Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

21 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

 

Such a great post.  Totally agree 100%.  Forgot about the book you mentioned... just ordered it!

 

They could all try to pivot, but the reality is that they would all need to do new and approachable hardware in order to make a difference.

If we are extremely successful... they'll absolutely be others who will see the success and try to enter the market we created. 

 

We'll be waiting.

 

 

 

 

Sorry if I guilted you into buying the book 😄

I first heard of it when it was mentioned several times in the Steve Jobs biography, which peaked my interest.  I gave it a read and it really has a lot of thoughts and analysis I had never considered before.  It's a really good read, and not very long either.  Hope you enjoy it.

10 hours ago, 1980gamer said:

Just getting caught up...  All this talk of console #'s..   2600, 2601 etc.

 

I want 2609  Hands down, no doubt.

 

Hahahha!  Was waiting for someone to ask for that one!

We only sold 2,600 of them and I thought it would be appropriate to number 9 more Founders Edition consoles and give them to Intellivision employees who have been there the longest with 2609 going to the amazing @BSRSteve (Steve Roney) who... without him... there would be no Amico or Intellivision Entertainment.  Steve was crucial in getting Intellivision Productions to a place where Intellivision Entertainment could exist.  He doesn't get enough credit for this.

For anyone not knowing who Steve is... the original B-17 Bomber & Space Spartans were the games he did!  Was hired at Mattel in 1981.  Him and I were the ones who started Intellivision Entertainment together (I didn't purchase rights from Keith Robinson's family as some journalists have reported).  Emily Rosenthal (who helped Keith keep Intellivision Productions going for nearly 10 years!) and Bill Fisher were also key in making this happen initially.  From there, Nick Richards (CFO) and David Perry also deserve incredible credit for helping to start everything.  Me, Steve, David & Nick are 4 of the 5 members of the Intellivision Entertainment Board of Directors.

 

9 hours ago, cmart604 said:

Hmmm, I feel like if there was a guy who bought say the most of these maybe he could pick a number first. I bet he’s a nice guy. 😜

You are the biggest Intellivison collector I know!  So I may need to make sure I do something special!

8 hours ago, CurlyQ said:

How about some "Retro-fi"?

 

HOLY HELL!!  THIS IS EPIC!!!!!!!

Sending this to Phil Spencer NOW!

I love it when Tommy is answering messages written 10 hours ago and you know he will eventually reach your message written 3 hours ago. It's a feeling of anticipation similar to this:

Haha, just kidding. About the James C comment, yeah... At this point I kind of wish there were more educated people against the Amico to debate with, those guys are just getting boring and I almost feel sorry for them. James say we are in an echo chamber. Well, here's all the concerns Tommy has answered for me:

- Controller looks weird, does it actually feel good in your hands? > He said testing groups said so

- How are you going to have people buy your machine without the brand recognition? > By intelligent marketing to moms

- Don't you think it's best to ignore the haters? -> He said he just wanted to clarify lies (but finally ended up doing that)

- Aren't you afraid that non gamers will get confused by retro reimagined games? -> Not likely, all games will be easy to play

And this is coming from a shill with an Intellivision-derived name. Of course, my nickname is a self-parody: I try not to spend too much time with Amico-related things, I just hope it comes out and sells 200M. My nickname is kind of an inside joke, as I come from a world full of Sony and Nintendo fanboys and I wanted to be a fanboy of something too, I wanted to know how it feels. 🤘

1 hour ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

You are the biggest Intellivison collector I know!  So I may need to make sure I do something special!

No INTV Funhouse Limited Edition?! 😛

23 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Hahahha!  Was waiting for someone to ask for that one!

 

 

We only sold 2,600 of them and I thought it would be appropriate to number 9 more Founders Edition consoles and give them to Intellivision employees who have been there the longest with 2609 going to the amazing @BSRSteve (Steve Roney) who... without him... there would be no Amico or Intellivision Entertainment.  Steve was crucial in getting Intellivision Productions to a place where Intellivision Entertainment could exist.  He doesn't get enough credit for this.

For anyone not knowing who Steve is... the original B-17 Bomber & Space Spartans were the games he did!  Was hired at Mattel in 1981.  Him and I were the ones who started Intellivision Entertainment together (I didn't purchase rights from Keith Robinson's family as some journalists have reported).  Emily Rosenthal (who helped Keith keep Intellivision Productions going for nearly 10 years!) and Bill Fisher were also key in making this happen initially.  From there, Nick Richards (CFO) and David Perry also deserve incredible credit for helping to start everything.  Me, Steve, David & Nick are 4 of the 5 members of the Intellivision Entertainment Board of Directors.

 

That is Great to hear.  I am glad 2609 didn't just end up some place random.  Well aware of Steve! I am certain he will give it a nice home.

OKAY,  I never really cared about serial #'s  People willing to pay more for a low serial number always seemed strange to me...   Getting it earlier may be worth the money

Funniest thing I ever heard listing to Sports Radio while in traffic...  In Massachusetts, the Governor has License Plate #  1  Lt. Gov is 2 etc.  Down to 6.

Somehow this was being talked about and someone called in to tell everyone he paid $25,000 for Plate number 7.

The host replied,  I can't believe you would spend 25K just to have your IQ on your License Plate!

All that being said..  You need to sell a lot of these!!!  I now want SN10102020

We are getting close, I hope you are still on track with all this craziness going on.  

15 hours ago, Intellivision Master said:

 

Sweet!  Will listen to soon.  TJ

1 hour ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

You are the biggest Intellivison collector I know!  So I may need to make sure I do something special!

Woohoo! 🙏🏻

1 minute ago, cmart604 said:

Woohoo! 🙏🏻

Where are the "kissing ass" or "sucking up" emojis when you need them?

2 hours ago, GrudgeQ said:

Actually I think Tommy’s scenario is way more likely than likely than any other scenario including some other company barging in - the reason is the skill sets. Look at the IP of Intellivision - not only the hardware of a unique, casual friendly console but also they are hands on in the totally curated games collection. Think about putting together both a good game design talent and hardware team if you are coming out of left field. Management inexperience is what sunk Ouya and it looks like Stadia, even with a bunch of industry veterans, is about to burn, or at least be a decade long slow ramp. Business people look at these examples and get very afraid.

 

Even if you are in the industry you probably are more in tune with CoD guys than family friendly indies that you need to keep costs down and design the type of games you need. Also even if, say, Amazon decides to wade in - their competitors are always looking to stick it to them and Walmart would likely jump on the already running Amico horse, pumping them full of marketing dollars to hype them in the market and blow a competitor out of the market before the design got off the drawing board.
 

Finally look at synergy deals from people like Disney or Mattel - Amico is a perfect market extension of their family friendly, kid friendly brands. Even Walmart considers itself family friendly and has failed at their other ongoing revenue stream venture like movies and music. What about buying into a successful games console with those sweet ongoing eStore sales?

❤️❤️❤️

🤐🤐🤐

40 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

 

🤐🤐🤐

Unzip those lips Tommy, it's just us. We won't tell anyone, we promise. 😇

@Tommy Tallarico in a few different interviews now you’ve mentioned doing up bracket tournaments with your friends in Golden Eye and how fond your memories of that are. Will any of the sports games, or any games in general (or ideally  even carried at the system level) have built in brackets for tournament bracket play?

1 hour ago, Tarzilla said:

Where are the "kissing ass" or "sucking up" emojis when you need them?

Just put two emojis together: 💋🐴 and 😮👆

34 minutes ago, Intellivision Master said:

 

Such a great video!!!

My absolute favorite line was:

"I'm a parent, and I want to spend more time gaming... but not at the expense of my kid.  I want to spend more time with him too.  And the Amico is going to allow me to do both things.  And enjoy it!"


Powerful stuff!!

These are exactly the kind of testimonials we'll be using throughout our advertising. 

Imagine just setting up in a mall and getting parents and people of all ages just walking up and being recorded playing for the first time and getting true testimonials from people!

I did something similar (on a smaller scale) with my Video Games Live ads.  They were extremely well received by non-gamers.  When asked why they came to the show, most non-gamers said it was because of the testimonials in this video:
 

1 hour ago, Starpaddler said:

@Tommy Tallarico in a few different interviews now you’ve mentioned doing up bracket tournaments with your friends in Golden Eye and how fond your memories of that are. Will any of the sports games, or any games in general (or ideally  even carried at the system level) have built in brackets for tournament bracket play?

We've been discussing it for sure.

5 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

 

Some cool stuff in there.  Will have my team check them out.

 

Yeah definitely! The Amico is basically my dream console. No DRM, simple games, no microtransactions, couch co op games, 2 controllers, low priced games. I pretty much skipped this gen and went to pc because i got tired of AAA gaming, but steam has no curating going on. What i like about steam is that there are a lot of cheap games and its fun to mess around and not feel like you got burned if the game is bad. But its really hard to actually find the good games. Same with mobile. Theres a hole in the market there in my opinion. I miss the days when I could just "trust" (like you say) that the game was going to just work and be complete. Downloading updates, in game advertisements and so on, completely breaks the immersion and the "magic" of playing games. It feels more like a chore, and lost its escapist element which to me is the secret sauce to why games are so fun. I dont want to play a game and constantly be asked to spend real world money. Its crazy to me that the general public ok'd this. I also went back to collecting childhood favorites, and a lot of the forums online for 5th and 6th gen are millenial gamers who really dislike the greed of current gen games and want to go back to simpler times. In your interview with Lukas, i was only half-surprised that he had so much knowledge on retro gaming. A lot of the younger generation loves watching retro gaming channels because of that "magic" I described earlier when things were simpler. The same reason they listen to 70s 80s and 90s music and watch Tv shows and movies from back then. The age of information took away the magic of discovery, thats why they go back and enjoy listening to the older generation reminisce on something they havent gotten to fully experience because of social media. "Local" anything is a romantic, alien concept to them. Even though the "hardcores" arent your primary market, i think youll definitely find a niche of people who enjoy games but are jaded by the current industry trends. I have some more co op games i think would fit well on the Amico. I picked games that can run on integrated graphics this time if theyre not on android/ios. Im going to put some games that are 14.99 on steam but perhaps could be negotiated down to 9.99 as theyre not exactly brand new. But the Amico itself combined with these games i really believe would make for a new/better experience.

Tiny Brains:

Chariot:

Never Alone (rated E10+ on Steam):

Lovers in a Dangerous Space Time:

Guacamelee Super Turbo Championship Edition:

36 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

We've been discussing it for sure.

 

 

Thanks. If at the system level, you could include ability to include different games from your library and have ability to personalize an “Amico Challenge”. You id the games to include and the system tracks your running scores for a multi-game challenge. you could also identify the number of games and have Amico randomize the games for the challenge. Gets away from the simplicity, so maybe a year 3 thing...

1 hour ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

 

Such a great video!!!

My absolute favorite line was:

"I'm a parent, and I want to spend more time gaming... but not at the expense of my kid.  I want to spend more time with him too.  And the Amico is going to allow me to do both things.  And enjoy it!"


Powerful stuff!!

These are exactly the kind of testimonials we'll be using throughout our advertising. 

Imagine just setting up in a mall and getting parents and people of all ages just walking up and being recorded playing for the first time and getting true testimonials from people!

 

I did something similar (on a smaller scale) with my Video Games Live ads.  They were extremely well received by non-gamers.  When asked why they came to the show, most non-gamers said it was because of the testimonials in this video:
 

 

It will be nice to go to a mall again and even nicer if there is an Amico there. I have my founders edition and excited to see how this all turns out

Could something like Rabbids Invasion that was E10+  be on the system in the future?

20 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

 

 

Oh yeah!  @nurmix put that one on my Cuttle Cart!  I remember trying to figure it out once... but never could.

 

Is it finished?  Any idea what the hell you're supposed to do???

From the video it looks like you move columns and rows like the other game but rather than making crosses you make squares.  Steve R worked on it; I'd be surprised if he remembers much about it.

So I wanted to share this for a long time. This is a bitter sweet picture of my son at Video Games Live in 2013(Colorado Springs, CO.).  My son had an amazing time. He entered the costum contest as Luigi and won!!

He got a really cool gift bag full of prizes which he flipped out for..... Unfortunately shortly after the show, the Colorado Black Forest Fire happened and took our house.   Thankfully we all got out alive and I managed to rescue our two dogs. I was compelled to order the Founders Edition.  Makes it a little more special.   

@Tommy Tallarico  Thanks for the Amico and a late thanks for a great show!

Tommy,  PLEASE do an Intellivision vs Atari