging him in every way he knew how, as the pair do when they disparage Ninja, or Pewdiepie, or any number of easy targets they'll never confront or engage with in any meaningful way.  The slings come hard and fast and the duo seem comfortable lobbing them and affronted when a swing back is ever taken.

 

But I would step away from the personalized, emotional entanglement here.  When Intellivision makes a major announcement, cover it.  There's been a four month period where any news drip from Intellivision has been covered and hyper-scrutinized.  There's a lot of video game news out there that may interest the two more.  Maybe it is of interest, but in that case, do better research.  Reach out, behind the scenes, to people you engage with.  Some of Pat's audience support Amico - maybe ask them to write why, what points they think he's not getting right, not seeing.  Let them bring the research to you.  

 

At the end of the day, it's a video game console.  It's trying to add a hundred, two hundred, four hundred new games to the world you wouldn't have.  Yes, Evel Knievel and Emoji Charades exist as free-to-play mobile games, with ads every few minutes, with microtransactions to ding you for more game a couple bucks at a time - these are being rehauled and re-imagined, just like Asteroids and Shark! Shark! are existing games being rehauled and re-imagined.  But, new games.  Lots of new games.  If you are at all as interested in video game preservation, as you purport to be, covering every odd little unreleased ROM that makes the news, why is this concept of hundreds of unique games something you're so dead-set against????  It needn't be Intellivision, it can be Pillsbury or Crazy Steve's Fireworks Superstore Extravaganza putting out the console - the brand has all of 5% relevance here to its intended audience.. the point is, new, unique games.  Even if this didn't sell more than two units upon launch, it's a new video game system out in the world, trying to do new things, with all those new games for people to play if they're into it.  It's a win for the video game community.  I just don't get the disparaging stance.   

 

 

As always... well written, thought provoking post. 

To answer your very last sentence (in my opinion)... and I really don't mean this to be disparaging (because it's going to come across as that)... the reason they don't understand this and act the way they do, I think is very simple.

The are very immature.

And I really don't mean that as a burn... just stating my opinion.

Anyone can read your post and see how balanced and well thought out and MATURE it was. 

They are not.  Plain and simple. 

It would be like trying to convince a teenager to do something they don't want to.  They're not going to listen to reason no matter how much it makes sense to everyone who isn't a teenager.

Anyway... that's my quick take and opinion.

Great post... once again.

31 minutes ago, malrak said:

 

Will that sorcery work for turning it off, too?   

 

With current systems, I've always thought turning the thing on was as simple as pressing the button on the controller, but never really thought about powering on by pressing the button on the console since I figured I'd still have to press the controller button to turn it on before it can do anything.  Never occurred to me that it could have caused confusion.  Turning them off, though, seems to involve a wee bit of trickery.  Seems like you have to hold a button, navigate menus, and power down / suspend that way.   My PS4 likes to bitch at me if it's ever powered down any other way (or a power outage happens)   With the Amico, will it be as simple as pressing that button to power off old school style, or will the OS require a "proper shut down procedure" to avoid any data loss/corruption/other reason?

There will be both if you want.

18 minutes ago, 1001lives said:

I was just going to ask how things are going. That's awesome to hear. 

 

Thousands of orders on top of the 2600 already sold for the FE - Great news man.

 

Keeping it open until Friday at Midnight EST/PST is definitely the way to go I think. Maybe even early Saturday morning. 

If it's still selling well... we might even keep it open for another week.  Working on some cool partnerships right now to raise awareness.

RetroAdvisoryBoard brought up the best point I think that's been made. The Game Wave sold 70,000 units. A nearly unheard of family game console that was far more limited in scope and capability than the Amico.

I thin it's definitely telling of Pat's knowledge with that in mind - for Pat to make a prediction like "5,000 units" shows he's just completely and totally unaware of the gaming market outside of wherever he sits in his Nintendo area. 

4 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Hi!,

Sure!  We can look in to doing Intellivision patches.  As you mentioned... would be different than the Founders Edition patches as those are super special and only limited to 2,600.  But having a different one available in our merchandise store seems like a great idea.

 

Thanks!

 

Thanks Tommy!  I will definitely buy some if they become available.  I also think it might be cool to have high score patches to purchases for some of the more popular games.

36 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

As always... well written, thought provoking post. 

To answer your very last sentence (in my opinion)... and I really don't mean this to be disparaging (because it's going to come across as that)... the reason they don't understand this and act the way they do, I think is very simple.

 

The are very immature.

 

And I really don't mean that as a burn... just stating my opinion.

Anyone can read your post and see how balanced and well thought out and MATURE it was. 

They are not.  Plain and simple. 

 

It would be like trying to convince a teenager to do something they don't want to.  They're not going to listen to reason no matter how much it makes sense to everyone who isn't a teenager.

Anyway... that's my quick take and opinion.

 

Great post... once again.

 

 

 

Hey Tommy,

How about a puffy t-shirt that reads Hey Pat and Ian puff this with the number of Amicos pre ordered. 

1 hour ago, RxScram said:

Push the button, console goes night night. 🙂

One feature regarding turning the system off that I would really like is that while playing a game, and you push “pause” on the controller, the system would automatically make a “save state”, so you can push the “on/off” button on the console and when you turn it on next time it would go directly to the paused game save, and you can resume (save state is deleted) or go back to main menu. 

2 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

 

We'll have a complete list of ALL available physical media up on our website (and where they will be available).  Will be very helpful for the folks looking to complete everything.

will we have the option to purchase "all available physical media" directly from the website as well, or will such media be strictly reserved for certain retailers?

@Tommy Tallarico , I've got a quick question.  I stumbled upon the original Intellivision press release today and was reminded of this:

"The first 100,000 people to sign up on the website will get the exclusive opportunity to purchase a special and unique Limited Edition version of the console which will not be made available in stores."

Is this still happening, or has this morphed into the Founders Edition/VIP pre-orders?  Thanks.

39 minutes ago, sanguinesonata said:

 

will we have the option to purchase "all available physical media" directly from the website as well, or will such media be strictly reserved for certain retailers?

Certain retailers would have exclusives.  It's the nature of the retail beast unfortunately.

But... there's always Ebay for those who can't get them I suppose.

2 minutes ago, vongruetz said:

@Tommy Tallarico , I've got a quick question.  I stumbled upon the original Intellivision press release today and was reminded of this:

"The first 100,000 people to sign up on the website will get the exclusive opportunity to purchase a special and unique Limited Edition version of the console which will not be made available in stores."

 

Is this still happening, or has this morphed into the Founders Edition/VIP pre-orders?  Thanks.

Yeah... that was the Founders Edition.