Independent Amico Discussion Thread

[1001lives]

43 minutes ago, ColecoJoe said:

Are you saying it's difficult because you have to download a phone app to set the controls? Because other than that I don't really see the complexity.

Why do parents need a guide to do it then? Shouldn't they be able to boot up the system and intuitively do it without any complexity?

 

https://www.nintendo.com/switch/parental-controls/
 

Just saying, I can name about 20 family members that would see this and go white in the face because they can barely use android or iphone and close out of the browser. (most are over 50 years old, but yeah, they have young kids).

 

You may be overestimating people's competence or ability. You are probably very smart technologically. 

Edited February 10, 2020 by 1001lives

[ColecoJoe]

1 minute ago, 1001lives said:

Why do parents need a guide to do it then? Shouldn't they be able to boot up the system and intuitively do it without any complexity?

A guide is there to guide but it's not necessarily needed. You go to system, click on parental controls and then it asks you to download the app from where you select the various options available to you. Most of us don't need manuals for things but we sometimes do or we sometimes like to read them to see if there's anything we missed. Nothing wrong with having a guide

 

 

[1001lives]

3 minutes ago, ColecoJoe said:

A guide is there to guide but it's not necessarily needed. You go to system, click on parental controls and then it asks you to download the app from where you select the various options available to you. Most of us don't need manuals for things but we sometimes do or we sometimes like to read them to see if there's anything we missed. Nothing wrong with having a guide

As soon as one parent has to go to a guide outside of the device to figure something out like parental controls, the system itself has failed a casual, non-tech savvy user.

 

This is why casual gamers are on their phones and not Xboxs or Switches or building PCs.

Edited February 10, 2020 by 1001lives

[ColecoJoe]

Just now, 1001lives said:

As soon as one parent has to go to a guide outside of the device to figure something out like parental controls, the system itself has failed a casual, non-tech savvy user.

 

This is why casual gamers are on their phones and not Xboxs or Switches or building PCs.

You don't have to go outside the device. The video guide is right there for you to watch or you can just skip it and go straight to the settings. The fact it's giving you a phone app should appeal to the casual gamer you're talking about that is on their phone. Should be familiar to them

 

Anyway, my question was for Tommy. I just wanted to know a little more specifics on why he thinks it's complicated. 

 

 

[MrBeefy]

It may be inconvenient but that doesn't make it hard.

 

The problem is people/parents are lazy or don't care. Work with that issue all the time.

[JeffVav]

I still feel the parental control concern is a red herring. Parental controls restrict mature content once it's found its way on the machine. A credit card restricts it from getting onto the machine. 
 

The only people who'd need to worry about parental controls are mature gamers who share the machine, not game-illiterate parents buying a machine solely to entertain the kids. 

[atm94404]

20 hours ago, Swami said:

There is also that *all* games will be couch co-op, many that were not before. There will be several more 4+ available games than only Just Dance. There will be many motion control games, which has not been common since the Wii, which had a lot of bad ones from 3rd party developers. Hopefully, they will do better with the Amico. I brought this up to Tommy several times. I know "another" modern console has motion control games, but only a couple good ones. As someone who owns a lot of consoles from 5 to 40 years old, I can agree old consoles can be a lot of fun and the games can be a steal.

But total number of *all* Amico games is still going to be less than the hundreds of existing couch co-op games on these platforms.  And is there a "casual gamer" (the kind that is too frightened to pick up a modern game controller) who has been holding out for a couch-co-op version of Shark!Shark! ?  Funny enough, when I set up the Xbox One for my parents, my mom asked if "that fish game" would still work.  She was referring to Feeding Frenzy (a game obviously inspired by Shark!Shark!), and yes I downloaded onto their new Xbox One (they had a 360 in the basement "family room") and she picked it up right where she left off years ago (thank you cloud saves!).  You see, the "people are intimidated by the controller" argument of Amico over other consoles- I've lived that with my parents.  They're the first generation to buy a console for their kids and they're in the 70s.  I'm part of the first generation of kids to have a game console growing up, and I just turned 50.   When I got them a 360, my dad's reaction to the controller was initially "I don't know what to do with that"- which is natural.  But then I handed it to him.  There's really only one way to hold the controller that feels right, so I didn't even have to tell him.  In fact the only thing I had to explain to him was that it wasn't like his tv remote and he didn't have to keep aiming it at the tv (which then made him mad that his tv remote didn't work like that!).  At first I tried showing him a boxing game.  Big mistake.  He got frustrated immediately with the controls.  But then I realized he loves puzzle games (he was addicted to Minesweeper), so I showed him Hexic.   That just uses the d-pad and a button (you can use two-buttons like a "pro").  He took to that in a minute.  Once he unlocked his first Achievement, he was hooked.  My mom was about the same (I started her with Bejewelled) and she was using it in about ten minutes on her own.  It took another ten for both of them to show them how select their games from the menu.  And that mostly wasn't on how to navigate but just more "there's nothing you can press that will cause it to self-destruct".  Trust me, it took them much longer to get adapted to the VCR and the microwave than the Xbox, and to this day I can't get my mom to use right-click on the computer because she thinks that's "too advanced".  But an Xbox?  No problem.

 

Now, if I hadn't shown my dad how to play the Xbox, would he ever have bought himself one on this own?  No.  But guess what?  He also wouldn't have bought an Amico on his own either.   Four buttons, a touchscreen, and a glowing disc thingy is just as intimidating to a non-gamer (IMHO- and I don't need anecdotes about focus groups to say I'm "wrong" because focus groups aren't hard science and often turn into a confirmation bias system https://www.engadget.com/2018/03/23/xbox-controller-retrospective-hyperkin-duke-gamepad/) as an "8+ button controller".   I don't think there is a very large group of people who will accept the Amico controller when someone shows it to them, but at the same time would scream "NO!" and throw a PS4 controller to the ground if their kids handed it to them to show them how to play.   One might be more familiar than another is you asked them ("that one kinda looks like a phone"), but that doesn't mean it wouldn't still be intimidating without help.  And again, I don't need anecdotes of "marketing data" to tell me otherwise because as (I think) Phil Spencer joked when explaining the fiasco of the Duke controller "according to marketing data, your average customer has one ovary and one testicle".   The fact that Wii's were used by grandparents and in nursing homes is nice, but don't think for one second any of those "non-gamers" bought the console out-of-the blue.  The Wii was sold out its first Christmas and all of those sales were to GAMERS and mostly Nintendo gamers (because after the Gamecube, many non-hardcore Nintendo fans were skeptical).  Over Christmas and beyond, those GAMERS showed it to their parents and grandparents.  The GAMERS put the controller in the non-gamers hands and showed them how to play.  AFTER that, non-gamers who had played it started to buy it for themselves and others.   Without the initial penetration into the gamer market, those nursing homes weren't going to just buy it.  The Wii had crossover appeal, but first it had to appeal to the existing gamer crowd.

[bojay1997]

 

46 minutes ago, 1001lives said:

As soon as one parent has to go to a guide outside of the device to figure something out like parental controls, the system itself has failed a casual, non-tech savvy user.

 

This is why casual gamers are on their phones and not Xboxs or Switches or building PCs.

I wonder though how interested someone who finds the Switch parental controls too complicated will be in a device like the Amico.  I mean, even if it's super intuitive, I can imagine a lot of truly casual people being turned off in general by a console that will require being connected to a television and which will require some setup process to connect to WiFi.  Having said that, I know quite a few seniors and soccer moms who are pretty tech savvy anyway, so I don't know if the purported simplicity is really as big a selling point as some people are assuming.  I mean, using a smartphone and apps isn't exactly simple and a significant majority of the population in industrialized countries seem to get by just fine.    

[1001lives]

4 minutes ago, bojay1997 said:

 

I wonder though how interested someone who finds the Switch parental controls too complicated will be in a device like the Amico.  I mean, even if it's super intuitive, I can imagine a lot of truly casual people being turned off in general by a console that will require being connected to a television and which will require some setup process to connect to WiFi.  Having said that, I know quite a few seniors and soccer moms who are pretty tech savvy anyway, so I don't know if the purported simplicity is really as big a selling point as some people are assuming. I mean, using a smartphone and apps isn't exactly simple and a significant majority of the population in industrialized countries seem to get by just fine.    

I would say if the device is going to be at a place like Mom 2.0 and that it's targeting a user base of people who like to play farkle with friends in their neighborhood (older individuals) or darts or bowling, it could have a pretty decent attachment rate. 

 

I could definitely see setting it up and connecting it to wi-fi being an issue. My mom will have to get my dad to help her with the wifi connection, but I'm sure Amico will make it as easy as possible. Perhaps it will prompt simply speaking the password into a controller's microphone and it'll cover speech to text.

   

Also, what userbase are you looking at for the "majority of the population" ? I would say the majority of people over 45 or 50 probably have trouble working out all the features of their smartphone or don't ever explore their smartphones to find out new features beyond doing what they already know how to do. Unless we get some kind of statistics we can't know - but the fact "dumb phones" exist tells me a lot of people don't even like smart phones. 

 

Edit: I found this

https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/02/19/a-foolish-take-17-of-americans-use-feature-phones.aspx

 

 

Edited February 10, 2020 by 1001lives

[bojay1997]

9 minutes ago, atm94404 said:

Now, if I hadn't shown my dad how to play the Xbox, would he ever have bought himself one on this own?  No.  But guess what?  He also wouldn't have bought an Amico on his own either.   Four buttons, a touchscreen, and a glowing disc thingy is just as intimidating to a non-gamer (IMHO- and I don't need anecdotes about focus groups to say I'm "wrong" because focus groups aren't hard science and often turn into a confirmation bias system https://www.engadget.com/2018/03/23/xbox-controller-retrospective-hyperkin-duke-gamepad/) as an "8+ button controller".   I don't think there is a very large group of people who will accept the Amico controller when someone shows it to them, but at the same time would scream "NO!" and throw a PS4 controller to the ground if their kids handed it to them to show them how to play.   

It's funny how spot on this is with my own experiences and thoughts about why one of the major underlying premises about Amico's mass appeal versus appeal to a niche of existing gamers might be misguided.  

[bojay1997]

3 minutes ago, 1001lives said:

I would say if the device is going to be at a place like Mom 2.0 and that it's targeting a user base of people who like to play farkle with friends in their neighborhood (older individuals) or darts or bowling, it could have a pretty decent attachment rate. 

 

I could definitely see setting it up and connecting it to wi-fi being an issue. My mom will have to get my dad to help her with the wifi connection, but I'm sure Amico will make it as easy as possible. Perhaps it will prompt simply speaking the password into a controller's microphone and it'll cover speech to text.

   

Also, what userbase are you looking at for the "majority of the population" ? I would say the majority of people over 45 or 50 probably have trouble working out all the features of their smartphone or don't ever explore their smartphones to find out new features beyond doing what they already know how to do. Unless we get some kind of statistics we can't know - but the fact "dumb phones" exist tells me a lot of people don't even like smart phones. 

 

Edit: I found this

https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/02/19/a-foolish-take-17-of-americans-use-feature-phones.aspx

 

 

The data I have seen is that about 60% of seniors aged 65-69 in the US own smartphones and 50% of seniors aged 70-74 own them.  I will acknowledge that there is a large population of people out there that either use simple phones or don't use cellular phones at all, but how interested are those people going to be in a gaming console, especially one that will require a WiFi connection at home and connection to a television?  I mean, you'll need to have some technical knowledge and existing WiFi infrastructure to even make the Amico work in a household.   

[1001lives]

17 minutes ago, atm94404 said:

 The fact that Wii's were used by grandparents and in nursing homes is nice, but don't think for one second any of those "non-gamers" bought the console out-of-the blue.  The Wii was sold out its first Christmas and all of those sales were to GAMERS and mostly Nintendo gamers (because after the Gamecube, many non-hardcore Nintendo fans were skeptical).  Over Christmas and beyond, those GAMERS showed it to their parents and grandparents.  The GAMERS put the controller in the non-gamers hands and showed them how to play.  AFTER that, non-gamers who had played it started to buy it for themselves and others.   Without the initial penetration into the gamer market, those nursing homes weren't going to just buy it.  The Wii had crossover appeal, but first it had to appeal to the existing gamer crowd.

You will have to produce some hard data to support this. Because as of now, this take completely invalidates anything you've said thus far. Nintendo marketed HARDCORE to moms and grandmas and families, not gamers, and not just kids.

 

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-dec-25-fi-momwii25-story.html

[1001lives]

3 minutes ago, bojay1997 said:

The data I have seen is that about 60% of seniors aged 65-69 in the US own smartphones and 50% of seniors aged 70-74 own them.  I will acknowledge that there is a large population of people out there that either use simple phones or don't use cellular phones at all, but how interested are those people going to be in a gaming console, especially one that will require a WiFi connection at home and connection to a television?  I mean, you'll need to have some technical knowledge and existing WiFi infrastructure to even make the Amico work in a household.   

You don't know the market. It's currently untapped. Which is why Tommy is going after it. 

 

Uh... Duh? I mean, this isn't rocket science man.

Edited February 10, 2020 by 1001lives

[ColecoJoe]

2 minutes ago, 1001lives said:

You will have to produce some hard data to support this. Because as of now, this take completely invalidates anything you've said thus far. Nintendo marketed HARDCORE to moms and grandmas and families, not gamers, and not just kids.

 

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-dec-25-fi-momwii25-story.html

Isn't this what @atm94404 is claiming?

 

from the first paragraph

 

"Nintendo recruited a handful of gregarious, tech-savvy moms -- whom it dubbed “alpha moms” -- to share the console with their friends."

 

 

[1001lives]

2 minutes ago, ColecoJoe said:

Isn't this what @atm94404 is claiming?

 

from the first paragraph

 

"Nintendo recruited a handful of gregarious, tech-savvy moms -- whom it dubbed “alpha moms” -- to share the console with their friends."

Isn't this exactly what Tommy is doing?

 

https://mom2.com/official-sponsor-intellivision-entertainment/

 

🤡 honk honk

Edited February 10, 2020 by 1001lives

[ColecoJoe]

1 minute ago, 1001lives said:

Isn't this exactly what Tommy is doing?

 

https://mom2.com/official-sponsor-intellivision-entertainment/

 

🤡 honk honk

I have no idea what Tommy is doing 

 

 🤡 honk honk

[1001lives]

2 minutes ago, ColecoJoe said:

I have no idea what Tommy is doing 

 

 🤡 honk honk

Don't honk at me. I'm the only clown here. (in many ways) 

[bojay1997]

4 minutes ago, 1001lives said:

You don't know the market. It's currently untapped. Which is why Tommy is going after it. 

 

Uh... Duh? I mean, this isn't rocket science man.

Either do you.  All of this is pure speculation until the thing launches.  The thing about untapped markets is that sometimes they are untapped because there is nothing to tap or it's just too expensive and there is not enough profit to be had to convert the market into adopters of something.  I mean part of the genius of the Wii is that you could just plug it into your TV and pop in the pack-in game and you were off and running.  No need to download games or connect to WiFi or learn how to use a proprietary touch screen.  For some people and maybe for most people, offering them a console that is slightly easier to use than the existing choices out there might not be enough to convince them to make the leap, especially in a world with virtually unlimited cheap entertainment options.  

[1001lives]

9 minutes ago, bojay1997 said:

Either do you.  All of this is pure speculation until the thing launches.  The thing about untapped markets is that sometimes they are untapped because there is nothing to tap or it's just too expensive and there is not enough profit to be had to convert the market into adopters of something.  I mean part of the genius of the Wii is that you could just plug it into your TV and pop in the pack-in game and you were off and running.  No need to download games or connect to WiFi or learn how to use a proprietary touch screen.  For some people and maybe for most people, offering them a console that is slightly easier to use than the existing choices out there might not be enough to convince them to make the leap, especially in a world with virtually unlimited cheap entertainment options.  

Yeah, I give you that. I'm just going based on faith and trust due to Tommy's experience in the video game industry with how many people he knows. 

 

It is a different world now than it was when the Wii launched in 2006. I do think with the right device and right marketing, something like the Wii can succeed again. 

 

And if he somehow can't reach them... Maybe he can at least reach the hardcore audience like us and get others on board.

Edited February 10, 2020 by 1001lives

[mr_me]

1 hour ago, MrBeefy said:

It may be inconvenient but that doesn't make it hard.

 

The problem is people/parents are lazy or don't care. Work with that issue all the time.

Some parents are very busy and overworked.  One less thing to worry about will help.

 

1 hour ago, atm94404 said:

...

 

Now, if I hadn't shown my dad how to play the Xbox, would he ever have bought himself one on this own?  No.  But guess what?  He also wouldn't have bought an Amico on his own either.   Four buttons, a touchscreen, and a glowing disc thingy is just as intimidating to a non-gamer (IMHO- and I don't need anecdotes about focus groups to say I'm "wrong" because focus groups aren't hard science and often turn into a confirmation bias system https://www.engadget.com/2018/03/23/xbox-controller-retrospective-hyperkin-duke-gamepad/) as an "8+ button controller".   I don't think there is a very large group of people who will accept the Amico controller when someone shows it to them, but at the same time would scream "NO!" and throw a PS4 controller to the ground if their kids handed it to them to show them how to play.   One might be more familiar than another is you asked them ("that one kinda looks like a phone"), but that doesn't mean it wouldn't still be intimidating without help.  And again, I don't need anecdotes of "marketing data" to tell me otherwise because as (I think) Phil Spencer joked when explaining the fiasco of the Duke controller "according to marketing data, your average customer has one ovary and one testicle".   

The Xbox wasn't marketed to non-gamers but the Amico is expected to be mostly marketed to non-gamers.

 

1 hour ago, bojay1997 said:

 

I wonder though how interested someone who finds the Switch parental controls too complicated will be in a device like the Amico.  I mean, even if it's super intuitive, I can imagine a lot of truly casual people being turned off in general by a console that will require being connected to a television and which will require some setup process to connect to WiFi.  Having said that, I know quite a few seniors and soccer moms who are pretty tech savvy anyway, so I don't know if the purported simplicity is really as big a selling point as some people are assuming.  I mean, using a smartphone and apps isn't exactly simple and a significant majority of the population in industrialized countries seem to get by just fine.    

The Amico doesn't require wifi.  It has five built-in games and more games can  be purchased at stores.

[+Swami]

1 hour ago, atm94404 said:

But total number of *all* Amico games is still going to be less than the hundreds of existing couch co-op games on these platforms.  And is there a "casual gamer" (the kind that is too frightened to pick up a modern game controller) who has been holding out for a couch-co-op version of Shark!Shark! ?  Funny enough, when I set up the Xbox One for my parents, my mom asked if "that fish game" would still work.  She was referring to Feeding Frenzy (a game obviously inspired by Shark!Shark!), and yes I downloaded onto their new Xbox One (they had a 360 in the basement "family room") and she picked it up right where she left off years ago (thank you cloud saves!).  You see, the "people are intimidated by the controller" argument of Amico over other consoles- I've lived that with my parents.  They're the first generation to buy a console for their kids and they're in the 70s.  I'm part of the first generation of kids to have a game console growing up, and I just turned 50.   When I got them a 360, my dad's reaction to the controller was initially "I don't know what to do with that"- which is natural.  But then I handed it to him.  There's really only one way to hold the controller that feels right, so I didn't even have to tell him.  In fact the only thing I had to explain to him was that it wasn't like his tv remote and he didn't have to keep aiming it at the tv (which then made him mad that his tv remote didn't work like that!).  At first I tried showing him a boxing game.  Big mistake.  He got frustrated immediately with the controls.  But then I realized he loves puzzle games (he was addicted to Minesweeper), so I showed him Hexic.   That just uses the d-pad and a button (you can use two-buttons like a "pro").  He took to that in a minute.  Once he unlocked his first Achievement, he was hooked.  My mom was about the same (I started her with Bejewelled) and she was using it in about ten minutes on her own.  It took another ten for both of them to show them how select their games from the menu.  And that mostly wasn't on how to navigate but just more "there's nothing you can press that will cause it to self-destruct".  Trust me, it took them much longer to get adapted to the VCR and the microwave than the Xbox, and to this day I can't get my mom to use right-click on the computer because she thinks that's "too advanced".  But an Xbox?  No problem.

 

Now, if I hadn't shown my dad how to play the Xbox, would he ever have bought himself one on this own?  No.  But guess what?  He also wouldn't have bought an Amico on his own either.   Four buttons, a touchscreen, and a glowing disc thingy is just as intimidating to a non-gamer (IMHO- and I don't need anecdotes about focus groups to say I'm "wrong" because focus groups aren't hard science and often turn into a confirmation bias system https://www.engadget.com/2018/03/23/xbox-controller-retrospective-hyperkin-duke-gamepad/) as an "8+ button controller".   I don't think there is a very large group of people who will accept the Amico controller when someone shows it to them, but at the same time would scream "NO!" and throw a PS4 controller to the ground if their kids handed it to them to show them how to play.   One might be more familiar than another is you asked them ("that one kinda looks like a phone"), but that doesn't mean it wouldn't still be intimidating without help.  And again, I don't need anecdotes of "marketing data" to tell me otherwise because as (I think) Phil Spencer joked when explaining the fiasco of the Duke controller "according to marketing data, your average customer has one ovary and one testicle".   The fact that Wii's were used by grandparents and in nursing homes is nice, but don't think for one second any of those "non-gamers" bought the console out-of-the blue.  The Wii was sold out its first Christmas and all of those sales were to GAMERS and mostly Nintendo gamers (because after the Gamecube, many non-hardcore Nintendo fans were skeptical).  Over Christmas and beyond, those GAMERS showed it to their parents and grandparents.  The GAMERS put the controller in the non-gamers hands and showed them how to play.  AFTER that, non-gamers who had played it started to buy it for themselves and others.   Without the initial penetration into the gamer market, those nursing homes weren't going to just buy it.  The Wii had crossover appeal, but first it had to appeal to the existing gamer crowd.

Well, I’m agnostic on the controller. It looks weird to me , too. I keep wanting buttons on the top and to not have to rotate the disk like you do on the original INTV, but people who’ve used it have liked it and beyond that we just have IE info, so, undecided. No idea how Joe Plumber, Ms. Plumber, Baby Plumber or Granny Plumber will react to it.  If the disc works like a dpad that’s a big step in the right direction for me. I’m interested in the games they’re making, more so than most of what the big 3 come out with (personally). I don’t own a P3, PS4, WiiU or switch, but most of the rest of the biggies. For my Xbox one I own like six games, all kinect required. Looking forward to motion control games on the system. I own almost everything made that plays motion control video games. So on and so forth. 

[mr_me]

You don't rotate the disc when changing directions.  Changing fom left to right and back to left you slide your thumb across the disc.  And tapping a glass touch-pad is much quicker than a physical button, try-it.

Edited February 10, 2020 by mr_me

[+Swami]

8 minutes ago, mr_me said:

You don't rotate the disc when changing directions.  Changing fom left to right and back to left you slide your thumb across the disc.  And tapping a glass touch-pad is much quicker than a physical button, try-it.

Well yeah, I’ve heard. Just saying how my gut reacts to it. I know your not rotating the orig Intellivision disk, but you’re sliding you’re finger around on it like if you were. It’s a different sort of thing. 

[JeffVav]

Can I just say that my wife, currently in the middle of replaying Witcher 3, was quite offended to learn that "moms" was being used as the placeholder term for the archetype of tech/game-illiterate parent?

[mr_me]

No, not around it but across it.  No different than any dpad.  If you go around you'll hit other directions you don't want.