Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

30 minutes ago, RetroAdvisoryBoard said:

 

Less all-intrusive, but, still kinda taking the game with you in a sense when you're not in front of the game.  Good that they're just focusing on what matters though - "Is the game fun?"  

I'm just scared that these companies' use of applied psychology is going to be really subtle, unnoticed by man, and evil. It's the manipulation of the end-users' behavior without them realizing it. They're designing an addiction by using methods that keep players hooked. Is that why we play games? If the game is fun, why do you need to trick people into playing them more?

On another note, @Tommy Tallarico, when are we going to get news of the sixth free pack-in game? Any clues as to what it might be?

Well... some sense of personal responsibility needs to be placed on the person/gamer too though right?  I get what you are saying but I Can’t see anything like that as dark or evil.  People need to just not buy DLC, not play X amount of hours to unlock Y.  

If we are going to look at this via psychology, fine I’m cool with that, but then I’d say there are a lot of people who feel rather empty inside and they seek to replace that emptiness with whatever they spend their money on that gives them some temporary fulfillment.   

I’m probably barking up the wrong tree and I don’t mean to belittle addiction because it’s real, but if we are going to throw around terms like “evil” to describe this, then it’s a loonnnng list that falls under that and it’s closer to home then all of you will like 

2 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Fantastic post and thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Sony & Microsoft (as well as Nintendo) have tens of millions of dedicated hardcore fans... as they should... the 3 of them have ruled console gaming for 25 - 35 years and deservedly so.  They will have no problem selling tens of millions of whatever machine they put out and getting millions upon millions of pre-orders without ever seeing or playing it.  Even something like the Wii U (considered a "failure" by everyone) sold over 13.5 million units!  I'll take Nintendo's "failure" numbers any day of the week!  

 

I agree that the industry is definitely pushing into a brand new realm and future... we've seen it happening with mobile for over 5 years.  Games now being designed to purposely suck more money out of you, or... as you mentioned... lots of mediocre to low level quality being offered (among some great stuff) for a monthly subscription.  Seems to be the "future" of gaming for the big 3.  We want to do something totally different.  We want to bring it back to the way it used to be.  Before the microtransactions, loot boxes, online toxic behaviors, complicated and complex control schemes, gameplay and menus.

Many focus tests and independent research studies show that you/I are not the only people who feel this way.  In fact, the overwhelming majority does.  And as gaming continues to get MORE complex, MORE expensive and MORE towards the user not really owning anything... I think our idea of doing something totally different will resonate with a lot of folks.

 

That's the dream anyway.

 

 

It definitely does resonate with my family and friends. I was thinking about buying the series x on their payment plan. Then thought about it and was realizing that I barely have time to ay these lengthy more expensive games. And thought more and more on how I just love the way games use to be. And the memories I had with friends playing together.  1 $70 game I barely have time for can be spent on a group of games my whole family can enjoy together. Also no guilt lol. 

Im especially excited to see the physical media you guys will sell. I was off work yesterday and picked up some records, remember those lol.

Having a physical copy just feels more rewarding.  So no ps5 no xbox series s or x nope just me patiently waiting for my Amico.  

If I was the CEO of a company, I would name all my products with very similar names, so people who usually don't know what the fork they are doing (which, let's be honest here, are most people) buy one when they wanted to buy another and there will never be shortages.

Ouch! Sorry, that has already happened: It looks like Xbox One X sales are up 700% this week. Spoilers: people were trying to preorder Xbox Series X instead.

You read it first in this topic. We all knew the name was not a good idea.

4 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

 

Never saw that one.

 

Dont need zombies ate my neighbors when demons ate my neighbors  is a thing thats about to be kick started many of the people working on intellivision  amico toe jam and earl ate making it. And gameplay is a mux of zombies ate my beighbors and toe jam

4 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

 

Just wanted to point out that I got the Heart reference.

 

 

Haha... I'm a Mopar guy... I couldn't resist!!

3 hours ago, IntelliMission said:

If I was the CEO of a company, I would name all my products with very similar names, so people who usually don't know what the fork they are doing (which, let's be honest here, are most people) buy one when they wanted to buy another and there will never be shortages.

 

Ouch! Sorry, that has already happened: It looks like Xbox One X sales are up 700% this week. Spoilers: people were trying to preorder Xbox Series X instead.

 

You read it first in this topic. We all knew the name was not a good idea.

It just shows that too much X can be bad for you.

I think Microsoft needs a new direction when naming the next console after Series S/X, so I have raised a new topic in Atari Age:

[Brainstorming] How would you name the next Xbox after Series S/X?

These are my ideas:

X

X5

Microsoft Next

Microzilla FireBox

Microsoft Xbox Series X 2 Turbo ''

Max Box 20

Cloud Box

Box Cloud

Microsoft Rain

Microsoft Rainbow

Microsoft Rainbox

Series Z

Box to Box

Microsoft Revolution X Featuring Aerosmith

How about Super Xbox Extreme Series 5,000? Or Ultra Xbox Advanced Edition?  Lol.

1 hour ago, IntelliMission said:

I think Microsoft needs a new direction when naming the next console after Series S/X, so I have raised a new topic in Atari Age:

 

[Brainstorming] How would you name the next Xbox after Series S/X?

 

These are my ideas:

 

X

X5

Microsoft Next

Microzilla FireBox

Microsoft Xbox Series X 2 Turbo ''

Max Box 20

Cloud Box

Box Cloud

Microsoft Rain

Microsoft Rainbow

Microsoft Rainbox

Series Z

Box to Box

Microsoft Revolution X Featuring Aerosmith

Here is the icon for the Microzilla Firebox:

For the Series Z:

* My slight hint to have an Ultraman (Any of the 40 or so Ultra's) game for the Amico. Maybe have an Ultraman Edition for the Japanese Market. 

Hotbox

scary part someone is getting paid to come up with " lets add some more X's to the name, yeah that should do it"

Xbox xseries xtra xxxey 5...    I should be a consultant, this stuffs easy.    

another quick story, back in college when i was broke as hell, and shortly thereafter when I was..wait for it... broke as hell.. I used to do these focus group stuff.  Easy 25 to 50 bucks to eat some KFC new flavor chicken, or give feedback on products and things.  Well its boring as hell and me being an ass, I would always just screw with them.  Like a question after you ate would be ...KFC new extra seasoning chicken is need of....  and they had some multi choice answers or you could choose E) write in, and I would write crap like  " Its need fudge"..  so yeah I could see myself in an Xbox naming focus group being an ass saying something like it needs more X's..

5 hours ago, IntelliMission said:

I think Microsoft needs a new direction when naming the next console after Series S/X, so I have raised a new topic in Atari Age:

 

[Brainstorming] How would you name the next Xbox after Series S/X?

 

These are my ideas:

 

X

X5

Microsoft Next

Microzilla FireBox

Microsoft Xbox Series X 2 Turbo ''

Max Box 20

Cloud Box

Box Cloud

Microsoft Rain

Microsoft Rainbow

Microsoft Rainbox

Series Z

Box to Box

Microsoft Revolution X Featuring Aerosmith

Maybe somebody already brought this up, but is Microsoft trying to do the Tesla bit with the Xbox naming conventions?  Musk said that he named the different car models S,3,X and Y to spell "sexy" (S3XY).  Is Microsoft trying the same with models S and X?  Random thought of the day.

I kinda like AMICRO Box 

13 hours ago, wolfy62 said:

It just shows that too much X can be bad for you.

Hahaha. I agree wholeheartedly Dale. 8^)

Anthony..

22 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

The naysayers will tell anyone who will listen (which isn't much) that the two can't exist.  They honestly believe that someone who likes high end graphics will never purchase an Amico.  Everything is "binary" to them as they try to convince others that they need to believe and feel the same way that they do. 

I really don’t get this mentality of thinking.  Yes, to me graphics are important but so is game play, they go hand in hand.  Depending on the game those graphics don’t have to be 4K high fidelity.  Take Minecraft for example.  When I first saw that I was like, no way I’m getting into that.  My nephew would come over and would want to play it with me, so we networked up our computers and guess what...I played it and enjoyed it...even after he left!  The crafting aspect hooked you to find different materials to create new things, it worked.  The graphics were perfect for that game and worked well with the game play.

I would say most people on Atari Age (and most gamers in general) are by no means “binary”.

On 9/22/2020 at 9:58 PM, Loafer said:

when I was playing Pitfall in a high score competition (right here on AtariAge), I was motivated to continue and continue I did.

I agree with you on the competitive aspect of the first gen console games.  The graphics were primitive so games being competitive drove the narrative.  In single player and in multiplayer it was that idea of playing one more game to beat your previous high that drove you to keep playing.  I too played in some of the original High Score Club competitions on here and found myself doing exactly what you did,  playing for hours to get a better score before the deadline.  For me one thing that surprised me is that I ended up playing some games I never would have tried before and ended up liking them all due to that competition.

Another thought about graphics and game play.  One of the games I loved to play on the 2600 was Stellar Track (a Sears game, not sure if there was an Atari version of it).  This game basically had no graphics!  It was a grid with numbers representing a galaxy map.  Trying to determine the number of moves to be able to clear the map of enemy ships and reach resupply space stations kept you going.  Simple graphics, but great game play requiring strategy.

A side note, I liked this game because in high school we had these terminals which connected to our local BOCES (a vocational school for students that wanted to go into a trade). When I say terminals I’m talking about a printer terminals with keyboards on them, not CRT terminals.  You would type in commands and the responses would be printed out.  These were mainly used by the Guidance Counselor for career planning, but we got to use them too.  There was a game called Star Trek that someone accessed on there that was basically Stellar Track on paper.  Wow did we kill a lot of trees playing that game!

21 hours ago, timbofry1 said:

So looking forward to the Amico bringing this aspect back to the forefront.  My wife is not a fan of video games at all, but even she got into the Wii, and her parents and my parents and children of all ages

Same here!

@Saldo killed it in these last posts. I would only add that the need for "advanced graphics" doesn't even apply to games in general. Sure Exploding Kittens is popular, but what is more popular is just playing cards. Catan is awesome but checkers is still hanging in there after centuries. I would even argue that 'gamers' who are obsessed with pixels and gigaflops aren't even gamers. They are tech enthusiast who also enjoy gaming. People who play games for fun, and don't care what form they find it in - those are true gamers. Advanced graphics can add to the fun but they certainly don't make the game fun by itself.

1 hour ago, GrudgeQ said:

I would only add that the need for "advanced graphics" doesn't even apply to games in general

Absolutely agree with this.  My wife and I are currently camping in Cape May, NJ.  Our camper doesn’t have a TV, not because it is an old camper ( it’s only 7 years old), but because when we camp we unplug so we opted not to get one installed.  Now we do have our phones and iPad for internet access (we are not THAT uncivilized!) which I mainly use for reading my online mags (PC Gamer anyone?) and such.  The one thing we do have in the camper are board games, checkers, and cards.  Last night we had some good rounds of Triple Yahtzee!  

I fell on this meme about DLC this morning and I thought you guys would dig it (sorry if you've seen this already)

I only bring up the graphics issue because after 935 pages I kept reading about how graphics are not important, but to some people they are and I am one of them and I am sure there are plenty of others on here.  Game play and graphics go hand in hand like I stated.  What are the retro reimagined games that everyone is waiting for in this thread?  Basically the great game play mechanics of games that have stood the test of time to make them classics but with updated graphics and game play.  Even the original Intellivision boasted about its graphic superiority back in the day against Atari.  
 

I would consider myself a semi-hard core gamer.  I haven’t crossed the line to hard core because there are other things in life that are more important and keep me from crossing that line.  As such I enjoy video games as a whole whether we are talking 4K VR games, to original console games, to a quick game of solitaire on an iPad.  I enjoy them all and collect them all.  Like Tommy said the fact that hard core gamers have this mindset that they can’t enjoy something like the Amico is totally bunk.  I bet that mindset set is really just from a small percentage of the hard core population.

1 hour ago, Saldo said:

I only bring up the graphics issue because after 935 pages I kept reading about how graphics are not important

I am probably guilty of over simplifying my real position and saying stuff like this, but bottom line I agree 100% with you. I like graphics, I like great graphics even better. I like sound and I like great sound even better. But both of those are icing on the cupcake. Sure that rainbow unicorn cupcake may look adorable but if you spent more time on the decorations than the cake (a trap I think a lot of game companies fall into), then you end up with some overly sweet gummy mess that is only good to look at and not eat - the same with games.

I think the genius of the whole retro-reimagined concept is that Intellivision has the benefit of hindsight to find great games. Assuming they don't mess up the base mechanics, which made these great in the first place, but maybe just throw in some nuts to the batter to spice up the original game play and then re-frost that cake with some nice graphics & sound, they are onto a winning formula.