Topic: Atari VCS, Amico, Micro Consoles

[M.K.Ultra]

This is a shame for Intellevision fans. I am assuming the initial crowdfunders had some serious Intellevision nostalgia or they were console collectors. It seems like it would have been so easy to release something that functions and then let the media move on like Atari did. You wouldn't even need a long term plan. I wonder where all that money goes? Maybe Tallarico and Inafune are chilling in some tropical island counting it right now.

[ThePerm]

Everyone should learn from the Ouya. It was a competent hardware release, but wasn't backed by enough software. I really enjoyed the thing for what it was.

I've sort of got a dream for my own micro console, but the thing would be similar to a raspberry pi where it is primarily a tinker toy. It would have to be loaded with development software.

I'd Want:
A Character Editor like Eve Online's or WWF Attitude or Meta Human with options to import things from your phone
A monster creator like the Spore Creature Creator
100s of pre-loaded Mixamo animations
100s of pre-built models for Fantasy Creatures
100s of 3d pop culture avatars. Wrestlers, Comic Book Characters, Cartoons, Movie Characters, game characters. Some free, some DLC.
The ability to import FBX models from wherever they come from
A house builder like Sweethome 3d or the Sims. Where you can build house models for export.
A furniture maker. But also 100s of pre-built furnature like the sims.
A Tony Hawk style editor with modular building. This is kind of like what the Skyrim/Fallout people use.
A voxel editor like Minecraft with the ability to export
Special versions of Unity and Unreal
A Zbrush clone
Gimp
A Mario Paint style music maker
A Mario Maker style 2d platformer editor with pre-built game styles for Super Mario World, Metroid, Megaman, and Castlevania.
An RPGMaker95 style RPG editor.
A sprite editor and animator
A beepbox.co like music maker, but with the ability to import samples and hook up a usb midi keyboard, or set up notes on a gamepad ocarina of time style.
Some pre-built example files for: JRPG, Action RPG, Real Time Strategy, Shooting Game, Fighting Game, Survival Game, 3d Platformer, 2d Platformer
A kind of lounge type game where you can just hang out in locales with your avatar. The locales could be places like Notre Dame Cathedral, the Taj Mahal, Castles, Palaces, Malls
VR support.

[pdoksus]

This is a shame for Intellevision fans. I am assuming the initial crowdfunders had some serious Intellevision nostalgia or they were console collectors. It seems like it would have been so easy to release something that functions and then let the media move on like Atari did. You wouldn't even need a long term plan. I wonder where all that money goes? Maybe Tallarico and Inafune are chilling in some tropical island counting it right now.

Opening offices in multiple offices in the US, Dubai and Nuremburg eats up some. Paying the CFO to rent his empty storage space, to store personal belongings some more. Having multiple members of the board of directors make loans to Intellivision at 10% interest. With one loan for $675,000 dollars, that had a loan fee of $200,000 and requires the payment of the $675,000 by paying $100 of each console sold until repaid. Since they are loans, if they declare bankruptcy, I believe they move to the front of the line to get paid. They also lost over $1million dollars in a contract dispute with their first manufacturer. At various points it was claimed that every person made >$100,000 and they had 60 employees.

[Adrock]

Crowdfunding gaming hardware is way too risky. I wouldn’t even have backed Playdate if it started as a Kickstarter or Indiegogo project.

I was only aware of some of the flustercuckery pdoksus mentioned. Yikes.

[ThePerm]

It is pretty risky. Again the Ouya came out just fine. But, I bought mine at Gamestop before some backers got theirs. I would see them at target kind of hidden on the bottom shelf. They raised 8.5 million dollars though. They didn't get all of them out immediately, but they did start shipping them out in March of 2013. Some backers didn't get theirs until June 2013. Julie Uhrman did apologize, but at least the system wasn't vaporware. And actually, Ouya support was comparable to the Wii U.

Intellivision raised 39 million for the Amico though according to one article I read. So, no excuse.

As far as backing crowdfunding though, that hasn't ever worked out for me. For 7 days to Die they never sent me my map, for Yooka Laylee I had to switch my Wii U version to a steam version, and then I gave it to my brother and he never installed it.

[UncleBob]

Yeah.  Am disappoint.

[Khushrenada]

I think the Amico is far beyond past things we've seen from vaporware consoles, there are actual accounts and recent public events where prototypes have been played, and even some footage I believe. HOWEVER for some reason they're not publicizing this, and the only people trumpeting and talking about these hands-on experiences are their diehard community members.

Yeah, I do think Amiico will eventually launch, and it will probably be a functional gaming console. They might miss another launch date along the way, but it'll probably release. Looking on Youtube they've shown a lot of games intended to show up on it.

I didn't realize they just had no coherent messaging before, so in that regard this interview is quite an improvement lol. But like you say, when the bar is on the floor it's hard to hit your head against it.

Two years ago, it seemed like this thing would actually launch. I didn't think it would be vaporware but would probably soon fade away into obscurity. Sort of like Stadia for Google. I figured it would suffer on the software front pretty quickly (think Wii U post launch) of having any "must play games" or new games released after launch. There was a lot of signs that the project was moving along on a path of actually be released. But after about a year of Covid, the whole thing was starting to look shaky by December 2020 as it just seemed to be setback after setback. Then last year when they started taking about NFTs being sold/included with the games and that the games were being sold without a console to play on them is when I finally moved into the not-coming-out / vaporware camp.

Up to that point, I felt the pride of Tommy and wanting to prove the "haters" wrong would keep him motivated enough to get the system at least released to show that he did it. With the latest news of Tommy being replaced as CFO by a guy that worked on the Coleco Chameleon which ended up being cancelled and thus a vaporware project, I feel like this is a sign they are throwing in the towel and getting the advice of someone on how to move forward with cancelling this project like the Chameleon. It may even be a way for Tommy to try and save some face as well by claiming that he'd have gotten the Amico released if he had still been in charge but he got ousted and so its the fault of others that it eventually didn't release and failed.

I guess the unknown is whether this thing would have released or not if Covid hadn't come along. It seems like the sudden and long unexpected delay caused by Covid may likely have caused big financial implications by slowing down progress and timetables. If they didn't have that delay then maybe they don't get into the financial difficulties they're now in and do release the system to start bringing down that debt and loans as well. Being in the dark on that part of the business, I can only speculate.

I would say another factor that may have had some effect on this is Nintendo's continued solidification of dominating the video game market over the past two years. Tommy was sort of trying to target Nintendo's demographics or audience by claiming the Amico would make a good family console and trying to attack Nintendo as not being as family friendly as they project. While the Switch was definitely moving and selling at a solid pace in the first two and half years it was on the market with many comparisons to the Wii sales history, it's completely entrenched itself now as one of the top systems in videogame history (despite whatever faults or criticisms one may point out about the system). Luigi Dude really helped point out some of the historical sales numbers that some of the software has had on the system in the "What will Nintendo released in 2022?" thread and just further highlights to me how hard it would be for the Amico to try and convince the people playing the Switch and the software on it that the Amico would be a better system to own or play over the Switch.

While the Amico project seems to have fallen apart over the last two years, the Switch pretty much dominated through Covid and continued a run of being the top selling system in North America for three years until it finally had a dip before the OLED model launched last year. At this point, what is even the audience or market for the Amico? Just for hardcore game collectors to have in their collection. Two years ago, maybe the system could still find a bit of a way to carve out a niche in the market. Today? That window seems long gone.

[UncleBob]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0twDETh6QaI

I do hope everyone has seen this by now.  I was wrong about Tallarico.  So wrong.

[ThePerm]

****, is Tommy Tallarico even actually Steve Tyler's cousin?

[UncleBob]

Unknown, but the consensus is it's unlikely.

[ThePerm]

https://www.reddit.com/r/hbomberguy/comments/z6j4pn/so_i_think_tommys_claim_to_be_steven_tylers/

someone did the research