This entire thing is such a shady failure already. Every new press release has tons of people asking for the same things to be removed and the same things be added, but nothing happens, they're sticking to their plan of making "a system that parents want to buy for their kids".
As an Intellivision fan I was initially excited at the news earlier this year that there might be a new Intellivision console coming out after almost 40 years, but almost every single new thing I've heard about it since has been just awful.
The guy who's behind all this is some musician named Tommy Tallarico, who's made lots of money playing videogame music live so he could purchase the majority rights to the Intellivision brand after Keith Robinson died and become the new CEO of the company.
Seems he mainly has connections in the music industry, he's the cousin of the lead singer in a rock band called Aerosmith.
Apparently he's gotten a world record in most games worked on, yet when looking up credits both online and in game manuals and in-game credits of games I own it turns out he's never actually worked on any of them.
The explanation is that he's worked as a musician and has a music studio that some developers have licensed some "additional music" from as background music and such in their games, there may also be some minor voice acting he's provided but the credits of his work are.. problematic. You see, the biggest issue I came across when looking all this up was that a vast majority of what he's supposedly done is uncredited in all official sources, and thus impossible to prove the legitimacy of.
The few things I did find credits for never listed him as having worked on the games either, just his studio was listed as a source for "additional music".
A typical example is from the credits of Bloodrayne, where Kyle Richards is listed as the music composer and sound designer of Terminal Reality, the developer who made the game, and under the "Additional Music" credit we find "Tommy Tallarico Studios".
So it seems he didn't actually work on any game directly, or at least not very often and if he did it was uncredited, so he's definitely not a game designer or developer of any kind and has zero experience in any actual game development areas.
So when he keeps claiming things and bragging in interviews, live-streams and press conferences etc. about how he has a world record on most games worked on in a lifetime, how he's a "gaming icon" and how he has 30 years of experience working on games etc., what he actually means is that within the last 30 years some game developers have licensed music from his studio and that's about it.
Other things I've seen in interviews and such is that he's rich as a troll and thinks piracy it literally stealing (as in he legitimately thinks the crime of copyright infringement is literally identical to the crime of theft) yet on multiple occasions he's publicly admitted to having M.A.M.E. arcade cabinets in his multi-million dollar mansion for example. You'd think someone with that amount of money and connections in the gaming world, a "videogame icon" as he so humbly puts it, could afford the real thing, but no, I guess that'd mean spending the money and then he'd only be almost as filthy rich, poor guy.
Anyway, this new system, the Amico, is currently announced to be released October 10th 2020, or later, he's mentioned in pretty much all interviews so far that he's not afraid to push the release date until he deems the system ready to be launched, so it can be launched in 2020... or 2030, or never. He who lives shall see.
With only a few hand drawn sketches shown of the system so far and a list of bullet points, it's supposedly an expensive ($180) plug-&-play system with kiddy and casual games only. They're not allowing anything other than E or E10 rated games on this thing.
They will also have an internal rating team that will rate all games before they're approved to public release, and they have to give it a unanimous 7/10 score or higher or it's not approved at all.
It will have an online store to buy games from, no physical media support at all. Sadly that also includes no cartridge port for original Intellivision games.
It will come bundled with some built in games apparently, but there's not much info on that atm.
They have strangely started mentioning that some special edition games may be sold physically after all, but at a significantly higher price, while the digital games will cost between 3 to 8 US dollars, the physical versions will be a whopping 30 US dollars.
Downloaded games will not be transferable to other Amico systems, they will be digitally locked to the system they were downloaded to and limited in access and exclusively playable on that one system.
How the physical releases will work, seeing as this thing has no disc drive or cartridge slot, remains unknown.
The games will 2D only, no 3D games are allowed.
They claim the Amico will feature such powerful hardware it'll be superior in 2D rendering to all the current gen consoles (like PS4 etc.) and even the upcoming and still completely unknown hardware specs of the PS5!
A very good and in-depth debunk of this bullet point can be found here:
www.resetera.com/threads/intellivision-amico-announced-10-10-20-180-usd-no-ports-and-better-2d-than-the-ps4-xb1-or-ps5.76069/page-2https://www.resetera.com/threads/intellivision-amico-announced-10-10-20-180-usd-no-ports-and-better-2d-than-the-ps4-xb1-or-ps5.76069/page-2#post-14013694They'll only allow exclusive games on their system, they won't allow ports of games from or to other systems.
Not sure how that makes any sense in regard to the fact that all of their entire library of licenses so far will be ports of old games that exist on many systems already.
The system will have an LED bar on the front that lights up in sync with what happens in the game, like a light show of sorts. This feature thankfully seems to be optional, so you should be able to disable it after the 3 seconds it'll take before it gets annoying and distracting.
The 2 controllers it will have are essentially modern versions of the old Intellivision controllers, in place of the overlays and numeric keypads of old these new ones will have touch screens, they'll also have motion control features and vibration feedback, the classic analog disc and 4 side buttons return to make compatibility with old classic (downloadable) INTV games possible.
The controllers are wireless only and can only be charged when attached to the charge slots on top of the system.
If more than 2 players want to play a multiplayer game you will be able to download a free app to a smartphone which will allow it to connect to the system and be used as an additional controller for games that allow more than 2 players to play at the same time.
They have secured some third party licenses for some old games (some noteworthy ones are R-Type, Super Burgertime and Tron Deadly Discs) and they still own all the Intellivision original brands, so they can remake and make new games under all those licenses if they please, including games like Auto Racing, Minotaur, Cloudy Mountain, B-17 Bomber among many more.
It'll have HDMI output only.
My thoughts on all of this as an Intellivision fan, retro style gamer who doesn't like or do online and wireless stuff, and as a gamer in general:
The only two things about this thing so far I like the sound of are that they have licenses to some great games and the controllers seems pretty good, I wish they were wired so I wouldn't have to bother with annoying short battery life, but I guess if they'll end up having absolutely fantastic and amazing battery life on a single charge and the charge time is insanely fast then maybe it won't be so bad, just a minor annoyance every now and then.
What really sucks and the main two reasons keeping me from even thinking about a purchase is the digital download only game distribution and HDMI limited output, I don't want an HDTV and I don't do online, that's for modern garbage gaming that I hate, I'm a classic gamer, which is part of why I love consoles like the original Intellivision so much, it didn't require any of that shit, it just plugs into a normal TV or any HDTV worthy of the "TV" part and I just put the game in, no internet access required, it just plays the game as it should with no problems, no issues, no paywalls, no limitations or other bullshit.
But I guess this so called "friend" isn't so friendly after all, at least not user friendly, that's for damn sure. Amico is clearly no friend of mine.
