Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

Has the Amico team said what extra controllers beyond the 2 pack ins will cost? Some of the games in the trailer showed what looked like at least 4 player games. 

2 hours ago, IntelliMission said:

Soccer is the most popular sport in the world and I'm sure the Amico will receive several soccer games.

 

By the way, if you love PES and the PS2, I believe the best soccer game ever released in any system is a PS2 Japanese exclusive called Winning Eleven 5 Final Evolution. It is an improved version of the first PES with much better gameplay. You should try it, it has the best tiki taka of any soccer game I have ever played... and trust me, I have played a lot. The game is in japanese, but there is an English translation patch here.

winning eleven 5 is the best soccer in the pes saga

6 hours ago, AtariLeaf said:

I hope the folks here werent making ad hominem attacks toward pat and ian. it does nothing to further the discussion and just makes the person saying it seem immature and their further input irrelevant.

Isn't calling someone immature, even indirectly, an ad hominem in itself?

You could have simply said that ad hominems are irrelevant or logical fallacies. You could have simply asked for the conversation to stay civil. But you didn't. You did make an ad hominem yourself by indirectly calling people immature.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not attacking you. I regularly use ad hominems myself when necessary (and yes, ad hominems are often necessary in dicussions). However, it doesn't change that your comment was kind of ironic.

6 hours ago, TIGHazard said:

I'm not sure a screen on the controller is a good idea. I work in a phone repair shop - You won't believe the amount of smartphones that come in, with the screen smashed, because the parents young child dropped it.

The reason those screens break easily is because manufacturers want to make them as thin as possible. Looking at the thickness of Amico's controller, I'd say they can be made quite sturdy. Besides, it looks like they are slightly recessed, so if the plastic is of good quality, they won't break that easily.

1 hour ago, Flojomojo said:

I think many older folks are disproportionately dazzled by the old brand names.

Never underestimate the willingness of people to imagine things in order to look knowledgeable. I agree very few people remember Intellivision, but that won't stop their imagination.

7 minutes ago, Papy said:

The reason those screens break easily is because manufacturers want to make them as thin as possible. Looking at the thickness of Amico's controller, I'd say they can be made quite sturdy. Besides, it looks like they are slightly recessed, so if the plastic is of good quality, they won't break that easily.

Then there’s the kids that throw their controllers, sometimes at the tv...

I'm a fan of the CUPodcast...haven't been on here in some time but used to come around and still lurk to keep up my Intellivision. I kind of thought their take was healthy skepticism, as the rest of the gaming world has had a lot of failed resurrected IP like the Coleco Chameleon and others. They actually said this one at least looks real and will be released, they were just questioning the market for it.

I would too, as an uncharacteristically young Intellivision fan (they quit making the original Intellivision console about a decade before I was born), I don't see the appeal at the price point they have this at. And for my dad who loved to play Intellivision when he was younger, he has no interest in newer games, and can already get a plug & play Intellivision mini with the stuff he does like.

I'm open to seeing the games they come out with though, actual gameplay footage. If they have true offline multiplayer and compelling games, or big name developers, I could get more excited. Family oriented mass-multiplayer would be nice to see again as well (though the image looks like it just has two controllers...is there an option to attach more? Maybe 6-8? that would be rather interesting). It'd also be nice to see the controllers in action, as just about everyone I've had play original Intellivision hates the controllers.

As it stands now, I see a company and its founder getting extremely defensive and actively engaging and insulting a couple of guys who aren't even that popular among a lot of people who follow the game industry. If they were truly confident in their product and truly believe these are just a couple of trolls who don't know what they're talking about, they would just keep promoting their product and let it stand on its own. As they say, don't feed the trolls. If your product is good, nobody pays attention to the trolls. Had they said nothing, Pat & Ian wouldn't have done two follow-ups and there wouldn't be a dozen alarm bells going off in my head.

8 minutes ago, zander21510 said:

If they have true offline multiplayer and compelling games, or big name developers, I could get more excited. Family oriented mass-multiplayer would be nice to see again as well (though the image looks like it just has two controllers...is there an option to attach more? Maybe 6-8? that would be rather interesting)

They have already confirmed that you will be able to connect up to 8 smartphones and use them as Amico controllers for free.

Just chiming in to say I had an Amico dream last night.  I went into the breakroom in my office, and there was an Amico (in my dream, it looked like an original Intellivision with updated controllers).  I was surprised we had a machine so early, but I tried a bunch of stuff, and noticed a few titles like updates of Dracula and AD&D Cloudy Mountain on the system.  I don't recall exactly what I played, but it was pretty cool.

1 minute ago, BydoEmpire said:

Just chiming in to say I had an Amico dream last night.  I went into the breakroom in my office, and there was an Amico (in my dream, it looked like an original Intellivision with updated controllers).  I was surprised we had a machine so early, but I tried a bunch of stuff, and noticed a few titles like updates of Dracula and AD&D Cloudy Mountain on the system.  I don't recall exactly what I played, but it was pretty cool.

I hope your dream comes true!  Would love updates on those 2 great games you mentioned too.

It's just a theory of mine, but I'm just arrogant and delusional enough to share it. 

There are times when having a celebrity CEO as the face of a company can be a double edge sword. When a big personality becomes the face of a company, his/her image becomes indistinguishable from the products. 

Currently Elon Musk can be seen mostly as a nerdy engineer & sometimes visionary, but there have been times he sticks his foot in his mouth and being so attached to Tesla & SpaceX, he kind of damages the 2 companies images for a time because of it.

Then there's Steve Jobs. Without him, I'm sure Apple would not be the juggernaut it currently is, but it also wouldn't be a polarizing company either. His reputation as an impatient task master and volatile hothead, not to mention a brilliant marketer, has made Apple an adore with worship/hate with a thousand suns love/hatefest of a company. His legacy lives on long after his death. People either buy Apple (Sometimes exclusively), or they will never touch anything they make.

Even the most famous head of corporate image, Walt Disney, belies what the company actually was before his death in 1966. Despite the historical revisionism & rehabilitation of his sometimes dark sides by the current Disney Empire, Historically Walt Disney Studios was always a struggling studio, and often teetered on the verge of bankruptcy until it was taken over by Eisner & Katzenberg in the late 80s. Disney's ambitions were truly visionary, but he also dabbled in red baiting, blacklisting, working with McCarthy and Hoover's FBI to turn in "communists", and was a notorious strike breaker and paid his animators sub par wages. 

Right now, Tommy Tallarico is the face of The Amico, which means its image & possible success is synonymous with him and his salesmanship. This little dustup with a couple of YouTubers is nothing much, but it'd be wise to keep the engagement with negative people to a minimum. I can recall Xbox being on top of the world, until YouTube and Reddit decided that Xbox One was going to be the end of video games forever, and the virulent backlash probably costed Microsoft half of the sales the console deserved, putting the fallacy of "No such thing as bad publicity" into the not so true axiom it really is.

1 hour ago, IntelliMission said:

 

They have already confirmed that you will be able to connect up to 8 smartphones and use them as Amico controllers for free.

That's up to eight amico controllers or smartphones.

3 hours ago, Moofyspacejump said:

Has the Amico team said what extra controllers beyond the 2 pack ins will cost? Some of the games in the trailer showed what looked like at least 4 player games. 

I heard about US$30.

Hey, guys, If you want to support an author (professional for more than two decades) and YouTuber (new, but growing fast) who is fully behind the Intellivision Amico and Tommy Tallarico, check out my books here:

https://www.amazon.com/Brett-Weiss/e/B001JS0BCO/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1

And my Retrogaming YouTube channel here:

2 hours ago, zander21510 said:

...

 

As it stands now, I see a company and its founder getting extremely defensive and actively engaging and insulting a couple of guys who aren't even that popular among a lot of people who follow the game industry. If they were truly confident in their product and truly believe these are just a couple of trolls who don't know what they're talking about, they would just keep promoting their product and let it stand on its own. As they say, don't feed the trolls. If your product is good, nobody pays attention to the trolls. Had they said nothing, Pat & Ian wouldn't have done two follow-ups and there wouldn't be a dozen alarm bells going off in my head.

I'll have to disagree that the company is getting "extremely defensive".  Some Amico fans are doing that but not the company.  Instead, the company has made multiple attempts to reach out to Pat and Ian, which is not the behavior of an extremely defensive company.  Pat and Ian have rebuffed these attempts.

The big problem is that Pat and Ian have made a large number of untrue statements across multiple videos.  It's fine if they are skeptical and think it will fail since those are opinions.  It's fine to state facts and extrapolate from them to say they see potential failure.  However, when it comes to stating hard facts to begin with, Pat and Ian have a documented poor track record.  This isn't limited to just the Amico but also with most pre-NES consoles.  This has been an ongoing problem with them.

Further, when they get called out on it, they have demonstrated that they'd rather dig in their heels versus make corrections through research or talking to any of several knowledgable people.  They are capable of interviewing people and then choosing to post only portions of the material if they think it becomes too much of a sales pitch.  They could post an entire interview and then have commentary at the end that refutes and rips it to shreds.  They could interview but then throw it away and not even mention it, if they so choose.  Instead, they have chosen to not talk to people to begin with.

The big question to ask is why are Pat and Ian behaving this way.

It's because they have opinions. I watched that "apology video" and while I felt stupid for doing it, they seem justified in their opinions to me. There's nothing particularly compelling on the Amico website, and if someone has to check the footnotes or follow Tommy around like a groupie to get "the real story," that's a failure to communicate. 

When they said, "Have fun paying $200 to play an updated Shark Shark," that sounded like fair and reasonable criticism to me. 

I like Tommy and wish him the all the best, but everyone knows this device is coming into a crowded field. I have to assume that the people who are rah-rah'ing so very hard for this have no inside information, since the thing is a full year away from launch. Yet they're leaping to defend it from ...what? Dorks with opinions about video games? If you new members with Intellivision-derived names are going to try and play whack-a-mole with everyone who says a disparaging thing about your favorite unreleased system, you're gonna have a bad time. 

As someone who is inclined to like the Intellivision games in general and TT in particular, and no particular loyalty to Pat and Ian, I have to agree with Pat and Ian. This is ... not compelling. 

Quote

REDEFINING ENTERTAINMENT WITH FAMILY & FRIENDS!

UNITED... ONCE AGAIN

COMING 10.10 2020

 

 

SIMPLE

- Easy Touchscreen, Disc & Motion Controls

- Effortless Menu Screen System

- Games Focused on All Skill Levels

- Karma™ Gaming Engine

- Interactive Lighting Guidance System

 

AFFORDABLE

- Under $200

- Games $2.99 - $9.99

- 2 Pack-In Controllers

- 5 Pack-In Games

- No DLC, In-App Purchases, Loot Boxes or Ads!

 

FAMILY

- All Games Rated E for Everyone or E10+

- Encourages Co-Op Participation

- Games EVERYONE Can Play

- No Violence, Bad Language

- Positive Reinforcement Parental Controls

 

ENTERTAINMENT

- Diverse and Unique Game Library

- Curated Quality Controlled Games

- Connect up to 8 Mobile Devices With Free App

- Top Notch Developers

- Biggest Licensed Intellectual Properties

 

 

GAME LIBRARY FOR EVERYONE!

Motion Controlled Recreational Sports
Party Games
Award Winning Board Games
Puzzle & Word Games
Professional Sports
Beloved Card Games
Action Arcade
Original Properties
Retro Reimagined
Educational/Kids
Health, Brain, Weight & Activity
Multiplayer Interactive Story Adventures

 

AVAILABLE COLORS

I listen to the CUPodcast every week. I like the show, but I'll be the first to acknowledge that Pat (especially) can play fast and loose with facts, and it's infuriating when they begin a topic in which he's clearly done zero research for. It's like, these topics weren't handed to you- YOU CHOSE THEM! Put a little effort into your job! I don't recall the exact scenario, but I was about done with the podcast a year or so ago when they were discussing something about Saturn and got just about every bullet point wrong. 

That said, I agree with Pat that there's little reason to have Tommy Tallarico on the show to "debate." It's free advertising for a concept they're wary of, and what could Mr. T possibly say that he hasn't said elsewhere? It'd be a bunch of PR speak and "wait till E3" because that's all it can be at this point. Just in this thread alone there's been "we won't talk of specs" (understandable, I guess), "we can't show much of the games" (ok), etc. There's no benefit for Pat to give the Amico a platform. I certainly wouldn't care to listen to it- unless some deal was made where 80% of the interview was talking old games and soundtracks and then some Amico at the end. 

The one thing that is driving me absolutely batshit is Pat's constant "IT'S GOING TO BE OVER $200 WITH SHIPPING/TAXES/EXTRA CONTROLLERS." That's just silly. But whether the console is $300, $200, or even $100- it's going to be a tough sell. I don't think it blasphemous to argue that. Like Shawn stated, the number of people that care about Intellivision as a brand is so small it may as well be a rounding error, and there are already a ton of consoles/hybrid machines out there that may not be completely devoted to the casual/S.A.F.E market- but have some stuff that fit in that category and are already in people's homes. I don't wish to see the Amico fail or anything, but I definitely agree it's going to be an uphill battle. 

And I bought a Hyperscan very close to launch.  

Well, I've finally caught-up on 60 pages of the Amico thread...it's quite a ride.  Just chiming in my two cents. I am a life-long gamer ever since I found an Intellivision under the Christmas tree when I was 5 or 6.  That led to a succession of consoles and ultimately a (so far) 20-year career in the video game industry. 

I have two kids, 10 and 7 and about 1.5 years ago I decided to start a weekly "Family Game Night".  I thought I might buy a Switch for this, but it would be $1000 for console games, controllers.  I only needed to buy 1 more PS4 controller to have 4, so we went that way.  There are some 4-player couch co-op games on PS4, but there aren't a ton.  We did Overcooked (fun but we almost killed each other that first night) and Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime (fun until my son decides it's more fun to sabotage the ship).  I then hauled out the Wii-U so we could try some of the Wii library.  The kids loved Wii Sports (for my kids, family game night requires a round of bowling) and Wii Play Motion.  We've had some fun with some of the crappy mini-game compilations (Hasbro Family Game Night, Carnival Games) and have started New Super Mario Bros. Wii.  I'm looking forward to Super Mario Kart and maybe Super Smash Bros.  Spent some time this weekend setting up my Xbox 360 for Rock Band since my son is taking drum lessons and I see them both playing a rhythm game on their iPads.

With that said, we have had challenges.  We have a variety of skill levels when it comes to these games and it can be tough to find games where we can all have fun.  So I'm excited for Amico.  I like the idea of more choices, more variety and a lower cost to get everyone playing.  Even cooler is the idea that friends (or, gasp, grandparents) can come by and join in the fun without having to study engineering diagrams of the controller layout.  Once, long ago, I was a tester on some popular sports games and now I don't play the latest versions because I can't be bothered to learn the controls.  It's a far cry from me and my dad playing NBA Basketball and PGA Golf on our Intellivision back in 1983.  Wouldn't it be great if my son and I could play a competitive sports game on a modern console....

Looking forward to 10-10-2020!

We'll see if I come to regret this. I wasn't even sure if I wanted to say anything, but it seems there are some people here who are letting their enthusiasm for the Amico override their better instincts. 

All I really want to say about this is that it's not really up to Pat and Ian to clear up misconceptions (unless they are out there putting out purposeful mistruths, which I don't think is the case here; they merely got a couple of details WRONG, and there is a difference) about the Amico; it's up to the Amico team and Tommy to clear up misconceptions based on whatever information they've put out there.  There's not a great deal of info thus far, beyond what Flojo pointed out, which largely seemed to be what Pat and Ian were working from. They are not obligated to dig the Amico, nor are they obligated to interview Tommy (or anybody). They're not obligated to "debate" anyone. They aren't serious game journalists with accreditation rewriting press releases for posterity; they're two gaming enthusiasts with a podcast. They've stated their concerns about the Amico. If those aren't your shared concerns, that's fine, but a few of you have to understand that NOT EVERYTHING IS AN ATTACK. Being unsure of something, or even critical of something is not intrinsically a bad thing. As for the Amico team's part, instead of getting into it with them (or anybody), the best revenge is living well. Shut down concerns and criticism by showing gameplay and explaining what steps are being taken to connect to the 6.8 billion non gamers out there. Show us why this needs to fit into our increasingly clogged up A/V setups. 

It's cool that Tommy comes here to interact and drum up interest for this thing, but that doesn't mean any of us should instantly take up the banner for all things Amico and attack the naysayers. A couple of you should perhaps think twice before getting so bent out of shape over criticism. 

4 hours ago, Papy said:

Isn't calling someone immature, even indirectly, an ad hominem in itself?

 

You could have simply said that ad hominems are irrelevant or logical fallacies. You could have simply asked for the conversation to stay civil. But you didn't. You did make an ad hominem yourself by indirectly calling people immature.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not attacking you. I regularly use ad hominems myself when necessary (and yes, ad hominems are often necessary in dicussions). However, it doesn't change that your comment was kind of ironic.

I personally differentiate between asking someone to not behave immaturely and calling someone stupid or similar name calling, but point taken.

1 hour ago, 8bitgamer said:

Hey, guys, If you want to support an author (professional for more than two decades) and YouTuber (new, but growing fast) who is fully behind the Intellivision Amico and Tommy Tallarico, check out my books here:

https://www.amazon.com/Brett-Weiss/e/B001JS0BCO/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1

 

And my Retrogaming YouTube channel here:

https://www.youtube.com/c/BrettWeissRetroGamer

 

Thanks and enjoy!

Subbed. Also a reimagined worm whomper on the amico would be great. If Tommy reads this thread, please make it happen 

6 minutes ago, AtariLeaf said:

Subbed. Also a reimagined worm whomper on the amico would be great. If Tommy reads this thread, please make it happen 

Thanks! Yeah, a new Worm Whomper would be epic!

I am more than happy to not feel like I have to hate on another scammy, crowdfunded, delusional, wannabe, business tycoon. These guys are approaching it from a seemingly legitimate business perspective so they are entitled to the benefit of the doubt and to let their delivered product speak for itself. That said, I'm not gonna be a fanboy for it either, but I'm happy to learn more as it develops. I think all this is getting so polarized already that it's bad for everybody involved. Atari deserves to get roasted for their incompetence and scumbaggery, but on the other hand, intellivision hasn't earned a fandom yet. I advise just watching it come together naturally. Noisy YouTube geeks just ain't worth anyone's anxiety either. That's all they really hope to generate anyway.

50 minutes ago, Flojomojo said:

When they said, "Have fun paying $200 to play an updated Shark Shark," that sounded like fair and reasonable criticism to me.

That's strange, because that is to me an obvious snide schoolyard taunt. But that's just me.

all i know is i usually buy the latest consoles basically to play the awesome sports games like MLB The Show and NBA 2K 

other than that i usually buy Arcade compilations and look in the online store for remakes of classic arcade games and that's it..sometimes

i will download a demo of a regular game that looks interesting but i'm usually bored to tears and i end up deleting it in 5 minutes

for instance last night i had a great time on my PS4 playing Galaga 88 and MS Pac Man lol 

the Amico is just what i've been looking for and it will sit right next to the PS5 and will probably get a lot more play