Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

I think.bomb squad is going to.be a killer party game.

3 hours ago, GrudgeQ said:

Just a couple of pics of the prototype menu for the Amico. I like they are keeping the interface super simple but it has little video previews, player count & rough time to play a round. You can see where they are going with it generally

 

 

Gotta say I wasn't expecting this! I like it, though, has kind of a Y2K vibe.

Oh yeah, reminds me so much, from the description, of Space Team. Going to be fun.

Sent from my PH-1 using Tapatalk

I'm a bit confused as to why specifically Walmart.com and Best Buy Canada were listed, not the entire chains. Will Walmart stores and Best Buys in the US get Amico products, too?

The FE would be 4/3/21.  Someone said its a countdown of 4, 3, 2, 1.  I didn't think of it that way at first.  It's kind of neat.

22 minutes ago, Battlefish said:

I'm a bit confused as to why specifically Walmart.com and Best Buy Canada were listed, not the entire chains. Will Walmart stores and Best Buys in the US get Amico products, too?

Here are the official retailer/distributors announced so far - I have a feeling there is at least one or two more majors are coming:

●        GameStop

●        Amazon, Amazon.ca, Amazon Europe

●        Walmart.com and Walmart.ca

●        Walmart (Canada)

●        Best Buy (Canada)

●        Electronics Boutique (Canada)

●        Koch Media (Europe)

●        Mediamarkt (Germany)

●        Saturn (Germany)

4 hours ago, bigdaddygamestudio said:

come on, keep it real, blowing smoke helps no one. the audio was 10 to 15 seconds behind the video, thats umm not good.. So lets be real, at that point it was just disaster management. Im sure Tommy and his team are pissed and to be honest it is really a YouTube upload issue as Im sure their local version is spot on. Im sure going forward they will upload and preview content on a secret account the night before to make sure upload is good.  EWJ saved the day though so they just will move on and do better next time

Nope. No lag at all for me. 

11 minutes ago, cmart604 said:

Nope. No lag at all for me. 

I am on Satellite Internet... worse than 2 squirrels using a tin can with string.... and I got through it all with no voice or audio issues.

That is saying something... haha

TJ

3 hours ago, bigdaddygamestudio said:

yeah these games are always nice for a quick game or two.  The only issue we face in 2020 is screen dimensions.  Back in the day, our screens were more square, we had more height, now our screens are much more flattened rectangles meaning things falling fall from above get on top of you much quicker if the dev dont resize the play area. Im interested to see how they deal with this issue.

It was a bigger problem in the old days converting vertical fixed shooters to horizontal orientation with only about 200 lines of resolution.  Now with huge displays and high resolution, vertical space is not the issue.  Designers have to figure out what to do with all the extra space on the sides.

3 hours ago, GrudgeQ said:

Armor Battle - lots of cool tanks and unique weapons going on here

Tanks have independent turret rotation.  First look at Amico Armor Battle didn't have that.

3 hours ago, GrudgeQ said:

Intellivision (Monster) Spades: Before you skip over this one, here is our first real glimpse of how custom menus/card games will work with the Amico controllers. Everything is nice & chunky, easy to see and understand. I can't wait to see what the Taunt feature is. Also those monsters are pretty freak'n cute

 

Got to make cards in hand easy to read for visually challenged.  Is there a vertical controller option for card games, so you can hold a drink in one hand.

2 hours ago, Intellivision Master said:

There's Puffy.  I was hoping we got the mascot reveal during the event.  

Take a look at the menu screen again.  The video screen on the right looks like the shape of the Amico unit yet looks like a flying robot.  Could this be the mascot?  Perhaps the screen is actually a face in other parts of the menu.

5 hours ago, Swami said:

Yeah, I checked about 2pm and it said there were 71 new replies since 11am. 

Yeah, this thread moves quickly. I'm not sure if I want to go back and read through everything that I missed, and I see that there are already like 3 pages of replies here since the stream. Maybe eventually I'll get around to reading it, not now.

and now that I look, there's like 4 pages between when I posted and you quoted me, so I've got like 30 pages total to go through. Yay, reading~

I watched it on my phone and it played perfectly with no lag. I enjoyed being able to see and hear from some of the people behind the scenes at Intellivision Entertainment and the various programmers developing games. It certainly added some legitimacy for me. And of course, I'm always interested in seeing actual game footage. I was a little surprised that I'm more interested in the games that aren't updated Intellivision games from 80s given those games were the primary reason I ordered an FE.

Overall, although disappointing, the delay isn't surprising and certainly wasn't unexpected given worldwide events. I can wait until 4/3 and will be excited to show the console to a bunch of people who have no idea that it evens exists before then

7 minutes ago, mr_me said:

Now with huge displays and high resolution, vertical space is not the issue.  Designers have to figure out what to do with all the extra space on the sides.

thats exactly the issue Im talking about. The dimensions are off so games historically designed to play in a box dont necessarily play well in a rectangle.  You need to be creative in resizing the play area.

Tommy,
I've been following this thread from the beginning and I'm sorry 10/10/2020 didn't work out....it was obviously very important to you.

That date can still be important in the amico universe.....maybe choose 10/10/21 as the release date for original intellivision games or something else with intellivision. Anyway I'm on board with a FE console and wish the best for you guys.

Sent from my LM-V405 using Tapatalk

7 minutes ago, bigdaddygamestudio said:

thats exactly the issue Im talking about. The dimensions are off so games historically designed to play in a box dont necessarily play well in a rectangle.  You need to be creative in resizing the play area.

Before I go back and read everything, I'll just say this:

One of the versions of Arcana Heart (I forget which one) added optional 16:9 support when the game was originally designed to be in 4:3, which completely broke the game balance since it wasn't designed for 16:9.

23 minutes ago, falvster said:

That date can still be important in the amico universe.....maybe choose 10/10/21 as the release date for original intellivision games or something else with intellivision. Anyway I'm on board with a FE console and wish the best for you guys.

yeah, 10/10 could be a sort of Amico Holiday with a cool surprise or release or something each year.

1 hour ago, gogamego said:

Tommy, are you left-handed? I couldn't help notice that you were using your right hand for the circle pad playing Skiing. As I right-hander, I figure I will just play as I normally do...circle pad will be in my left hand.

Just curious.

Sent from my PH-1 using Tapatalk
 

That's how most right-handers played before 1985.  And that's one of the great things about the Amico controller, it's your choice.  That choice makes it more approachable for non-gamers.

44 minutes ago, mr_me said:

It was a bigger problem in the old days converting vertical fixed shooters to horizontal orientation with only about 200 lines of resolution.  Now with huge displays and high resolution, vertical space is not the issue.  Designers have to figure out what to do with all the extra space on the sides.

36 minutes ago, bigdaddygamestudio said:

thats exactly the issue Im talking about. The dimensions are off so games historically designed to play in a box dont necessarily play well in a rectangle.  You need to be creative in resizing the play area.

When you quoted me, part of what I said was left out.

39 minutes ago, falvster said:

Tommy,
I've been following this thread from the beginning and I'm sorry 10/10/2020 didn't work out....it was obviously very important to you.

That date can still be important in the amico universe.....maybe choose 10/10/21 as the release date for original intellivision games or something else with intellivision. Anyway I'm on board with a FE console and wish the best for you guys.

What a great idea. Each year 10/10 can be marked in some way special. Even this year, it can be marked with something... a new sneak-peek video, announcement of a new partnership, etc... just something so that 10/10 is always part of the yearly Amico calendar.

1 hour ago, GrudgeQ said:

Here are the official retailer/distributors announced so far - I have a feeling there is at least one or two more majors are coming:

 

●        GameStop

●        Amazon, Amazon.ca, Amazon Europe

●        Walmart.com and Walmart.ca

●        Walmart (Canada)

●        Best Buy (Canada)

●        Electronics Boutique (Canada)

●        Koch Media (Europe)

●        Mediamarkt (Germany)

●        Saturn (Germany)

I imagine Target will participate at some point after getting all these big name retailers on board!

Okay, I've finished going through what was posted after I posted and I think I've got everything that I want to address.

First, it's too bad the system won't release on 10/10 as planned, especially given what it means to Tommy. Still, 4/3/21 for Founders Edition puts it just a few days before my birthday, so yay, happy~

Second, as I mentioned before, matte is better than glossy, mainly because glossy eventually stops being glossy and turns into a color that I like to call "fingerprint" or "fingerprint camouflage" unless you clean it literally every time you touch it. It would be great to get some high-resolution images of both options to better help decide, though.

As for the games, everything that was shown was in line with my expectations for the system; as has been said multiple times by multiple people, both at Intellivision and elsewhere, including myself, this system is not intended for us, even if it will have games that do appeal to us. As always, best to wait until after launch, when games are actually available, especially since there will be more games that we haven't seen yet that are targeted for around launch day. I think B-17 Bomber is one of them, but I forget.

7 hours ago, bigdaddygamestudio said:

2d allows you to easily do hand drawn art.  Stylized graphics are what can set this system apart, they need to emphasize them more.  The car racing games graphics look good, skiing graphics look great, EWJ is EXACTLY what this system games should look like, Cartoons you play.  anyway just my 2 cents.

Rayman comes to mind immediately.

6 hours ago, Jake67 said:

What killed console gaming for me was all the wasted time to get to actual game play on a lot of titles, especially the major titles. You start the game and you’re forced to watch screens (each game session) telling you who made the game, who published the game, etc.

Just one more advantage of PC~

I will ALWAYS love SE~GA~ though, so that one can stay.

6 hours ago, jaybird3rd said:

Well, I think it's important to remember that we (meaning the people who frequent AtariAge and other similar communities) are not the primary audience for presentations like this

Perhaps the single most important thing to remember, as pretty much everyone will forget about this fact.

I thought Tommy and his team did an overall nice job and seeing all the people involved really humanized the project.

I was happy to see games like Astrosmash, Missile Command and Moon Patrol to continue to be polished and refined and I am confident that by the Spring launch they will be  near perfectly tweaked and real showcases of retro re-imagined.

I like the look of Finnegan Fox, a nice balance between kid friendly and cool with a hint of creepy and look forward to seeing more.

I am curious to see what the final UI will look like, the current version definitely works but given how much we have seen the games evolve I am curious what stage the UI is at. 

What a great event!  I am glad Tommy addressed the release date right off the bat.  As I said before, I was expecting a delay so I really wasn't too phased by that (although I selfishly wish it was only a couple months).  I do think, though, that it will only make the system software and games that much more solid.  I really liked seeing and hearing from the many development teams working on the Amico - and of course the gameplay footage from each. Really glad to see kid-friendly designs on games like Liar's Dice, Finnigan Fox, and Spades. I'm looking forward to more reveals from the edutainment and casual/board/card game categories.  Seeing the console being played (kids playing cornhole and Tommy playing skiing) may have been the highlight for me.  Excellent job by the entire Intellivision Entertainment family.  Only small disappointment is I have to wait a bit longer for a deeper look at Biplanes.

April 2021 can't come soon enough!

Also, put me down for the matte woodgrain option.

I wish Tommy and his team nothing but the best with the launch of the Amico.  I am signed up to purchase a founders edition, and there was some games that have gotten my interest.   Skiing looks great and cant wait to play that one.   With that being said, I was honest in my video and think that there are some things to address in terms of the graphics of some games shown today.  Moving to a spring launch might be really good for them.  4Q is crowded and this will give them more development time to refine some games.  I am looking forward to seeing what they do with the MLB license.