Intellivision Amico Console announced - Hundreds of millions of sprites. Superior 2D than PS4 or PS5

[Aussie2B]

I don't like seeing people get scammed, but what I see as a scam isn't necessarily going to match what others claim is a scam. People are both extremely hyperbolic and entitled these days and will scream "Scam!", "Thief!", etc. even over something shipping a couple days later than the buyer expected. I think most campaigns on crowdfunding services aren't scams. I don't think the Amico was designed to be a scam either. Crowdfunding is a gamble, however, and every service frames it as such to cover their butts. That's why I think crowdfunding sucks, and I generally avoid it because I've never been fully satisfied with what I got out of any campaign I've backed. In my experience, there's always been something promised that wasn't totally delivered on. But that's sort of the nature of any product, crowdfunded or not. Better to wait and see what it is in the end than blindly trust the marketing. So I wouldn't recommend people crowdfund these types of projects, but I wouldn't tell them it's a scam either.

As for making new discoveries, I feel there's plenty left to explore in gaming. There are tens of thousands of games I've never played, dozens of systems I've never touched, new things I learn about games I have played, and so on. I care more about genuine interactions where I talk about my personal experiences with somebody talking about their personal experiences than some e-peen contest to see who has info to share that's never been shared before. I couldn't care less how thoroughly something has been covered online. I'm not here to break news, I just want the socializing that can be had over a shared loved hobby. I derive no pleasure from a social interaction that's like "I hate this" and "Yeah, I hate that too. This hobby sucks now."

[YoshiM]

t least compared to the Chameleon, at least people were able to play with real functioning controllers and such. It LOOKED like it could be fun but me personally can't justify it. It's sad that it went sour because they could have had something pretty fun.

[Gameguy]

Not every crowdfunding project is an actual scam, or at least isn't intended to be when started. I suppose I mostly mean projects where the creators are grossly incompetent, though essentially claiming that you're skilled enough to deliver a finished quality product when you're not is basically scamming. If I'm hiring a "professional" plumbing company I would be angry if the three stooges showed up to do the work. This Intellivision project just screamed incompetence from the beginning, which is really what killed the project in the end.

Although with crowdfunding in general it's basically a scam as the people giving money are taking all the risk, yet won't ever get a portion of the profits if it's successful, which is what investing actually is supposed to be. It's like buying a lottery ticket where the potential grand prize is just the same cost as the original ticket price. Crowdfunding should really be used to pay for essentially completed projects where the creators can't afford the final manufacturing costs, the last step of a project.

As for new discoveries in gaming, I'm sure there's still plenty I could find for myself but it just seems so much more difficult and time consuming compared to years earlier. I'm sure I could still find new games I've never heard of which are actually good, but it feels like I would need to search for several hours to find anything promising. Years ago I could just ask on a forum for recommendations, these days I would probably already know most if not all of the titles people would recommend. As for hidden secrets with games, it's more like any game I was curious about the programming like how certain effects were done on older consoles, those games are already fully discussed online. It's not that I constantly want new things to learn about with games, but what I've mostly been curious about has already been found and talked about so those mysteries are answered for me. Same with certain lost unreleased games, a lot of the big ones have already been found and explored. I do still have plenty of games in my collection I still haven't got to playing, I just haven't spent time playing games lately at all. There's just not as much to talk about with gaming for me anymore.

[Greg2600]

CEO message (finally) sent to backers....


Greetings,

This is Phil Adam, CEO of Intellivision. I had planned to respond sooner with the company status, but the team has been working through some production pipeline bugs that have delayed this update. As I've stated previously, updates from myself will be made when material facts are available and relevant. That being said, here are a few updates.

1. One of the primary goals for the small pilot run was to uncover any issues in the production pipeline before starting a larger production run. Fortunately, we did catch one significant problem. Diagnosing this issue and implementing a solution was a significant effort and caused a delay. The symptoms pointed to a bug in the controller firmware, but that was not the case. The problem was an order-of-operations issue when provisioning the console on the production line with its unique identifiers and security keys. The error manifested on the next reboot in a way that looked like a controller bug. With that resolved, the path is clear to finish the pilot run in the next few weeks.

2. We signed a licensing deal with BBG Entertainment GmbH, the details of which will be announced later. Here is a quote from Stephan Berendsen, Managing Director:
"We are very pleased to have licensed four Amico games and the original game versions from Intellivision. For the past three years we have been working with Intellivision on the development of our games DYNABLASTER and BRAINDUEL for Amico. We are excited about Amico and hope that customers will be as well. We are looking forward to offering the four licensed Amico games and original Intellivision versions on other platforms soon.”

3. We have another partnership deal that will ensure that 2 of our most anticipated IPs will be available across multiple platforms as well as Amico. The details of that relationship will be announced at a later time. The target for these IPs is simultaneously (or later) with the Amico release.

Given that we will have a limited number of Amico units initially, these partnerships will get the games into more hands who have been waiting to play while helping get the word out to a larger audience. As stated above, we are doing everything we can to make sure that we have a stable system before starting production. That is a key milestone in moving forward.

I would like to thank you again for your support, and thank you to our internal team and external developers that work tirelessly to create a family gaming experience on Amico that brings people of different ages and skills together in group play.

Phil Adam, CEO

[Gameguy]

Wait, he's claiming that the console is still somehow going to be released?

1. So the console is somehow still being manufactured, but didn't they already run out of funding?

2. and 3. The games developed for the Amico are now going to also be released on other platforms...so there's no point to buy an Amico then?

And no mention to the office shutting down and being completely emptied. It must be hard for Phil to currently run the Intellivision company out of his car.


Now it's actually starting to feel like a giant scam, rather than just massive incompetence. The whole "everything is fine" attitude with no explanations to actual widely talked about detriments feels incredibly strange, the last news people had is that the company went bankrupt and shut down, yet no explanations about the office shutting down or any possible relocation. Like there's no physical location for the company anymore. Baffling.

[JSoup]

I'd be down for just the games at this point. EMJ2 and whatever remakes they were talking about is fine. It's vastly better than the current nothingburger.

[YoshiM]

With the games being released on other systems, maybe Intellivision should just have a separate company for publishing....M Network was taken....how about A Network? I Network? They could get exclusivity on the Atari VCS console.

[JSoup]

Assuming they can get back/keep the trademark, it all could be published under Atari VCS and call it a day.

[JSoup]

Following up on this, the console is still kaput unless they suddenly make lots and lots of money. However, the Amico is now an app, called Amico Home.
It requires two cellphones to use, one to act as the controller and the other to act as the screen. Unless you have the official Amico controller, which hasn't been manufactured yet.

But hey, Greg, you were right to keep the faith! The Amico lives!

[Greg2600]

Following up on this, the console is still kaput unless they suddenly make lots and lots of money. However, the Amico is now an app, called Amico Home.
It requires two cellphones to use, one to act as the controller and the other to act as the screen. Unless you have the official Amico controller, which hasn't been manufactured yet.

But hey, Greg, you were right to keep the faith! The Amico lives!

Not me! I never had any, but like I said two years ago, the trademark "lapsing" meant nothing. You can still buy their set of lovely EMPTY boxes with a promise of 8 games to come!

https://www.timeextension.com/news/2024/02/intellivision-names-amico-mascot-still-no-sign-of-the-console

Yes, they long ago gave up on the console, and have been attempting to scrounge up funding to produce the controller, which would play via Bluetooth, on Android devices. What's absolutely absurd is how homebrew folks are able to construct new consoles and controllers with no money, and these guys continue to flop. Frankly, they should have considered building USB Intellivision controller replicas, as well as a "modern" pad for the original systems. At least you could have sold a few hundred of those to INTV collectors.

[Aussie2B]

Apparently Tommy Tallarico has also listed his home for sale for 3 million, the one he's been in for roughly 30 years and showed off on some program and then lied about, claiming it was from MTV Cribs. So that doesn't particularly bode well for the status of the Amico.

[Osirus]

https://cdn.acidcow.com/pics/20140701/80s_movie_gifs_12.gif

[JSoup]

Found this thread again and thought it was time for another looks since it's been well over a year.
Atari acquired Intellivision as in May 2024. While the read from that month says they are welcoming Amico into the family, they didn't actually acquire Amico. Funny part is they seem to admit involving Tommy Tallarico wasn't a great idea and him dumping so much money into the project wasn't smart. Amico rebranded as Amico Entertainment.

Jump ahead to March of this year, Atari released a planned Amico remake of Breakout, renamed Breakout Beyond.
Jump ahead again, this time to late last month, and three Amico titles were released: Evel Knievil (Steam & Switch), Finnigan Fox (Steam & Switch) and Cornhole (Switch).
No mention of the system or the Home app from over a year ago. Also no real word on Earthworm Jim 4, the only real reason I was following this clusterfuck at all, beyond that it's not been officially cancelled, but nothing of it really exists but the samples produced for the Kickstarter.

Greg! GREG! GREG, WAKE UP, AMICO LIVES KINDA!

[Osirus]

Wow, that killer-app Evel Knievel game finally came out? I'll check it out!

What a hit!

11211

[JSoup]

Oh yeah, it's just early 2000s flash game junk. Supposedly Finnigan Fox is a decent enough platformer and I'm not looking up "Cornhole play stats". That Breakout game, however, has been reviewing great.
No real clue yet about the stated "iMagic remakes" or if anything will really come from that. I linked the preview video of in-works titles on the last page, the video itself being from 2020, but most the potential titles just seems to either be reskins of Atari games or directly released pre-Flash guff, seemingly as filler content. A great deal of the initial fan backing came because of EMJ4 being a title, but as said that doesn't seem to have gone anywhere.

[Tron 2.0]

Oh yeah, it's just early 2000s flash game junk. Supposedly Finnigan Fox is a decent enough platformer
Finnigan Fox is just Fox'n'Forest where it originally came out back in 2018 for pc and various consoles.

[JSoup]

And it's a decent enough platformer as well. :D

[kupomogli]

This console likely has more exclusives than the PS5. If it was modern hardware they'd probably outsell that at least.

[JSoup]

I mean, does it count if all the exclusives are remakes from a system no one remembers?
The answer is "maybe, but not in this case" since all the titles are being released on other shop fronts anyway.