Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

3 hours ago, IntelliMission said:

I wish the Amico had come up with this:

 

 

This has just been revealed by Nintendo and I believe can be defined as the ultimate video game controller.

 

This will change the history of video games forever and the only question at this point is what are the other companies going to do now.

I must quote my own message again: It looks like I have linked an unofficial channel and I suspect the video will not be there for much longer, so, in case you are reading this topic after a few days, you can find the video in the official Nintendo UK channel.

Some of the comments in the official channel are hilarious:
 

Quote

 

Fans: wow I guess Nintendo has become serious and has learned to stop releasing stupid peripherals for their consoles.

 

Nintendo: ｏｂｓｅｒｖｅ

 

Quote

nintendo we love and support you but are you ok

Quote

What on God’s green flat earth is this

23 minutes ago, Alpha82 said:

but Intellivision has said it n every interview that their will be physical media 

There’s the rub. Very few gamers, nes punk show hosts included, except Intellivision fans are going to sit through Intellivision videos or remember everything from them or where they heard an answer to a question. I’m saying a centralized location for this sort of information would be handy. 

I see so many small companies trying to do big business and end up with orphaned website syndrome. 

20 hours ago, Shawn said:

Are all the games shown in the video completed? Is the hardware and controller setup final? I'm gonna flat out say the controller looks like it's gonna miss the mark and I would like to know if there is a conventional controller available from launch. With 10 million going towards advertising alone, when can we expect to see more than a quick sizzle real?

I’m not sure about complete games I know they hope to have around 50 games completed for the system on launch.  Controller concerns are fair that’s why Intellivision is planning a mall/store tour for people to try the system and controllers before they go on sell.  I think the full marketing press from Intellivision is due to start Summer 2020

25 minutes ago, Swami said:

There’s the rub. Very few gamers, nes punk show hosts included, except Intellivision fans are going to sit through Intellivision videos or remember everything from them or where they heard an answer to a question. I’m saying a centralized location for this sort of information would be handy. 

 

I see so many small companies trying to do big business and end up with orphaned website syndrome. 

If I recall correctly Tommy mentioned a while back that they would be updating the website with more general information that it ended up the way it launched originally just due to time constraints though I am unsure when the website will relaunch in its new capacity 

1 hour ago, Alpha82 said:

It WILL have physical games pricing has not been officially announced but early estimates were around $30 a game and the type of physical media has not been announced as those are due out next year, but Intellivision has said it n every interview that their will be physical media 

Are you sure that's correct?  Everything I have seen indicates something along of the lines of having something physical available or some novel way of handling licensing such that server shutdowns won't be an issue, but nothing specifically confirming there would be physical media.  

I thought physical media was just a possible thing but not for sure and the physical media would be on a limited basis? To tell you the truth I didn't think Tommy was really serious about it but trying to make people happy by saying sure why not. I don't really get excited about physical media on a SD card but that's just me. Maybe other people enjoy it? I would be fine with the Amico being completely digital.

16 minutes ago, bojay1997 said:

Are you sure that's correct?  Everything I have seen indicates something along of the lines of having something physical available or some novel way of handling licensing such that server shutdowns won't be an issue, but nothing specifically confirming there would be physical media.  

Tommy's mentioned during most interviews that it would be something different, special and surprising with physical media, but he said we'd have to wait until they're ready to disclose exactly what that is. I think he also said that somewhere earlier in this thread. 

Sounds intriguing.

12 minutes ago, Blarneo said:

Tommy's mentioned during most interviews that it would be something different, special and surprising with physical media, but he said we'd have to wait until they're ready to disclose exactly what that is. I think he also said that somewhere earlier in this thread. 

 

Sounds intriguing.

I don't know why, but a QR code or barcode pasted on to an Intellivision trading card just popped into mind. Or a collectible Intellivision trading card (think today's credit cards) with an RFID chip in it. Wave over the system and voila! You're playing the game.   🤣

8 minutes ago, Blarneo said:

Tommy's mentioned during most interviews that it would be something different, special and surprising with physical media, but he said we'd have to wait until they're ready to disclose exactly what that is. I think he also said that somewhere earlier in this thread. 

 

Sounds intriguing.

It does, but I think it's a mistake to claim that the Amico will definitely have physical media.  I don't think it's physical media as current gamers and collectors would think about it from the few hints he has dropped.  

In @Tommy Tallarico's own words:

On 7/3/2019 at 7:35 PM, Tommy Tallarico said:

Hi Joey!,

 

YES!  I can confirm that we will have physical media!  I just can't comment on the "type" right now as we are still in the patent process.  Trust me... it's SUPER COOL!! 

Although we won't be putting a cartridge slot on the new machine (I could and would if it was super cheap... but it's actually quite expensive) but if a 3rd party person wants to do a cart slot as an "add-on" that hooks up USB... I think that would be super cool and we would totally support it if it passes our quality control, licensing, etc. 

But if you love carts... we have a nice surprise coming next year when we make some announcements. 

Sorry I can't tell you more at this time but hopefully the info I gave is better than nothing.

Thanks for your support!

 

I feel like the last few posts validate my point, but, like I said, AtGames frequently gives cryptic answers until a month or two before release of new models - some things we know three or four months ahead, most things we don't.

32 minutes ago, save2600 said:

I don't know why, but a QR code or barcode pasted on to an Intellivision trading card just popped into mind. Or a collectible Intellivision trading card (think today's credit cards) with an RFID chip in it. Wave over the system and voila! You're playing the game.   🤣

Or it could look like this with a QR code inside of it and a nice box to store it in.

On the topic of controllers, standard games need standard controllers. But these aren't standard games. 

I've been "converting" other people's games for 25 years now and the problem we kept encountering was no matter how perfect the emulation was, if the original game had a unique control then converting it to another platform with a standard controller always fell short. 

That's because these games were built around the non-standard controls. That's how they were designed to be played and it resulted in a unique experience that didn't translate outside the platform they were built for. Not being standard is part of what made them memorable. (Side note: that's why I'm super excited to have been able to do Star Wars for Arcade1Up. No other control would capture the feel of that game.)

As I understand it Amico falls into that category: they're building the games for these controllers. So they'll work with these controllers just fine, and perhaps even provide a game play experience that standard controllers would not, for that design. 

(p.s. I have nothing to do with Amico. I don't think they need our "particular set of skills" since there are no ports or emulations amongst their content AFAIK.)

1 hour ago, JeffVav said:

On the topic of controllers, standard games need standard controllers. But these aren't standard games. 

 

I've been "converting" other people's games for 25 years now and the problem we kept encountering was no matter how perfect the emulation was, if the original game had a unique control then converting it to another platform with a standard controller always fell short. 

 

That's because these games were built around the non-standard controls. That's how they were designed to be played and it resulted in a unique experience that didn't translate outside the platform they were built for. Not being standard is part of what made them memorable. (Side note: that's why I'm super excited to have been able to do Star Wars for Arcade1Up. No other control would capture the feel of that game.)

 

As I understand it Amico falls into that category: they're building the games for these controllers. So they'll work with these controllers just fine, and perhaps even provide a game play experience that standard controllers would not, for that design. 

 

(p.s. I have nothing to do with Amico. I don't think they need our "particular set of skills" since there are no ports or emulations amongst their content AFAIK.)

Very, very well said. 

3 hours ago, save2600 said:

I don't know why, but a QR code or barcode pasted on to an Intellivision trading card just popped into mind. Or a collectible Intellivision trading card (think today's credit cards) with an RFID chip in it. Wave over the system and voila! You're playing the game.   🤣

I wouldn't qualify that as physical media and, honestly, I would think of this as really lame.

What I think would be cool is a USB drive with the shape of something from the game. For example, I've seen several flash drive in the shape of a car or even in the shape of video game characters (like Mario or Angry Bird). I think it would be awesome if the physical media were 2" tall figurines that we could display near the console and plug in when we wanted to play the game.

Since controllers are charged by induction, my bet is on a similar system to 'download' games from cartridges.

I mentioned it at least twice already here and Tommy Tallarico never made any comment whereas he usually answers to everyone.

Any physical media that just has the product code or something like rfid that ends up downloading the program from the internet is not really physical media.  Rfid has very limited storage capacity, even flash memory would have issues with longevity.

They did say you could take your game library to a friend's amico through the controller but I expect the games will be downloaded.  If they have some new storage transfer technology than I expect it can't be discussed until lawyers say so.  He did say he can only speak about a small fraction of what they have going on.

Still I think very few people will care about physical media, but I think stores will like the idea.

I think QR codes are slowly becoming obsolete. I would be surprised if IE went that route.

11 hours ago, Papy said:

I wouldn't qualify that as physical media and, honestly, I would think of this as really lame.

 

What I think would be cool is a USB drive with the shape of something from the game. For example, I've seen several flash drive in the shape of a car or even in the shape of video game characters (like Mario or Angry Bird). I think it would be awesome if the physical media were 2" tall figurines that we could display near the console and plug in when we wanted to play the game.

The big worry with usb sticks or SD cards as physical media is the ability to keep the games from being pirated so I’m not sure they go that route we do know they will allow external heard drives to increase storage of the system but they can be controlled the same way that Dish does or used to do at least where once the drive was formatted for use with Dish it would not work with a pc until it was reformatted 

16 hours ago, bojay1997 said:

Are you sure that's correct?  Everything I have seen indicates something along of the lines of having something physical available or some novel way of handling licensing such that server shutdowns won't be an issue, but nothing specifically confirming there would be physical media.  

Once you download the game you own it and it’s not reliant on an internet connection to play the games you own just the hard drive of your machine or the external hard drive you connect to the system.  Originally with physical media they talked about SD cards in a DS size case but piracy was such a big concern using that as physical media it changed to something that is different than any media type before and requires patents so although we don’t know the form that the physical media will take we do know it will exist 

28 minutes ago, Alpha82 said:

The big worry with usb sticks or SD cards as physical media is the ability to keep the games from being pirated

The content of a USB drive can be encrypted. The USB drive can even contain a special circuit to make sure it is genuine (like a software protection dongle). I agree nothing can be made 100% tempering proof, but it's better to allow the risk of low piracy rather than to antagonize customers. Anyway, the best piracy deterrent is that digital downloads will be below $10. I know there are people who will pirate even a 99 cents game, but those won't buy games anyway.

Hi Everyone,

This may be my last post on AtariAge.  I need one of the moderators to explain to me why people supporting me in this thread have had their posts deleted.  Tempest said he didn't want any "drama" and I think we all agree on that.  But the deleted posts that were sent to me on Facebook did not contain any drama and they were rightfully pointing out that I never attacked Pat on Twitter.  So please give me a response so I can make a decision as to whether or not I feel like this forum is a place that I would still like to participate in.  I enjoyed coming here to have fun and have positive discussions with like minded Intellivision fans like myself... but I can certainly do that at the Intellivision Invasion Facebook page as well (which I typically try to put some time in to).


In the meantime, I took an hour out of my day this morning to respond to Pat & Ian (aka long haired dude)    Here is what I just posted and I hope you'll all take the time to watch it as I think it will help people understand why communicating and talking in person is so important.  Which is yet another big reason why Amico is going to be such a huge success. 


Yo PatTheNESpunk & pxlsicle. I took some time to give you a thoughtful response to your last video. Please watch & I hope that you better understand & you'll share my real feelings with your folks. And I hope to still talk to you guys if you'd like. This video is unlisted and no comments. Looking to set the record straight in a kind way. I reference or show MetalJesusRocks, johnblueriggs, THEREALRTU, RerezTV, DreamcastGuy, Attack, Victor_Lucas, SmashJT, kelslewin in the video. Hope it's okay. Thanks to all of our supporters and for the folks who misunderstand or have been led down a negative path... I hope you'll give a listen as well. This is why its important for people to communicate in person & not assume how someone feels without talking to them.

https://youtu.be/uiR7IvVp8TM

That was very informative. I didn't know Pat and Ian attacked the youtubers and journalists that agreed to talk to Tommy. Pat and Ian suggested that those people don't have enough personality and were too scared to ask difficult questions when talking to Tommy directly... that assumption was crazy.

They also said that Tommy "took it personal from the start and attacked them", which is clearly wrong. It is interesting how often people that lie end up covering their own lies with even more lies instead of correcting themselves.

It was also very nice to see the controller like that. I know it has been redesigned, but you can feel its size and weight and see where the buttons are once you pick it up.

Tommy, hope you will stick around here and that you get the answers you seek. Many of us do appreciate your participation here. 

We love you Tommy, please don't go!!!