Justin

Thank you @RickR!! Agreed. I think all they really needed was some guidance from stronger people who knew what they were doing. -- new official emoji

You can’t call the Intellivision Amico a “scam” without calling the Atari Jaguar a “scam”. Where were we all back in 1994 “doing the math” and demanding answers?

They should've kept everything under wraps until it was ready to go. They made the Amico public WAYYY too early and invited the public in to watch over every move and offer commentary on every decision Intellivision made. They should've taken an entirely different approach and waited until the Amico was rolling down the assembly line, made an announcement (or wait until that point to launch a Kickstarter or Indigogo campaign which would be used solely to drum up interest in their project) and said to the world "We'd like to introduce you to Intellivision Amico, a new "friend" built for everyone of every age in every home across America. It's rolling off the assembly line now and will be on store shelves in 90 days along with a dozen of our best game titles." By NOT doing this, they jumped the gun in showing this to the public and have effectively made this vaporware akin to the Phantom or Intellivision IV. Amico never EVER should've been an "investment" to anybody outside of venture capital groups, a couple wealthy family members, and a few accredited angel investors in "shark tanks" who go into these things prepared to lose their entire investment. Those are people who are qualified to see Amico for the moonshot that it is and are prepared to lose their entire investment, walk away from it unscathed and say "oh well I have 20 more investments just like this, one of them is bound to take off and more than make up for the other 19 that failed." That's how these things are supposed to work. Instead, "Intellivision Entertainment" is out there with gas approaching $6/gal. asking regular working people to "invest" their savings into Intellivision as if it's going to make them rich in five years. Intellivision is effectively a tech startup company and a risky gamble no different from memestonks like Blockbuster and Gamestop, or shitcoins like Doge and Shibainu. The shadiest thing about "Intellivision Entertainment" is that they were effective at convincing so many regular working people who had never invested in anything in their lives that they are now "investors" capable of investing their savings in risky startups instead of SPDRs or their 401k. That whole Republic site is trash and should be shut down by the SEC, it's no different than an unregulated securities exchange in my opinion and it's insane. Beyond that they're operating with overhead of something like $6M per month? They're bleeding money on office space when most of them could be working from home until they've, you know, ever made a single dollar of profit. What's sad is they already have enough intellectual property to generate the capital they were seeking if they had only been patient. Start small, then walk before you can run. For example, they could've released a new "Intellivision Greatest Hits" game for PS4, PS5, Xbox and Switch. Maybe something simple, like a download. And why not for Android and iOS as well? For Mac and PC? They also could've gone forward with the "Intellivision Flashback 2" that Keith was going to do and gotten it into Walmart, Target, Sam's Club and Costco. Those two products alone would've generated a few million for Intellivision over a Christmas or two that they themselves could invest back into the Amico project. Intellivision could've done something similar to Atari XP, or have been a boutique design house and created a few nice modern games for Switch, again generating some profit to reinvest into Amico. This would've given Intellivision a little time to develop 3 new, modern "killer app franchises" the same way Nintendo developed Mario, Zelda and Metroid. Intellivision could've released these games on the Switch or even the PlayStation and Xbox, generating more revenue and placing the Intellivision name back on the map before launching the Amico. How many Donkey Kong and Mario games were released on ColecoVision and Atari systems before Nintendo launched the NES? This will come off as insensitive to some but I DO NOT feel all that sorry for those who did. I have empathy for my fellow man and don't want to see anybody ripped off - but people cannot be "investing" money that they can't lose. That's what investing is. People have to be smart enough to not even place a preorder with an unknown, unproven company like "Intellivision Entertainment" with no history and no products having been sold. (Remember, "Intellivision Entertainment" is not "Intellivision Productions" or "INTV" and is certainly not Mattel.) At least be smart enough to make your preorder through GameStop or some other retailer that will hopefully exist long enough to honor a full refund. Otherwise you are opening yourself up to risk. People have to wise up. Also, it's okay to sign up for the newsletter and just wait until it comes out. Sometimes it's okay if you don't get the very first shipment, wait until you see lots of happy customers getting theirs first and raving about how great it is online. Again, this is why presales of any kind are not allowed on Atari I/O. Have you noticed that although @Video 61 announces their upcoming games in our forums we don't allow them to take presales until the game is ready to put in a box and ship to your house, nor do they attempt to hustle Atari I/O Members for presales. They make a simple post saying "Here's a demo of a game we have coming out in 2 months, stay tuned to this thread and we will make an announcement when it goes on sale." It's as simple as that. It's not hard to operate with integrity. Yes. One of Intellivision Entertainment's biggest missteps is having people who come across to some as manipulative / deceptive out there in the public. They've invited criticism when they could've just hired a halfway decent PR firm to make announcements and interface with the public. The "scammy feeling" comes from where there has not been transparency on issues as they change during development. Normally these events take place behind the scenes, but because Intellivision has been so public about everything, there's so much they owe the public truthful updates on. For example all of the announced game titles in development that sort of disappeared, and what was the story with that guy who was "the father of the Xbox" being touted as a big player on the Amico team when it was first announced? Those are all forced mistakes that should never have been made, and they have been rightly called out on these. No, I don't believe this was a "quick money making scheme". There was nothing quick about Amico and there are much easier ways to separate people from their money. I don't think this was a "scheme" at all, I think you had a lot of people who really believed what they were saying and wanted to put an Amico in every home across America. I think this is a matter of tremendous incompetence and a substantial number of the public willing to go along with it because "WOW this is so nostalgic!" It's always easy to call something a scam when it's not going according to plan. Nothing ever goes according to plan when you're trying to launch a startup or a new project. As I've said before, if AtGames or Evercade or Nintendo or Tesla had asked regular working people to cough up small "investments" and effectively invited the public to view their projects development process - those would all be called "scams" too. Take for example the classic story about Nintendo launching the NES in US test markets for Christmas 1985, with NOA employees working through the night to deliver Nintendo systems to stores across NYC and LA just in time for Christmas. The stories of Nintendo using the Light Gun and R.O.B. the Robot to market the NES as a "toy" rather than a game system to stores who did not want any new video games after the crash, and Nintendo reps telling toy stores that Nintendo would come set up NES systems for sale in the toy stores and set up the NES displays with a promise unlike Atari to buy back any unsold merchandise after the new year. If God forbid the NES had failed, people would be pointing to these stories and calling the NES a "scam" too. And it likely would've been. It's very easy to call something that doesn't work out the way you want it to "a scam". If anything there's been a TREMENDOUS amount of transparency on Intellivision's part compared to most projects. With every baby step Intellivision has made we've been greeted with multiple podcast episodes and 2-hour deep dive videos about every little nuance of controller lag. "Look how Finnegan Fox doesn't turn as quickly as he probably should. Let's go frame-by-frame on this." - Groups like Nintendo and Tesla are smart enough to not ever allow that to happen. Nintendo never held "events" inviting the public to come play Switch 2 years prior to its release and comment on it publicly. You never got to see the Nintendo Switch until the design was pretty much frozen and a few months from shipping. They kept it under wraps until it was ready to go and you didn't see the messy chaos that was kept behind the scenes, because that's how professionals act.

And there seems to be a blind spot when talking about Steve Ross. Classic Gaming Twitter and “Atari historians” will talk about Ray Kassar until they’re blue in the face but hardly a mention of Steve Ross or his decision making surrounding Atari. It makes me think everything in these history books and the discussions that come out of them all center around speaking with Atari’s tech employees and their perspective of Ray, who they saw in the building throughout the week, as opposed to speaking with people at Warner who knew exactly what Steve Ross was doing. When it comes to the crash and Warner dumping Atari, that’s more important than Ray Kassar anecdotes

None of what I’m saying pertains to Jack. Jack Tramiel didn’t intentionally sabotage Jack Tramiel’s own interests though his actions might as well have.

The latest thing:

May 1984

Welcome to Atari I/O @BHG_Gaming and thanks for sharing your YouTube channel! We've pinned your Channel topic in our YouTube forums, feel free to share your new videos in this thread as often as you'd like! We all hope you enjoy spending time here

Yes, I'm speaking during the Warner era though. A lot of money was to be made in Atari's demise.

Almost sounds like intentional sabotage

Why don't you share those details with our Members here also

SiriusXM performance from earlier this week:

Sounds basically like an Atari XEGS. This is what Atari should've put out in 1979. An Atari 400/800 game system that you could attach a keyboard to if you wanted to.

Sega CDx O.G. here, checking in. I created a photo album of my original Sega CDx purchased new from Toys R Us in 1994. This was my Sega Genesis growing up, and remains the only Sega Genesis I've ever owned. It was also my only portable CD player through the 1990s. This was an absolute daily driver. If you've followed my posts on Atari I/O and on social media you've probably heard my story and may have noticed a theme with me - that my love of Atari got me into Classic Gaming in 1993, and that passion expanded into a love not only of other classic video game systems, but also of niche / obscure consoles that existed in the '90s. My Sega CDx is a great example of this. I really loved deep dives into the uncommon consoles that we had at the time. Today we're given a choice of behemoths: Xbox, PlayStation, or, if you want, Nintendo Switch. Niche options would come in the form of Flashback / Mini consoles I suppose, and the Atari VCS. The gaming ecosystem was very different at the time I was getting into Classic Gaming in 1993. Nintendo and Sega were king, and the NES was showing its age. But we had so many other choices of "boutique" systems with cult followings. TurboGrafx-16 and TurboDuo, Neo Geo, Atari Jaguar, 3DO, CDi, FM Towns Marty, Amica CD32, plus there were all of those weird VHS video game systems that had existed and were still for sale in Kay-Bee Toys. The Sega CDx was one of the first video game systems I fell in love with out of this group. Here we had this Sega Genesis, which everybody had heard of and 50% of our friends owned. And yet this wasn't a Genesis, it was this high tech Genesis / Sega CD combo that was so advanced and so small it bordered on magical. I was stupid enough to carry it around as my portable CD player and had it in my backpack on the school bus. While not everybody had heard of Atari Lynx, everybody had heard of Sega Genesis, and almost nobody had seen the Sega CDx. It was one of those things that really blew everyone away. I bought the only version of the Sega CDx that was sold in the United States. It came in the navy blue box and was a pretty robust setup. I believe it retailed for $399.95 It came with: 1 Sega CDx "Portable Multimedia Entertainment System" 1 Sega Genesis 6-Button Control Pad 1 AC Adapter 1 AV Cable w/ Stereo Output Sonic CD Ecco The Dolphin Plus Sega Classics Arcade Collection which included 5 games on 1 CD: Streets Of Rage Revenge of Shinobi Columns Golden Axe Super Monaco GP This was an awesome setup that effectively came with 7 pack-in titles. I also purchased an official Sega CDx carrying pouch which came with a CD sleeve and room for the system, controller, AC adapter, instruction manuals and batteries, all in what appeared to be a leather camera bag. I loved the Sega CDx and it remains the only Sega Genesis I've ever needed. While it's getting a little older and more valuable, I worry a bit about the disc drive and all of the fragile little components. I've considered looking for an original heavy Genesis, or possibly an Analogue Sg Genesis clone to use as my daily driver, but to this day my CDx serves me quite well and I have a ton of great memories associated with it. On a side note: I always thought Sega should've found a way to cost-reduce the Sega CDx and make that the "Genesis 3" as it could play all games and was portable. If they could have brought the price down on this, it would've made a great low-cost Genesis during the later years of the Genesis' lifecycle, and would've made the Genesis more interesting as newer systems took over in the 32/64-Bit era. Anyway, enjoy the photos!

I remember owning a TurboExpress and an Atari Lynx, and after those systems had both run their course seeing the Nomad at Best Buy and thinking it looked big and clunky and the cartridge stuck out like a tombstone. I also already had the Sega CDx so I was good as far as a "portable Genesis" goes. I would hook it up in the car and play anywhere, plus it ran CDs. I also felt a little sad that the Nomad seemed to mean the end of the Game Gear. I'm glad the Nomad existed though, it's a nice way to play Genesis games on the go, and it's something Nintendo never did with the Super Nintendo (unless you want to count the Game Boy Advance, which would be a serious stretch as it never actually played SNES cartridges). "hurr durrr you can't fit it in your pocket tho!" I'd love to hear the same smug classic gamers complain about the Nomad's size and battery life the way they love to do with the Atari Lynx. Funny how you never see that pointed out 🥴