Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

Summary

- 2D games only is a good idea. Devs can make some amazing things with unity that can run on a mobile processor and still have console quality. I get that this takes time, but you can shoot yourself in the foot if the Amico branding is in the dirt by the time the cavalry comes in. Word of mouth spreads quickly and if you get trashed early on dont say no one warned you. You have to come out of the gates strong with your line up.

- The Amico has potential to be more than an anemic party/retro console. It will be, but no one here has any foresight because they really only care about their childhood games getting remade and youre giving them their fix. Which is fine, but i believe you stared into the abyss that is atariage and the abyss stared back into you 

- Simple gaming doesnt mean retro gaming

- Retro remakes of 40 year old games isnt what kids want. Its what people here want, and no one will admit its probably a bad idea in 2020 because you have to have a "things were better back in the day" mindset to even be a retro collector in the first place. Will people really spend $250 to play pong when they can do anything else? 

- Earthworm Jim 4 is not enough despite what this echo chamber says and its not coming any time soon. So far the only games shown i would spend more than a dollar on are Nightstalker and Cornhole and that Winnie the Pooh game.

- The Wii lady is leading you down the wrong path. The Amico has far more potential as a toy-like console experience than a motion based console. You should have hired a DS person instead. Since youre underpowered you need to make up for it with innovation not going backwards.

- Your time would be better spent making original IP that take advantage of the Amicos quirks, instead of doing all the sound and meticulously overseeing all these games no one really cares about. When i think "dungeons and dragons game" on the Amico i think of Eon Altar, not something made 40 years ago with a new coat of paint. Get far away from here Tommy its for your own good. You could use the Wii lady money and hire guys like the lead at flying helmet games instead. You should take a backseat to J Allard and Rusty and let them work their magic. Focus on making Earthworm Jim a launch game. Delay the launch to next year.

- One outside studio could remake all of these games easily, and very few people would care or tell the difference because the games are built around simple gameplay hooks. They should be packed together and released in volumes. Wouldnt that be better "value"? No one wants to see a trailer for them individually like if its a big deal. Its out of touch and is the result of only taking in positive feedback here.

- "We're competing with board games." If thats the case, why go through all the trouble of hiring so much talent and experience as if this was a real console launch? I know what youre aiming for and im rooting for you.

I think Stillagamer's surpassed the threshold criteria for "elitist gamer troll". Just for the record, Nintendo is the biggest PITA to homebrewers everywhere.

2 minutes ago, Swami said:

I think Stillagamer's surpassed the threshold criteria for "elitist gamer troll". Just for the record, Nintendo is the biggest PITA to homebrewers everywhere.

Agreed. I'm a firm believer in not feeding trolls, which is why I stopped responding. 

21 minutes ago, RxScram said:

Agreed. I'm a firm believer in not feeding trolls, which is why I stopped responding. 

you really need to wake up

Since I'm a die-hard Intellivision guy, tonight I'm going to join a Sega based forum and proceed to vomit my opinion that the Intellivision was better and that all Sega users have no idea what good games are...then I'll do the same on ...let's see... The MAME forum...yeah... 

Because that's pretty much what this troll has done.  

If you don't like the system, and don't like what's or who's involved with it .. well.. don't come here. 

It's one thing to voice an opinion, it's another to tell the CEO that he's wasting his time and should step down.... When the system hasn't even hit the market yet.

BTW... The reason for the retro and remade versions of the games are not just "for us"... It's the base line roots of the Intellivision.  Just like Nintendo has kept Mario alive in every single system they put out .... Since Super Mario Brothers and Donkey Kong in the arcade.

Jeeze... Get a hobby other than being a troll.  Love to hear an opposing opinion, but not when it pisses all over the campfire.

@LordRayken... I mean, @Stillagamer is the living proof that my theory was correct: sadly, most people who started playing with the 16 bit systems become graphic whores / elitists.

You guys were really lucky to start playing with the Atari 2600 and Intellivision, with those huge pixels on the screen. I started playing a bit later, with Amstrad CPC, but the pixels were still there, many games had only 2 or 4 colors and none of the games looked like a TV cartoon.

Starting with those simple graphics as a child makes you appreciate what came later and understand what a video game is. This is why the PS5 presentation was so disappointing for me as a former Sony fanboy: 95% of the games were presented as movies, with the focus on the story and characters instead of the gameplay.

34 minutes ago, Stillagamer said:

 

 

- Retro remakes of 40 year old games isnt what kids want. Its what people here want, and no one will admit its probably a bad idea in 2020 because you have to have a "things were better back in the day" mindset to even be a retro collector in the first place. Will people really spend $250 to play pong when they can do anything else? 

Not sure if you understand but if a retro game was reimagined and a kid never played the original, wouldn't that make that game a NEW EXPERIENCE to that kid? Making it a new game?

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- The Wii lady is leading you down the wrong path. The Amico has far more potential as a toy-like console experience than a motion based console. You should have hired a DS person instead. Since youre underpowered you need to make up for it with innovation not going backwards.

Right and you have what experience vs the people working at intellivision?  Or do you think you have more knowledge than even David Perry? One of the investors if when made $380 million on gaikai? Hes a fool I guess to invest in the platform you say is heading down the wrong path. Or as you said the very successful wii lady. What do you know vs her? Come tell us all your credentials? We all would like you to answer that question.

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- Your time would be better spent making original IP that take advantage of the Amicos quirks, instead of doing all the sound and meticulously overseeing all these games no one really cares about. When i think "dungeons and dragons game" on the Amico i think of Eon Altar, not something made 40 years ago with a new coat of paint. Get far away from here Tommy its for your own good. You could use the Wii lady money and hire guys like the lead at flying helmet games instead. You should take a backseat to J Allard and Rusty and let them work their magic. Focus on making Earthworm Jim a launch game. Delay the launch to next year.

Right because J Allard joined this merry bunch of fools you believe are off base and in the wrong path to success.  But hell he thought why not jump on a sinking ship.  SMH

So tell us all before you continue to rant what your background is? What do you do for a living and for how long have you been doing it? Unless you are Miyamoto himself I dont think you know what the hell you are talking about. 🤣🤣🤣

18 hours ago, Stillagamer said:

The Amico is built to have interactive experiences you guys arent familiar with or even like.

what now?  I own a tech company, pretty sure I know the latest and greatest in tech and have experienced it since we are in the business of using it for govt purposes. So once again, the Over 50 crowd is NOT out of touch, but we still do know what we like. I'll get the ps5 when it comes out but I also welcome a friendlier game machine as well.  Again, the demographic with all the money in the US.... over 50. 

47 minutes ago, IntelliMission said:

Starting with those simple graphics as a child makes you appreciate what came later and understand what a video game is. This is why the PS5 presentation was so disappointing for me as a former Sony fanboy: 95% of the games were presented as movies, with the focus on the story and characters instead of the gameplay.

what cracks me up is that its always relative. The graphics on the Intellivision were awesome in its day.  You think in 40 years people playing in full VR worlds in haptic feedback suits are going to think , gee the PS5 2d display sure is awesome.  Nope it will look at pedestrian as the original Intellivision does now.  

7 hours ago, GrudgeQ said:

Any-who, after the last few valuable pages of someone trying to save a management team with hundreds of years of cumulative gaming experience from itself, I thought I might bring it around to some actual Amico news. Tommy mentioned some interesting stuff in this latest PM in the PM.
 

The first is they are still working on the DnD license for Cloudy Mountain. For me personally, it would be nice to have, but as one of my most anticipated games, it doesn’t need it. Also Cloudy Mountain will be up to 3 way multiplayer - just because of the amount of players they can fit into the screen real estate and still maintain the play feel. Also, mentioned elsewhere, Tommy said you will need to play a mini game on the controller to revive your fallen comrades. Personally I love that it’s not just “click on the revive potion Icon”.

 

In addition IE has been on a hiring spree lately, adding several staff including another graphical artist (unnamed but who has a long pedigree in game art) as part of their pre launch ramp up.

 

Finally Tommy said they are preparing to open a new branch office  in a state “near California”. That will make offices in Cali, Germany, Dubai and now the mystery state.

3 player Cloudy Mountain sounds like a riot. The gameplay teaser had a bit of a Gauntlet feel to it, but I'll most likely be harkening back to the PS2 days and Champions of Norath. Interested to see the mini game for revival.

2 hours ago, Jake67 said:

Does anyone else feel a twinge of excitement when they notice Tommy hasn’t been around for a couple of days because it hopefully means he’s super busy and things are moving forward with big announcements coming soon?

 

I mean, if he comes back and says he was sick in bed, arrested, or had lost his password to the forum... that would be disappointing. 

 

Or conspiracy theory... Maybe he was secretly acting as that joker in the forum just to test our responses and loyalty 😅

Honestly I trust he has been Steve Jobs'ing it and coming up with more cool stuff. Im literally wearing down my phone battery constantly check for new content and posts! 😀

2 minutes ago, martianman2012 said:

Steve Jobs'ing

I doubt it, Tommy actually seems like a nice guy.

2 hours ago, Stillagamer said:

Summary

I recommend posting your summary here at least once a day so that your salvation bringing instructions are not forgotten.

2 hours ago, Stillagamer said:

2D games only is a good idea. Devs can make some amazing things with unity that can run on a mobile processor and still have console quality.

This is the only thing you said in a long rant that would even resemble a “solution” style suggestion. Everything else was just all “what I don’t like” style feedback, which usually only has value if identifying an egregious violation of something so motivating to literally turn your supporters against you. 
 

“2d games only is a good idea.” I am going to say that is too wide encompassing to be a true solution. It’s like if I said “make great games and you will be successful.”  My advice is good in concept, but next to worthless as true help. 
 

You hate the direction, but have no real clear alternative. At least you can claim you were right if the Amico fails. Since that seems very important to some, I will join in:

”Tommy, make great games that people want to buy, and you will be successful.” If you fail, you will wish you listened to me. 
 

I, of course, will not be offering any game systems to the public, but please enjoy that I am correct. 

20 minutes ago, Oldfool said:

I, of course, will not be offering any game systems to the public, but please enjoy that I am correct. 

Thank you for this. 😂 it pretty much summed up my feelings on the ongoing, repetitive, condescending rant we've been subjected to the last few pages. (although I suspect we sadly may have seen the last post chock full of useful advice and insults towards us old, happy to be playing with sticks, gamers.) 

3 minutes ago, cmart604 said:

Thank you for this. 😂 it pretty much summed up my feelings on the ongoing, repetitive, condescending rant we've been subjected to the last few pages. (although I suspect we sadly may have seen the last post chock full of useful advice and insults towards us old, happy to be playing with sticks, gamers.) 

Glad you brought up the sticks again.  With my memory goingfrom being sooo damn old, I totally forgot about that activity today.  Now if I could only remember where put those blasted sticks 🤔

5 hours ago, RxScram said:

Agreed. I'm a firm believer in not feeding trolls, which is why I stopped responding. 

He made some good points though.

7 minutes ago, Juice said:

He made some good points though.

Which ones? 

3 minutes ago, cmart604 said:

Which ones? 

Well the packing the games together thing that's one of the first things I said on this board. He's right that would be a better value. Some good games will probably never get played cause someone doesn't wanna take a chance on it individually.

35 minutes ago, Juice said:

He made some good points though.

You can present ideas without being a troll about it.

2 minutes ago, Swami said:

You can present ideas without being a troll about it.

Yeah but getting teamed up on can do that to ya. It can be very frustrating. 

22 minutes ago, Juice said:

Well the packing the games together thing that's one of the first things I said on this board. He's right that would be a better value. Some good games will probably never get played cause someone doesn't wanna take a chance on it individually.

Just to clarify, and because I really don't want to read back through all those lengthy posts, 😂 do you mean packing the old Inty games with the reimagined ones? If that's what you mean I understand the rationale but I must admit as much as I'm looking forward l to playing them on my Amico, I completely get what Tommy is worried about with respect to not wanting folks to think this is another Flashback. I'll be happy to buy retro Inty packs hopefully later in 2021. If you meant something else please let me know so I don't have to reread the previous posts 😬

21 minutes ago, Juice said:

Yeah but getting teamed up on can do that to ya. It can be very frustrating. 

I think your message gets lost when you do that, though. Anyhow, by the end he's basically saying the console should be more like a 3DS, Tommy should step down in favor of someone with a more traditional gaming bent and make games more for modern gamers than the "hearkening to past gaming experience." If he wants a totally different console with totally different gaming experiences ran by by someone else, maybe he should be pitching his ideas to one of the big three. I mean, what's the point except to say 90% he doesn't like it.

3 minutes ago, cmart604 said:

Just to clarify, and because I really don't want to read back through all those lengthy posts, 😂 do you mean packing the old Inty games with the reimagined ones? If that's what you mean I understand the rationale but I must admit as much as I'm looking forward l to playing them on my Amico, I completely get what Tommy is worried about with respect to not wanting folks to think this is another Flashback. I'll be happy to buy retro Inty packs hopefully later in 2021. If you meant something else please let me know so I don't have to reread the previous posts 😬

No didn't say anything about old games. I mean the new games 

6 minutes ago, Juice said:

No didn't say anything about old games. I mean the new games 

Sorry, you mean packing a couple

of the new games together at a discounted price? They're already $5-10 each. I think that's already crazy cheap and unless they're moving millions of units I wouldn't think the math would work to make them profitable at such a low price to discount further. Maybe a year or two down the road after the system is successful they'd be able to package games up.