What’s an Intellivision Amico? Console’s leaky dev portal offers hints | Hacker News Reader

What’s an Intellivision Amico? Console’s leaky dev portal offers hints

arstechnica.com

38 pointscrtasm19 comments

Even 2013's miserable Ouya was in a FAR better position for SOME kind of success. (A tiny Android-powered console was at least somewhat novel, and only $99.)

Yet it still failed hard.

Amico, and the similar-tier Atari VCS, are in vastly more hostile waters in the 2020s.

Both have the audacity to expect success, asking ~$250 for wholly unremarkable machines. A crazy powerful XBox Series S or Switch can be had for a mere $50 more. Or, more threateningly, $50 cheaper for the Switch Lite.

Not to mention the Switch is friggin' NINTENDO: home of arguably the most desirable, family-friendly games in the industry. I seem to remember that being the niche the Amico was trying to dig in with: the software being family-friendly, with games under $10.

The class of software they're showing off tends to be in the $5-15 range, at best, on digital storefronts like the Switch eShop. Sure, Nintendo gets a cut of the sale, but I have no doubt they'd make that up in volume compared to both sales on their bespoke hardware.

I actually LOVE the idea of bringing quality gaming within reach of lower-income families and/or casuals. That's a good idea, and could even be quite successful in this crowded market if handled right.

I'm just baffled that either of these projects have gotten as far as they have. Probably caught in the web of sunk-cost, with it being too late to turn back. :P

For an extra $20, you can run Retroarch on that Xbox (or for free on the Switch if you have a paperclip, steady hands and 2 hours of free time). From there, you could emulate your own Intellivison console and have a much better time.

You could also just run retroarch an any android device and pair it with a controller.

Those 10 commandments there kill any potential this thing would have. Nobody is going to make good exclusives for this unproven device, which makes its alleged quality control goals not feasible.

I'm curious why they forbid full 3D games.

Given what the article reveals about the hardware specs, I suspect they fear that full 3D won't be achievable at good performance. Or they want to avoid facing direct competition against Xbox and Playstation.

It's weird. From reading the article, I kind of like the concept of the console.

But expecting third-party developers to create great games exclusive to a platform that is likely to sink like a rock and sell them at a price point that is all but guaranteed to turn into a huge money drain just doesn't sound like a proposal many developers will find attractive.

I feel I'm the target market for this thing. I had an original intellivision growing up. We really loved that thing in my house (at the time there wasn't much better till colecovision). .

The controllers weren't great, but 16 directions! And the number pad let you enter football plays without your opponent seeing them. It was kinda unique and used for some interesting games (utopia, mindstrike). The complete lack of AI to play against the computer forced "couch competition for a lot of the the games.

Couch games aren't that common now (overcooked? marioKart..). Its expensive, but seems to come with a set of games. Small volume tech is expensive and ideally it would be cheaper. The controllers looks interesting and I imagine the screen on each ads to the cost. I like that they're trying something different.

We'll see if the games are fun, ultimately the only thing that will matter. They should reboot mindstrike. We spent hours on that.

Sorry for offtopicness but crtasm, could you please email hn@ycombinator.com? I want to send you a repost invite for something else.

Now I guess we just look through crtasm's history for what has caught dang's eye. :)

It offers Intelivision and Atari 2600 games in classic mode. It also offers enhanced games with better graphics and sound and Internet access.

I see it as a niche market.

This thing seems like a straight up scam

Its a lifestyle business, like Star Citizen.

I was forced to play on an Intellivision. It was awful and uncool back then. The controllers were completely awkward. Why would I want to relive that now?

S/NES, Sega Genesis, and TurboGrafx-16 are cool.

I think it's going to be what you remember. Intellivision competed against VCS (it's technically a 1970s system, after all), and in general the Inty games were stronger (programs didn't spend most of their existence trying to just draw the screen). It wasn't state of the art even by the time the NES (let alone the SNES) came out, so the comparison isn't all that fair. It's amazing the INTV System III sold at all, since it was just a repackaged Master Component.

For me, the disc pad on the Inty -- which the article author seems to have forgotten about -- wasn't the worst part of the controller, though you could really wreck them and I had to find good membranes to fix my Sylvania Inty. It was those damn side buttons.

Fair enough. Atari 2600 was very cool.

Intellivision Thumb

It was a thing, caused by the stupid disk.

Apparently the thing to do was get the Sears branded one, because Sears mandated plugin controllers, so you could replace them when they broke.

I had the Coleco Adam and played hours of Gorf and Looping and enjoyed them a bunch. Conveniently also the only two games we had on cartridge...

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