Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

45 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

 

So is it a good question or not ? 😆  lol

You have no voice and no text yourself ! 😂🤣  lol 😉

If I understand, you want to say that Nintendo was not the only one !? 🙄

Edit : Luigi's Mansion 3 is a recent game and If I remember well, there is no voice.

My point is also, if you have children's 4 and 5 years old playing, they will need voice because they can't read !

So for Edutainment game it will be a most to have voice from Amico.

From other games, I don't know. 😊

1 hour ago, IntelliMission said:

@jaybird3rd I agree is not a good idea to have several consecutive pages of that, but at the same time I think it's not a bad idea to try to debate this people in some cases. The Resetera guys seem to live in their own world, so perhaps the correct approach is to politely counter argument them in their own forum. In this case, I think it's worth mentioning for two reasons: 1) The surreal moderator comparison they made and 2) The lack of Amico fans/experts in that forum, which leads to lies being spread without control (with the help of the mod himself).

 

So yeah, I think it's not worth to spend hours on this or obsessing with it, but it's positive to mention it and possibly try to fight it with information, without getting personal.

 

So I wonder if anyone here knows how to create an account there or has one, in case someone cares to explain Tommy's plan and research in those hostile zones. I agree 4chan should be ignored, but Resetera has many potential fans and more of a serious reputation.

If you did the numbers the amount of people on those types of forums are insignificant.  The target audience for the Amico wont be wasting their time on those sites. Now YouTube sure some will search to see how it is received.  But most wont. Word of mouth is going to be my approach.  I know alot of people inline and they are not gamers. Most are parents and set time limits on their children already and xbox's and playstations are not in their homes. Once the couch coop revolution begins I feel it will be infectious 

10 hours ago, Blarneo said:

Alright Back on the Satan page, some peeps embedded devil music, which prompted me to google "That choir yelling another language"... or O Fortuna, and I came across a live performance of The Fifth Element aria... which we talked about in the not satanic page.... so there!

 

 

 

That was pretty amazing!  I think the high part run may have had a little help... but maybe not.  Super talented none-the-less! 

That being said, THIS is my favorite live performance.  She's incredible!!!

8 hours ago, ColdCoffee said:

 

Love these guys!  And I gotta say... I love the inclusion of Intellivision in the opening... and I don't know... I may be a little partial to the epic music as well.  

Was fun chatting about J with them!

27 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

 

That was pretty amazing!  I think the high part run may have had a little help... but maybe not.  Super talented none-the-less! 

 

That being said, THIS is my favorite live performance.  She's incredible!!!

 

 

Thanks for sharing. I always loved that part in the movie but felt it wasn't real at that 1 part. But Jane is amazing. I would love to see that performance live

14 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Love these guys!  And I gotta say... I love the inclusion of Intellivision in the opening... and I don't know... I may be a little partial to the epic music as well.  

 

Was fun chatting about J with them!

 

 

The intro music was epic.  Good video.  It's nice you got to talk with them for a little while.

8 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Yay, an email from Intellivision announcing that J Allard has joined. Good! As I've said before, I'm not an Xbox guy, but since the internet is readily available, it's easy to do research. Looking at the stuff he's done, I think he is definitely the type of guy that would be highly beneficial to Intellivision. Or any tech/video game company, for that matter.

 

How is it looking for 10/10/2020? I know I ask about it a lot, but a combination of impatience (less than 5 months left until I get it in the mail!) and my own interest in learning as much as I can about the whole process of launching a video game console compels me to ask. Apparently Sony is still launching this year (or something. Don't really care about PS5, so I didn't bother to read the article I saw the other day, just the headline) and the TurboGrafx-16 mini is launching next week in the USA, so I am guessing that manufacturing might be getting back on track, although they probably still have a lot of stuff to catch up with.

 

Kind of related and forgive me if this has been asked and answered before, but is there a target ship date for FE? I know it's officially "before everyone else gets theirs", but I'm wondering if there's a target date.

 

Random question, but I played Road Rash for the first time the other day and it's pretty awesome... well, the gameplay is, anyway. The music isn't so great, but that's okay because the game itself is so fun that it makes up for it. Any chance of seeing something like Road Rash on Amico? I know EA isn't onboard yet, but it would be interesting to either bring Road Rash back from the dead or make something like it. Road Rash 3 apparently got a KA rating (which is now E) and I'm pretty sure the ESRB is much more relaxed now than they were then, so I think there is no reason that we couldn't see Road Rash or something similar on Amico.

We won't know the full effects of COVID until after the lockdown is over.  Los Angeles county just said that businesses can't open until August now.  If that happens in Orange County (we are the next county over from L.A.) I can tell you that it won't be ready by October... or even by the end of the year!  We need to be in the same room in order to complete hardware.  Especially to the level we're doing.  Imagine telling a car manufacturer to make a car but everyone needs to stay apart in different places.  Being apart for smaller games doesn't affect the software/games... but the hardware.  Yes.  2 of our guys are literally hand building controllers from scratch to get to our many developers around the world.  And parts are very late and delayed from China and of course need to be quarantined the second they arrive and are opened.  But if it takes 2 people to build a controller... how can you accomplish this when everything is in the office?  One guy comes in and does what he can do, then another comes in after that, etc.  How can we all test the different parts of the hardware when each machine part needs a ton of testing and companies that do it are closed and the hardware we have is limited.  It's crazy, but we're trying our best given the circumstances and health/lockdown laws that the state of California has placed upon everyone.  It is what it is.  Nothing we can do except try our hardest and work as long as humanly possible.  We were really hoping California would be "opened up" by May 1st.  And now they're talking about being closed til August?  Impossible to get hardware done in that time.  I refuse to put out a product that isn't the best it could be.  We're not going to rush it or cut corners and take shortcuts.  Part of the reason J Allard is such an important part of the team now.  He's been through the "red ring of death" and knows why and what happened.  Not enough time for heat and component testing was a big part of that.  I'm doing everything in my power to keep the promise I made to my mom, dad & brother about honoring my sister Karen's birthday on 10/10.  They keep telling me over and over not to worry.  And if this crap continues for another month... it's out of my hands.    But maybe if 10/10 slips I can do something super special on 10/10.  Maybe have a huge public showing where the general public can play all the games for the first time (like what we had planned for E3 and Gamescom).  Maybe we do one on the west coast (LA?) and one on the east coast (NYC?).  I don't know... I really don't feel like thinking about it or discussing that at this point.  10/10 launch is still our #1 goal right now. 

Founders Editions would be a few days before launch I would imagine... not a few weeks.

Road Rash would be pretty cool.  EA would need to be on board.  Probably wouldn't happen til 2022.

8 hours ago, IntelliMission said:

Meanwhile, at Resetera...

 

- The moderator says "oh no Allard, what are you doing?"

 

- The moderator calls the Amico "Tommy Tallarico's delusional vanity project"

 

- Another user congratulates the moderator and compares him with @jaybird3rd, who is supposedly "banning everyone who doesn't like the console"

 

- Another user says "family market? Minecraft already exists"

 

- Several users really upset because of the "cheap looking" location Tommy used for the Sidesweepers video and his "the girl is beating you" comment

 

Gotta love how some of them are closely watching this project clearly wishing for it to fail. It looks like excuses to hate the Amico are becoming harder and harder to find (see the "the girl is beating you" comment, something that EVERYONE has said in this kind of situations and DOESN'T IMPLY THAT THE PERSON SAYING IT THINKS GIRLS ARE INFERIOR because it's just a joke).

 

It's gotta be a long, hard road for these people.

I find that younger folks are much more easily "triggered" for using certain "speech" or jokes.  It's very clear that my "a girl beating you" comment was a joke.  And who did they think I was insulting?  It was my own wife for crying out loud.  

Just remember... places like ResetEra are not our target.  The exact opposite in fact.  I wouldn't expect a speed metal message board to understand and talk nicely about & respect country music.  So we shouldn't feel confused when the same type of thing happens at hardcore gamer message boards about Amico.  As much as they would like to try to throw us in with PS, XBOX & Switch... they can't.  When the president of Xbox even praises us and our team... that's saying something (that the folks on that message board clearly don't understand).  And that's fine.

It's simple.... they don't get it.  Maybe it's not for them anyway.  And that's okay.  I just like the fact that they continue to talk about us... especially when the type of things they are saying aren't true... which means the reasons they THINK they don't like it... aren't actually accurate. 

And to any of those folks over there on ResetEra who would like to discuss your thoughts and opinions about Amico in a respectful way... come on over and have a discussion.  Everyone here is respectful... and contrary to hater belief, the mods here do not protect me or ban people if they don't like Amico.  And if you're not willing to have a friendly conversation and see for yourself... then I'm thinking the only "protected" ones are the folks not willing to engage and have a respectful discussion with folks who may have a different opinion than you do.  Lord knows I always do.  On a daily basis it seems. 

2 hours ago, woobman said:

Does this mean that the Amico has DTS and we'll be able to hear multichannel Shark! Shark!?

 

Duun..no 🎼 🦈 

3 hours ago, CurlyQ said:

Just sent to J!

https://www.engadget.com/xbox-j-allard-intellivision-165449191.html

4 hours ago, IntelliMission said:

@Tommy Tallarico I have a couple of questions about the J Allard hiring:

 

- What do you think about the Zune and Kin products? J Allard was very involved in those and they were considered failures. I know it's kind of a peculiar question just after you just hired him, but perhaps you know some interesting story about those.

It's a good question and something I'd be interesting in hearing more about.  I personally never used those products so can't really comment on them.  Me & J have never talked about them so I'm not sure why they failed.  I'm sure at some point it will come up.  The Red Ring of Death has already! 

I've worked on the greatest games of all time... and I've worked on the crappiest.  Either way it's a team effort so I would say as a general rule that just because I worked on a crappy game (or did a crappy piece of music) doesn't take anything away from the great ones and the ability to create those as well. 

As they say... Babe Ruth didn't hit a home run every time... in fact he struck out more than anyone in the history of the game!  But he was still Babe Ruth. 

Also reminds me of one of my favorite commercials with Michael Jordan:
 

4 hours ago, IntelliMission said:

 

- What will exactly be J Allard functions within the team? Will he help with the games? The general vision? a potential future online mode?

All of the above!  User Experience & User Interface is a big one though.  The Dean Takahashi article goes into a little more detail. 

Thanks!

3 hours ago, IntelliMission said:

@jaybird3rd I agree is not a good idea to have several consecutive pages of that, but at the same time I think it's not a bad idea to try to debate this people in some cases. The Resetera guys seem to live in their own world, so perhaps the correct approach is to politely counter argument them in their own forum. In this case, I think it's worth mentioning for two reasons: 1) The surreal moderator comparison they made and 2) The lack of Amico fans/experts in that forum, which leads to lies being spread without control (with the help of the mod himself).

 

So yeah, I think it's not worth to spend hours on this or obsessing with it, but it's positive to mention it and possibly try to fight it with information, without getting personal.

 

So I wonder if anyone here knows how to create an account there or has one, in case someone cares to explain Tommy's plan and research in those hostile zones. I agree 4chan should be ignored, but Resetera has many potential fans and more of a serious reputation.

It's definitely difficult for me to join lots of boards... I don't even follow or post on the Reddit stuff.  I like this place because of the folks here and the community we've built.  Contrary to "certain" folks... it's not because mods "protect" me.  Because as we all know... they don't.  They give people warnings who break the rules and typically give them 3 or 4 warnings.  And from what the mods have discussed openly is that it is then brought to a committee of mods and the decision is made.  @jaybird3rd on his own isn't doing anything.  It's literally the DUMBEST and most un-self-aware thing they can say.  But that's all they have at this point.   But without going "negative" and moving on...

I'd say that if any of the resetera folks are interested in having a RESPECTFUL discussion... they should come here and see for themselves that the 3 jilted dumb dumbs with multiple fake accounts on YouTube are nothing more than liars who can't stand the fact that they were reprimanded and banned for not being mature enough to follow simple forum rules.

Y'know... it's really tough to talk about this kinda stuff without sounding negative.  Hahahhaa! 

Anyway... as always... I don't mind having discussions with anyone about any of this stuff.  As long as they are respectful of everyone.

3 hours ago, Craig Parker said:

Your attention to details on your Imagic mockups is incredible. Anyone notice the Amico mug with the lemon in it?  How about the running man on J Allard’s shirt? Or the 360 address on the house?  I really enjoy these — great work!

Damn!  I missed the 360 on the house!!!   Brilliant!!!!!!!!!!

Hey Tommy, when could we expect another gameplay video?  I have an itch that I can’t reach and it needs scratching. 😂

21 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

It's a good question and something I'd be interesting in hearing more about.  I personally never used those products so can't really comment on them.  Me & J have never talked about them so I'm not sure why they failed.

 

On of my IT staffers had a Zune and absolutely loved it. It was a good music player and there were no 'show stopper' hardware or software issues. However you have to remember that Microsoft was having to play catch up on all things mobile. The Zune came out about *5 years* after the iPod and Apple had seriously worked in the meantime to position itself as the "cool music tech company". Also it really didn't do much that the iPod didn't do and what little differences there were weren't well explained in Microsoft's ad campaign. This would be like if the Amico was for hard core gamers and was just launching now in the face of XBox & Sony - road kill. Microsoft could have done better with the Zune (however it did sell in the low millions) but it was too little, and way too late from Microsoft - much like all of their of phone & tablet attempts at the time.

Tommy,

I'm sure this was asked before but will there be theme music on the main menu of the Amico?  Also, will there be theme music in the Amico shop like what the 3DS had?

1 hour ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Road Rash would be pretty cool.  EA would need to be on board.  Probably wouldn't happen til 2022.

nah, Talk to the Guys at EQ-Games https://www.eq-games.com/

They already did a Road Rash remake and its VERY good.  Its called Road Redemption and its on Steam.  The Devs are very cool and very open. I remember having a good back and forth with a few of them back when they made this a couple years ago. They may be open to bringing it over.

5 minutes ago, Craig Parker said:

Hey Tommy, when could we expect another gameplay video?  I have an itch that I can’t reach and it needs scratching. 😂

Thanks for the question.

I don't think it will be for awhile unfortunately..  I don't want to predict when... as people will then keep asking me about it. 

Our focus is on the hardware right now.  Of course the games are still being made, but the issue is that we intended on doing a lot of the people playing videos and explaining HOW the games are played.  Like the Missile Command and Criss Cross... er.... I mean.... SideSwipers game. 

Just showing the same gameplay with different levels isn't going to help explain what we're doing.  We wanted to start doing new people playing videos every week or two... but then COVID hit.  How can we show "couch co-op" when it's literally ILLEGAL to do so at this point.  It's nuts.

So again... hard to comment when we don't know when this crap is going to be over and life will be back to normal (hopefully!!)

7 minutes ago, Intellivision Master said:

Tommy,

 

I'm sure this was asked before but will there be theme music on the main menu of the Amico?  Also, will there be theme music in the Amico shop like what the 3DS had?

Yep!

5 minutes ago, bigdaddygamestudio said:

nah, Talk to the Guys at EQ-Games https://www.eq-games.com/

 

They already did a  Road Rash remake and its VERY good.  Its called Road Redemption and its on Steam.  The Devs are very cool and very open. I remember having a good back and forth with a few of them back when they made this a couple years ago. They may be open to bringing it over.

Very cool.  I'll check it out!

Thanks!

22 minutes ago, GrudgeQ said:

On of my IT staffers had a Zune and absolutely loved it. It was a good music player and there were no 'show stopper' hardware or software issues. However you have to remember that Microsoft was having to play catch up on all things mobile. The Zune came out about *5 years* after the iPod and Apple had seriously worked in the meantime to position itself as the "cool music tech company". Also it really didn't do much that the iPod didn't do and what little differences there were weren't well explained in Microsoft's ad campaign. This would be like if the Amico was for hard core gamers and was just launching now in the face of XBox & Sony - road kill. Microsoft could have done better with the Zune (however it did sell in the low millions) but it was too little, and way too late from Microsoft - much like all of their of phone & tablet attempts at the time.

That's my impression as well.  A few coworkers got Zune players when they were new, and from my limited experience with them, they did indeed seem to be perfectly good media players.  Viewed in retrospect, it's easy to forget that a lot of these "failures" were in fact good products that were simply the victims of bad timing.

Another example that comes to mind (from Intellivision's own history) is the Aquarius Home Computer System.  In retrospect, it seems like a hopelessly misguided decision for Mattel to even try to get into that market, but as Mattel alumnus "catsfolly" helpfully explained a few years ago, the Aquarius made perfect sense on paper at the time.  The late release date was what ultimately killed it; by the time it came out, the market had moved on and the intended price point had disappeared.

12 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Yep!

 

That's great to hear.  

Tommy,

This was also probably asked as well.  But is there going to be an option to change wallpaper for the background of the Amico main menu or Amico shop?