In 2022 my faith in Intellivision Amico couldn't possibly be stronger.

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bigsocrates

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Edited By bigsocrates

It’s hard to imagine a console having more momentum during the first half of 2022 than Amico has. Everyone else in the video game space seems to be slowing down while Amico only accelerates towards its glorious release. The Switch’s heyday is finally slowing, with Nintendo admitting it won’t sell as many a it did in 2021. Sony can’t keep Playstation 5 in stock, leading to frustration among its fan base and reduced sales for its games. Interest in Xbox has cooled to the point where they are easily available in stores, and we’re likely to soon see a price drop and death spiral for that hunk of junk that comes in two uninspired flavors. The videogame business is tough and 2022 hasn’t been easy. It’s exposed these newcomer pretenders with their flash in the pan franchises like Grand Turismo and Halo, which don’t have the staying power of long-loved blockbuster games like Astrosmash and Cloudy Mountain. Who doesn’t love Cloudy Mountain and think about it all the time? Nobody I know.

All the systems are failing except for Amico. Amico has shown a surge of confidence building developments as we hurtle towards launch. It abandoned the dying Gamestop brick and mortal store to focus on direct sales in the online space, where the future of retail is clearly moving. It raised the price and lowered the number of controllers because demand was so high that they realized it wasn’t fair to offer such a great deal when they weren’t going to be able to make one for everyone who wanted one in a timely fashion. They also stopped processing refunds to prevent people from making a giant mistake. They care about their customers and don’t want anyone who has been with them for this long to not get a console.

Haters and doubters will point to a few minor hiccups along the way. There was the announcement of a coming announcement of a release date that did not, in fact, result in a release date. There was the collapsed fourth crowd funding campaign that was eventually canceled by StartEngine. There have been high profile departures.

Every system has hiccups. The much-praised Nintendo Switch made a big deal about the IR camera on the Joycon and has barely used it. The Xbox Series S often doesn’t hit its targeted 1080p 60 fps frame rate on newer games. Even the PS5 has issue with easily damaged fins and an unreliable game suspend feature (we don’t even have to get started on Xbox’s so-called Quick Resume.)

What matters with a game console is not the names on the team that made it, or when the back end for the online store is finished, or whether the OS is ready, or how well the controllers work, or whether it has cleared FCC testing, or whether there are any finished games, or whether the company that’s putting it out has a finalized manufacturing spec or has the money to actually manufacture the device if it had final specs.

What matters with a console is how much we wish and hope and want it to be real. Consoles are like Santa Clause. If you believe they’re real then they will be, and don’t let anybody else tell you they aren’t. Video games are about the magic of fun, not plastic and computer chips and stolen game assets. They’re about friendship and family fun.

If we want Amico to be real hard enough it will be. And as the fairweather friend Youtubers and dilettantes fall away the average level of belief and love of the remaining core get even stronger. We are fewer but we are more committed, more confident, more fanatical than the hangers-on. AMICO WILL NEVER DIE! WE WON’T LET IT! IT DOESN’T MATTER IF WE HAVE TO CARVE OUR AMICOS OUT OF OUR OWN FLESH AND BONE AND BUILD IT FROM OUR MEAT, TEETH, AND TEARS, LORD AMICO WILL BE SUMMONED TO THIS PLANE OF EXISTENCE AND HE WILL WREAK A TERRIBLE VENGEANCE UPON THOSE WHO DOUBTED HIS COMING WITH DEVASTATING AND JUST CAUSE.

PRAISE BE TO FRIENDSHIP! PRAISE BE TO TOMMY! PRAISE BE TO AMICO! IT’S ABOUT FRIENDSHIP AND THE ANNIHILATION OF ALL WHO STAND IN AMICO’S WAY!

By the end of this year Amico will have come and those who believed will be rewarded with the paradise of Finnigan Fox and Cornhole while those who doubted will suffer a punishment beyond belief. The wheat shall be separated from the chaff and the chaff shall blow away like so much straw upon the wind. The momentum of Amico is unstoppable and it will be more than a revolution, it will be a revelation.

Praise be to Amico.

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csl316

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I like how they spent like 30 seconds setting up the wifi.

I actually preordered one years ago. But after the first gameplay reveal I went "uhh.... yeah, I'm good."

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bigsocrates

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@csl316: Hey, to be fair, the wifi is one element of the system that actually probably works because the drivers are native to whatever Android version they built the half finished OS on. Gotta focus on your strong points and not, for example, the badly cut hand made packaging with typos.

I never ordered an Amico because I don't have the cash to throw around on novelties right now, but man did I want to see Jeff stream on this thing, and I would have loved to have picked one up cheap some day to mess around with it.

They got millions in crowdfunding and they also literally sold physical games for a system that will never launch. It's a unique failure in gaming history! Not the biggest money loser, but I don't think there's any system that literally sold games to customers but never actually launched.

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Onemanarmyy

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#3  Edited By Onemanarmyy

Imagine looking at the state of the world and being like 'yeah i want to relax with entertainment that was born in this environment!' Nuh uh, not me! I am looking for that time machine that brings me back to the cul-de-sac where i was playing local coop with my fellow kiddo's without a worry in the world. I want to see my firey pixel hit a big boulder and make it split into smaller boulders. That's pure distilled satisfaction right there. You can't beat it.

Also, look at that snazzy box. Where the big brands all try to make cold heartless designs, the Amico greets us like a true amigo with a friendly shade of blue with some playful waves in it. And look at that attention to detail, the wrist-straps match the cardboard box! Lovely! This is not a fashion statement for your home that prevents visitors from shooting scornful looks across the room, this is a time portal to a better time.

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darkvare

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#4  Edited By darkvare

i think this posts are by far the most fun thing about the amico there is and will be

edit: is dynablaster just like bomberman?

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ArbitraryWater

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Not since the Ouya has the game industry been rocked as hard as the Amico. That means “friend” in Italian.

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bigsocrates

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@darkvare: It's better than Bomberman. It's unlicensed Bomberman. That means it's free from Bomberman's restrictive lore. It can be whatever it wants to be. Just like Amico!

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Onemanarmyy

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@bigsocrates: Finally a destructive character that is allowed to combine liquids together to blow blocks away.

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AV_Gamer

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The Amico will be the comeback story of the century. They will teach its origin story in schools!

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gtxforza

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This console looks pretty good!

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Shindig

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#11  Edited By Shindig

Good idea. Get four unrelated adults in the room to demonstrate a device aimed at families.

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cozmicaztaway

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When the Amico finally releases, I am convinced it will be the thing that finally brings my family back together again! We will play Cornhole* and laugh until we cry over how much fun we're having (and because I will have LOCKED the DOOR so they can't run away from me again!).

Take your time, Tommy, I know you're my best friend and all the delays just give me the time to finally best witness protection and find my ex!

*(Cornhole chosen because I don't really remember any other multiplayer things for this PoS. What games did they already sell? Those might at least release on mobile or something?)

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bigsocrates

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@cozmicaztaway: Every game for Amico is multiplayer! It's the 10th of the 10 commandments.

No Caption Provided

You can find the list here. Still available to buy right now.

No Caption Provided

Important note. You can buy some of thee games already on the market, in slightly different versions (Finnigan Fox, Rigid Force Redux, Brain Duel, Evel Knievel.)

In addition some of them may not be finished. The physical versions were just download codes for a server that hasn't gone online (and probably never will) so nobody knows if the games were complete or not. It's a good bet that at least some of them were not.

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Shindig

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I can't wait for them to shut down the homebrew ports of Doom and Mortal Kombat. Someone must be making those.

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ALLTheDinos

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@bigsocrates: I’m dying to know what Intellivision would rate as less than a 7/10 on a game now.

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jeffrud

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@bigsocrates It's been pointed out that the box in that unboxing video has a few notable typographic errors. Others, specifically Pat Contri, have pointed out the lack of plastics and the like in the box suggest the unit inside is one of a handful of pre-production consoles they've had in hand for well over a year now. The cosmic ballet etc.

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Onemanarmyy

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#17  Edited By Onemanarmyy

@allthedinos: Yeah i really want to know what this 'INTELLIVISION QUALITY CONTROL SCALE' is like.

Those commandments are also quite.. restrictive for developers. Pricepoint, age rating , game perspective, game modes, exclusive content... I'm sorry Tommy, i know Intellivision used to be a big name, but that doesn't mean that everyone is waiting to jump onto this endeavor and play to your whims. Ideally you want to make it easy and interesting for developers to start making things for your small-time platform. It's not like it's a great financial decision to dedicate time to create something for this.

Maybe Tommy should just start to host gamejams and change the commandments to get some unique gamejams going and forget all about this Amigo situation.

Edit: Also it seems like one fellow thought this Amico thing would re-educate society :O and instead of going 'hah buddy, i'm glad you're excited for the Amico and i hope you get some fun out of our games' Tommy decides to go full action man: 'I WILL NOT LET YOU OR YOUR SON DOWN. ' Dangerous words to say towards someone that thinks a small niche retro console has the resources, audience and ambition to change society. You definitly will let someone like that down.

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cozmicaztaway

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@onemanarmyy:

@bigsocrates:

I had forgotten the commandments, thanks for that reminder of silly ego.

As Jeff Minter pointed out, apparently missiles exploding in Missile Command don't take out other missiles. Chaining explosions is one of those things that make Missile Command interesting. Is BAD Missile Command 7/10? Is it higher or lower than original Missile Command on the Amico scale? So many questions!

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bigsocrates

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@shindig: You can't port anything to a console without final hardware specs. At this point you'd just be building Doom and MK for an undisclosed Qualcomm chipset, which has been done.

@allthedinos: Nobody else had the guts and genius to tell developers to only make good games for their console and not make bad games. Obviously every Amico game is 7 out of 10 or better so we just need to find the worst Amico game to know what a 7 out of 10 looks like. Fortunately for us there appear to be many competitors for that crown!

@onemanarmyy: The commandments read like something Sony or Nintendo might have put out during their most arrogant periods (though even then it would be excessive) but the key to those arrogant times is that those companies were market leaders. When you have 100,000,000 units out there people want to get on to your platform and are willing to jump through hoops. Doing it before you launch a brand new project doesn't make any sense.

Also, Intellivision was never a big name. It was a name enthusiasts knew about but it only sold a few million units. Atari sold about 10 times as many. It's like comparing the Dreamcast to the PS2. Yes the Dreamcast was known about during its life period but it was never in a position to really dictate terms to developers. And the DC sold 3 times as many units in a shorter life span.

@cozmiccaztaway: You FORGOT about the commandments? It's true what they say, every day we get further from the lord. The new Missile Command is higher than old Missile Command on the scale because it uses the awesome Amico controller and it has unique Amico features.

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alianger

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I'm afraid I don't have the iq required to enjoy this one but maybe I will one day.

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jeff

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Congrats, I've seen this thread linked like twice in various "can you believe these Amico people?????" contexts.

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Onemanarmyy

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This forum is very vital and alive, it's words are beamed across the internet highways.

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camitalo

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A) Congrats this post is incredible.

B) Ive said this before and will say it everytime I think about the Amico. A device cannot cater to non-gamers as they do not buy games. I feel like everyone is chasing the success of the Wii and the audience of the Wii, but fail to realize those people will not buy anything else.

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Rejizzle

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In their last round of fundraising they raised $58000 off of 54 investors. If investors (the smartest people under capitalism) are willing to give more than $1000 for the Amico then $300 is an absolute steal!

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Reptil3

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@darkvare: It's better than Bomberman. It's unlicensed Bomberman. That means it's free from Bomberman's restrictive lore. It can be whatever it wants to be. Just like Amico!

I know I'm LTTP, but Dynablaster IS Bomberman. It's European name game released as in 90s.