This is great. I was born in the late 70's and we had an InTellevision. I recall having the module that attached into the cartridge slot and allowed you to connect to a service that let you select from a number of games. So ahead of its time. Once that was discontinued, we had to buy cartridges. Always fun going to Toys R Us to pick something out. My favorites were: "Shark Shark" "Frog Bog" "Snafu" "Triple Action" "Tron Deadly Discs" "Night Stalker" "Pinball" "Pac Man" "Auto Racing" "Motocross"
Intellivision was amazing, however, I personally know from experience that gamers were soured on those George Plimpton TV ads thus creating the antiquated 'Console Wars' and also considering the console was riddled with major controller problems in its design dubbed the device a 'lemon'. The Imagic games were the true gems of this amazing console; The Dreadnaught Factor, Demon Attack, Dracula, Swords & Serpents & many more... Swords & Serpents has an interesting history; the game was never finished but you would never know this considering how difficult the gameplay was on the lower platform levels. There's a fascinatin' story about 2 fans calling the game programmer about this. There are some funny moments in Swords & Serpents such as the cursed scroll trap and how to escape it. ...and that dragon tomb was the biggest surprise of all.
Considering I'm told that Intellivision only sold 3 million consoles in either its life or through 1983, any number for Blackjack above that is silly. Strange that these companies always forced you to take the so-so game that came with the console, instead of buying the one you wanted, until ColecoVision released theirs with Donkey Kong, which nearly everyone wanted. Unfortunately for Mattel, a guy at Warner told the head of Atari to license Space Invaders. This made the Atari system in 1980, and they took control of the market for 1980 and 1981, with Intellivision only having 20% market share before Pac-Man. Though they messed up their copyright so anyone could make a Space Invaders clone, it was too late; the Intellivision was nearly DOA. There was still a chance for other companies to license Pac-Man but they missed the boat on that too, leading to the 2600 having 70% market share, and theirs dropping to 15% as the 2nd most sold console, with ColecoVision becoming #3 at 2 million, and 5200 and Odyssey² tied for #4 at ~1 million. Atari sabotaged their own 5200 launch, in my opinion, by selling 2-5 million more 2600s in 1982-3, having the same games on both systems, and not having compatible cartridges with the Atari 400/800 computers, though they were the similar tech level.
Honestly, in 1977, Combat was a pretty dang good pack-in cartridge. It just didn't look as good years later. Eventually Atari did bundle the 2600 with Pac-Man, which despite its bad reputation was a big seller. Probably the ultimate pack-in was Wii Sports. I recall hearing that some large fraction of people who bought Wiis never bought another game--they just wanted to play Wii Sports.
@@MattMcIrvin Maybe true in 1977-8, though lots of kids who had the Atari in my neighborhoods didn't want to play Combat in 1980-3. It did look really bad, so they should have come up with a Combat 2. Or they could have bundled Indy 500, their best game in 1977 that was still fun in 1981 when I got it. Because it was standalone, no other games were made with the "steering" controllers which do a 360 unlike the paddles. Games that used that at the arcade were Tron, Wild Western and Tempest.
Fantastic! As much as I'm enjoying working through your incredibly informative archive of Atari VCS releases, I must admit that I'd be similarly interested in an intellivision archive. Especially if it's as well made and researched as eveything else you do.
Nice to finally see the Intellivision launch lineup. The Blackjack and Backgammon games look good, the Armor Battle one looks nice and the educational game is well there. Looking forward to future episodes (and the episode on the Bally Arcade)
I got Armor Ambush in 1982-3; good game but like all M-Network titles it was a year late to beat the horde of titles for Atari and didn't have a 1-player option.
A fantastic video that covers a console about which I know very little. Discovering a backlog of numerous Atari games is awesome, too. You've definitely earned a sub, and I can't wait to catch up!
The Electric Company was a slightly odd license for that math game, since while it was an educational show, it wasn't about math at all, but about reading skills. ("Square One Television", CTW's math offering, wasn't on yet.)
I was trying to remember what math they did. Sesame Street was just about recognizing letters and numbers and counting. Including math cartridges sounds like the drive to create an educational show on Saturday morning.
5:44 _"TI would go on to use this architecture for its 99/4 computer."_ Yeah, and that didn't work out so well. But the 9918 later ended up hugely successful in MSX computers, spawning at least two more generations of improved video chips from that architecture. (MSX hardly even reached the US, but was huge in Japan and didn't do too badly in Europe, South America and other parts of the world.)
Sounds like their launch was a SNAFU. Of course not having the must-have game Space Invaders in 1980 (or a clone then) meant people bought Atari and that became a success. Funny to hear that Atari wasn't a sure thing in 1977-1979, and could have failed, by using a reduced-capable 6507 chip instead of 6502 if it had better competition.
@@sandal_thong8631 You mean the TI 99/4 launch? No, the launch itself in 1979-10 (and the later launch of the improved 99/4A in 1981-06) were fine enough. It's just that the computer itself never became very popular, in part due to the heavy competition by 1981, and perhaps in part because of the rather awkward and slow memory design. It did have a pretty good _Space Invaders_ clone, released in 1981-Q4. And the 6507 is a full 6502 CPU, just in a smaller package (28-pin instead of 40-pin) with fewer address pins. That meant that it could address only 8K of memory (instead of the full 64K), but this made essentially no difference for the Atari 2600 since most cartridges were only 2K or 4K anyway, and, just as with many other consoles, bank switching was available for cartridges that needed more than 4K ROM. (There were at least 25 cartridges that had 16K ROM, including _Dig Dug,_ _River Raid II,_ and _Winter Games._)
Next time: George Plympton thinks Intellivision looks more like the real thing.
when it comes to videos about games with the same name, you're the real thing!
This is great. I was born in the late 70's and we had an InTellevision. I recall having the module that attached into the cartridge slot and allowed you to connect to a service that let you select from a number of games. So ahead of its time. Once that was discontinued, we had to buy cartridges. Always fun going to Toys R Us to pick something out.
My favorites were:
"Shark Shark"
"Frog Bog"
"Snafu"
"Triple Action"
"Tron Deadly Discs"
"Night Stalker"
"Pinball"
"Pac Man"
"Auto Racing"
"Motocross"
Awesome work as usual. Hope there will be a Bally Astrocade episode too!
It's on the docket! At this point it's just trying to figure out how to organize all the information...
Intellivision was amazing, however, I personally know from experience that gamers were soured on those George Plimpton TV ads thus creating the antiquated 'Console Wars' and also considering the console was riddled with major controller problems in its design dubbed the device a 'lemon'.
The Imagic games were the true gems of this amazing console; The Dreadnaught Factor, Demon Attack, Dracula, Swords & Serpents & many more...
Swords & Serpents has an interesting history; the game was never finished but you would never know this considering how difficult the gameplay was on the lower platform levels.
There's a fascinatin' story about 2 fans calling the game programmer about this.
There are some funny moments in Swords & Serpents such as the cursed scroll trap and how to escape it. ...and that dragon tomb was the biggest surprise of all.
Considering I'm told that Intellivision only sold 3 million consoles in either its life or through 1983, any number for Blackjack above that is silly. Strange that these companies always forced you to take the so-so game that came with the console, instead of buying the one you wanted, until ColecoVision released theirs with Donkey Kong, which nearly everyone wanted.
Unfortunately for Mattel, a guy at Warner told the head of Atari to license Space Invaders. This made the Atari system in 1980, and they took control of the market for 1980 and 1981, with Intellivision only having 20% market share before Pac-Man. Though they messed up their copyright so anyone could make a Space Invaders clone, it was too late; the Intellivision was nearly DOA. There was still a chance for other companies to license Pac-Man but they missed the boat on that too, leading to the 2600 having 70% market share, and theirs dropping to 15% as the 2nd most sold console, with ColecoVision becoming #3 at 2 million, and 5200 and Odyssey² tied for #4 at ~1 million.
Atari sabotaged their own 5200 launch, in my opinion, by selling 2-5 million more 2600s in 1982-3, having the same games on both systems, and not having compatible cartridges with the Atari 400/800 computers, though they were the similar tech level.
Honestly, in 1977, Combat was a pretty dang good pack-in cartridge. It just didn't look as good years later. Eventually Atari did bundle the 2600 with Pac-Man, which despite its bad reputation was a big seller.
Probably the ultimate pack-in was Wii Sports. I recall hearing that some large fraction of people who bought Wiis never bought another game--they just wanted to play Wii Sports.
@@MattMcIrvin Maybe true in 1977-8, though lots of kids who had the Atari in my neighborhoods didn't want to play Combat in 1980-3. It did look really bad, so they should have come up with a Combat 2.
Or they could have bundled Indy 500, their best game in 1977 that was still fun in 1981 when I got it. Because it was standalone, no other games were made with the "steering" controllers which do a 360 unlike the paddles. Games that used that at the arcade were Tron, Wild Western and Tempest.
This is really good coverage! Thank you for packaging it this way.
Fantastic! As much as I'm enjoying working through your incredibly informative archive of Atari VCS releases, I must admit that I'd be similarly interested in an intellivision archive. Especially if it's as well made and researched as eveything else you do.
Great video thanks for giving some love to Intellivision! I will be checking out the rest of your channel.
I enjoy all your videos; your presentations are very thoughtful and organized. Thank you for showing!
Nice to finally see the Intellivision launch lineup. The Blackjack and Backgammon games look good, the Armor Battle one looks nice and the educational game is well there. Looking forward to future episodes (and the episode on the Bally Arcade)
I got Armor Ambush in 1982-3; good game but like all M-Network titles it was a year late to beat the horde of titles for Atari and didn't have a 1-player option.
Another great video. Thank you !
Excellent!
A fantastic video that covers a console about which I know very little. Discovering a backlog of numerous Atari games is awesome, too.
You've definitely earned a sub, and I can't wait to catch up!
The Electric Company was a slightly odd license for that math game, since while it was an educational show, it wasn't about math at all, but about reading skills. ("Square One Television", CTW's math offering, wasn't on yet.)
I was trying to remember what math they did. Sesame Street was just about recognizing letters and numbers and counting. Including math cartridges sounds like the drive to create an educational show on Saturday morning.
Imagine how many more would have sold if they'd put a stick on that disc controller.
Great video! Hope they continue!
Syl vay nya - like Pennsylvania
Not sill vah nia
Intellivision was really hampered by the controllers and its default system font.
Another great episode.
Bally Astrocade came out in 78
Keep that Television Intelligent Kevin!
matell presents.. BEE SEVENTEEN BAAAAWWWMMER
THAT WAS AWWW-W-w TAWGIT!
5:44 _"TI would go on to use this architecture for its 99/4 computer."_ Yeah, and that didn't work out so well. But the 9918 later ended up hugely successful in MSX computers, spawning at least two more generations of improved video chips from that architecture. (MSX hardly even reached the US, but was huge in Japan and didn't do too badly in Europe, South America and other parts of the world.)
Sounds like their launch was a SNAFU. Of course not having the must-have game Space Invaders in 1980 (or a clone then) meant people bought Atari and that became a success. Funny to hear that Atari wasn't a sure thing in 1977-1979, and could have failed, by using a reduced-capable 6507 chip instead of 6502 if it had better competition.
@@sandal_thong8631 You mean the TI 99/4 launch? No, the launch itself in 1979-10 (and the later launch of the improved 99/4A in 1981-06) were fine enough. It's just that the computer itself never became very popular, in part due to the heavy competition by 1981, and perhaps in part because of the rather awkward and slow memory design. It did have a pretty good _Space Invaders_ clone, released in 1981-Q4.
And the 6507 is a full 6502 CPU, just in a smaller package (28-pin instead of 40-pin) with fewer address pins. That meant that it could address only 8K of memory (instead of the full 64K), but this made essentially no difference for the Atari 2600 since most cartridges were only 2K or 4K anyway, and, just as with many other consoles, bank switching was available for cartridges that needed more than 4K ROM. (There were at least 25 cartridges that had 16K ROM, including _Dig Dug,_ _River Raid II,_ and _Winter Games._)
@@Curt_Sampson I thought we were talking about Intellivision. My bad.
Sil-vonn-ia? Sil-VONN-ia?? You're drunk!
I want my amico