Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

47 minutes ago, Starpaddler said:

Ordered a hat, 2 shirts and a mug early on Sunday.  Got the hat Wednesday, and a message today something else is in shipment.     Total order was ~$100 bucks; getting a receipt from Intellivision in 2020, priceless. 

Ha I just ordered 2 mugs we drink alot of coffee.  And a khaki hat. 

9 hours ago, Relicgamer said:

The Amico is my 1st preordered system in my 30 years of gaming.  Whats that tell you? 

Tells me that ---

A) you preordered an Amico

B)  you've been gaming for 30 years

I'm good at this.  😉

6 hours ago, 1001lives said:

Sonic and Knuckles! The OG "DLC"... And best type IMO!

 

And it's even portable!

8 hours ago, NTV said:

This is another great feature of the Amico.  I am so sick and tired of trying to find apps for my phone that does what I want and that I can just buy outright.

Yes, but now all of this crap has sneaked in to home consoles as well, so if Amico stay true to not allowing any of that, it will be a “game changer” in the industry.

Hey folks I been out of the loop the past week. Just curious when there will be another round of Pre-orders?

12 hours ago, Alpha82 said:

I watched most of it and left a response I think Retro Advisory would be proud of lol 

sounds like one of the guys is sitting on a toilet talking from his bathroom 

7 minutes ago, level1online said:

Hey folks I been out of the loop the past week. Just curious when there will be another round of Pre-orders?

Right now.

I don't understand why some of you seem to be amazed that most Youtubers don't do any research...

Youtubers are not journalists.

Actually, they're called vloggers because they're doing the video equivalent of a blog, and the point of a blog is to write about one's opinion. I run a retrogaming web site where I try to do research about what I write and I run a blog to talk about anything I want to talk about. Almost no one reads my blog but I don't care. It's not even for my brother and my friends; when you spend too much time thinking about something, you just need to write (or make a video) about it. It's like a personal diary, or rather a session with a psychologist since you need to talk to someone else. It's mostly cathartic, even though in the case of vlogs, there's also a (bigger) quest for fame.

There are tons of vlogs about cinema as well, done by people who apparently believe movies have been invented in the 80s and claim they know what a good screenplay is for instance, even though most of them are confusing screenplay and plot anyway. And they release countless 30' videos about their reactions to 3' movie trailers. Why would I need to watch that since I can watch trailers myself? Why do people need to know the opinion of guys they don't really know to decide, not if they like a movie since they haven't watched it yet, but if they're excited about a movie? T_T

Now about haters and fanboyism, I've read a great analysis about it at the GAF forums more ten years ago. Buying a new gaming system (or a new car or whatever) is expensive, so people often have to make a choice. Those who can afford every system usually don't get involved in console wars. But when you have to choose one system, you necessarily need to confort your choice, and that's why you will constantly try to look for evidence proving your system is better, and the others are not. And it's difficult to do that without being sometimes a little dishonest. That's why we see some convoluted reasoning from each camp I think. That's why I would prefer we try to explain what's great about Amico rather than bashing the other systems for instance.

7 hours ago, Starpaddler said:

Ordered a hat, 2 shirts and a mug early on Sunday.  Got the hat Wednesday, and a message today something else is in shipment.     Total order was ~$100 bucks; getting a receipt from Intellivision in 2020, priceless. 

Good to know.  I placed an order about 2 1/2 weeks ago and I haven’t received a shipping e-mail yet.  I’ll reach out to customer service on the Intellivision website, Tommy has people for these situations!

Hey Tommy - I don’t believe I’ve seen Antarctic Adventure mentioned. I had that for the Colecovision back in the day. Fun game, simple, old school. Any chance of that being reimagined on the Amico?  It was developed by Konami in 1983...

14 hours ago, NTV said:

This is another great feature of the Amico.  I am so sick and tired of trying to find apps for my phone that does what I want and that I can just buy outright.

Yep my phone was become LESS valuable to me as nearly all apps/games have gone to subscription or tons of annoying ads. Even apps I have purchased (sometimes for large app prices) drop support for those versions and then release ones trying to suck money out of me each month. Even Amazon music where I *buy* $$$ music peppers me with wanting me to change to a subscription service - my response is I am looking for a straight MP3 player for my phone. The result - I depend on my phone for less and less for getting things done and even consuming some media. Makes me wonder if I should buy a top of the line phone next time since it is becoming more of a text, call & social media machine only. Their store app policies are literally driving me away from their products.

Happy Easter everyone!  A lot of you may already know this, but just in case you weren't aware...

Did you know at one point there was an Easter Bunny game prototype in development for the original Intellivision!

3 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Happy Easter everyone!  A lot of you may already know this, but just in case you weren't aware...

 

Did you know at one point there was an Easter Bunny game prototype in development for the original Intellivision!

 

Hmm.  That's interesting.  Thanks for sharing.  🙂

16 hours ago, Starpaddler said:

It has really come to bother me with the recent complaints on the cost of the system (not that it isn't important, it will be super important to the final numbers sold), but that it is being vocalized by people who spend 100's and 100's of dollars on SW (games) alone a year, not to mention the cost of their HW.  It's not the intended consumers who are complaining (most of them do not even know of the system yet), and I get elitists may not be interested, but then why do some of them spend so much time and energy on something in which they "have no interest"?  

 

Here is something that many people may not give much thought to - the cost to deliver a system includes two main types of costs; Recurring costs which includes things like the per unit internal component procurement, assembly, distribution and other costs that have a somewhat fixed cost per Amico produced.  While somewhat simplified, if that cost is $50/unit, the approximate recurring cost is $5,000 for 100, $2.5M for 50,000 units, and so on.  

 

The 2nd type of cost is NRE (at least that is what it is called in my industry, and is Non-Recurring Engineering).  This includes things like the payroll for the time it takes to design, test and iterate the system, payments made for market research, fabrication of the test articles, programming for milling, creation of tooling and other costs to complete the design and get set for fabrication.  On top of this there are also facility, utility, insurance, legal, marketing and other buisness related costs.

 

The difference between the two costs are that the recuring costs are tied to each unit fabricated, whereas the NRE gets "buttered" or spread across the entire run.  So if NRE is $10M, and you have a run of 1, then your total cost to produce one article is $10,000,050.  The more units produced, the lower the realized per unit NRE cost.  Don't want to speak for Tommy, and I am not in retail, but I assume they base the cost of the unit with a projected number of units that will be sold.  While oversimplified, once that number of units are sold and the NRE is fully recouped, the price could be dropped.  This is of course not done at say unit number 100M, but rather on a curve with ever changing projections.

 

My point to all this?  Consider how long IE has been designing the system and how much cost has gone into NRE.  All of that money invested needs to be recouped from a sales.  All that payback needs to be added to the recurring cost of fabrication.

 

Now throw in development cost for 6 games...  - At $249 for an Amico, 2 controllers and 6 games - sounds like a steal to me.

 

In short, if its too expensive for your interest level - don't buy it - just like every other purchasing decision you ever make; but please keep your bitch'in to yourself, because there are people that are genuinely excited for this, and $20 or $30 is not going to sway a large percentage of people's purchasing decision; at least not mine.

 

So great to get someone who knows about manufacturing in on this discussion! 

It would be wrong to think we just pick some random number out of the air to try and make as much money as possible.

And you're absolutely 100% spot on about the hardcore elitists.  These are folks who literally spend THOUSANDS of dollars a year on gaming.

16 hours ago, NTV said:

This is another great feature of the Amico.  I am so sick and tired of trying to find apps for my phone that does what I want and that I can just buy outright.

Yeah... it's yet another HUGE main factor that makes us different than mobile gaming in general.  It's a big fact that people seem to conveniently leave out when they say no one will buy Amico because you can get the same thing on mobile.
 

Market Research says the opposite.  People HATE microtransactions and ads/pop-ups.

16 hours ago, 1001lives said:

I personally would not mind DLC if it was additional levels and actual content. 

 

Think how Expansion Packs used to work in the golden days before they got dissolved into micro-transactions that feel like filler. Amico could even go as far as using the term "Expansion Pack" instead of calling it DLC. 

 

But yeah - none of this "You want your pong paddle to be purple? That'll be 13.99 for the Rainbow Colors Pack!"

Because of our pricing... my approach will be more like...

I'm just going to give another complete version of the game with the same engine!

For example... instead of charging someone 99 cents for another "mountain" for Skiing, I'd rather just make 10 more mountains, add a few more upgrades and just do Intellivision Skiing II.

12 hours ago, Saldo said:

Tommy,

 

How are the orders for merchandise being handled during the quarantine?  Are orders placed being processed and shipped?  If so what is the average time it is taking to ship items?

Great question!  It looks like they are about 1 week behind.  So an order placed today would probably ship in about a week from now (as opposed to 48 hours).

12 hours ago, Starpaddler said:

Ordered a hat, 2 shirts and a mug early on Sunday.  Got the hat Wednesday, and a message today something else is in shipment.     Total order was ~$100 bucks; getting a receipt from Intellivision in 2020, priceless. 

Yeah... the important thing to know about the merchandise is that it's "made to order".  If you just order t-shirts, you'll get them in one package.  But if you order a mug, the canvas, a hat... they may be shipped separately because they are made in different places.

8 hours ago, theswede said:

Yes, but now all of this crap has sneaked in to home consoles as well, so if Amico stay true to not allowing any of that, it will be a “game changer” in the industry.

Totally!!  It will NEVER change and people will love us for it. 

Always have TRUST & VALUE at the top of my list for our consumers. 

Money is NOT the most important thing to me.  If we accomplish TRUST & VALUE... then the money follows.

Too many people make MONEY the most important thing... which is why the industry is going down the path it is.

Looking forward to breaking the mold and shaking it up!

6 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

I don't understand why some of you seem to be amazed that most Youtubers don't do any research...

 

Youtubers are not journalists.

 

Actually, they're called vloggers because they're doing the video equivalent of a blog, and the point of a blog is to write about one's opinion. I run a retrogaming web site where I try to do research about what I write and I run a blog to talk about anything I want to talk about. Almost no one reads my blog but I don't care. It's not even for my brother and my friends; when you spend too much time thinking about something, you just need to write (or make a video) about it. It's like a personal diary, or rather a session with a psychologist since you need to talk to someone else. It's mostly cathartic, even though in the case of vlogs, there's also a (bigger) quest for fame.

 

There are tons of vlogs about cinema as well, done by people who apparently believe movies have been invented in the 80s and claim they know what a good screenplay is for instance, even though most of them are confusing screenplay and plot anyway. And they release countless 30' videos about their reactions to 3' movie trailers. Why would I need to watch that since I can watch trailers myself? Why do people need to know the opinion of guys they don't really know to decide, not if they like a movie since they haven't watched it yet, but if they're excited about a movie? T_T

 

Now about haters and fanboyism, I've read a great analysis about it at the GAF forums more ten years ago. Buying a new gaming system (or a new car or whatever) is expensive, so people often have to make a choice. Those who can afford every system usually don't get involved in console wars. But when you have to choose one system, you necessarily need to confort your choice, and that's why you will constantly try to look for evidence proving your system is better, and the others are not. And it's difficult to do that without being sometimes a little dishonest. That's why we see some convoluted reasoning from each camp I think. That's why I would prefer we try to explain what's great about Amico rather than bashing the other systems for instance.

Thanks roots.  Some good perspective. Thinking about this more with consideration to your words above, I feel my frustration (beyond having a system and concepts I believe in and am passionately behind being bashed for what I consider to be mostly incorrect and logic-less reasoning) stems more from the maturity level of the elitists and their lack of ability for self evaluation, growth and their “motivated” bias. Maybe I give their type of platform too much credit, but I do feel that when you are doing a self diary with little to no followers, you can pretty much state what you want, but with increased number of followers should also come increased responsibility. There is some great content out their, and then there are those who do not provide that but adamantly feel they are and suffer from enlarged egos because they actually have someone willing to listen. 

7 hours ago, level1online said:

Hey folks I been out of the loop the past week. Just curious when there will be another round of Pre-orders?

I'll be bringing back the VIP Pre-Order at a later date for sure.  With all the craziness that is going on in the world (and the hardship folks are facing)... I want to make sure that people who are interested and may be facing hard times right now will be able to pre-order the VIP at some point.  Will wait til the world gets back to normal.  We also have some VIP Pre-Order partnerships that will be launching soon.  But always the best for us if you can order direct from us.

Please make sure to sign up to our Mailing List at IntellivisionAmico.com and you'll be notified when we do it direct again.

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!

21 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Happy Easter everyone!  A lot of you may already know this, but just in case you weren't aware...

 

Did you know at one point there was an Easter Bunny game prototype in development for the original Intellivision!

 

Finish it and make it the final pack-in game!