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Intellivision Amico Announced | 10/10/20, <$180 USD, No Ports and Better 2D Than the PS4, XB1 or PS5

Dancrane212

Dancrane212

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Oct 25, 2017
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Oct 22nd Update:

John64 said:
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Tempy said:
Here's the Press Release - https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/fb1de7_c9b4346bc0784a8689ed35d4adb67e73.pdf
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Following up on the previous thread.

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Officially unveiled as the Intellivision Amico



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Comes out 10.10.2020, aiming for a price around $149 to $179 USD.
  • Controllers fit inside the console and use wireless charging.
  • Console has, optional, interactive lighting. Think the DS4 light but on the console itself. This will make the console feel alive.
  • Controllers have a 3 1/2 inch 3x2 touch screen on them.
  • "21st century 2D chip and architecture". Focusing strictly on 2D tech and games, they don't want 2D development to be "hard" like on PS4 or Xbox due to them being 3D focused machines.
  • Will do 2D work that the PS4, Xbox One or even the PS5 can't achieve because of that "2D first" development focus.
  • Hundreds of millions of sprites on their dev hardware.
  • Up to 8 Bluetooth controllers will work on the console. Can also use a free phone app as well to control the games.
  • E or E10 games only. No violent games permitted on the console. A system "parents want to buy".
  • "When did quantity take over for quality". No ports allowed on the console.
  • Keeping the previously announced 7/10+ requirements.
  • Remaking Atari and iMagic games. Will be exclusive to the Amico.
  • All games $2.99 to $7.99. Download only for that price.
  • There will be physical special edition prints (*SD card) for a premium ($30) on a game-by-game basis.
  • Leaderboards based on time (weekly, monthly, all time) and space (city, country, state). Trophies/Achievements are tied to this to be unique. Users might get printable emails or patches to commemorate the accomplishment.
  • Remakes of classic games will have updated graphics, audio, added levels, local/online multiplayer and "more".
  • The return of Perrin Kaplan!
  • They will be paying developers to make games for the Amico. There will be 0 financial risk for developers as accepted pitches will be funded by Intellivision (costs will come from future royalties).
  • Dev kits next Summer.
*Update: Oct 25th
I originally wrote "CD" in my bullets from the stream but a recent interview had Tommy Tallarico saying it will use SD media for physical media. I must have misheard.

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Kalor

Kalor

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Oct 25, 2017
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I was curious before the reveal and it has potential but this is just the dumbest thing with what they're doing around it. The restrictions alone on games is enough to make almost any developer not even want to touch it. I know they're paying devs but Intellivision aren't making that money back.
 
Flandy

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Oct 25, 2017
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I'm guessing this will eventually fail and the games will be ported to consoles much like what happened to the Oyua.
 
Skel1ingt0n

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Oct 28, 2017
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Can someone who is a developer/savvy confirm how bullshit or un-bullshit the comment about 2D development is? Is 2D really "hard" on a modern console? Indies and my mobile games make me think otherwise. I don't understand how easy development on a sub $200 console could possibly outperform, graphically, modern 2019/2020 $500 hardware. Sounds like pure BS. I am almost 100% certain. But it's just so obvious, I'm sitting here doubting myself.

I mean, I like the idea... but I have zero hunger for Inellivision games/IP, and I can't imagine developers even bothering with all those restrictions. Not for a $7.99 max game with 1/1,000th+ of the install base of other systems.

Odds this ever even sees the light of day on retail shelves?
 
NinjaScooter

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Oct 25, 2017
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All of this seems wildly misguided and out of touch.

It's like the Ouya and the Coleco Chamleon mated and had a baby that nobody wanted.
 
BriGuy

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Oct 27, 2017
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What would you even do with hundreds of millions of sprites? At what point does a sprite just become a pixel?
 

FormatCompatible

One Winged Slayer
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Oct 25, 2017
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DionardoLicaprio said:
I really can't see who they're targeting.
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Moms, apparently.

"The Wii proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that non-gamers are willing to buy a home video game console," he said. "My mom, for example, has bought two video game consoles in her entire life. Christmas 1980, she bought Intellivision for the family. She also bought a Nintendo Wii for herself because she could see bowling all she had to do was move her arm."
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Plum

Plum

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May 31, 2018
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Bog said:
No mature or even T rated games makes this doa.
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The idea in their heads is "more kid-friendly games = more parents buying it!" when, in reality, it's not what the parents want to buy that is the issue, but what the kids want to buy. Pester power is a powerful economic force that they're completely ignoring for some reason.
 
TooFriendly

TooFriendly

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Oct 30, 2017
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I can't really tell what's going on with the controllers.

No d-pad?
No stick?
No buttons?
No ports (although their selling point is also updated ports of old games)
No violent games

I guess the only thing it has going for it that they plan to pay the developers to make the games. The deal better be enticing to developers or this thing will have nothing.

Hundreds of millions of sprites does sound neat though.
 
NinjaScooter

NinjaScooter

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Oct 25, 2017
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Bog said:
No mature or even T rated games makes this doa.
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They are targeting multiple consumer bases that have no crossover for no rhyme or reason. Families are not going to have any reverence for the Intellicision name or games library. The people that do (old ass gamers) are not going to like a touch screen and no ports and no mature games. Much like the coleco chameleon, this feels like a bunch of random pipe dream bullet points from some corporate hating gaming enthusiast (no dlc! No ports! 2d only like the old days! Remember the old days!?!) who is completely out of touch with the modern gaming market.
 

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  • Will do 2D work that the PS4, Xbox One or even the PS5 can't achieve because of that "2D first" development focus.
  • E or E10 games only. No violent games permitted on the console. A system "parents want to buy".
  • "When did quantity take over for quality". No ports allowed on the console.
  • Keeping the previously announced 7/10+ requirements.
  • Remaking Atari and iMagic games. Will be exclusive to the Amico.
  • All games $2.99 to $7.99. Download only for that price.
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Good luck.
 
BlackLagoon

BlackLagoon

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Oct 25, 2017
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Skel1ingt0n said:
Can someone who is a developer/savvy confirm how bullshit or un-bullshit the comment about 2D development is? Is 2D really "hard" on a modern console? Indies and my mobile games make me think otherwise. I don't understand how easy development on a sub $200 console could possibly outperform, graphically, modern 2019/2020 $500 hardware.
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There are certainly indie devs who've managed to put out pixel art 2D games that drop frames and generally run poorly on the PS4. I suppose it would be possible to create hardware and APIs that make high fidelity 2D easier for inexperienced and budget constrained devs.
 
Dreamwriter

Dreamwriter

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Oct 27, 2017
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Skel1ingt0n said:
Can someone who is a developer/savvy confirm how bullshit or un-bullshit the comment about 2D development is? Is 2D really "hard" on a modern console? Indies and my mobile games make me think otherwise. I don't understand how easy development on a sub $200 console could possibly outperform, graphically, modern 2019/2020 $500 hardware. Sounds like pure BS. I am almost 100% certain. But it's just so obvious, I'm sitting here doubting myself.
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There are certain effects that are harder to do with modern consoles than old ones...but they aren't that big a deal because modern consoles are just powerful enough to not need them. The simplest one to explain that comes to mind is palette cycling - old consoles had limited color palettes - like, your game had to use a set of 64 colors on the screen at once, you choose which colors to be included in that palette of 64. One trick for creating animations was to build a single, static screen out of various palette entries, and then cycle the colors through those entries - you didn't change the image on the screen, just which of the 64 palette entries was which color, but you created a convincing animation effect without requiring hardly any system power at all. Used most often for animated water, there were some amazing animations that could be done with it.

http://www.effectgames.com/demos/canvascycle/

But like I said, modern consoles are powerful enough to not need to resort to tricks like that. And the guy apparently didn't really follow the game industry much - he said the SNES was the most powerful 2D game console. Um, Neo Geo? Heck, PS1 was pretty darn powerful for 2D games, it wasn't 3D only.
 
Hey Blinkin

Hey Blinkin

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Oct 27, 2017
152
No ports and E10 only for $150??

A console that parents will want to buy?

Are they insane?

The $79 2DS will eat this things lunch.

Good luck to them, but those are some grandiose ambitions.
 
Slayven

Slayven

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Oct 25, 2017
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Touch screen for buttons?

They have a vision for the machine, I give them that. But unless they going to open it up for tinkering, it will be DOA
 

emb

Member
Oct 28, 2017
652
I like the idea of a lot of this, but hard to see it really work out well.

He did at least mention funding games, that much is good. But it's weird messaging. Says there's no risk to devs, but then goes on to say that they'll let devs show them games, if they like them then they'll buy them. Quality control + no ports means there has to be some risk. How can they be judged for quality if they aren't made yet? How can they be (partially) made without money? Maybe they have some kind of process thought out, but it sounds more like idealistic wishful thinking.

Restricting games to family friendly seems nice, and 2D only is a cool thing too. And no ports? Great. I mean, those kinds of restrictions aren't ideal for everything in the world, but it's not like this thing will exist in a world where I don't have my N64, PS2, Switch, etc with all sorts of other options. Taking a heavy handed approach to funnel this platform's games in one direction is ok with me. But with super limited support and target audience, I have to wonder if it will even make it to market.

From the render and earlier comments, I didn't think there would be any physical. Glad to see that bullet point. And for that reason, I am in. I don't expect much, but it'd be nice to have a new no frills console with a modest collection of decent 2D games.
 
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