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Intellivision Lives: Tommy Tallarico Will Relaunch 1980s Console (venturebeat.com)
craters writes: A wave of nostalgia has hit gamers, with Nintendo and Atari taking advantage with launches, both recent and pending, of older game consoles. Now they'll have a new competitor with Intellivision Entertainment. Originally released in 1980, the Intellivision console and its successors sold millions of units over three decades. The new Intellivision system (name TBA) will carry on the company tradition of "firsts" with its new concept, design and approach to gaming. The original Intellivision system generated many "firsts" in the video game industry including the first 16-bit gaming machine, the first gaming console to offer digital distribution, the first to bring speech/voice to games, the first to license professional sports leagues and organizations and the first to be a dedicated game console and home computer.
I know where he is coming from. Wouldn't it be cool to have a cheap, 2D-focused console that had all kinds of old-school games for it?
Yes, it would. But who is going to buy it? EVERY console can play those games. Every phone can play those games.
Even if it sells for $30, there is no "killer app" for such a thing, and there never will be, because any game that would run on this thing will run on EVERYTHING else, and "everything else" is a much bigger market. So why bother making it for this system at all?
But like I said, it's a neat idea, and I wish we lived in a world where something like this could work. But it wont'.
As long as it's not another Raspberry Pi in a retro case. If I wanted to run an emulator I'll download one for free and run it on my PC. Retro projects done right can be a source of joy and wonder. However, so many of them seem to want the cache' of retro's feel without being more than a skin-deep plastic case. FPGAs are welcome, though, as long as they keep some backwards compatibility. Anyone who thinks that is "emulation" needs to study how FPGAs work (ie.. by simulating the original components). Most of the really incredible retro projects on the scene today are full hardware reproductions or use FPGAs. My personal favorite is the Vampire Amiga accelerators which feature a blazing fast Motorola 68000 (the Apollo 080' core) implementation.
I am sick of all this Nostalgia stuff.
I don't get it either. Those most likely to want something like this are probably exactly the same people who are quite capable of setting up one of the many emulators available, then downloading any number of very good ROMs to get their BurgerTime fix.
The last time I tried it on one of the many Raspberry Pis I have lying about it took an hour or so and we had a nice afternoon fooling about.
Certainly not something I would spend any money on though.
Well see, you miss the point... For those of us *WITH* nostolgia, those games are still fun and old technology is still cool.
Yeah, nostalgia's not as good as it used to be...
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Unlike someone else who commented I don't think 'nostalgia' is such a bad thing. Why? Because it seems that 'games' aren't so much about 'games' anymore, they're about how much money they can leech out of your wallet. I'm sure many more people than anyone realizes just wants to play a simple, non-online, non-massive-multiplayer game for fun, not make a second career out of it because it's so involved and complex; newer isn't always better, and even if newer is better it doesn't mean older and simpler things all have to be thrown in the trash and forgotten, they still have value. So you get these 'classic' game packages, no cartridges required, and unlike the old hardware it just works. Plug it into your TV and play it, no huge investment of time or money required, don't need to tie up your phone or computer with it, etc.
You know, for those of us who never developed the preternatural fast twitch reflexes for modern games, and probably those people who have kids .. these games represent just simple easy gaming without an endless grind.
Many of these games had surprisingly good gameplay, because they had so little graphics to work with.
If you don't like it, don't fucking buy it.
Meanwhile, I'm sure you've thrown out all of your old music and photos, are deeply entrenched in dubstep and bro-culture, Instagramming your meals (which is just a nostalgia for a Polaroid camera), and grooming your hipster beard.
If Nintendo would make that damned classic easier to get, I'd buy one .. because I cut my teeth with two buttons and a joystick, and would probably enjoy those games infinitely more than a level grind, with in app purchases, social fucking media, and in-game ads. Because I hate every aspect of on-line gaming and the modern shit which comes with it.
That Nintendo is once again re-releasing this with a limited run and can't keep them in stock tells me people are buying.
Hell, I know at least two people who have their original NES hooked to their TV, and their kids still play it.
So, seriously dude, get over your fucking self, and deal with it.
What made the Intellivision unique was the numpad controller with slide-in plastic overlays. Hard to reproduce that in an emulator
As a kid I spent more hours on my Intellivision with the voice box than my PS3 and PS4 combined.
Actually raphnet has an adapter to use Intellivision controllers with a PC via USB, was $20 I think.
It of course mapped the keypad part to HID events, and there are places to get and print off the overlays. The only hard to source part might be an actual controller if you don't have a system still hanging around.
If you'd like the hard DIY version, the DB9 matrix pinout they used its out there to read the controllers directly
I'd even go so far to say the intellivision controllers were the most innovative at the time. :P
I just hope they release new controllers without the fingernail removal disc
I can see the reasoning behind the NES and SNES Classics: appeal to the folks who played them when they were kids and are, today, probably around 30; old enough to appreciate the nostalgia, young enough to have the cash and interest in plugging in yet another console.
The kids who would have enjoyed the Intellivision (and Atari) during its hey-day would be in their late-40s/early-50s by now, though: old enough to remember how fun they were when there was nothing better, but old enough to not be stupid enough to think that that means they'd stand up to more than 5-10 minutes of play before realizing what crap they are compared to even ancient consoles from the early '90s, never mind anything that could be had today.
If somebody really wants to do a retro-console from the Intellivision era, they should try the ColecoVision. It was late on the scene, but it kicked Atari's and Intellivision's butts. It probably still wouldn't do well as a retro-console, but it'd probably do better than an Intellivision.
Magnavox Odyssey 2 came out in 1978 and offered computer programming modules, wiping out the Intellivision claim of "first to be a dedicated game console and home computer."
So now a whole new generation will know the pain that comes from mashing that disc (especially on Lock-n-Chase). -Better yet, a new after market opportunity for the peel-&-stick joystick to avoid the pain. Jump those alligators kids!
I am sick of all this Nostalgia stuff.
I go through a nostalgia phase about every two years for something. I find that keeping a good stock of emulators on hand usually cures that. Last one was a few weeks ago after watching Ready, Player One. I was over come with a strange desire to play Adventure on the 2600. I fired it up on a emulator less than 5 minutes later my nostalgia was cured.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Oh c'mon, that was funny...
Bring back the Vectrex. Mine still works just fine (as does my 2600), and there was *nothing* like it in the home gaming scene, before or since. It'd be horribly expensive to produce now, but I think the vector graphics would interest some folks that find the 2600, Intellivision, etc. rather pedestrian, particularly if they could offer higher resolution and a color CRT with games that could take advantage of it.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
That was NOT the target!
...I'll just tell you now that Intellivision SUCKED.
I never had any of the game systems - Atari, Colecovision, Intellivision, etc but played them incessantly at friends houses.
And NOBODY wanted to go over any play Kelly's intellivision. Nobody. The controllers sucked so bad.
-Styopa
I downloaded the original Quake again the other day, sorry but it's still more playable than any modern FPS. It plays faster, the audio and effects are more enjoyable, the physics more pleasing.
The fact is, some old stuff really is simply just better. This is why Minecraft did well - because it showed you don't need amazing super-HD graphics if you have great gameplay with pleasing effects and sounds. As such, if you have an old game that got that right, it doesn't matter that the graphics aren't amazing, because they're clearly secondary to playability, and in the race for the latest and greatest graphics that seems to be one thing that's been fundamentally lost from so many modern games - playability.
It's got nothing to do with responsibilities and shit, some things back then were just more fun than they are now. I'm not saying they all were, my god was there a bunch of shit back then, just as there is now, but unsurprisingly the games that stand the test of time are those that are consistently playable, and unsurprisingly some of those were made in the past, as well as the present. It's okay to be nostalgic for stuff that was actually really good, and still is.
I did note something interesting while playing Adventure. That is probably why I played the games for five minutes.
After a few minutes of play I noted how my brain translated the muscle memory from, almost 40 years ago, to a different control system. I've not play Adventure in 4 decades, and then it was with a joystick. I played it through with keyboard arrow keys this time. After a few minutes of game play my brain translated the old joystick muscle memory to fit the arrow keys. I was gliding through the mazes like I had last played the game yesterday. I navigated them with no thought to it.
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