Today, Intellivision Entertainment unveiled its grand scheme to recreate retro-style multiplayer gaming for the family living room in the form of the Intellivision Amico.
For those who are not familiar, Intellivision was one of the first home game consoles and rival to the Atari. Developed by Mattel Electronics in 1979, it featured two built in wired controllers and a cartridge reader. Over 3 million units were sold and 125 games released before it was discontinued in 1991. The new Amico follows much the same lines, with two wireless motion-sensitive controls and wireless charging this time.
Tommy Tallarico, CEO of Intellivision, explained why his company is pushing so hard to bring living room gaming back into style. "When I look at that [featured image above] I think of all the childhood memories I have with my friends and family playing video games together, and I really feel the world has kind of lost that a little bit."
When discussing whether the Amico would be able to compete with the big console giants like Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony, Global Marketing VP Cara Acker said, "We're not, really. [...] The video game industry has evolved to be focused on the core consumer: that hard-core gamer. [...] What we want to do is expand the fun, [and] invite more people into the fold." Demand for inclusivity in gaming is on the rise, and retro gaming is a great platform for newer players to learn how to use a controller. The Amico may not end up as a hard-core gamer's primary console, but it will be the one they pull out for their non-gamer relatives.
All games for the Amico console will be Rated E for Everyone, will come with no microtransactions, and will be less than 1GB in size. The console will come with six pre-loaded games on 32GB of internal storage space. A MicroSD card reader in the back gives gamers theoretically as much space for games and saves as they could ever want. Hopefully Intellivision is prepared for gamers to figure out how to hack their new console, as they did with the PS4.
The console, as of now, is available in graphite black, glacier white, and GameStop-exclusive purple. The official release date is April 15th, 2021, but Intellivision wants the wood grain Founders Edition Amico consoles to be in the hands of customers by April 3rd.